SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 29, 2009

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Google Street View Car Kills Bambi, Censors Pictures Afterward
  We’ve seen Google’s Street View cars capture a variety of interesting scenes, such as a house on fire, but this is a new one. Apparently, one hit a deer and then captured a photo of the poor thing lying dead or dying afterward. …
• Obama Inauguration Sets Standard For Live Video Streaming
  On January 20th, CNN.com served over 21.3 million live video streams of President Obama’s Inaugural Address, breaking CNN.com’s previous daily-streaming record (5.3 million on Election Day). Page views swelled to 136 million. The CNN feed also included a sidebar that allowed Facebook users to comment live on the speech. Others watched on CBS.com, Washingtonpost.com or Boston.com. This deluge of simultaneous video streaming produced a few minor glitches on MSNBC.com (time lag) and Hulu.com (choppy) and took down some sites, such as the BBC. But, for the most part, inaugural video streamers pushed Internet bandwidth to the limit, and it held.
• A Look At Article Directories and Their Influence in Organic Rankings
  Article directories and article syndication websites are one the earliest forms internet marketing, but do they still work and are they worth the effort? The main problem with syndicated articles is that they will most likely be seen as duplicate content, which Google claims will be filtered out of organic SERP’s. Article directory owners tell a different story. In a style reminiscent of late night infomercials, they will talk about the exposure benefits and tidal waves of traffic that contributions to article directories can bring. So where’s the truth? In this article we’ll be taking a look at article directories, if there are any benefits, and if you can use them to help your organic rankings.
• Google AdWords Testing New Interface
  Tim Cohn writes about a new user interface beta that Google is offering to some AdWords advertisers. As you can see from Tim’s screenshot below (which was probably left small to protect personal data), the new interface looks similar to the charting/graphing system that Google Analytics uses …
• SMB’s Need More “Local” Outreach
  (Business owners, if you’re looking for actionable advice, skip to the end) I spoke at a local Chamber of Commerce here in the Portland area last week, giving a brief presentation on the fundamentals of SEO. Unlike a previous event I’d attended just three months ago in eastern Washington, about 75% of this audience had actually heard the term “SEO” before.
• YouTube Searchers: It’s All About The Music
  You can learn a lot about a web site by peeking below the hood of its internal site search. And, based on Hitwise data out today, YouTube is a surrogate music video search engine. Hitwise research suggests that 72% of the site’s Top 50 search terms from December 2008 are music-related — from L’il Wayne to Beyoncé, to song titles like “Womanizer” and “Heartless.” …
• Google TV Ads Tells How DVRs Affect Your Ads
  Google’s TV Ads team has announced the addition of new metrics detailing time-shifted viewings of your TV ad. Here’s the formal explanation from Google’s announcement …
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Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• 10 Good Things About Offline Gmail, Google Operating System
• Changes to the QnA Code of Conduct, Windows Live QnA
• Don’t ever use Google Apps for anything important, Joel on Software
• Google Chrome Spoofing User Agent at Hotmail, Google Blogoscoped
• Just how well do the popular Search blogs cope with IE8?, BigMouthMedia
• Microsoft to act on IE8 ’show stoppers’, The Register
• Yahoo Finance vs. Google Finance: Which Page Is Better?, www.traffick.com

Business Issues

• BBC Stops Trying To Be Google, Abandons Web Search, www.paidcontent.co.uk
• Google Updates Privacy Policy, www.labnol.org
• Google’s Arora Says Business Is Not ‘Recession-Proof’, Bloomberg
• Rumour: Google to buy Skype, www.techradar.com
• Yahoo vacating 400,000 square feet in Santa Clara towers, Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal
• YouTube Said to Be Close to Video Deal With William Morris, New York Times

Link Building

• 10 Links A Day Link Building Service Launches With Videos on Greasing Camels, Fantomaster
• Cheap link building services: When does cheap become expensive?, wiep.net

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Maps Car Hits a Deer, Records Entire Ordeal on Google Maps, Gizmodo
• Swiss police spy marijuana field with Google Earth, Google
• Will Google’s Streetview Data be used to replace TeleAtlas?, Mike Blumenthal

Other Items

• Obama Gets a Google Vet–But Not for CTO, Peter Kafka

Paid Search & Contextual

• Negative Keyword Bid Type Restrictions, adCenter Blog for Advertisers
• Account Optimizations: YSM Blog Bites Back, Traffick
• Google’s Search Partners Ignoring Match Type Controls?, Search Engine Roundtable
• How Much Data do You Need to Reach Statistical Significance?, Brad Geddes
• Is AOL Testing Google AdSense Ads in Messenger?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Marketing Campaigns Must Show Incremental Lift, Not Just Sales, Rimm Kaufman
• New ideas for working with the display ad builder, AdWords Agency Blog
• Out Dated Sites Earning More Money with Google AdSense Then Fresh Sites?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Valentine’s Day & President’s Day ad templates now available, Inside AdWords

Searching

• Google’s Enhanced "Did You Mean" Now Default, Search Engine Roundtable
• Ixquick.com Search Engine Stops Recording IP Addresses, Bill Hartzer
• Pipl.com: People Search Engine So Good, It Will Scare Your Pants Off, TechCrunch

SEM Industry

• Cast Your Vote for the Best Online Marketing Articles, Search Engine Guide

SEO & SEM

• Check Google PageRank of an Entire Website Using Sitemaps, Digital Inspiration
• Marin SEM Tool Assigns Keyword ROI, MediaPost
• Root Domains, Subdomains vs. Subfolders & The Microsite Debate, SEOmoz
• The SEO Process Lifecycle, SEO Book
• What My Kids Taught Me About Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Guide

Social Media

• Don’t Be Blinded By Social Media and Social Networking, Search Engine Guide
• Has StumbleUpon Jumped the Shark?, AIM Clear Blog
• What’s the lowdown on badges?, Yahoo Answers Blog

Web Analytics

• Using _setVar? Here’s an update on bounce rate and time on page, Google Analytics Blog

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