PubCon last week was a fantastic show. It had the strongest, most useful content of any search show I’ve been to in the last few years. The attendees were numerous and enthusiastic.

One area was curiously weak, however: the exhibitor floor.

There were less than fifty exhibitors for the entire show. Most of these were search engines, publishers, and advertising networks.

Where were the search agencies? Kudos to Bruce Clay Inc. for stepping up in a big way, but…

The final session of PubCon last week was the Search Engine Smackdown, with representatives of each engine giving a “State of the Engine” address, and then answering questions as a group. On the panel were Matt Cutts of Google, Sean Suchter of Yahoo, and Nathan Buggia of Microsoft Live Search. It was moderated by Brett Tabke.

Rather than a smackdown, it came across more like a pillow fight. Matt’s 2009 trends were interesting, however:

• Blackhat moves toward the outright

…

The final round of Interactive Site Reviews at PubCon included a panel from the search engines themselves. It was moderated by Greg Boser and included Matt Cutts of Google, Nathan Buggia of Microsoft Live Search, and Tony Adam of Yahoo Media.

Instead of taking notes, I decided to shoot pictures instead.

If you know of good coverage of this event, drop me an email or add it to the comments of this post.

Here are a few links to coverage of my sessions at PubCon:

Universal and Personal Search – This Changes Everything

• Kooshy
• Search Engine War
• TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog
• Trinitude Network

Brand Reputation

• SEO Roundtable
• Bruce Clay Inc.
• Online Marketing Blog
• WebPro Business

From Michael Stebbins, CEO of Market Motive in the “Learning To Love Your Quality Score” session at PubCon:

For e-commerce advertisers, instead of deep linking your paid search ads, take visitors to the homepage and dynamically adjust the content of the page to match what they had searched for (within the homepage’s look and feel). You gain the trust imparted by the homepage, provide highly relevant content to the Google AdWords bots, and still provide a solid user experience…

Wednesday night at PubCon, Rand Fishkin and the SEOmoz team hosted their second annual Search Spam Party at PubCon.

The theme of the party was a clever spin on the Werewolf game, with a custom deck of cards with the following substitutions.

• Villagers are White Hat SEOs
• Werewolves are Black Hat SEOs
• The Seer is Matt Cutts
• A Danny Sullivan character is added, that can protect one person per turn

So, the pictures you’ll see…

Powerful you have become, my former padawan, in the ways of the search marketing. The dark side I do not sense in you.

Great job at Pubcon, Kate! It was nice to see you speak.

After two whole days at home, I’m on the road again today. This week it is PubCon in Las Vegas. PubCon, from Webmaster World was originally a show focused on technologies, strategies and tactics for websites, but has morphed over the years into one of the leading shows on search and internet marketing.

I am on a panel called “Universal and Personal Search – This Changes Everything” on Tuesday and one on “Brand Management” on Wednesday. Also on…