SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 19, 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:

• Search Biz: YouTube Growing Up, Google Owns Ad Serving Market & More
  It wasn’t too long ago that YouTube was mostly a haven for the video expressions of teens and young adults; popular clips often showed skateboard crashes, air guitar contests, and bedroom renditions of Numa Numa. But now, as the site continues to grow in popularity, it seems YouTube is finally turning into a serious business and money-making platform. First, let’s talk about growth. TechCrunch reports on new ComScore numbers that show YouTube is the second biggest search engine behind Google; it gets more searches than Yahoo and accounts for more than 25% of Google’s search queries. Just last week, we reported here on Search Engine Land about YouTube’s video market share dominance.
• Wishing For The Perfect Search Marketing Tool
  In The Trenches is a spotlight of tips, tricks, and news about the tools search engine marketing professionals use to give them a leg up on the competition. My SEM Wish List: All I Want For Christmas is the Perfect Search Tool, Continued… In my last column, I explained how much I want a new perfect search tool for Christmas. Yes, there are some really good ones out there now that do specific things, but I need the kind of tool that I can pull out for every occasion. Some of the features I outlined in my last letter included:
• Search In Pictures: David Filo Giving Gifts, Googleville, More Yahoo Fun & Games
  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.
• Indian Action: Microsoft Chooses NAVTEQ For Maps, Yahoo Invests In 411 Provider
  India is something of a parallel universe in terms of search and internet activity. It’s a massive and incredibly dynamic market but distinct from the US and Europe in important ways. All the major engines are competing there and it’s also often a testing ground for new products. For example Yahoo’s “Glue Pages” were released and tried there before coming to the US. Now Yahoo has bought a 30 percent stake in a local information database and directory assistance provider in the market: Info Network Management Company, which runs the Call Ezee service.
• Japanese Lawyers, Professors Try To Block StreetView
  Google StreetView has been a controversial offering since its launch, with privacy at the core of both individual and regulatory concerns. It’s also enormously practical and useful in many cases. But governments from Canada to Europe have sought to gain privacy concessions from Google in its international rollout. Google has also been sued a couple of times by private parties over alleged trespassing by StreetView vehicles and imagery. Now a group of academics and attorneys in Japan is trying to fight StreetView on privacy grounds as well.
• A Plea To Stop Dissing Your Customers
  Dear Search Marketers: I’m worried about us. The way we’ve started talking about our target audience has me concerned that our priorities may be out of whack. By target audience I don’t mean our clients or employers. I mean the people to whom we’re marketing—the human beings performing the searches and on whose backs we make our living. I’ve been wanting to address this issue for some time, but haven’t done so for fear of offending people. But I’m over that. So here’s the potentially offensive stuff…
• Does Sound Encourage Searchers To Use SearchWiki?
  Michael Arrington went on a rant about Google testing sound effect in the new Google SearchWiki. In short, Michael is upset that Google would spend the time adding sound effects over adding an option to turn off SearchWiki. I do agree with with Michael on this, but we do know that feature is coming in early 2009. But if you watch Michael’s video, using SearchWiki becomes addictive when you hear the sound effects – at least to me. Watch the video:

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Native Client: Google’s craziest idea yet |Fatal Exception, InfoWorld

Business Issues

• BIDU Baidu.com Opens Shanghai R&D Center, TradingMarkets.com

Link Building

• Link Building this Week (51.2008), Wiep.net
• Links In JavaScript & Flash: Damned If You Do & Damned If You Don’t, Search Engine Roundtable

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Deep Earth Released Into the Wild, Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog
• GeoData Explorations: Open Street Map’s Growth, O’Reilly Radar
• Q&A: AdMob’s Thomas Schulz on mobile advertising, Econsultancy
• Samsung Electronics will launch Google Phone in Q2, ETNews.co.kr
• Google reveals upcoming Android features, News.com
• Vodaphone Releases Pocket Life Mobile with Virtual Earth, Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog

Other Items

• Black Googlers Network: building community, Official Google Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• adCenter QuickLaunch: Getting Started and Optimization Services, adCenter Blog for Advertisers
• Western Union payment updates, Inside AdSense

Searching

• BackType Launches Google Alerts For Blog Comments, TechCrunch
• Search results show Delicious remains a tech niche, News.com

SEM Industry

• Chatting About the Secret Fear of SEOs, We Build Pages
• Dwight Zahringer: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop
• Google AdSense Sending Out Scary Christmas E-Cards?, Search Engine Roundtable
• SEO Motivators, Wiep.net
• The Big List of PPC Resources & Articles, SEOmoz

SEO & SEM

• Does Google Throttle Domain Traffic?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Hacker Attacks That Can Damage Your Site & SEO, Search Engine Journal
• Not ranked in google.co.uk, David Naylor
• Poll: SEOs Say Alt Attribute Does Improve Search Rankings, Search Engine Roundtable
• Take Advantage of .TV Domains for SEO and Reputation Management, Search Engine Journal
• Spanish Site SEO Pays Off, SEO Speedwagon

Social Media

• Simple Update Protocol: Update, FriendFeed Blog
• Evan – Twitter needs a better policy on Usernames, Steve Poland
• Twitter Optimization Series Part 1: Top 10 Knock Out Criteria Why I Won’t Follow You Back on Twitter, SEOptimise

Video, Music & Image Search

• Images in Search Engine Results, SEO By The Sea
• Pandora Hits 20 Million Registered Users (Via Twitter), TechCrunch
• What does Andy Samberg’s YouTube hit say about NBC sites?, news.cnet.com

Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• 8 Lessons in Personal Branding – How to Get To Be One of The Top 100 Internet Marketing Personalities
• Take Advantage of .TV Domains for SEO and Reputation Management
• Elephant Links
• YouTube Video SEO Tips
• How Hacked Servers Can Hurt Your Traffic
• Backlinks.com Userdata, Links Bought & Sold, Etc. Exposed Through Google
• Best Buy Passes the Economic Crunch onto Affiliates
• Do Social Media Links Translate In Organic Rankings?
• An Analysis of Sphinn: 175 Homepage Homeruns Dissected
• Link Smart Or Die In 2009
• Top 20 People Who Didn’t Suck in 2008
• Digg Redesigns… A Little