SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 16, 2010

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Twitter May Release Some Deleted Usernames Within Weeks

  What’s happening with all those inactive and deleted usernames that Twitter has? Some of them will continue to be held back for a few more weeks; some likely for much longer, Twitter cofounder Ev Williams said yesterday.
  I caught Williams between sessions at the Chirp conference yesterday and put to him a question that Les Porter […]
• 8 Crazy-Cool Search Engines You Should Know

  Move over Google, Yahoo, and Bing; blended results or not, personalized search, Twitter results and OneBoxes … you guys are just too predictable for this article. There’s a new breed of search engines out there, and they’re letting users search and find some utterly crazy stuff. And by “crazy,” I mean a lot of things: […]

• Google Suggests Goes Local & Spelling Suggestions For Names

  Google announced three changes today, one for Google Suggestions and the other two for spelling enhancements. In short, Google Suggest now shows search suggestions tailored to U.S. metro areas. Google’s spell checker now works for misspellings of names and now auto-spelling corrections are done in 31 languages.
  The two examples given for Google Suggest […]

• Volcano “Ash Plume” Captured By NASA, On Google Earth

  When I heard yesterday that a volcano in Iceland had erupted and that airports across Europe were closed I thought it was a joke. But unfortunately it wasn’t. The volcano, Eyjafjallajökull (no that’s not misspelled), sent ash out into the sky for miles.
  The ash apparently creates a dangerous condition for planes, and so most airports […]

• Google Loves Goats

  For the second year in a row, Google hired goats to mow their lawn. This is Google’s way of reducing their carbon footprint. The 200 goats, according to Google, cost as much as a lawn service to bring in and would benefit the world by eliminating mower emissions, reducing noise pollution, restoring plant […]

• 7 Tips For Effective Global PPC Campaigns

  International paid search offers the unprecedented ability to break into new markets with low upfront costs. However, a common mistake made by marketers when expanding to a new country is that they only translate ad text without taking into consideration all of the additional complexities involved.
  An international campaign is not simply an extension […]

• John Battelle On The Future Of Search: Part Two

  In the first part of my interview with John Battelle, we talked about the actual search experience—the act of searching and our expectations of what the results of that act might be. But as we started talking about change, it soon became clear that change in the act of search translates into change throughout the […]

• The Real Value Of Web Analytics

  OK, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say something that might not make sense at first: the most important outcome of successful web analytics (or SEO effort or landing page testing, etc.) is not a better web site. The most important outcome is a better, more functional company.
  Let’s pause from the […]

• 36 SEO Myths That Won’t Die But Need To

  Every day a new SEO myth is born; unfortunately, not every day does an old SEO myth die off. The net result is a growing population of myths. These are nearly impossible to squash because the snake-oil salesmen of our industry keep perpetuating them — bringing them back from the brink, even. You can talk […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Can Yahoo Still Nab Foursquare for $125 Million or Will VCs Prevail? The Race for the Hot Mobile Start-Up Nears Its End, AllThingsD

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Mobile Ad Requests Soaring On All Major Smartphone Platforms In U.S., paidContent.org

Link Building

• Google is Sending Out Link Requests?, SEOish
• Yell Replies To Link Selling Accusations, Google Won’t Get Involved, Search Engine Roundtable

Paid Search & Contextual

• Go Mobile! Series: iPad Device Targeting Now Available, Inside AdWords
• AdWords Known Issues: Site and Category Exclusion Tool, AdWords Help Experts

Searching

• Historical U.S.Tax Statistics in Wolfram|Alpha, Wolfram|Alpha Blog

SEM Industry

• Patent Guru: How Bill Slawski Gets SEO Advice Directly From Search Engines (Part 1), Search Marketing Standard
• PubCon South Dallas 2010 Highlights, SEO.com
• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: April 16, 2010, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Google Webmaster Tools and the Google Gap, davidnaylor.co.uk
• 10 Travel SEO Strategies, SEOptimise
• Buying Yelp Reviews Is BAD for Business, searchinfluence.com
• Confessions of a Black Hat SEO: There is a limit to what I will do!, Mikkel deMib Svendsen
• Ten Top SEO Blog Content Strategies, John Andrews
• Whiteboard Friday – Leveraging Syndicated Content Effectively, SEOmoz

Social Media

• It’s 4SQ Day, But Foursquare Has (Almost) Nothing To Do With It, TechCrunch

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

• Universal Search for Digital Asset Managers
• Social Media Higher Learning; Part II
• Web Directory Lists: Promoting Websites or Provoking Spammers?
• It Doesn’t Matter Who’s Ignoring You – It's Whos Paying Attention
• How to Promote and Manage LinkedIn Group
• Google Webmaster Tools Now Showing Clickthrough Data
• Confessions of a Black Hat SEO: There is a limit to what I will do!