Pandia presents the five best weblogs on the search engine marketing arena.

Last week we presented five of our favorite blogs on search engines and Internet searching . This week we are going to give you what we consider to be the best blogs on search engines and search engine marketing.

It should be noted that the number of search engine marketing weblogs is mind boggling. We have registered more than 90 English language SEM blogs at our Search Engine Detective resource central and some 50 Non-English, and we know there are more. You cannot read them all, but the following you just have to read.

Search Engine Watch Blog

Danny Sullivan is the king of search engine intelligence and his blog is a must read, especially as regards information on the search engine industry. Unlike some bloggers, he and his co-bloggers take their time to do in-depth analysis of the search engine scene. They have a huge network  of contacts and know what search engine representative to talk to.

Moreover, there new posts several times daily and the bloggers are living in both American and European time zones, which means that it is updated continuously.

The big question is, of course, what will happen when Danny leaves SEW. We doubt that it will mean the end of the blog, for there are some very capable people left , including Barry Schwatz and Chris Sherman.

John Battelle’s Searchblog

John Battelle has an impressive CV: visiting professor of journalism at Berkeley, co-founder of Wired magazine, founder of the Industry Standard etc. He also happens to be one of the world’s foremost experts on search engines and has written the well-known book Search on Google.

So, he definitely has his ear to the ground, and his Searchblog is full of relevant news and analysis. It has a good mix of in depth articles and short references to what other bloggers have to say about search and the search engine industry.

The blog also contains a small Web 2.0 digg-like folksonomy called SearchMob where readers can propose and vote on relevant online articles.

Search Engine Journal

Pandia Award Winner   Search Engine Journal remains one of the best search engine blogs online.

We are probably seduced by the clean, uncluttered design, but the articles remains substantial and informative, and writers like Loren Baker and Greg Sterling do keep track of the essentials.

Yes, Search Engine Journal deserves a bookmark.

SEO by the Sea

SEO by the Sea   has the most poetic blog name within the search engine marketing arena. It is also the name of the SEO firm of the blogger himself, William Slawski,  one of the administrators of Cre8asite Forums. He is also a correspondent for Search Engine Watch.

The blog covers the whole field of search engine marketing.

Bill is particularly good at using search engine patents in his analysis of search engine company strategies and innovation. Moreover, this is the place to track academic papers on search and searching.

SEO Black Hat

“Pandia recommending SEO Black Hat ? Have they lost it!?” We can hear them screaming.

You see, SEO Black Hat is a blogger that  presents, discusses and recommends borderline search engine marketing techniques, and in quite a few cases goes beyond what we consider ethical in any sense of the word. Pandia is strictly white hat, and we hate all this crap some search engine marketers are filling the search engine results with these days.

Still, this is a well written blog, it is an informative blog, and it presents insights into search engine marketing we do not find elsewhere.

Moreover, anyone genuinely interested in search engines and search engine marketing must know something about the more shady sides of the business, and SEO Black Hat provides such analysis.

What about Matt Cutts?

No, Matt Cutts is not one of the five, not because his blog is no good, but because he has an advantage no other blogger in this area has: he works at Google. Needless to say, we do read and recommend his blog.

We also read and recommend the following:

Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim
Threadwatch
SEO Speedwagon
Search Engine Roundtable
Jim Boykin
EWeek Googlewatch
Stuntdubl
SearchViews
Stephan Spencer
Search Engine Guide
Search Engine Lowdown
Jeremy Zawodny
Traffick
Paul Bruemmer
Shoe Money
Tech Crunch
v7n
Web Pro Blog
David Naylor
Unofficial SEO Blog
Bruce Clay
Cre8PC
JenSense
Google Blogoscoped

For more English language search engine marketing blogs (as well as Non-English ones), see Pandia Search Engine Detective.
See also: 5 great blogs on search and research and other Top 5 articles.