You probably all know that SMX West is coming up - Feb 26-28 in Santa Clara, CA. You probably even know that there's a hundred great reasons to attend. But, what you may not know is that SMX West features the inaugural edition of the search industry's first trivia contest, a free-for-all battle of wits - SMX Search Bowl!

What is Search Bowl?

It's Search Marketers vs. Search Engines in a fierce trivia competition! Teams of two from each of the major engines - MSN/Live, Yahoo!, Google, & Ask, as well as two search marketers, will face off. The losers must slave endlessly for the evil Calcanis - building obscure Mahalo pages until they gain 5% market share (read - the end of time), while the winner is granted all of Marissa Mayer's outstanding Google shares!

<OOPS>This just in: I'm being told those are not the actual prizes and penalties... too bad</OOPS>

Here's the pickle - the search engines get to internally choose their representatives, but we, as an industry, must select from amidst our most talented brethren two champions of all things search. Thus, it's up to you to nominate your fellow SEOs & SEMs. Remember that the trivia game is based around all types of search marketing questions (past & present), so while a specialist in one area might fare well, generalists might be a good bet, too.

The Nomination Process:
  1. Leave a comment below with the full name of the individual you'd like to nominate
  2. Nominations must be seconded to be accepted into the final voting (you can second a nomination by simply replying to the comment thread with the name of the search marketer and the word "seconded" or "second")
  3. You may nominate or second yourself!
  4. All nominations must be submitted by 12:00am midnight on Monday, January 28th (late Sunday night)
If you're not already planning to go to West, why not?! I've already written about how I expect it to be one of the best shows the search industry has seen. They still have the $200 off promotion, SEOmoz premium members save another 20%, and if you're low on budget but desperately want to come, go for the networking-only pass (you can still attend Search Bowl using this).

UPDATE: Danny's made a post about this at SELand noting that SEOmoz employees can't participate, either (excluding the 11 folks here at the mozplex), and giving you another spot to leave nominations. Sphinn his post here.

p.s. Nominations for anyone and everyone are acceptable (except employees of Third Door Media, who will probably have access to the questions). We'll get in touch with those who are seconded and make sure they're attending before putting their name up for a final vote next week.

p.p.s. I know my blogging's a little slow this week - SEOmoz had its first official board meeting and our first, post-investment performance reviews, so it's been a tad crazy.