SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 19, 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:

• French Upset Over Google Library Deal, Lawyer-Author Files New Arguments Against Book Search Settlement
  

  It’s probably fair to say that the French have a love-hate relationship with American culture, companies and institutions. (The same could be said for some Americans; remember “freedom fries”?) The latest expression of the negative side of that equation in the Gallic world is disappointment over an apparently impending agreement between the French national library and [...]

• Google To Improve Contextual Targeting Of AdSense Ads
  

  A Google AdSense post announces that Google will be making changes to their contextual targeting algorithms in the near future. Woojin Kim, Google AdSense Product Manager said, “this week, we’ll be rolling out a series of enhancements to AdSense’s contextual targeting capabilities, which will more accurately match relevant ads to webpages.” Publishers do not need [...]

• Google: Conversion Rates About The Same No Matter Ad Position
  

  Hal Varian, Google’s Chief Economist, posted some pretty interesting details on how the conversion rate of an ad differs based on the position of the ad in Google. Google’s data shows that overall the conversion rate does not vary all that much based on the ad position. Hal said, if “an ad that had [...]

• Tips for Turning Unintended Traffic Into Ambassadors
  

  If you have a content-rich, optimized site, you’re likely getting a substantial amount of organic traffic from channels you didn’t plan on – visitors searching for something related to your business who briefly land at your site and move on. Rather than ignore this extra traffic, you should engage them as potential ambassadors and influencers. Recently, [...]

• The Affiliate Industry Strives To Clean Up Its Act
  

  Unfortunately, affiliates do not always abide by the rules and requirements of your program. For example, you may specifically prohibit keyword sponsorship of your best terms or your brand terms. You may look to keep your affiliates from co-promoting you alongside of your competitor(s) on the same landing page, you may have restrictions on paid [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• How to: hide your age in your profile, Yahoo Profiles News
• Sync Yahoo! Calendar with your iPhone, Yahoo Mail Blog
• FeedBurner Terms of Service Update, AdSense for Feeds
• Yahoo! Groups Blog » Changes to the members page, www.ygroupsblog.com

Business Issues

• Congratulations, Vik Singh – 2009 Young Innovators Under 35, Yahoo Search Blog
• Adult Swim, Cartoon Network, and CNN Clips Coming to YouTube, YouTube Biz Blog
• AOL Sues Advertise.com Over Name, paidContent.org
• Google at Five: Happy IPO Birthday, CNBC.com
• Lawyer and Author Objects to Google Book Deal, New York Times
• Liskula Cohen Forces Google To Reveal Anonymous ‘Skank’ Blogger’s Identity, SMH
• Twitter’s "Tweet" Trademark Torpedoed, Sam Johnston

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Andy Kessler: Why AT&T Killed Google Voice, Wall Street Journal
• Map Maker goes west, Google LatLong

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google Again Able To Charge Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Cards, Search Engine Roundtable
• More Google Advertisers Being Forced into New Interface, Including Me, Search Engine Roundtable
• Unofficial Google AdWords Management iPhone App, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Google Testing Breadcrumb Navigation In SERPs, Red Cardinal
• Stacking Up the Elements in Wolfram|Alpha, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• The Google Natural Number Game, Google Blogoscoped

SEM Industry

• Fox News Blasts SEO, SEO Book
• Beware of Yahoo Search Marketing – Phishing, pdxtc.com

SEO & SEM

• Why are .com sites ranking highly in UK SERPs?, YouTube
• 10 Pay Per Click Steps to Reduce Costs and Increase PPC Conversions, Pandia
• 17 Ways to Stay Current with SEO & PPC, Online Marketing Blog
• Google News Rankings and Quality Scores for News Sources, SEO By The Sea
• Should SEOs be paid for performance?, Econsultancy
• What is "Page Score" in Bing Webmaster Tools?, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• 4 Ways to Optimize Your Twitter Background, 10e20
• Frustrated Tweets New Headache For Airlines, New York Times
• Detecting Sadness in 140 Characters, Web Ecology Project
• Early Detection: How Social Media May Save The World, SEOmoz
• Rapleaf Study on Popularity of Twitter Clients, Rapleaf
• ReTweet.com Launches, Sure Looks A Lot Like TweetMeme, TechCrunch
• Wemen Suck at Social Media, outspokenmedia.com
• What If Comments Could Be Retweeted? TweetMeme Is Working On It., TechCrunch