The SEO industry is buzzing on the recent news that Demand Media has filed an IPO. Demand Media owns and runs online properties such as eHow, Trails.com, LiveStrong.com, GolfLink, AnswerBag, Cracked and more. They are significant in that their whole content business is around ranking well in the search results, primarily Google and primarily organically.

Danny Sullivan has the best write up on what this all means. Here are his takeaways, but read the whole analysis for why:

Google Funds Big Chunk Of Demand MediaThe Importance (And Risk) Of SEOSearch Sends Nearly 40% Of Traffic; Google Alone, 26% Or MoreTraffic Is Vulnerable To Algorithm ChangesMining Search Data, they mine the data to produce contentThey do domaining

A WebmasterWorld thread is discussing the news. Brett Tabke, the founder of WebmasterWorld, thinks these guys are genius SEOs:

Another member asked, “I wonder if the recent google patent influenced the decision to IPO, or if they had already planned to?”

I doubt it.

In any event, this is one of those events that is somewhat historical for our industry.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.