The undisputed top story at last week's WebmasterWorld Search Conference in New Orleans was the “Search Engine SmackDown” on Thursday afternoon between Matt Cutts, a Software Engineer from Google, and Tim Mayer, the Director of Product Management at Yahoo Search.

Like most professional wrestling events, this week's relevance rumble between Cutts and Mayer has a backstory.

On May 8, I wrote a column entitled, “ Take the Search Engine Relevancy Challenge .” It reported that Barry Schwartz (aka RustyBrick) had launched RustySearch, a white-labeled search engine that pulled results randomly from Google, Yahoo Search, MSN Search, and Ask Jeeves. (I should disclose that SEO-PR was one of the supporters of the Search Engine Relevancy Challenge.)

RustySearch invited users to conduct a search and rate the results for relevancy, enabling Schwartz to pull marketing and branding out of the equation and look at the raw results that impact relevancy. The “ early results from RustySearch ” showed Yahoo Search with a narrow lead, followed closely by Google, with Ask Jeeves in third place and MSN Search trailing.

By May 12, “ RustySearch hit 5,000 rated searches ,” and rankings remained the same. By May 19, the Search Engine Relevancy Challenge hit “ 8,000 rated RustySearches .” While Yahoo Search was still in the lead, its margin over Google had narrowed. Meanwhile, Ask Jeeves fell further back, but kept a modest lead over MSN Search. On June 20, “ RustySearch results hit the 10,000 mark ,” with all four search engines in the same relative positions.

While the bears on Wall Street might have used the RustySearch results like a folding chair to smash Google's soaring stock price, apparently business journalists and financial analysts didn't figure out the significance of Yahoo Search beating Google in the Search Engine Relevancy Challenge.

But, you can bet your feathered boa that the software engineers at the Googleplex understand the strategic threat posed by not finishing first. And, it may not be just a coincidence that Google started rolling out a major update of its algorithm on May 20.

Brett Tabke, CEO of WebmasterWorld, nicknamed Google's new algorithm the “Bourbon Update” in honor of the WebmasterWorld Search Conference in New Orleans .

By June 1, the Bourbon Update had prompted more than 417 message threads spanning 28 pages on the Google News forum at WebmasterWorld.com . This prompted the Google employee known as GoogleGuy, to post, “ Here's the advice that I'd give now: take a break from checking ranks for several more days. Bourbon includes something like 3.5 improvements in search quality, and I believe that only a couple are out so far. The 0.5 will go out in a day or so, and the last major change should roll out over the next week or so. The

n there will still be some minor changes after that as well.”

GoogleGuy's “weather report” was Google's first. It followed a similar “weather report” posted by Tim Mayer in the Yahoo Search Blog back on March 31.

As the rest of the Bourbon Update rolled out on June 3, June 10, and June 16, so did message threads on the WebmasterWorld.com forums. However, questions and opinions about the Bourbon Update outnumbered answers and facts by a wide margin.

So, you can bet your ringside seats that it wasn't merely a coincidence that 10 of Google's leading software engineers were dispatched to the WebmasterWorld conference in New Orleans to attend a cocktail reception and roundtable Q&A on Wednesday evening, June 22.

The “Meet The Google Engineers” event was a huge hit with the 1,000 conference attendees. In addition to being served free Hurricane cocktails, the crowd also got to ask questions and offer opinions about arcane and technical topics like 302 redirects and canonical pages.

While most of the questions weren't answered on the spot, most of the crowd seemed impressed that Google engineers were actively listening and taking notes.

On Thursday, June 23, the WebmasterWorld conference opened with “Morning Coffee with Yahoo's Tim Mayer.” This gave him an unrivaled opportunity to talk about the current state of Yahoo Search and its future.

Tabke asked Mayer about RustySearch and Mayer said modestly, “We won that relevancy bakeoff against our major competitors.”

That afternoon, there was a Super Session entitled “Search Engines and Webmasters” that Tabke dubbed the “Search Engine SmackDown.”

While the panel discussion included Rahul Lahiri, Vice President of Search Product Management for Ask Jeeves, and Eytan Seidman, Program Manager for MSN Search at Microsoft Corp., it was Cutts and Mayer who made it “a must-see session.”

In fact, when Seidman informed the audience that the MSN Search algorithm had been updated the previous week, attendees didn't seem to have noticed.

But, when Mayer said that Yahoo Search had increased its market share in the US from 25.6% in March 2004 to 29.9% in March 2005, the audience recognized it was a “biting” remark.

And, when Cutts quipped that Google Sitemaps was “like paid inclusion, only free,” the crowd went wild over the “low blow.”

Tabke, who refereed the fight, allowed the wrestling match to continue.

Mayer hit Cutts with the question, “How are you handling those 302s now?”

Cutts ducked the question, bounced off the ropes, and ended the Super Session with the surprising prediction that “SEO will get easier, spamming will get harder.”

While the “Search Engine SmackDown” at WebmasterWorld was as entertaining as professional wrestling, it was not faked. The outcome was not predetermined, the maneuvers were not rehearsed, and – while I may be exaggerating the effects on the opponents – most of their Stone Cold Stunners caused genuine pain.

So, the Search Engine Relevancy Challenge may not be over. With the Bourbon Update, Google seems to be challenging Yahoo Search to a rematch. Both Ask Jeeves and MSN Search are almost certain to try to get back into the ring. If you want to decide which search engine is best, continue going to RustySearch and rating the relevancy of one of the big four search engines.