SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 4, 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:

• Yahoo Enhances Flickr Search
  

  Just when you think Yahoo is out of the search game, they strut their stuff with an improved Flickr search. Flickr, the popular image service, has revamped the Flickr search page. The changes include:

  “View” controls to see the image results in small, medium or detailed view or even to see them as a [...]

• Google: Come See The Softer Side Of Street View
  

  Perhaps tired of all the legal wrangling and even physical altercations over its Street View program, Google has launched a new Street View web site. The new site offers some useful information about Street View, like a map showing where it’s available and a list of some cities/towns that are being photographed now. (Google admits the [...]

• Google Launches Content Powered YouTube Promoted Video Ads
  

  Google has expanded the YouTube Promoted Video ads product to enable advertisers to place their videos in the “related videos” section of other videos. Prior, Promoted Videos only displayed on the YouTube search results page. Now, advertisers can opt their promoted videos into the ‘content network’ and have them displayed in the related [...]

• ShoeMoney Vs. Google Employee Case Settled
  

  Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker has confirmed that the case between his company and Google AdWords employee, Keyen Farrell, has been settled. Jeremy said, “I can say that my lawsuit against the Farrells was settled,” in his blog. For more history on this case, see the following stories:

  Keyen Farrell Countersues Jeremy Schoemaker, Claiming Defamation Why Hasn’t Google Cleared, Fired [...]

• Tell Me Why I Should Click & Link
  

  I’ve noticed something interesting on Twitter: the #followfriday craze has spawned loads of users saying “that’s great, but tell me WHY I should follow this person.” In the interest of cramming in those precious 140 characters, many people choose to just fill the space with people to follow, rather than explaining the reasoning behind saying [...]

• Ads Don’t Always Sell What They Are Created To Sell
  

  Your ads are often not selling the products that you designed them to sell. We have found that upwards of 48.38% percent of the time people end up buying a product different than the the one featured on ad they clicked on, and upwards of 11.28% of the time they bought a similar product, but [...]

• Yahoo Makes Delicious.com Cool Again
  

  Think you can’t teach an old dog new tricks? Take a look at the new features at Delicious.com and you’ll think otherwise. Yahoo has announced a series of upgrades that makes Delicious — the granddaddy of social bookmarking — more relevant and useful than it’s been in years. Sure, SEOs and online marketers have continued [...]

• Google News Archive Now Four Times As Large
  

  Less than a year ago, Google launched a digitization project to archive as old newspapers. Google has announced they have quadrupled the amount of articles in the Google News Archive. Google has added Halifax Gazette, Sydney Morning Herald, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Village Voice. Plus Google added international sources, such as the [...]

• Stop Saying Sorry, Start Getting Really Social
  

  With the recent spate of companies such as United Airways, Domino’s Pizza and Habitat UK, being hit by negative publicity online, one could be forgiven for thinking that social media can be used as a cure-all for such issues. But in fact, social media will only ever be a band-aid for such problems, unless it’s [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Audio care packages for service members with Google Voice, Official Google Blog
• EFF Defends Wikipedian’s Right to the Public Domain, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Business Issues

• T-Mobile Sends Google’s Bill To Regular Customer, $15,939.83, Android Phone Fans
• Google Continues Losing Long-Time Employees To VMware, TechCrunch
• How Marissa Mayer’s Stud Pumps Her Up, Valleywag
• Microsoft’s Point Man on Search–Satya Nadella–Speaks: “It’s a Game of Scale”, AllThingsD
• The AP Wants $17.50 For Me To Quote Myself, daggle.com
• Yahoo Shuts Bix Down. Did Anyone Notice?, TechCrunch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Communicator Mobile Just Got Better, Office Communicator Team Blog
• bing maps imagery & map data release, july 2009, Bing Community
• Google Earth Surpasses 500 Million – Auto-Geotagging Coming, Google Earth Blog
• Has Google Found a Stairway to Heaven in Brooklyn?, New York Times
• Opinion Summaries in Google Maps Reviews, SEO By The Sea
• The GigaOM Interview: FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski on Mobile, Broadband, iPhone & Innovation, gigaom.com

Paid Search & Contextual

• Driven to Distraction, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
• Google Goes on Offensive in AdWords Trademark Lawsuit–Google v. John Beck Amazing Profits, Eric Goldman
• 5 PPC Tasks to Start Your Month off Right!, PPC Hero
• AdWords Downtime: August 8, 10am-2pm PDT, AdWords API Blog
• Extending the category filtering beta for English-language ads, Inside AdSense
• Indian Google Advertisers Require Special Form For Reserve Bank of India, Search Engine Roundtable
• Leave the math to us: Advertisers increase their profits using Conversion Optimizer, Official Google Blog
• Ready Or Not: Google Dropping Old AdWords Interface For New, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Exploring Our Solar System with Wolfram|Alpha, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• Google Germany gets Finance Onebox, Search Cowboys

SEO & SEM

• Everything I Need to Know About PageRank I Learned in Kindergarten, The Search Agents
• Matching user intent to the right organic landing pages – IBM Thinkpad, seogadget.co.uk
• Speaking at PageRank’s Funeral, SEO.com
• August 2009 Google Webmaster Report, Search Engine Roundtable
• Flat Rate SEO Service Pricing – Turnkey Tool to Rank #1 on Google for $49, SEO Book
• Is Bing Ignoring The NoArchive Tag?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Optimizing the Page Search Results Snippet: On-Page Tactics, Search Engine Journal
• Quick Tip: Simple Breadcrumb Usage, Search Engine Guide
• SEO Tips-4 SEO Quick wins, Bruceclay.com.au

Social Media

• The Pros and Cons of Social Networking for Movie Marketing, 10e20 Blog
• Twittergraphy, New York Times
• Facebook app lets Intel PCs donate processor power, News.com
• Ignoring Social Media Makes You Mute, Not Invisible, outspokenmedia.com
• Social Media Optimization: 16 Rules Revisited, Online Marketing Blog
• Twitter augmented reality search: Tweetmondo and Layar team up, VentureBeat

Video, Music & Image Search

• Make Videos Pay: YouTube Insight Analytics Fundamentals, AIM Clear Blog

Web Analytics

• The API: Sometimes You Just Gotta Explore, Google Analytics Blog
• WebTrends Releases Analytics 9 – Brand New UX, Web Analytics World Blog