Kalena Jordan writes a blog about her concern over an SEM rating site called SEMCompare. She tells us that the Search Marketing Standard magazine has started this site to allow people to write reviews about the search marketing agencies they’ve worked on, whether it’s positive or negative.

After doing an interview with one of the people behind the site, she was alarmed by a comment from said individual: “At the end of the day we can’t really endorse or condone reviews on the site.” Does it make sense to create a site if you can’t vouch for its content?

The discussion moves over to Sphinn where sentiment is similar. Here are some reactions:

And another:

Finally, another valid point:

Boris Mordkovich of SEMCompare responds to these concerns and says that the concept arose from several inquiries about SEM agency recommendations. They created a site driven by user generated content to do this. There are some safeguards they’ve put in place, including contacting people whose reviews don’t match up. This should prevent the system from being abused. Users need to have a valid email and website and if their reviews are specious, the SEMCompare staff will ask the user directly.

Does it have promise? Perhaps. I still think that the service can be easily gamed. Also, it’s interesting that a lot of marketing companies I haven’t heard of have a solid 5.0 score whereas the more known companies have lower scores (between 1.7 and 4.9). Something about that just doesn’t feel right.

The ongoing discussion (oh yes, there’s a lot more) continues on Sphinn.