We’ve got a great line-up for the upcoming Thought Leaders Summit on search engine optimization that I’m organizing for MarketingProfs.com: Mike Grehan, Barry Lloyd, Jill Whalen, Christine Churchill, Ammon Johns, Eric Ward, Ian McAnerin, Cam Balzer, Alan Rimm-Kaufman, and Brian Klais.

I’m working up a list of questions to send to our panelists in advance. Here are some questions that initially came to mind for me:

  • What can/should be done to get rid of search engine spam that isn’t already being done?
  • Are the search engines taking the right approach to comment spam with the href rel nofollow tag? If not, how should it be handled instead?
  • What is the definitive list of no-nos that an SEO must refrain from in order to be considered ethical?
  • Are there any SEO tactics that you think are misconstrued as unethical but are actually acceptable?
  • Is buying PageRank ethical? Is it dangerous?
  • How would a buyer of SEO services go about ascertaining whether a potential vendor is ethical?
  • What is a fair price for SEO services? How is SEO typically priced?
  • Is it ethical for an SEO to make guarantees?
  • What are your “top 10” most effective optimization tactics?
  • What is it that sets a top performing SEO apart from a run-of-the-mill one?
  • Who are your SEO heroes? (can be individuals or companies) Why?
  • What are your favorite search engines? Why?
  • What should one do to make a solid business case for SEO?
  • What’s wrong with the SEO industry today?
  • What do you think will be the major issues for the SEO industry in 2006?
  • The worst kind of SEO customers do what sorts of things?
  • What’s wrong with search engines today? Are any search engines doing anything wrong or inappropriate?
  • What will search engines look like in 5 years? What will the SEO industry look like in 5 years?

What would you, dear reader, add to this list, if you could pose any SEO-related question to this illustrious panel?