One of the remarkable things about the search industry is that it is largely built on self serving. And in this case I’m not talking about Google’s ability to generate the bulk of its revenues from the tens of thousands of advertisers who go online with a credit card and sign up. I’m talking about the characters who inhabit the noise portion of the search space. People who spend their time writing about search.

My issue isn’t with those that write about the space, but write about it through the lens of their financial agenda. There are certain people in the industry who write about Paid Search because that’s where their expertise is, just as there are blogs and authors who slant towards Organic Search. I have no issue with them. The issue I have is with the constant ink spilled explaining why one approach must be above all others and it is so at the detriment of everything else.

I wrote a column for MediaPost’s Search Insider earlier this month where I started with a pending panel discussion at SMX East on “Do Agencies Get Search?” That reference served as a quick jumping off point for ways that search marketers and agencies alike should think about search. Whether agencies got it or not was never up for debate or even discussion in the column. Yet, all comments about the post on the MediaPost site were about that panel topic and all from the bent of non-agency search marketers extolling why agencies couldn’t get it. Ability to read past the first paragraph when choosing to comment apparently doesn’t factor into some search marketers’ skill sets, either.

Likewise, how many columns from tool vendors must we have about why those who license not build are wrong. And how many paid authors must slam organic as being inefficient when measured by the standards of paid. You think? Paid Search is more measured and receives credit as last click for virtually all online activity; you think it’s going to out perform organic on those grounds? Those of us who write in this space have an obligation to do one of two things: bring a piece of our own expertise to the market which advances enlightenment or education, or provide pro-active forward thinking suggestions that cause the industry to think about its direction and the opportunities ahead.

Otherwise, it’s just pandering to the base and I can get enough of that from CNN and the presidential candidates.