SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 30, 2007

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Nielsen Finds High Audience Retention And Overlap For Search Engines
  Nielsen//NetRatings found that in June and July of this year the major search engines enjoyed high user retention but also high audience overlap, suggesting that audiences are actively using two and three engines. Search engines saw the highest user retention of the three categories that Nielsen compared and examined (search,…
• Virtual Earth Adds More ‘Bird’s Eye,’ Satellite And 3-D Imagery
  Gary Price points to a Microsoft Virtual Earth blog posting that reflects enhancements of low level orthogonal “Bird’s Eye” photography within the U.S., as well as satellite mapping for a range of countries and locations outside the U.S. In addition there’s also now more 3-D imagery and more 3-D cities…
• Google To Resume Webmaster Penalty Email Notifications
  The Google Webmaster Central Blog announced they will be resuming the emailing of penalty notifications to webmasters. Google stopped sending these notifications when they learned that some people were using these notifications as a way to scare, spam and send viruses to webmasters. Soon after, Google launched a message center…
• Yahoo Reorganizes, Schneider Now Sits Atop Sales & Marketing
  The New York Times and PaidContent report on a new reorganization at Yahoo. Among the changes, Executive Vice President of Sales Greg Coleman will be leaving Yahoo early next year and Hilary Schneider has been promoted to EVP to lead a new group called “Global Partner Solutions,” which is now…
• Top Ten Organic SEO Myths
  SEO myths get crazier every year. Some are based partially in reality, and others have spread because it’s often difficult to prove what particular SEO action caused a resulting search engine reaction. For example, you might make a change to something on a page of your site, and a…
• Got The Current Time? Your Search Engine Does!
  Next month, AT&T is killing its call for current time feature. One reason? There are too many other ways to get the correct time — and search engines are among those resources. Below, a look at how easy search engines make it to get the current time for anywhere in…
• Send To (German) Car: The New Local Search Front
  Google CEO Eric Schmidt said at one point that one of the reasons Google wanted to get into radio advertising was that the company couldn’t reach users during the morning or afternoon commutes. That’s all changing very quickly. Both Google and Yahoo have almost simultaneously announced in-car mapping and local…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Redesign Preview: New Friends, Orkut Blog
• Earthlink bows out of San Francisco Wi-Fi deal, San Francisco Chronicle
• Google Gears 0.2 developer release ready for download, Google Gears API Blog
• New Context Menus in Google Docs, Google Operating System

Business Issues

• Microsoft to buy chinwag platform Parlano, The Register
• Ask.com commercials – still moving in the wrong direction, Web Analytics World
• China.com, Google Expand Partnership, Forbes
• Microsoft Showdown With Google Gets Runway as Court Rule Ends, Bloomberg
• Scorecard: Who’s Suing Google, Wired

Conferences

• Do you know the way to San Jose?, 10e20
• News Search Analysis: SES San Jose, Search Engine Watch
• SES San Jose 2007 Recap, Techipedia
• A Look at Search Engine Strategies Speakers and How Well They Brand Themselves, Part I, Search Engine Guide
• The SES Schwag Bag, Search Engine Guide

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Earth Spots"Bush Be Gone" Mowed In Field, InsideGoogle
• Google Earth Blog: Sky Goodies: Hubble Tracker, Sky KML Guide, Horizon Add-on, Google Earth Blog
• The Empire Strikes Back – New Concept Of Multiple Source Vertical Search by Yahoo!, Locally Type

Link Building

• 9 Linkbuilding Tips for Ecommerce Websites, BlogStorm
• Paid Links – Do Webmasters Need To Worry?, LinkJuicy
• The Perfect Link Request, Reviewlicious
• Some Clarity on Paid Links, Stone Temple
• The Great Link Buying Debate, Search Engine Watch

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google to Double TV Ad Inventory, ClickZ
• Sandbox Maintenance, August 31, AdWords API Blog
• Increase Google Adsense Income with Simple but Effective Tweaks, Digital Inspiration
• It’s official – Microsoft Content Ads Beta has shipped!, adCenter Blog
• Use the "Ads by Google" Link to Report AdSense Spam, Search Engine Roundtable
• Inside AdSense: The AdSense API on an e-commerce platform, Inside AdSense

Searching

• Google’s Custom Books Onebox, Google Blogoscoped
• Quickly Finding New Online Books (aka The Free Stuff), ResourceShelf
• SideKiq : Search Engine for the Power Searcher, Search Engine Journal
• tyBit Redefines Internet Search, tyBit Press Release
• You’ve Heard of 2nd Life? Now Here’s Something to Avoid: 2nd Search,, Hakia Blog
• Google Base Now Asking Questions to Improve Product Searches, Marketing Pilgrim
• Would You Share Your Search History?, Read/Write Web

SEM Industry

• Search Engine Optimisation Google Spelling Correction Returns | SEOptimise, SEOptimise
• Why You Don’t NEED to Listen to People Like Dan Theis, John Andrews or Ed Purkiss, Bob Massa
• One Year Since GoogleGuy Has Posted in WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Roundtable
• Does Google Hate Search Engine Optimization?, BruceClay.com

SEO & SEM

• How to Bounce Back From a PR Blunder, BruceClay.com
• Revisited: The Art of SEO, HighRankings
• Managing the Robots.txt File for Sites Sharing Same Local Files, Search Engine Roundtable
• Matt Cutts on Nofollow, Links-Per-Page and the Value of Directories, SEOmoz
• When Is A Directory So Much More Than A Directory?, The SEO Scoop

Social Media

• A Shift to Engagement, Facebook Developers News
• A Successful Viral Campaign Relies on Knowing Your Audience, Search Engine Guide
• Speculation: Facebook adding Friend Lists; implications for Top Friends, LinkedIn?, Inside Facebook
• Sphinn Facebook Gadget, SEOish
• Technorati: Can The Good Guys Still Finish First?, Read/Write Web
• Images: Social-networking sites for collegians, News.com
• Social Media Success Beyond Digg, Pronet Advertising
• Sphinn is great stuff, Ego Food
• The Official Sphinn License Plate, Im Not A Doctor

Video, Music & Image Search

• YouTube seals UK music royalty deal, Financial Times
• YouTube: Now with GData Goodness, Google Code – Updates
• YouTube sets royalty deal with UK songwriter group, Reuters
• Podlinez Adds More Numbers; Dial and Listen to a Podcast, ResourceShelf
• Hulu Translates To Cease & Desist in Swahili. Oops., TechCrunch
• Two Ways to Watch the Same YouTube Video, Google Operating System
• Viacom Kills Clip For Copyright Infringement (Though They Were the Infringing Ones), Google Blogoscoped

Other Items

• Google job interview brainteasers, CNN Money
• Daily SearchCast, August 29, 2007: The Gphone Is Coming (?); Social Network Search To Wipe Out Google (!); Look Up At The Google Sky, Daily SearchCast
• Daily SearchCast, August 30, 2007: The Big Catch Up Episode, Daily SearchCast
• Sullivan’s Daily Searchcast Now Available on Your Phone, Simply Dial ( 1 (512) 696-0729) and Listen, ResourceShelf

Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Sphinn Facebook Gadget
• A Look Back at SES (Through a Conference Newcomer’s Eyes)
• 23 Great Ideas For Blog Posts
• Five Tips for Finding Writing Time – Top tips to tackling time
• Tamar Weinberg’s SES San Jose 2007 Recap
• Case Study of a Teenage Millionaire: Ashley Qualls and WhateverLife.com
• Do You Have a Seasonal Search Engine Optimization Strategy?
• Facebook SEO Groups Are Everywhere!
• Don’t Worry It’s Not A Spoof Or Spam Email, It’s Google Again
• The Day I Unsubscribed from Robert Scoble’s Feeds
• Matt Cutts on Nofollow, Links-Per-Page and the Value of Directories
• Google Owns My Identity: 16 Things They Know About Me
• The Best Website Taglines Around the Internet
• Google Releases Adsense Feature and Then Pulls It
• Google Forces Searchers to Buy a Watch
• If you free-host your blog flee now!
• Will The Housing Crash Hurt Search Engine Revenues?
• Login LockDown – A New WordPress Security Plugin