An Open Letter From The CEO Of Search Engine Journal

Dear Readers, SEO Pros, and Digital Marketers,

Hello, I’m Jenise. I’ve been at the SEJ helm for 15 years, with Loren Baker and Brent Csutoras at my side as majority owners and operating partners.

Yesterday, I woke up to a monumental piece of news: SEO news publisher Search Engine Land was purchased by marketing tool company Semrush.

There’s an elephant in the room, so let’s start there.

What happens when a large search marketing industry player buys a prominent media outlet focused on the search marketing industry?

Will the publisher’s coverage remain objective and agnostic? Will its authoritative guides include the breadth and depth of tools and platforms and services available  – some of which are in direct competition with Semrush?

What happens to Search Engine Land’s reams and reams of existing content  – articles, white papers, ebooks, videos – that refer to Semrush competitors (umm, not to mention their backlinks)?

What about credible viewpoints from respected authors that run counter to the new corporate party lines in some way? Will those voices still be published, amplified, quoted on SEL? Or watered down, or even silenced?

So many questions.

Community reactions, so far, have been either of a benign, congratulatory nature or else focused on concerns of bias.

Screenshot from LinkedIn, October 2024

Screenshot from X (Twitter), October 2024

Screenshot from LinkedIn, October 2024

Screenshot from X (Twitter), October 2024

Screenshot from X (Twitter), October 2024

SEL and Semrush both have been active in responding on social media, reiterating that:

“Our plan is to continue to remain independent and unbiased. Our goal is to provide quality knowledge as we always have.”

I do believe that these are their intentions for the existing editorial team, for now.

I’m curious to see whether this independence will stand the test of time, after the dust has settled and the news of this acquisition is lining our digital bird cages.

I’m interested in finding out if SEL’s editorial freedom will stand the test of shareholder interests in an NYSE-traded company that made $305 million in revenue last year. I think we will need to wait and see.

Here’s Where Search Engine Journal Stands

As one of the last independent publishers in the SEO industry, SEJ remains bootstrapped and unbossed.

No one pulls SEJ’s strings, controls our backlinks, our coverage, or our messaging.

That’s right. SEJ is the honey badger of SEO journalism: We report what we want, when we want, how we want.

SEJ is still committed to reporting the truth (well, the truth until things change with the algorithms) about what is happening in SEO and marketing.

SEJ is still committed to providing unbiased education and best practices for our readers.

A.k.a. business as usual here at SEJ.

Who Is Search Engine Journal Anyways?

Our team of 26 folks around the world is made up of writers, editors, designers, technologists, the back office who keep things running smoothly, sales operations. They make me so proud, if I may brag a little.

We encourage transparency, experimentation, accountability. We don’t tolerate office politics or toxic behavior. I like to think we’re close-knit. We share, we cuss, we amuse each other with silly memes. We have laughed together and cried together.

Most importantly, when the sh* hits the fan, we pull together. We rally. We get gritty. Over and over. I ask the team to try again, to improve, to keep learning – and they do it. And that is when you know you have an A-Team on your hands.

That’s the entire roster 😎. SEJ has no investors. No corporate overlords. And we want it that way.

Our independence has been challenging at times. It would be nice to have a corporate Daddy Warbucks who can “darken the skies with people,” as one of my favorite consultants liked to say.

And so it does give me pause when a rival publisher is now backed by a multi-national company with over 1,000 employees. That’s a monumental amount of resources, firepower, and reach.

But over the years, SEJ’s independence has ensured our team’s ability to provide 100% unbiased journalism and education for the search marketing community.

We do what we want. And this is what I have faith in: That our readers, our advertisers, our community will provide what we need to be a formidable David to this new Goliath.

I welcome your comments, feedback, and ideas to make Search Engine Journal what the search marketing community needs it to be now. Leave me a message here, and I promise to reply.

Jenise Uehara

CEO, Search Engine Journal

Featured Image: Tanveer Anjum Towsif/Shutterstock