blekko, BrightEdge Team To Bring Brands Into Battle Against Spam

Partnership Between Search and SEO Platform Help Brands Fight Against Increasing Noise on the Web through Transparency and Openness

SAN MATEO, Calif – March 23, 2011 – Search pioneer blekko said today it has partnered with enterprise SEO platform leader BrightEdge to deliver new tools to the world’s leading brands in the fight against spam in search results.

BrightEdge will leverage blekko's open and transparent search index in its enterprise platform so that brands can quickly access up-to-date web data to drive results on the web. In particular, blekko will make available real-time link graph information, enabling enterprises to verify that their own links are legitimate as well as whether sites ranking ahead of them are using black hat or unethical standards to game search engine rank.

"Next to consumers, the biggest losers in the current state of search are legitimate brands that are being outranked by spam," said Rich Skrenta, CEO of blekko. "But too often legitimate companies encounter the unknown when trying to figure out how to get their information in front of consumers who are searching for it. This is a continued step in our efforts to bring transparency to the SEO process."

The BrightEdge-blekko offering will augment SEO reports, dashboards, analysis, and recommendations with real-time on-page, off-page, internal linking, and other key information from the blekko search engine. Brands will be able to see for the first time how spam creators are manipulating paid links and using black hat strategies to draft on brand searches, and then take action to protect the web from such tactics.

"This unprecedented partnership enables everyone from the CMO to the SEO manager to have confidence that the SEO being practiced around their brand delivers results in a responsible manner," said Jim Yu, CEO of BrightEdge. "Through this partnership, any brand on the web can instantly monitor its own and any competitor’s SEO practices on an almost real-time basis."

Current search incumbents give very little guidance to legitimate brands on how they can outrank spam. Companies are forced to operate in the unknown to rise above spam on the web related to their brand and products.

blekko has already enlisted human curators in its efforts to battle spam. This partnership with BrightEdge is its first effort to bring all companies the tools it needs to join the battle against search spam. blekko will continue to make its SEO data free to its users on the blekko website.

Financial terms of the partnership are not being disclosed.

 

About blekko

blekko was founded in 2007 to pursue innovation in search. The company has raised $24 million since its founding in 2007 from US Venture Partners and CMEA Capital, as well as leading angel investors including Ron Conway, Mike Maples, Jeff Clavier, and Marc Andreessen. blekko has 25 employees, including former Google and Yahoo! Search engineers.