SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 21, 2008

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on
Search Engine Land and from other
places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

Starting Conversations with Contact Pages
Starting out with my first website in 1996, I hadn’t realized that one of the most important pages that I had put on the site was a contact page. With a copy of “Learn HTML in 2 Weeks” at my side, and a design that reflected my limited skills,…
SES London Day Three Recap
SES London has now wrapped up by now. I have found some coverage for the day, but if I missed anything, please Sphinn the thread below and add more coverage that way. Here is what I found for day three:…
Google May Buy Ukrainian Portal
The Quintura Blog repeats a rumor that Google may be poised to buy the Ukrainian portal Bigmir.net, the leading Ukrainian destination site with 2.5 million users. Quintura speculates the deal might be worth $100 million and says online advertising in the Ukraine was worth an estimated $12 million in 2007….
Google Health Readies For Launch, In Test With Cleveland Clinic
The very long awaited Google Health may be about to launch. The New York Times and CNN have reports this morning that Google and the Cleveland Clinic are announcing a pilot program that reportedly will involve the creation of personal health profiles on Google for anywhere between 1,500 and 10,000…
Ask.com Binoculars Adds Compete.com Stats
Ask.com has announced that they have added site statistics from Compete.com to the binoculars feature in the search results. Now, instead of just getting a site preview, you also get estimated visitor stats, site rank, a line chart to plot this data over time and a link to a more…
Google Pushes AdSense For Video Again
As expected Google announced another push to get advertisers and publishers to utilize video ads. Yes, Google did a pilot video ad program back in May 2007 and then another video ad push in October 2007 but Google has said they learned a lot from these tests programs and has…
Gmail User Gains Access To 30 Other Gmail Accounts Due To ISP Caching Glitch
Google says ISP glitch exposes Gmail data in Kuwait from News.com has confirmed reports that a Gmail user in Kuwait has inadvertently accessed about 30 Gmail accounts that were not his. Supposedly, he also accessed an email that had “keycodes for some embassy gate.” Whose fault is this? Not Google!…
Google May Launch Balloons Across World To Provide Mobile Access
We have been covering how Google may provide internet access to those users who don’t have it yet for a while now. While the Submarine Cable Negotiator job at Google was pretty interesting, I think this new story may be even more interesting. Floating a New Idea For Going Wireless,…
Video Ads On Google: A Win-Win For Consumers & Advertisers?
There’s been a lot of buzz and chatter about the promise of online video advertising during the past year, accelerating considerably in just the past week, since the New York Times reported that Google is testing video ads on its search results page. Forrester Research recently released a report…
Microsoft Launches adExcellence Program For UK Advertisers
The adCenter blog announced the launch of the Microsoft adExcellence program for UK advertisers today. In December 2007, Microsoft launched the program from US advertisers but today they rolled it out for UK advertisers. It provides advertisers “free training to help you become a Microsoft adCenter expert,” says the adCenter…
How to Write a Killer RFP (Request for Proposal) For Hiring An SEO Firm
Over the years I’ve seen quite a few Requests for Proposal from companies seeking to buy SEO services. If your RFP is not written well, it hinders the SEO firm’s ability to understand and define your needs and to scope and price your project. This in turn leads to…
Newspond Lauches News Aggregation Site That Uses A “Tireless Electronic Brain”
Newspond is a news aggregation site that boasts “No editors. No voting. Just an AI news engine.” Presumably, the lack of voting distinguishes it from sites like Digg and the lack of editing from the Mahalo-like and maybe Slashdot? Does this mean it’s like Ask’s recent news aggregation entry BigNews…
The Art Of Growing An In-House Search Marketing Team
So you’ve been tasked with building an in-house search marketing team, and now you’re wondering where to start. It’s a daunting task, to be sure. Do you start by rousting the programmers to get the content management system (CMS) into shape? Do you grab a credit card and start…