Jim Hedger of Search Engine Journal, reported today that Ask Jeeves and Lycos will begin offering Search Engine Optimization Services. Seeing the search engines, who have inside information on their own algorithms and the ability to adjust algorithms and placement in their own engines to suit their clients, could cause some concern among the SEO community.

On one side: Search engines that offer paid optimization services, might call into question the quality of the search results.

On the other side: As a business, if I wanted to make sure my site works well with a specific search engine, who better to help me out than the owners of the engine? They can insure that my site works well, gets ranked, and doesn't violate any of the rules that might get my site in trouble.

This one will be interesting to watch to see how it plays out.