Search engine marketing increasingly accepted, popular

• Big bucks are flowing toward marketing and advertising on Internet search engines - and a number of area firms are reaping the benefits of the trend.
• ``It is unbelievable,'' said Fredrick Marckini, chief executive of Watertown's iProspect Inc., a pioneer in so-called ``search-engine marketing'' on behalf of clients who want to get their firms' names across to potential customers.
• ``It's like the whole world is waking up to how hot search-engine marketing has become,'' said Marckini, whose firm is ``hiring like crazy'' to keep up with demand.
• with typing keywords into a search field to find information on Web sites.
• But if you look to the right of a Google page after initiating a search, there are paid ``sponsors'' who have bid in online auctions for the right to have their text ads pop up with search results.
• But on the left side of a search engine, firms are increasingly using sophisticated techniques to make sure their clients' names pop up after someone initiates a search, largely by putting the right type of content, words and phrases on clients' Web sites to be picked up by search-engine ``spider'' programs that constantly scan the Web for links.
• ``There's been a steady increase in the acceptance and adoption of what search-engine marketing is about,'' said Stephen Turcotte, president of Waltham-based Backbone Media Inc., a search-engine marketing and Web design firm.
• Familiar players such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and others are not alone.
• Less familiar ``business-to-business'' search engines, such as Knowledgestorm.com, are making big bucks by creating their own business models.
• ``It's been very successful for us,'' said Jeff Ramminger, executive vice president of Georgia's KnowledgeStorm Inc., which runs a subscription-based search engine for technology companies and tech geeks.