There are clearly some changes occurring in the search marketplace - namely, the process and the practice are evolving.
Steve Rubel has co-authored a fascinating 13-page position paper on Search Engine Visibility and is making it public today at the Edelman New Media Academic Summit in Washington.
Rubel argues that two new disciplines are emerging from search visibility tactics - reputational search and social search. The premise and promise of Reputational Search is that any company, NGO or brand can apply a search mindset to tried-and-true PR tactics and, in the process, influence the search results around certain keywords.
With Google and competitors increasingly prioritizing social content from Flickr, blogs, Twitter and others in result pages, it is imperative that brands build out "embassies" in all relevant networks - places where employees work to serve the interests of the community, as well as their company.