SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 4, 2008

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Live Search Promoting Again, This Time With “Cashback Back-to-School Deals”
  Microsoft has announced a “back-to-school” promotion for using Live Search through the Live Search cashback portal. The promotion adds up to “double the cashback rewards on millions of products from hundreds of participating retailers.” Example promotions include 36-percent off select shoes at Foot Locker, 18-percent off on Lenovo ThinkPad and…
• Is an Online vs. Offline Local Search All That Different? Yes and No
  Local search is a term that describes more than just Internet Yellow Pages (IYP) and local search engine searches. It also includes offline searches for local businesses. The type of local search consumers use depends on their degree of need. When comparing the top 10 IYP and print Yellow…
• Pay-Per-Click Averages Hide Incremental Realities
  You’re hitting your pay-per-click (PPC) efficiency targets and everyone is pleased with the results. Congratulations, but are you wasting money in your PPC program? Averages often hide waste, and in this economy it may be worth taking a look at how you’re getting to that average. Suppose you budget…
• Microsoft To Take Another Run At Yahoo In 2009?
  If absurdist playwright Samuel Beckett were still alive he might be tempted to write a drama about the Microsoft and Yahoo non-merger that seems to keep generating news and speculation. Better yet, maybe living playwright David Mamet will take a crack at some point. The latest justification for writing yet…
• Report: AOL Units Being Readied For Sale
  For months there’s been anticipation that some or all of AOL would be sold. Talks between AOL and Yahoo have been ongoing, as they have with Microsoft to a lesser degree. But months ago AOL decided to separate its ISP business (8.7 million subscribers) from its advertising and consumer portal…
• Yahoo Shortcuts Causes Associated Press Article To Show Inappropriate Content
  With automated tagging, Web links can surprise from the Associate Press reports that the Yahoo Shortcuts feature aided in placing inappropriate content on AP’s content. Yahoo Shortcuts is a feature that allows publishers enhance their content by adding Yahoo content around the words in the articles or blog posts. In…
• Yahoo Survives Annual Meeting, Re-Elects Board, Microsoft Cries Foul
  Perhaps we’re coming to the point where we’ll no longer be writing about Microsoft and Yahoo and their failed courtship. We’ll see. Today Yahoo survived its long-anticipated shareholder meeting. It’s detailed in this CNET blog post. At the conclusion of the meeting, Yahoo issued a statement that its slate of…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• One Year Later: FeedBurner Gains Google Server Power, TechCrunch
• Google Sites to Replace Google Page Creator, Digital Inspiration
• Google, Microsoft vie for Universities, Washington Post
• Google Translation Center, a New Human Translations Service in the Making, Google Blogoscoped

Business Issues

• Alibaba: ‘We Will Do Things Our Own Way’, PC World
• Privacy watchdog hoists Google by its own petard, The Register
• Yahoo Is Still Searching for, Well, Yahoo, New York Times
• Earnings: Lycos Europe Freefalling En Route To Sell-Off, paidContent.org
• Facebook to let employees sell some stock options – at internal $4 billion valuation, VentureBeat
• Yahoo looks at metro for site of new data center, SW Iowa News

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Maps missing reviews returned to rightful owners, Mike Blumenthal
• Google Street View Australia is Live, Google Blogoscoped

Paid Search & Contextual

• adCenter Labs Workshop on Data Mining and Audience Intelligence for Advertising – Events, adcentercommunity.com
• July 2008 Search Engine Share: Google, Yahoo, MSN, Rimm Kaufman
• AdSense Ad Review Center Goes Missing For Some Google Publishers, Search Engine Roundtable
• Awesome Ad Groups: Small is Good, Search Engine Watch
• Online Advertising – How Does It Actually Work? – adCenter Analytics Blog, adcentercommunity.com
• What Makes Google AdWords Tick? 2 Quality Score Formulas You Need to Know: Minimum Bids and Ad Position, PPC Hero

Searching

• The Top 100 Alternative Search Engines, August, altsearchengines.com
• Health Search Part IV – Healia, altsearchengines.com

SEM Industry

• Scott McAndrew: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop
• SEO Salaries, SEO Jobs & In-House Survey – More Data!, Reality SEO

SEO & SEM

• Tag Clouds & SEO – Tagging Engineers & Developers, Reality SEO
• An Insider’s Look at the REAL Search Engine Marketing Play Book, BruceClay.com
• Get feedback on your items’ performance, Google Base Blog
• Google Sitemaps "Too Many Redirects" Warning, Search Engine Roundtable
• Headsmacking Tip #4: Use Keyword Variations with Matching Intent Together, SEOmoz
• How I use URL Search to get thousands of visitors, BlogStorm
• Major Yahoo Search Ranking Changes in Early August, Search Engine Roundtable
• MSN on BrowseRank, WebProNews
• Seven Building Blocks of a Destination Website: , Search Engine Guide
• Site Clinic: No Good Web Design Idea is Original, So Use It!, Search Engine Guide
• The Entropy of Search Logs and Personalization with Backoff, SEO By The Sea
• Webmasters Report August 2008 Google SERP Changes, Search Engine Roundtable
• Yahoo Paid Search Submit Experiencing Problems After Update, Search Engine Journal

Social Media

• Categories, Bookmarks & Tags: Background & Basics, AIM Clear Blog
• Targeted-Ad Initiative Is Crucial for MySpace, Wall Street Journal

Video, Music & Image Search

• Youtube to Offer Some Content From China’s Olympic Games, Wall Street Journal

Web Analytics

• Feedburner hack: how to get 2500 subscribers overnight (video), thenextweb.org
• The Huge Collection of Google Analytics Tips, Search Engine Journal

Other Items

• End of the Blog, The Patry Copyright Blog
• Real Estate: Larry Page’s $7 million manse, Valleywag
• Did Google Kill Journalism?, Huffington Post
• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: August 3, 2008, Search Engine Roundtable
• And now we dance, Yodel Anecdotal
• Why is Sanjay Jha so popular on Google?, Los Angeles Times

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