SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 9, 2009

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Yahoo Loses Toolbar Deals; Search Share To Drop?
  

  The Wall Street Journal reports that the loss of two agreements with computer makers could cost Yahoo as much as 15% of its search traffic in the next 12-18 months. Early this year, HP made Live Search the default search toolbar on its computers. And back in October, the WSJ says, Acer switched from Yahoo [...]

• Report: Microsoft & Google Fighting Over Who Will Be Twitter Search Partner
  

  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. That’s what it must feel like right now at Twitter, which has become incredibly hot over the past several months. The pressure is building. Who will buy it? How will it be monetized? What sort of tool or service will it evolve into? [...]

• Google: ‘No Immediate Plans’ To Drop Old Analytics Code Support
  

  Despite switching to a new Google Analytics tracking code 16 months ago, Google says it has “no immediate plans” to stop supporting the old code. Royal Pingdom raised the issue when it found that 40% of the most popular web sites that use Google Analytics are still using the old urchin.js code. We contacted Google [...]

• Google Slowly Turning YouTube Into A Moneymaker
  

  There are signs this week that Google is slowly turning YouTube into a legitimate source of revenue, but there are also questions whether that’s happening quickly enough and if the revenue will ever become a profit. Let’s start with an AdAge article that reports YouTube is selling ads on about 9% of its video views [...]

• Yahoo Expands BOSS Developer Tools
  

  Yahoo has added a few new tools to its BOSS platform that the company says will give developers more insight to their search results and help build unique search experiences. The new tools include:

  Integration with Delicious content – end-users can get Delicious saves, top tags, and count information within their search results Advanced language capabilities – developers [...]

• Google CEO Eric Schmidt: Was He Just In The Right Place At The Right Time?
  

  Silicon Alley Insider raises a provocative question about Google CEO Eric Schmidt: how much have he and his leadership contributed to the company’s success? Is he smart or the luckiest man in the world? Clearly Schmidt is smart but the article tries to dissect Google M&A activity and results during Schmidt’s tenure to determine whether [...]

• Recovering From The Blue Screen Of Death As An SEO
  

  Last week I was jolted by booting up my computer only to see the blue screen of death. The computer was dead, dead, dead and I had to replace it with a new one, going through the painful process of restoring all of my software, tools and data. The old computer was using Windows XP, [...]

• A Google Alternative For Small Business: Breadcrumbs & Business Directories
  

  So, you’ve junked your day job and made the commitment to your shiny new startup business. You’ve created your website, and what’s the first thing you do now? Like just about every other startup business person you do the search on Google for your business name. [...]

• News Media Bites The Search That Feeds It: Hitwise Data
  

  This week’s battle royale has pitted newspapers and traditional media against Google and online news. If you somehow missed it, the CliffsNotes version is that traditional media (Associated Press, newspapers, etc.) are accusing Internet sites (search engines, news aggregators, etc.) of diverting traffic that should be going to news web sites, profiting off news content [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• New in Labs: Sender time zone, Official Gmail Blog
• Oracle Offering Gadget Wizard for Google Apps, eWeek
• In India, WebMail Has To Come From Local Servers, gigaom.com

Business Issues

• Former Yahoo Biz Ops SVP McCombs to Tumri as CFO, kara.allthingsd.com
• Why Facebook and Twitter are glad they’re getting older, news.cnet.com
• As VC, Google’s Miner Looks Beyond Android, Wall Street Journal
• Facebook’s ad pitch: Meet the ‘active network’, news.cnet.com
• Is Yahoo a Better Friend to Newspapers Than Google?, New York Times
• U.S. Online Advertising Seen Falling 5% This Year, seekingalpha.com
• Yahoo Share to Likely Shrink in 2009, technologizer.com

Link Building

• Ask DMOZ: Questions from Webmasters, DMOZ Blog
• Q&A: A Few Things You Need to Know About Links, Search Engine Guide

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Explore Google Earth Tours in your browser, Google LatLong
• Twitter: The Local Monetization Strategy, www.localsearchnews.net
• Boring v. Google Reconsideration Motion Denied, blog.ericgoldman.org
• Street View is going nowhere, says Google, BigMouthMedia
• Tracking Local search Traffic with Analytics, Mike Blumenthal
• Yelp Gives Small Businesses a Louder Voice, New York Times

Other Items

• Designing lean, green, energy-saving machines, Official Google Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdWords system maintenance on April 11th, Inside AdWords
• Ask.com Taps Anchor Intelligence for Click Fraud Reduction, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Site maintenance on Saturday, April 11, Inside AdSense
• Sneek Peek into the adCenter Spring Upgrade, www.adcentercommunity.com
• Using Dynamic Keyword Insertion Can affect Your Quality Score, www.bgtheory.com

SEM Industry

• Building a Brand through Social Media – IM Spring Break, www.socialdesire.com

SEO & SEM

• Google: Is SearchWiki or Analytics data used for ranking?, www.youtube.com
• How Google’s Rankings Algorithm Has Changed Over Time, SEOmoz
• Links VS Content VS Rankings VS Search Traffic, SEO Book
• Optimizing Anchor Text and Titles, Stone Temple
• Search Engine Spam detection at the host level, www.huomah.com
• The 5 Minute SEO Site Audit Checklist, Search Engine People
• Advice from a Professional Writer – Finding and Working with Quality SEO Copywriters, The SEO Scoop
• Before Building a Microsite ask Yourself These Ten SEO Questions, www.sitevisibility.co.uk
• Poll Result: How Long Does It Take To Rank Well?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Tools and the Art of SEO, Search Engine Journal

Social Media

• Are You Blogging or Doing Social Media for SERPs, SEM Clubhouse
• Digg Search: Now With 99.987% Less Suck, blog.digg.com
• How to Become a Super Tweeter in Just 15 Minutes a Day with iGoogle, www.micropersuasion.com
• Is Twitter an Ecommerce Tool?, www.practicalecommerce.com
• Is Twitter for Serious Marketers?, blogs.harvardbusiness.org
• Twitter Is Huge? Yes. Twitter Is a Popular Marketing Tool? Probably no., profy.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• A.P. Exec Doesn’t Know It Has A YouTube Channel: Threatens Affiliate For Embedding Videos, TechCrunch

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

• Google Local Search If They Guess Where You Are
• Search engine spam detection at the host level
• Tools and the Art of SEO
• Fantastic Technique to Track Google Local 10-pack Traffic
• Leveraging Social News and Bookmarking
• Are You Blogging or Doing Social Media for SERPs & Links?
• Building a Brand through Social Media
• Most Effective Ways to Search and Track Online Conversations
• You're not an SEO if you don't know these by heart!
• PPC Advertising Pitfalls – don’t just do what "Simon" says
• Twitter: The Local Monetization Strategy
• SeoQuake Heavily Integrates SEMRush
• ShoeMoney Sues Google Employee For AdWords Violations
• A Big Bunch Of Link Building Ideas