Search Engine Land Turns Six, Celebrates With New Editor-In-Chief & Expansion Plans

by Danny Sullivan

It’s our sixth birthday here at Search Engine Land, and we’ve got some news — a new editor-in-chief and expansion plans for the future.

Congratulations to Matt McGee, on his new position as Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land & Marketing Land! He starts on January 1, 2013.

Matt joined our publications in September 2008 as assignment editor for Search Engine Land, and he was promoted to executive news editor in December 2010. In his new position, he’ll handle day-to-day operations of both Search Engine Land and Marketing Land, as well as oversee the strategic directions of the sites.

Chris Sherman, our executive editor, will take the new title of founding editor. He’ll continue to write at both our sites, but most of his time these days goes into overseeing our SMX conference programming, as part of his promotion to Vice President of Event Programming that happened in February.

I’ll be taking the same title, that of founding editor. I’ll be continuing to write for our sites just as I already have, but I’ll also be spending more time on my other job that few likely even know I have, that of Chief Content Officer for Third Door Media, our publisher and the company I co-founded in 2006.

In related news, Third Door Media is declaring its first dividend today. TDM never took outside investment, so our shareholders are our early employees. All our employees have been instrumental in turning TDM into a growth success story despite the troubled economic times.

We’re also reinvesting in our business, with plans to hire three additional full-time writers shortly after the New Year, to allow Search Engine Land and Marketing Land to continue to grow.

A new assistant features editor will help us grow and improve our columns. We’re adding a full-time paid media reporter to better watch over paid search, social and display advertising areas. We’ll also be adding a general assignment reporter to expand the coverage we do on all aspects of internet marketing. We’ll be posting news on these openings soon.

We’ve also got some exciting plans on how we’ll be promoting both sites with community outreach efforts in the near future. Stay tuned.

Six years of Search Engine Land! Over that time, the site has continued to grow its readership. I know we all feel a great responsibility covering the biggest area of internet marketing, search marketing, as well as one of the most popular internet activities conducted, search. On behalf of all the staff, it’s our pleasure and privilege to be writing on these topics for you all, and we look forward to doing even more as we go into our seventh year.

Finally, my thanks to our hard-working staff, contributors and columnists for all they’ve done over the past year!