Search Engine Marketing (SEM)

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Search engine marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet marketing that seeks to promote websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPs). According to the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization, SEM methods include:

• Search engine optimization (or SEO)
• Paid placement
• Paid inclusion

Other sources, including the New York Times, define SEM as the practice of buying paid search listings.

In 2006, North American advertisers spent US$9.4 billion on search engine marketing, a 62% increase over the prior year and a 750% increase over the 2002 year. The largest SEM vendors are Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter. As of 2006, SEM was growing much faster than traditional advertising.