March 2008
Mar. 31, 2008 at 4:52pm
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 31, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
By Barry Schwartz 
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Mar. 31, 2008 at 4:49pm
Search Biz: Diller Keeps IAC Control; Googlers To Facebook; Google Earnings Downgraded & More
IAC
stays in Barry Diller's control. US government agencies look to Google's search
hardware to find information. Google's hotel-industrial complex that's coming to
Mountain View. Those darn declining paid clicks -- will they hurt Google's
bottom line? Yahoo breaks out golden handcuffs to retain employees, while Google
loses another one to Facebook. And more in today's Search Biz!
By Danny Sullivan Permalink 0
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Mar. 31, 2008 at 1:44pm
Will You Be Sued Over Your Ad Copy Usage?
Storus Corp just successfully sued another advertiser for use of a trademarked term in the ad copy. This is the first time that I have seen a company sue another advertiser directly without relying on Google as the intermediary for filing trademark exceptions.
As PPC advertisers, this affects us dramatically.
By Brad Geddes Permalink 0
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See Related Stories In: Paid Search
Mar. 31, 2008 at 9:54am
Yahoo Takes A "Shine" To Women 25 To 54
Perhaps the perfection of Yahoo's vertical strategy is its new blog-inspired site Shine. It's a broad mix of content from publisher partners such as Hearst Communications, Rodale, and Condé Nast. It also aggregates and links to third party content and is encouraging users to blog on the site. Unlike Yahoo content-specific sites like Food, Shine is a kind of meta-vertical and focuses on a key Internet audience: women aged 25 to 54.
By Greg Sterling Permalink 0
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See Related Stories In: Yahoo: Display Ads, Yahoo: Other
Mar. 31, 2008 at 8:58am
SEO Company, Fathom Online, Acquired By Geary Interactive
Geary Interactive has announced acquiring Fathom Online, an SEO company.
Fathom was formed in 2002 and is based in San Francisco. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Geary is a full service digital marketing agency based in San Diego. Some of Fathom's employees are now working out of the San Diego office.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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See Related Stories In: Business Issues: Acquisitions & Investments, SEM Industry: Outsourcing
Mar. 31, 2008 at 8:45am
Google Dance Is Back? Plus Google's First Live Chat Recap & Hyperactive Yahoo Slurp
Is the Google Dance back? Well, not really, but I am noticing Google Dance-like behavior from Google based on reading some of the feedback at a WebmasterWorld thread.
The Google Dance refers to how years ago, a change to Google's ranking algorithm often began showing up slowly across data centers as they reflected different results, a sign of coming changes. These days Google's data centers are typically always showing small changes and differences, but the differences between this data center and this one seem to be more like the extremes of the past Google Dances.
So either Google is preparing for a massive update or just messing around with our heads. As of now, these results have not yet moved over to the main Google.com results.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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See Related Stories In: Google: SEO, Google: Web Search, Google: Webmaster Central, Yahoo: SEO
Mar. 31, 2008 at 6:04am
Local Store And Inventory Data Poised To Transform "Online Shopping"
The neglected part of the local story is about products. Often local search is discussed exclusively in terms of finding service businesses or small businesses in one's own area. But an equally important, if less obvious, part of the "local search" phenomenon is shopping in the more traditional sense. I've written previous Locals Only columns about the widespread -- indeed dominant -- consumer phenomenon of research online-buy offline. Now a new study by Krillion and the E-Tailing Group sheds more light on this complex and important trend.
By Greg Sterling Permalink 0
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See Related Stories In: Locals Only, Search Marketing: Local Search Marketing, Stats: Search Behavior
Mar. 28, 2008 at 5:30pm
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 28, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Mar. 28, 2008 at 11:55am
Search In Pictures: Google Shooting Range, Yahoo Asia Schwag, Google Pizza
In this week's Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Mar. 28, 2008 at 9:55am
In The Trenches, March 28, 2008
In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. Today: News from the search engines, today's in-depth look, "What You Don't Know About Quality Scores May Kill You," and this week's free tips and tools.
By Josh Dreller Permalink 0
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See Related Stories In: Google: AdWords, In The Trenches, Microsoft: adCenter, Yahoo: Search Ads
Mar. 28, 2008 at 9:48am
In The Trenches: New Column From Search Engine Land
Our newest Search Engine Land column, In The Trenches, launches today. In The Trenches is a weekly spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition.
In today's debut article, Josh Dreller comments on news from the search engines, offers an in-depth look, "What You Don't Know About Quality Scores May Kill You," and describes this week's free tips and tools. Read on in In The Trenches, March 28, 2008.
By Chris Sherman Permalink 0
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Mar. 28, 2008 at 9:20am
Google Adds 13 Metro Areas To Street Views, Plus New API Support
The Google LatLong Blog announced the expansion of street views to Google Maps. Google added 13 new metropolitan areas and Yosemite National Park. The 13 metro areas include Albuquerque, NM, Anchorage, AK, Austin, TX, Cleveland, OH, Fairbanks, AK, Little Rock, AR, Madison, WI, Nashville, TN, Rockford, IL, Richmond, VA, Spokane, WA, St. Petersburg, FL, and Tampa, FL.
In addition, the Google Maps API blog announced that street views has been added to the Google Maps API. This will enable you to embed street views directly on your own sites or applications.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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See Related Stories In: Google: Maps & Local
Mar. 27, 2008 at 7:46pm
SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 27, 2008
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Mar. 27, 2008 at 7:19pm
Drilling Into Google's Decline In Paid Clicks
More doom and gloom on the paid search side for Google. comScore is once again reporting a drop in sponsored clicks, something that also happened last month. After last month's fallout, comScore did a lot of further analysis shared at the Searchscape panel at our SMX West conference and online to ease concerns that it meant the sky was falling for Google and the US economy in general. comScore Paid Search Data & How The Sky Might Not Be Falling from us has more background on this. But how do things look for the second month running? I've done some drilling into the numbers, with lots of pretty charts. But frankly, it's anyone's guess. We just don't have all the information needed.
By Danny Sullivan Permalink 0
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See Related Stories In: Google: Business Issues, Search Ads: General, Stats: comScore
Mar. 27, 2008 at 5:39pm
Google Offers Robots.txt Generator
Google's rolled out a new tool at Google Webmaster Central, a robots.txt generator. It's designed to allow site owners to easily create a robots.txt file, one of the two main ways (along with the meta robots tag) to prevent search engines from indexing content. Robots.txt generators aren't new. You can find many of them out there by searching. But this is the first time a major search engine has provided a generator tool of its own.
It's nice to see the addition. Robots.txt files aren't complicated to create. You can write them using a text editor such as notepad with just a few simple commands. But they can still be scary or hard for some site owners to contemplate.
By Danny Sullivan Permalink 0
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See Related Stories In: Google: SEO, Google: Webmaster Central, SEO: Blocking Spiders
Mar. 27, 2008 at 11:36am
Privacy Policies And Search Engines
A few weeks back, I started wondering about whether or not search engines might care whether or not a web site had a privacy policy. Is the content of a page less relevant or more relevant if there's a link on it to information about how any data collected about visitors might be used? Probably not.
But it's possible that a search engine might consider that the source of content is more trustworthy, and more authoritative if it does include such a page. And that may make a difference...
By Bill Slawski Permalink 0
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See Related Stories In: Small Is Beautiful
Mar. 27, 2008 at 10:25am
Details Posted On Google Webmaster Central's Live Chat Session
I have more details on the Google live chat session that is taking place this Friday.
Adam Lasnik posted the agenda, which starts at 8:45am (PST) this Friday and ends at 10am (PST). In short, Google will give an introduction, then do site reviews, then a topic on image search, followed by a short Q&A session.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Mar. 27, 2008 at 10:13am
Earth Hour: Google Shuts Out The Lights In Israel
Google Israel turned out the lights and flipped their white background color to black for שעת כדור הארץ (aka Earth Hour). What is ironic is that we reported in the past that Google argued that black uses more energy that white. (Although they participated in Lights Out San Francisco last October as a symbolic turning out the lights and noted then it was an effort to raise awareness about energy conservation -- not that turning the home black conserved energy itself.)
In any event, Google will likely close the shades on Google.com on March 29th at 8pm, the time of Earth Hour in America. Don't forget to shut off your lights between 8pm and 9pm on Saturday!
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Mar. 27, 2008 at 9:30am
YouTube Insight: View Your YouTube Video Statistics
The YouTube Blog and Google Blog announced YouTube Insight, YouTube's new video statistics area.
In short, additional statistics are now available to users who upload videos to YouTube. You can get stats on the number of views per day your video received, where those viewers are in the world, and how popular your video is compared to other videos in a given period of time.
By Barry Schwartz Permalink 0
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Mar. 27, 2008 at 8:00am
We Don't Need SEO Standards!
Last month I attended the SMX West session in Santa Clara entitled Is it Time for Search Marketing Standards? It was an interesting session, but I wasn't really sure where I stood on the issue at the time. Now that I've had a few weeks to think about it, I've come to the conclusion that not only would it be impossible to come up with standards that most would be happy with, I strongly believe that we don't need them at all.
