SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 23, 2011

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Blind Social Sharing & Its Effect On Personal Credibility

  Social media may seem like ‘information overload’ for some, especially since there are now thousands of tweets sent per second and millions of people with a Facebook account. But how is this information created and sent? What is the ratio of actual unique information compared to the amount of re-tweets and Facebook posts about it? […]

• New Facebook Sharing Controls Undermine Google+ Privacy Advantage

  There will be extensive discussion and debate today about whether the broad and welcome array of new privacy, tagging and sharing controls on Facebook are or aren’t a response to Google+. I directly asked Facebook that question and was told that the new features have nothing to do with Google+ and have been in the […]

• Google Hiring Spam Fighters In Dublin

  Kaspar Szymanski from Google’s search quality team announced on the Google Webmaster blog that his office is hiring Search Quality Associates to work in the Dublin, Ireland office. Search Quality Associates are basically Google web spam fighters. They are responsible for digging deep into site code, investigating site issues, looking for search quality issues and […]

• How To Manage Expectations When Kicking Off A Global Search Program

  In my last article, we reviewed my 5 Best Practices for Kicking off a Global Search Program. This article generated a number of questions from people about Tips#1 “Setting Expectations” and Tip #2: “Reporting Structures and Cadence”, so we will drill down into them this time. Without a doubt, setting the mutual expectations for a […]

• Facebook To Step Up Acquisitions: Report

  There was a time before the “Great Recession” when a cluster of companies were seemingly always bidding against one another to acquire the hot startup of the month. The core of that group consisted of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, eBay, AOL and News Corp. But while AOL and Yahoo still buy companies — AOL bought HuffingtonPost […]

• Here’s What Twitter Should Do To Make Photo Galleries More Useful

  I like the new user photo galleries that Twitter started rolling out yesterday. They’ll make photo search and discovery much easier, especially for those of us who’ve scattered our photo uploads across TwitPic, yFrog, Mobypicture and other photo services. But I’m also hoping that the product Twitter launched yesterday is a shell of what it’ll […]

• A Guide To Inclusive Link Building For The Visually Impaired

  I’ve been interested in assistive technology for years, dating back to when I was (briefly) a social worker and I saw how differently abled users navigated the Internet. As an SEO and a link builder, I’m tasked with making sure that search engines and users can find and interpret content, but as you can imagine, […]

• All Phone Numbers In Mobile AdWords To Become Clickable

  Google has long supported phone extensions, which allow advertisers to include clickable phone numbers in AdWords when they appear on mobile devices. Now, phone numbers in other parts of the ad creative will be clickable, as well, essentially creating phone extensions from ads that don’t necessarily have them activated. The company announced the change in […]

• Twitter User Galleries Start Rolling Out Today

  Twitter has begun rolling out User Galleries, a new feature that should make the process of searching (and finding) images shared on Twitter a lot easier. The galleries will show images — but not videos — that are shared on Twitter via many of the major photo upload/sharing tools, such as TwitPic, yFrog, Instagram and […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• 7 Years Later – Top Internet Properties 2004 – 2011, SMS

Business Issues

• Miami, You are America’s Most Valuable City for Online Search, Chitika Insights
• Google closes Android developer complaint forums, The Register

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Foursquare takes a huge stab at fixing the duplicate venue problem, aboutfoursquare.com
• Just a Short URL away, Google LatLong

Link Building

• What role does being in DMOZ play in rankings?, YouTube

Searching

• Google Fixes Major Product Search Bugs, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Testing New Top Results Bar, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• 10 Things Google Wished You Knew, Search Engine People
• Balancing Your Paid & Organic Keywords, Search Engine Watch
• Bidding Into A Positive Spiral That Builds Long Time Savings, Certified Knowledge
• Early Google Panda Patents, SEO By The Sea
• It’s 2011. Do You Know Who Your Competitors Are?, Outspoken Media
• Toss Out the Essay: The 7 Alternate Styles for SEO Copywriting, Search Engine People
• What’s the Toughest SEO Gig You’ve Ever Had? I’ll Start., SEOmoz

Social Media

• Here’s Why You Should Be Careful About Twitter User Photo Galleries, Small Business SEM
• Twitter, Facebook light up after East Coast quake, Computerworld
• What Fuels Social Marketers? | Actionable Insights, A Covario Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• Preview of Google TV add-on for the Android SDK, The Official Google TV Blog
• YouTube To Shut Down Reinstate Account Feature In Two Weeks, Search Engine Roundtable

Web Analytics

• Why You Should Use Google Analytics, distilled

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

• 5 Reasons Why Your Website Doesn't Show Up in Google – A good, 101-level look at reasons why your website may not be getting the visibility you want.
• 5 Mobile Marketing Tips From Cindy Krum – "This year, mobile web access has risen to nearly 15 percent of all UK web traffic, which means the number of websites missing out on this prime traffic is also increasing," Heart Internet director Jonathan Brealey said.
• AdWords Filters To Help With PPC Management – Filters can help you easily evaluate the performance of keywords, ads, or campaigns. Here are 5 AdWords keyword filters to evaluate and improve PPC performance.
• Step By Step Plan To Measure ROI For SEO Campaigns – Kenny Hyder gives us some of his favored methods for measuring the return on investment for SEO campaigns.
• Google Expanded Sitelinks: Optimize Opening Text in META Description Tag – Adam Sherk shares some quick tips on making the most out of the new expanded 12-pack of sitelinks.