Well, I just read on one of the most popular blogs that the terms used for the organic searches and the paid listings done on the net are really causing a lot of confusion among the people involved in internet marketing as well as the customers that are relying more and more on the virtual marketing to buy or sell their products. Even the businessmen and various other organizations that are trying to carve a niche for themselves on the internet are also a bit confused as to which is the most appropriate term that is used in order to get a clear picture about the marketing that would be done by them on the internet. I very much agree with the blogger that the term SEM or when expanded the Search Engine Marketing has been highly misunderstood. It is really astounding as to why this debate was never initiated before when the online marketing was making its presence felt in our lives. In my opinion, the term SEM stands for the entire marketing efforts that are done through the various search engines. No matter whether you are talking about the organic searches that are done or the paid advertising like PPC, the term SEM stands as the umbrella term for all the online marketing efforts that take place in the virtual world of the net. It is really interesting to know as to how come SEM came to symbolize only the paid listings on the pages of the search engines. Maybe it was because of the lack of a proper term for the various paid listings on the net.

Whatever the reason must have been, the reality is that majority of the people who are involved in internet marketing are the ones who are confused. Even the new term Search marketing does not sound appealing to me as stated in that blog as I find it to be a very vague term and also does not allude even indirectly to the search engines. It can however be used to define marketing that is done on internet no matter whether through search engines or through other sources like social media optimization. But as far as the search engine marketing is concerned, it is really important that all the searches are defined by the term SEM as an umbrella term or some mew term should be suggested that alludes to the search engines. Well, can we use MSE (Marketing through Search engines) as an umbrella term and keep the other terms like SEO and PPC/CPC the way they are. Well maybe hats off to MSE!