Ranking is dead. Or so went the conversation this month following Bruce Clay's buzz-worthy presentation at PubCon 2008. Bruce's controversial statement brought mainstream attention to a fact that thought leaders of SEO have believed for some time.

Rather than rankings, the prime metrics for search engine optimization success are site traffic and conversions — in other words, where the money is. Rankings are also less important as personalized, intent-based search becomes more sophisticated, rendering rankings even more fluid and fluctuating than before. Matt Cutts responded to Bruce's comments by emphasizing the need for SEOs to expand their services to a more holistic model of Internet marketing.

In response to the rising prominence of Universal or blended search Bruce suggests developing Engagement Objects™. Engagement Objects are non-text elements on a page which draw attention and elicit user involvement. Images, videos and interactive applications like games are candidates for blended search and can help boost traffic as they are shared virally. As Matt Cutts explains on SEM Synergy this week, Google's aim is to serve users with relevant integrated results, and users are increasingly more comfortable receiving video and other visually compelling results for their query.

Bruce's statements can be heard on his interview with WebProNews as well as on SEM Synergy. On the Bruce Clay blog there is a collection of follow-up reporting and opinions about the new face of SEO.

Goings and comings continued throughout the online marketing industry this month. Microsoft announced a new president for their online services group, former Yahoo executive Qi Lu. Around the same time, Microsoft lost their head of the advertiser and publisher solutions group, Brian McAndrews. In line with the announcement that Yahoo were laying off 1500 employees, word about the cuts were blogged, tweeted and shared online.

Facebook gained a new face as Washington Post Company CEO Donald Graham joined the board. Over at KeyRelevance, Chris Silver Smith took on the position as director of optimization strategies. On his blog, Manish Pandey shared his new role as chief operating officer at Digital Web Solutions.

Marketer Kate Morris accepted the job of director of client strategies at New Edge Media. And SEO Alysson Fergison espoused the lessons she's learned after being laid off and starting her own entrepreneurial venture.

If you like what you read in the SEO Newsletter, there's more Internet marketing expertise where that came from. Check out SEM Synergy every Wednesday at 3:00 p.m. Eastern and Noon Pacific on WebmasterRadio.fm. Bruce Clay and the other hosts discuss industry news, SEO tactics and marketing trends, while expert guests share their insights on methods, best practices and upcoming events. Check out the show schedule below for a look at recent shows and upcoming topics.

Got something to say? Contact the SEM Synergy team and share your thoughts, comments and questions. You might even hear your question answered on the show.

Bruce Clay's West Coast SEOToolSet Training in Simi Valley, California, will start back up in the new year, with standard training taking place January 12-14 and advanced training being held January 15-16. Look for dates of the SEOToolSet East Coast Training to be announced soon.

Affiliate Summit is taking place January 11-13 in Las Vegas. SMX Travel @ Fitur, a Spanish-language search marketing conference for the travel and tourism industries, will be going on in Madrid, Spain, from January 28-30.

SMX West will be held February 10-12 in Santa Clara, California, while SES London will be February 17-20. Save £300 on the cost of SES London registration when you sign up before December 22.

Yahoo's BOSS (Build Your Own Search Service) is now receiving almost as much search traffic as Ask.com. The service also announced what it's calling "vertical lens" technology, allowing developers to build vertical search engines on their sites.

Google made AdWords available on the iPhone and G1, including separate campaigns and reporting. Matt Cutts, head of Google's Webspam Team, explained that a bug in the algorithm, which resulted in pages with iframes being penalized as spam, has since been repaired.

Social networking site Facebook won a lawsuit against a man accused of spamming the site's members. The New York Times launched a successful Facebook campaign that resulted in a more than four time return on investment.

Jeremiah Owyang put out a call to the SMO community to submit stats to Forrester Research for a study of social network site usage. YouTube is taking a stand against violent conflicts around the world, encouraging users to gain awareness and donate funds to charities. The video sharing site now features HD widescreen format.

Google may have expanded its AdWords Automated Matching trials just in time for the holiday shopping season. Questions circulated about whether Google's new SearchWiki feature may one day play a role in ranking organic search results.

Talks between Twitter and Facebook reportedly soured after Facebook offered to pay $500 million to acquire the microblogging platform. Twitter apparently chose to figure out its monetization issues on its own. The challenge of advertising on social networks is apparently shared, as ad revenue is down despite traffic moving up.

Former WorldCom CEO Bernard Ebbers has asked the president to commute the 25-year sentence imposed on him after being convicted of fraud and conspiracy in a scandal involving the telecommunications company.

If that doesn't make you sick, take a look at a search engine results page. Three in ten participants in a Microsoft study may have suffered from cyberchondria — a condition where a person becomes more concerned about their health after searching about or reviewing literature on health symptoms.