SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 11, 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:

• Microsoft Doubles Up On Cashback To Give Bing A Boost
  

  Microsoft announced that they have created a “Bing stimulus package” using the Cashback program, in an attempt to encourage searchers to use Bing more often. Cashback is a way for Microsoft to give searchers who buy products from select merchants, after discovering those merchants through Bing, a gift, a discount. In the past, Microsoft Cashback [...]

• 5 Microblogging Sites That Aren’t Twitter
  

  While Twitter is getting the lion’s share of all the social media and micro-blogging sites from the press and the blogosphere, there are other alternatives. I’m going to take you through 5 different micro-blogging platforms, pointing out the good, bad, and sometimes ugly. I’ll also point out some suggestions on how [...]

• Caffeine: Google’s New Search Index
  

  Google has just unveiled a “secret project” of “next-generation architecture for Google’s web search“. This new architecture appears to include crawling, indexing, and ranking changes. For the first time, Google isn’t simply incorporating these changes into their existing infrastructure or replacing it. Instead, they’re providing a developer preview and are asking webmasters and power searchers [...]

• Doug Cutting Leaving Yahoo
  

  Doug Cutting, creator of the Hadoop technology that powered Yahoo’s search index, is leaving the company at the end of August for a position at Cloudera. While the immediate reaction is to assume this is related to the Yahoo-Microsoft deal, in which Microsoft would take over Yahoo’s search engine, Cutting tells the New York Times [...]

• Facebook Begins New Search Rollout
  

  Facebook said this afternoon that it’s “beginning the roll out of Facebook Search to all users,” which was previously being selectively tested. I’m unable to see it yet. But the Facebook blog explains: You now will be able to search the last 30 days of your News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Frugal is the new black, Yodel Anecdotal
• Oh no. Yahoo Pipes to loose Term Extraction, blog.arhg.net
• tr.im Resurrected, tr.im URLs

Business Issues

• After the boom, is Wikipedia heading for bust?, New Scientist
• Delicious Founder: I Wish I Had Not Sold to Yahoo, Mashable

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Maps starts Newsletter and Account Updates Email, Mike Blumenthal

Link Building

• Does the second link anchor text matter?, Burn Down Easy

Paid Search & Contextual

• Utilize Category Exclusions to Enhance Your Content Network Performance, PPC Hero
• Your AdWords ROI Is Better Than You Think, Search Engine Journal

Searching

• Custom Search with Style like Peanut Butter with Jelly, Google Custom Search
• Google Caffeine: A Detailed Test of the New Google, Mashable
• Google News Still Showing Old News?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Kids’ search terms: Sex, games, rock ‘n’ roll, News.com
• Online searches for health insurance info jump, Tampa Bay Business Journal
• Top 10 Funniest Google Suggest Results, Mashable

SEM Industry

• Become a fan of AdSense, Inside AdSense
• Google “upgrades” Maps’ Forums, Mike Blumenthal
• Google Help Forums Get A Redesign, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• 17 iPhone Applications for SEOs and Web site owners, Jack Leblond
• Caffeine update, BlogStorm
• Google Caffeine Bookmarklet, GoogleTutor.com
• Google Caffeine Test Suggests Too Much Emphasis on Real-Time Indexing, Marketing Pilgrim
• Google PageRank Distribution Data Not Available For Many in Webmaster Tools, Search Engine Roundtable
• How a Google Penalty Can Make Your Site Stronger, StepForth
• How to Optimize Your Site for Phone Calls, seosmarty.com
• How to Use Google Desktop as a Keyword or Reputation Monitoring Tool, Search Engine Journal
• New tools for Google Services for Websites, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Off site SEO strategies, SEO Book
• Picking Winning Keywords For Your SMB Site, Small Business Trends
• Top Keyword Research Tools, SEO.com

Social Media

• Common Questions with Social Media Campaigns, Search Engine People
• Delicious Creator Quietly Launches Threaded Twitter Conversations, TechCrunch
• Forensic Analysis Reveals Twitter Attack Details, Technology Review
• Learning Social Media Marketing, DazzlinDonna
• Twitter Attacked Again, Causing Another Outage, New York Times
• Twitter CEO’s wife tweets about labor, ongoing birth of first child, VentureBeat

Video, Music & Image Search

• Every view counts, YouTube Biz Blog
• How to Make a YouTube Channel into a Google Gadget, SEOish

Web Analytics

• Google Analytics-The Good, The Bad and The Hidden, Bruceclay.com.au