SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 25, 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:

• Think Global — But Make Your Ads Local

  Find out how to maximize your performance in international PPC campaigns – watch this webcast: “Global Domination through PPC: What you MUST know to succeed internationally.“ Watch this webcast now!
• Google Adds 100+ Domains, Signals Plans For National Small Biz Push

  Google appears to be readying plans to roll out its “Get Your Business Online” program across the U.S. That’s based on Mike Blumenthal’s discovery that Google has recently added more than 100 domains to its portfolio, with URLs such as coloradogetonline.com, dakotagetonline.com, getoregononline.com, getpennsylvaniaonline.com, newyorkgetonline.com, northcarolinagetonline.com, ohiogetonline.com, etc. Get Your Business Online is Google’s outreach […]

• Video: How Google Improves Their Search Algorithms

  Google published a nice 4 minute video on how they go about improving their web search algorithms, the quality of results and the user interfaces. They talk about finding problems, coming up with new ideas, testing those ideas, approving or rejecting those ideas and implementing the ideas. Overall, much of this is not new to […]

• China Appears To Admit Cyberattacks On US

  Circumstantial and indirect evidence has long implicated the Chinese government and its surrogates in numerous incidents of digital espionage and other hacking into US corporations’ and government-owned websites and databases. The infamous Gmail hacking episode that triggered Google’s censorship protest and “withdrawal” from the Chinese search market is only one example. The Chinese themselves have […]

• Bing Webmaster Tools Integrates Yahoo Traffic Data

  Bing Webmaster Tools now has fully integrated in Yahoo’s traffic numbers as well. So if you have seen a spike in your Bing Webmaster Tools traffic charts, this is the reason why. You should see your impressions and clicks data spike up, while the click through rate numbers may fluctuate from the norm as well. […]

• Google Tests Smooth Animated Instant Previews Effect

  Mark Reynolds documented new instant previews functionality implemented, as a test, by Google. Google Instant Previews launched in November 2009 and since then has undergone many updates and changes. This new change seems to give a more animated, transition feel to when you activate the instant preview. It is a smooth and slower pop out […]

• Facebook Takes Aim At Instagram With Photo Filters Feature

  New Facebook features have been released rampantly as of late, the newest taking aim at Instagram. The New York Times reported that Facebook will be introducing a dozen photo filters, similar to Instagram’s vintage & washed out effects: Instagram is a free app for the iPhone allows users to modify and enhance photos by applying […]

• Back-to-College Is Where It’s At For Online Retailers

  “Back to school! Back to school, to prove to Dad that I’m not a fool! I got my lunch packed up, my boots tied tight, I hope I don’t get in a fight!…” If you love the movie Billy Madison as much as me, then you’re singing the rest of the song in your head […]

• Link Laundering: The Growing Threat That Tarnishes White Hat Sites

  Let’s say your site’s security is bulletproof. Your password is memorable to you, but uncrackable. Moreover, your forum’s moderators are sleepless and relentless: nobody gets away with spamming you, and the only followed links you allow forum posters to contribute is a single followed link on their profile page. Plus, you don’t let people mass-create accounts. […]

• 8 Tips For Getting Dashboards Right With Cross-Channel Metrics

  Measurement and attribution go hand in hand, and one of the most basic elements of a good attribution model is a solid dashboard with tangible metrics that are clear and easy to read. With the evolution and rise of digital advertising, dashboards have become increasingly popular and complex. While dashboards originated largely with clicks (and […]

• Identifying Images That Don’t Convert: The Caption Test

  In my column on the Landing Page Battles of the Flat Fore Headed, I deride stock photography as the result of lazy designers. I was asked on LinkedIn by a reader if all stock photography was bad. Obviously, the answer is “No.” So how do you determine what images are going to be effective and […]

• Google Squared, News Timeline Get Added To Google’s Chopping Block

  The slow demise of Google Labs has put a few more Google tools/services on the chopping block, including Google Squared and Google News Timeline. Those are two of the most recent experiments that Google has listed for shutdown on the Google Labs home page. Google Squared Google Squared launched in 2009 and offered search results […]

• Steve Jobs Hands Off To Tim Cook, Resigns As Apple CEO

  Hopefully Steve Jobs is not gravely ill. But his health must be the reason for today’s announcement that he’s resigning as CEO. He’s asked to remain as Chairman and that the board elect COO Tim Cook the new CEO. Effectively Cook has been running the company for some time, while Jobs has been out for […]

• China: Not So Fast “Googlerola”

  Major international mergers and acquisitions typically must be approved by regulators in multiple jurisdictions before they can be consummated. As a practical matter this has historically meant North America and Europe for most Western companies. But as more US-based and European companies expand into China the Chinese government is increasingly getting in on the action. […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Paid version of Google Translate API now open for business, The official Google Code blog

Business Issues

• Google Is Opening Thai Office, Wall Street Journal
• Bing Launches Twitter Contest For MTV VMAs, Chance To Win Gift Cards And Moon Man T-shirt, scribbal.com
• French publisher settles with Google, AFP
• Google Books: “Google Strikes Deal With French Publisher La Martiniere Groupe”, infodocket.com
• Hulu seen drawing bids from Yahoo, others: sources, Reuters
• Yahoo Japan Has Traffic But Google Has Mobile Technology, Forbes

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Going Forward, Gowalla
• Google Driving Directions Lead To Illegal Routes, Search Engine Roundtable
• Is Google’s Free “Get Your Business Online” Website Soon to Roll Out Nationwide?, Mike Blumenthal
• MapQuest Local Business Center: Map Marker Locater Tool, MapQuest Blog

Link Building

• 5 Common Link Building Mistakes and How to Overcome Them, KoMarketing Associates

Searching

• Google Randomizing The Number Of Search Results Per Page?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Quaternion Properties and Interactive Rotations with Wolfram|Alpha, Wolfram|Alpha Blog

SEO & SEM

• How Search Stacks up in a Post-Panda World, Mahalo.com Blog
• 6 Keyword Research Mistakes You Might be Making, SEOmoz
• An SEO Client’s Bill of Rights, Search Engine Guide
• How to Write for SEO in 2011, SEO Theory
• Is the Tail Killing Your Bing PPC Program?, Rimm Kaufman
• Replicate Google’s Panda Questionnaire: Processing, distilled
• The seven deadly sins of PPC, Econsultancy

Social Media

• Google Plus adds more women after mostly-male launch, VentureBeat
• How Google Plus Handles Two Title Tags, Search Engine Roundtable
• How Google+ will succeed and why you’ll use it whether you want to or not., TNW Google
• How Long Should Page Titles Be – The Social Media Factor, Michael Gray
• Seven Deadliest Twitter Mistakes, Search Engine People
• Social Media Budget Blunders (and How to Avoid Them), blueglass.com

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

• Google+ is failing! [DATA] – I have been monitoring Google+ traffic levels with Alexa from the beginning of August. It was doing OK in the first half of the month. This is why I didn’t pay much attention to it. But then the percentage of Google+ traffic from total of Google.com started to fall.
• Detecting “Undetectable” Link Networks – Interesting article that asks the question, Are there really such things as undetectable link networks? Good stuff in the comments there, too.
• Experiment: Do Google +1s Impact Your Rankings? – Interesting experiment to show the impact of rankings following Google +1 votes
• Short vs long form: hitting the target with landing page depth – Good post detailing the pros and cons of lead generation form length.