SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 20, 2014

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Yandex Reports Revenue Up 37% In Q4, Ad Network Revenue Nearly Doubles

  Russian search giant Yandex reported a strong Q4 2013 today, with overall revenue up 37 percent from Q4 2012 and continued growth in text-based advertising. Take away revenue from its payment platform, Yandex.Money, and the Y-o-Y revenue growth would be 40 percent. The company says it now has more than 270,000 advertisers, a 30 percent […]

• Yahoo Gives $10 Million To Help Develop Next-Gen Siri And Better “Contextual Search”

  Several years ago, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, as a then Google employee, spoke about the perfect search engine that could anticipate your needs and which wouldn’t require any keywords to deliver results. We’re rapidly moving toward searchless content discovery with Siri, Google Now, IBM’s Watson, Nuance’s Nina, Expect Labs and other “intelligent assistants.” Artificial intelligence-powered intelligent assistants […]
• Expect Labs Offers Free API: Google Now In A Box

  Expect Labs, which is behind the MindMeld consumer application, has announced a new developer API. The new API brings the company’s ”anticipatory computing” platform to third parties in the cloud. Use of the API is free. Expect Labs is trying to get it “out there” and see how developers deploy the company’s technology on their applications. As a […]

• How To Use AdWords Scripts Efficiently In Agencies And Enterprise SEM

  I’m a big fan of all the things you can automate using AdWords Scripts — from calculating account-level Quality Score, to creating ads from a spreadsheet, to optimizing keywords using data from the Search Terms report. When using scripts to manage a single account, it’s well worth the effort to install and tweak them because […]

• Bing Webmaster Guidelines Updated To Include Demotions For Keyword Stuffing

  Bing has quietly updated their Webmaster Guidelines to include a stern warning to webmasters who think they can use keyword stuffing techniques to manipulate their rankings and get away with it. The warning says Bing may demote the site or delist the site that is using keyword stuffing. The new section was added sometime yesterday […]

• Live @ SMX West: Making Sense Of The Local Landscape

  If the changes going on in local search are giving you a headache, you’re not alone. Google Places is still transitioning to Google+ Local, and there are several types of local listings being created in the process. Google Maps and Apple Maps are both vying for consumer attention on mobile devices. To complicate things, Yahoo […]

Recent Headlines From MarTech, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

• Pirate Sites Earn $227 Million In Ad Revenue Per Year With Some Funded By Major Brands [Report]
• AdRoll Launches Mobile Retargeting Solution For Cross-Device Campaigns
• Facebook Rolling Out New Targeting Mechanics, All US Advertisers To Get Partner Categories Access
• Will Facebook Advertisers Look Abroad? 85 Percent Of Ad Dollars Spent On Just 15 Percent Of Users [Study]
• Beckon Launches Out Of Stealth Mode To Simplify Cross-Channel Analytics & Planning
• Location-Based Mobile Marketing Is Where It’s At For Consumers
• Google Analytics Now Showing Up On Google+ Page Dashboard
• State-Level Usage Statistics: How They Can Be Leveraged
• Boost Your Social Strategy With SEO Data
• Shrewd Or Desperate: Facebook To Buy WhatsApp For $19B In Cash And Stock

Search News From Around The Web:

Industry

• 3 Reasons to Attend a Search Marketing Conference in 2014, BruceClay.com
• Inside DuckDuckGo, Google’s Tiniest, Fiercest Competitor, Fast Company Labs
• Leaving Google, Tim Bray
• Satya Nadella, Chief of Microsoft, on His New Role, New York Times

Link Building

• Link Building in 2014 – Let’s Go Old School, State of Digital
• Link Building on a Budget, Search Engine Watch

Local & Maps

• Expanding our Map Maker community in Southern and Eastern Europe, Google LatLong
• Online Real Estate Service Trulia Relaunches Its Mobile Apps, TechCrunch

SEM / Paid Search

• "Pirate Sites Generate $227 Million In Ad Revenue a Year", torrentfreak.com

Searching

• Gear Up for the Oscars with Bing.com/Awards, Bing Search Blog

SEO

• Google Penalizes Social Video Advertising Site Virool, Search Engine Watch
• Combining SEO & PR to Grow Traffic & Get Big Links, buzzstream.com
• How I Would Fix Grantland’s SEO: An In-Depth Audit, Web Gnomes
• Magento Commerce SEO: A Primer, Add3.com
• Mini SEO Audit for a Quick Site Checkup | Quick SEO Audit How-To, Luna Metrics
• Negative SEO: still taboo or becoming an accepted practice?, Econsultancy
• SEO, Demand Generation & Content Marketing: 5 Takeaways From Joe Pulizzi, Search Engine Watch
• When Google May Show The Redirect URL Over The Destination URL, Search Engine Roundtable