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

From Search Engine Land:

• George W. Bush: A Failure Once Again, According To Google
  Remember how Google introduced a link bomb fix in January that, among other things, finally got US President George W. Bush out of first page of results for searches on miserable failure and failure at Google? Bush is back, at least for failure, and the White House has only itself…
• Google Voice Local Search Launched
  You’ve heard the rumors. Now you can try the experimental service from Google Labs. Google Voice Local Search is now live and publicly claimed by Google. Greg Sterling will be along to say more either here or in a fresh post. In the meantime, you can call (1-800-GOOG-411) and…
• AOL To Sell Ads Direct, Using Google’s Tools
  As John Battelle notes, the embargo on AOL’s deal to white label Google’s AdWords system and sell ads direct on its own has been broken. It’s no surprise this was coming. A white label deal was announced back in December 2005 when AOL renewed with Google:…
• More On AOL’s Search Marketplace
  As Danny noted, AOL is launching a new program for advertisers to buy Google AdWords directly from AOL. But AOL Search Marketplace, as the new program is known, goes beyond simply white-labeling Google sponsored listings. "We’re allowing advertisers to specifically customize their campaigns on AOL search," said Dariusz Pacsuski, Vice…
• Seed Funder STN Labs Is Open For B’ness
  This isn’t search news per se, but Jake Baillie, who used to run local search engine True Local, is now helping to lead incubator/seed-round funder STN Labs. Jake left True Local in December specifically to pursue working at STN Labs, which already has an interesting portfolio of companies including local…
• Addicted to Link Research?
  It’s been a little over a week since MS Live Search disabled linking related advanced queries. The post itself announcing the decision was short, but the commentary that followed it was anything but. What’s the big deal? The search engines never had to give us this data in the…
• Local Data: Not Sexy Just Critical
  A few weeks ago Steven Aldrich, a VP of strategy for small business software (and now marketing) company Intuit, delivered a speech in which he presented an amazing statistic. According to Aldrich, roughly 6 million businesses are started annually in the U.S. but another approximately 5.6 million go under….

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere

Applications & Portal Features

• A Batch of Gmail Accounts, Accidentally Disabled, Google Operating System
• JotSpot to Open Again Soon?, Google Operating System
• Oops! Yahoo Japan erases 4.5 million e-mails, News.com
• Microsoft is Dead, Techmeme

Business Issues

• The Advertising Operating System, John Battelle’s Searchblog
• Chron 200 / Google powers its way up, San Francisco Chronicle
• Google brain drain? The best and the richest could cash options – and quit , San Jose Mercury News
• Tough Google Support Jobs?, Google Blogoscoped
• Idearc to Add-on SEM Services

  , Search Engine Watch Blog

• GOOGLE: ‘Un-American’, Valleywag
• Google Apologizes to Chinese Search Co, International Business Times
• Google bows to China portal Sohu’s apology demand, Reuters

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google My Maps Directory, Google Blogoscoped
• Bring Search Results Everywhere — On Your Mobile Phone, Yahoo Search Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• Chitika Reveals Digg Traffic CTR, Shoemoney
• AOL Only Adwords – Marketplace & Revenue Impact, Vinny Lingham’s Blog
• Distorted Images, Inside AdSense
• Google at the Crime Scene: Profiling Websites, Estimating Traffic & Combatting Click Fraud, SEO by the SEA

SEM Industry

• Ask.com at SES New York 2007, The Ask.com Blog
• Drop by and see us at SES NY, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• We heart NY (and SES), Inside AdSense
• SEO Professionalism/SEO Tantrums, ClickZ Experts
• First Batch of SEM Scholarship Entries Posted, Marketing Pilgrim
• Why do I blog?, Matt Cutts

SEO & SEM

• Google Reviews: Reputation + Quality + Snippets + Clustering, SEO by the SEA
• Surviving Rankings, Re-Rankings, Filters and Google Hell, Jim Boykin’s Internet Marketing Blog
• GOOGLE STROKES PORN GUY, New York Post
• Write for Readers not Link Listers if You Want to have an Audience, Performancing.com

Social Media

• The New Yahoo! Bookmarks and Toolbar Get a Refresh, Yahoo! Search Blog
• Loopster Makes Friends of Social Networks, TechCrunch
• Search Engine Marketing & Digg, Vinny Lingham’s Blog
• Your Notebooks Are Available from Google Search, Google Operating System
• "Note This" Button In Google.com Search Results, Search Engine Roundtable
• Gigya To Ease Widget Publishing On Social Networks, TechCrunch
• The 10 Largest Social Driven Sites, Pronet Advertising
• Algorithmically Generate The Best Title for Digg, Pronet Advertising

Video, Audio & Image Search

• Yahoo’s New Media Device, TechCrunch

Other Stuff

• CENSORED: Who’s banned where, Valleywag
• Discussion with Gary Price about Vertical Search Engines, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Citizendium Founder & Wikipedia Co-Founder, Larry Sanger, Discusses Projects, ResourceShelf
• Google Server Logistics, Google Blogoscoped

Related Topics: SearchCap

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About The Author: Danny Sullivan is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also oversees Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He maintains a personal blog called Daggle (and maintains his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan

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