Enterprise SEO SaaS platform Conductor today announced the acquisition of ContentKing, a real-time technical SEO monitoring tool. The exact terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Conductor CEO Seth Besmertnik told Search Engine Land it was a combination of cash and stock.
Meaning for the conductor. This is the first acquisition by Conductor, founded in 2006. According to Besmertnik, the first integration is expected in about 90 days. The goal is to fully integrate ContentKing’s technology into his Conductor platform within his 12 months.
Bestmertnik said the acquisition made sense for Conductor as ContentKing has filled a gap in its platform. With ContentKing’s technology added to the platform, Conductor will become an “end-to-end SEO solution” and clients will see him crawl their site every 10 minutes and be alerted on high priority technical his SEO issues. can receive
The last few years have been very interesting for Conductor with 500 enterprise customers. In 2018 he was acquired by WeWork for $120 million. But 20 months later, the company became an independent “employee-owned” company, buying itself back from WeWork and making over 250 employees “co-founders.”
In November, Conductor announced a $150 million funding round. The company says it played a role in making this acquisition possible. The SEO company is valued at $500 million.
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What it means to ContentKing. ContentKing has about 200 enterprise-level customers, including Netflix, Adidas, H&M, and a total of 775 customers. Besmertnik told his Search Engine Land it plans to permanently honor these existing relationships that ContentKing had. ContentKing will also be able to continue contracting new customers for the foreseeable future.
ContentKing has 21 employees. All of them participate in the Conductor. ContentKing’s Amsterdam team will join his London office in Conductor, which will maintain his ContentKing office in Brno, Czech Republic as a research and development hub, Besmertnik said.
“We sincerely thank all our customers for choosing ContentKing to prevent SEO disasters.” Community co-founder and vice president Steven Van Vessam told Search Engine Land: “We couldn’t have done it without the support of them and his SEO community! Joining forces with Conductor will transform the search and organic marketing space, delivering even more value and helping our customers bring even more SEO success to.”
All content produced by ContentKing (mostly by van Vessum) will be preserved and placed under the Conductor banner. He continues SEO and content marketing at Conductor.
why you care. Tools are an integral part of SEO’s daily life. So every time a big acquisition like this happens, using these tools has implications. Adding ContentKing’s technology seems like a huge benefit to the Conductor client. This is another positive sign of the health of the SEO industry. This is Semrush’s second major acquisition this year, following its recent acquisition of Backlinko.
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Danny Goodwin is Editor in Chief of Search Engine Land & SMX. Goodwin not only writes daily for Search Engine Land about his SEO, PPC and more, but he also maintains Search Engine Land’s roster of subject matter experts. He also helps program his SMX – Search Marketing Expo, his series of our conferences. Prior to joining Search Engine Land, Goodwin was an executive at Search Engine Journal, where he served as editor, leading editorial initiatives for the brand. He was also the editor of his Search Engine Watch. He has spoken at many leading search conferences and virtual events, and his expertise is provided by a wide range of publications and podcasts.
