SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 30, 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:

• Searchme Launches Multimedia Visual Search
  

  Searchme has rolled out what it calls “true” blended search results, combining web, video, images, music and Twitter results organized by their relevance and playable inside the search results page. Searchme displays results as small versions of entire web pages, in a format that looks just like the “cover flow” display in iTunes. I love Searchme [...]

• Google, Give Me My $30,000 Back!
  

  I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that one new AdWords advertiser found a $30,000 surprise from Google in her AdWords account. The advertiser said in a Google AdWords thread that she set up a test ad one night and when she returned the next morning to see how the ad was doing, she [...]

• Search Biz: AOL Spin Off, Yahoo Layoffs, Google Losses, IAC Spoons And Pines For AOL
  

  The biggest Search Biz news of the week is about AOL’s forthcoming spin off and related personnel moves. Time Warner yesterday announced quarterly revenues and a whopping $16 billion loss (not the largest in the company’s history). For its part, AOL’s ad revenues fell roughly 20 percent to $867 million from $1.13 billion the previous [...]

• YouTube Is Broken. Here’s How To Fix It
  

  As has anyone in the online industry, I have closely followed the YouTube saga since its acquisition by Google. Undoubtedly YouTube is one of the greatest success stories of the Internet era, adding users and usage faster than any site ever launched on the web, including MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Google. What is also often [...]

• Powerful Linkbait: Contests & Incentives
  

  Most people in the industry look at contests and incentives as branding and marketing tools. However if you are willing to get creative, you can turn a contest into a powerful link building tool that will, over time, help your organic rankings. When most marketing and advertising teams look at a contest they are looking for [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• The Iterative Webapp – Gmail for mobile Gets Mute, Official Google Mobile Blog
• Google Location Services now in Mozilla Firefox, Google Code Blog
• New in Labs: Extra emoticons, Official Gmail Blog

Business Issues

• Yahoo’s Yang gets $1 in rocky final year as CEO, The Associated Press
• Armstrong Shakes Up AOL; Coleman Out As President Of Platform-A; Google’s Levick To Replace Him, paidContent.org
• ChaCha Co-Founder Brad Bostic Steps Down As President, TechCrunch
• Flickr Hit Hard By Yahoo Layoffs, gigaom.com
• Google’s PR Campaign, BusinessWeek
• Guess Which Brand Is Now Worth $100 Billion?, TechCrunch
• Obama’s Justice Department To Google: We’re Watching You (GOOG), Business Insider

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Could Have Caught Swine Flu Early, Wired
• Make the most of walking directions, Google LatLong
• Microsoft’s TellMe Spams Google with Bogus Tech Support Number, Mike Blumenthal

Link Building

• Catalysts for Earning Natural Links & Link Conversion Rates, SEOmoz

Paid Search & Contextual

• Analytics and AdWords tips – Part 4 of 4, Inside AdWords
• $30,000 Google Surprise: New Advertiser Runs Up Huge Bill, Search Engine Roundtable
• A Closer Look Into Bloomberg Television’s Partnership with Google TV Ads, Google Traditional Media Blog
• Driving Campaign Success With Advanced Ad Scheduling, PPC Hero
• Optimize Your Campaigns for Mother’s Day!, adCenter Blog for Advertisers
• Recent Shifts in eCPMs for Publishers in the pubCenter BETA, adCenter Blog for Advertisers
• What’s a rich media ad, anyway?, Official Google Blog
• Why Am I Seeing AdSense Reports in Euros?, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Primary schoolchildren will learn to read on Google in ’slimmer’ curriculum, Telegraph

SEM Industry

• 5 Questions For Danny Sullivan, Foundational Search Marketing Journalist, AIM Clear Blog
• Bigmouthmedia heads search rankings in 2009 Marketing Services Guide, NMA
• Poll: Do You (SEMs) Currently Have a Job?, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Top Ten SEO Tactics for PR Professionals, Online Marketing Blog
• Google Webmaster Help Forums in more languages, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• SEO Basics for Public Relations – If I Could Only Do One SEO Tactic, Online Marketing Blog
• Taking Nofollow to the Next Level, Scott Hendison
• Will domain registration changes ding me in Google?, YouTube

Social Media

• A whole new FriendFeed, FriendFeed Blog
• A Look Inside the Twitter Admin Panel, mashable.com
• Facebook Rumored To Be Looking For Funding At $5-6 Billion Valuation, TechCrunch
• Social Networking 101: Basic Tips For Online and Offline Social Networking, 10e20 Blog
• The Twitter Guys – The 2009 TIME 100, TIME

Video, Music & Image Search

• Release Notes: 4/30/09, YouTube Blog

Web Analytics

• Google Analytics Fixes "Content Data" Reports, Search Engine Roundtable

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

• Google Study On Sitemaps
• Matt Cutts Google WebSpam Team On Twitter!
• 10 Ways to Turn Google Calendar into an Effective Time Management & Productivity Tool
• Google Adsense Policies: Now With More Hypocrisy!
• Are Shortened URL Links Worth The Trouble?