SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 21, 2011

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

From Search Engine Land:

• AdWords Preview Tool Gets Mobile-Focused Facelift

  Ever wonder how your AdWords ads look on different devices in different places? Google has added some features to its AdWords Preview tool in an effort to address these issues. In keeping with Google’s effort to monetize searches on mobile devices, changes to the tool are designed to help marketers aiming to optimize mobile ads. […]

• Google Sets Sights On Content Farms In 2011

  Google has fired a warning toward “content farms” — you’re in our anti-spam sights in 2011. That message was made loud and clear in Matt Cutts’ blog post today, a post in which Google also says its search quality has improved due to new spam fighting techniques. Cutts points out that Google has already taken […]

• A Day In The Life Of A Paid Search Marketer

  Not everyone who deals with search engine marketing is a full-time SEMer. There are vendors, publishers, small business owners who dabble in the art, brand managers who oversee agency teams, etc. So what do full timers do all day? There’s plenty to do…such as: Managing delivery (pacing) Testing and Optimizing for performance Building keyword and […]

• Findability, SEO, And The Searcher Experience

  Do you know the key components of a positive searcher experience? Usability and findability are crucial…but there are other critical elements.

• Search In Pictures: GoogleBot T-Shirt, Yahoo Rodeo & Yahoo Rubber Duckies

  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. GooglePlex Bikes: Yahoo Rodeo Clowns: Yahoo Mobile Cereal Car: Fear Google Signs: Google iPhone Quilt: GoogleBot […]

• Google Says Search Quality Improved With New Spam Detection

  Matt Cutts, a Google engineer working on search quality, wrote at the Google Blog that Google has recently released a new spam detection classifier to help prevent “spammy on-page content” from ranking highly in the Google search index. None of this comes as a surprise, Matt told us Google would be stepping up their search […]

• Google Turns To Page: The Day Two Narrative

  Google’s co-founders have long admired Apple CEO Steve Jobs, even though they now compete directly with his company. So I couldn’t help thinking that Jobs helped inspire yesterday’s announcement that Larry Page was taking over the helm at Google. (Jobs himself turned over the reins of his company this week to COO Tim Cook out […]

• Small Google Navigation Element Changes

  There were two Google navigation changes that people have started to notice. The first was making the Google search left hand bar more compact and the second was changing the menu choices in the top menu while in Gmail. Google Operating System reported the more compact version of the Google web search side bar. Google […]

• First Google Toolbar PageRank Update Of 2011

  Google has updated the PageRank values of many sites within the Google Toolbar. This is the first toolbar PageRank update of the year, and arguably the first one in almost 9 months. There have been minor updates, where some sites have seen their PageRank change during 2010, but I believe the last huge PageRank update […]

• A To Do List For Google’s New CEO Larry Page

  Welcome back, Larry! When you were last CEO of Google in 2001, the company was a much loved scrappy underdog with a bright future. Ten years later, you’re coming back to the helm. Things have changed. You’re soon to be steering a massive battleship that’s taking on water from a number of hits over the […]

• Confirmed: Google Readies “Google Offers” Groupon Clone

  Google has confirmed that it is preparing a service called “Google Offers,” designed to compete with the popular social buying site Groupon. Google has told Search Engine Land: Google is communicating with small businesses to enlist their support and participation in a test of a pre-paid offers/vouchers program. This initiative is part of an ongoing […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Larry Page as Google CEO: His top 5 challenges, ZDNet
• LinkedIn Said to Be Worth Almost $3 Billion in Secondary Sale, Bloomberg
• With Page as CEO, Open Source is stronger than ever at Google, ZDNet
• Eric Schmidt, Google’s outgoing CEO, to cash out shares worth $335 million, Los Angeles Times
• Facebook Data Center Is Boon for Oregon Town, Wall Street Journal
• Google Donates 1 Million Euros To Mathematics Championship Organization, TechCrunch
• Google shuffle: why Eric Schmidt had to be pushed from the top, The Guardian
• Google’s CEO switch could be a risky move, Computerworld
• Harvard researcher rejects Google’s ‘personal attack’, BBC News
• Might makes right, johnaugust.com
• TechCrunch Interview With Eric Schmidt, Larry Page And Sergey Brin, TechCrunch
• The Eric Schmidt Era: Google 2001 vs. Google 2011, TIME.com
• Why Google Still Needs to Buy a Groupon Clone, GigaOM

Link Building

• 4 Ways to Repurpose Content to Attract Links to Your Website, smallbiztrends.com
• HOW TO: Re-package Your Best Content for More Exposure (and Links), seosmarty.com
• Why a Link Analysis is Anything But a Waste of Time, Wiep.net

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Places Review Bugs on the Mend, Mike Blumenthal
• Where are the 2 billion daily requests in the AdMob network coming from?, Google Mobile Ads Blog

Other Items

• Our big gift for small businesses, Official Google Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• Media Console Reporting Series, Part 2: Standard Reports, Atlas Blog – Microsoft Advertising Community
• Setting Up Alerts For Google AdSense Issues, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Knowledge-Based Computing and Version 2.0 of the Wolfram|Alpha API, Wolfram|Alpha Blog

SEM Industry

• SearchFest 2011 Mini-Interview: Susan Delz, www.sempdx.org

SEO & SEM

• 7 Steps to Sexier Online Video Optimization, outspokenmedia.com
• Google Whitelisting Web Sites In Organic Search Results, Search Engine Roundtable
• SEO Mistakes By Businesses and SEOs, Search Engine People
• The Top 5 Google Operators Every SEO Should Know, ZDNet
• Video: Page Replaces Schmidt At Google, 2011 PageRank Update & The Whitelist, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• Social Media and Law Enforcement: Who Gets What Data and When?, www.eff.org
• 30 Ways to Use Social Media for Business People, SEOptimise
• 5 Tips: Content Sharing Beyond Facebook, Online Marketing Blog
• Facebook Quietly Launching Friendfeed-like Live Commenting, Stay N’ Alive
• PeopleRank: Quora Is Developing An Algorithm To Determine And Rank User Quality, TechCrunch
• Quora for Business Not Allowed, But You Should Still Monitor and Respond, www.web-strategist.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Introducing JavaScript Player API for iframe embeds, YouTube Blog
• Login to Flickr with your Facebook Account!, Flickr Blog
• comScore Releases December 2010 U.S. Online Video Rankings, comScore

Web Analytics

• Using Web Analytics to Measure Internet Marketing Goals, BruceClay.com

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

• Should I start an e-mail newsletter? – Since most of us have agreed that email marketing is NOT dead (https://sphinn.com/story/169204/), the next question become: Is email marketing for you and your business? Amy Africa writes a terrific article with guidelines on getting started.
• Response to Rand Fishkin’s Thoughts on Mobile SEO – I'm not a fan of calling out people by name in article headlines but, despite that, this is just a very interesting and educational piece about mobile search and SEO that Bryson Meunier has written.
• Google Whitelisting Web Sites In Organic Search Results? – Barry Schwartz highlights a case where a site, penalized by Google for spamdexing, claims their AdWords rep has "whitelisted" them for organic results. Maybe they just filed a reinclusion request after fixing their site? There's no comment from Google, yet.
• Official Google Blog: Google search and search engine spam – Google's Matt Cutts responds to recent articles about a perceived drop in search quality at Google, and he also outlines some areas where Google's anti-spam efforts will be focused in 2011.
• Was It Time For A Fresh Face? Thoughts On Larry Page As The New Google CEO – Danny Sullivan takes a look at today's changing of the guard at Google, and what it might mean in the future.