Yesterday was a very exciting day for the SEO/PPC community in Israel. The event the first sphinncon held Jerusalem to packed audience, moderated by Barry Schwartz Executive Editor of Search Engine Roundtable & News Editor of Search Engine Land. Barry is also President of RustyBrick, Inc.

There were 3 SEO panels:-

• SEO Panel - Paid Links & Penalties

• PPC Panel - Will the PPC Model Hold Up as Click Prices Rise?

• Social Panel - Should You Social?

Each panel led to a very lively discussion the only problem was not having enough time for all the questions.

I found the SEO Panel - Paid Links & Penalties particularly interesting with an explanation of how Google do their best to discourage paid links. One can argue that Google are only looking out for their own interests, but a person searching the web wants to find good accurate information. Is SEO about “fooling” the search engines just to get a good rating and a lot of visitors to your site? Or is SEO about building long term business and establishing a relationships with buying customers. Most business’s are looking for repeat business and referrals. However, good SEO is a long term time intensive process needed a lot of patience and endurance.

For more details look at Barry’s article on Search Engine Land and Ophir Cohen, for more information and nice links.