Danny Sullivan, the undisputed guru of the search engine and search engine optimization space, has announced that he will be leaving Search Engine Watch effective 1 December 2006. He will most likely also no longer be chairing the Search Engine Strategies Conference series. He has made the decision to leave because he and Incisive Media, the new owners of Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Strategies, were not able to reach a financially attractive agreement for Danny regarding his future contribution.

It’s hard to imagine either of these search engine institutions without Danny, and so far, he is keeping us guessing as far as his next moves are concerned. Chris Sherman, his collaborator of five years, will remain at Search Engine Watch.

If you want to find out what Danny’s next venture will be, you can use one of the options of staying in touch that he mentions on his private blog. You can also find Danny’s full explanation of why he’s leaving Search Engine Watch there.