SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 6, 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:

• Google StreetView Coverage Grows: Australia, Japan, More US Cities
  The Google LatLong Blog announced the expansion of imagery for Google StreetView to include Japan and Australia. The post also said that images have been released for 30 new US cities, including New Orleans. Europe is on the way but privacy hurdles need to be cleared first. Google recently introduced…
• Live Search Webmaster Center Gains Crawl Error and Backlinks Reports
  Today, the Microsoft Live Search Webmaster Center is launching its first major update since its initial debut last fall. The Live Search Webmaster Center is Microsoft’s hub for their communication with site owners and the tools portion of that center now has new crawl issues reports, backlinks data, and download…
• Looking For The Paris Hilton Campaign Video — How’d The Search Engines Do?
  As much as I’ve enjoyed comedians poking fun at John McCain’s ad that uses Paris Hilton to mock Barack Obama, even better is a new fake ad where Paris Hilton herself takes on McCain. People are clearly turning to the web to find it — Google Trends shows plenty…
• Google Sells Off Performics To Publicis Groupe
  SmartMoney reports that Google has sold off the search marketing division of DoubleClick, Performics, to a French company named Publicis Groupe. When Google purchased DoubleClick, they acquired Performics with it. Google promised to sell off the Performics division, due to the conflict of interest in owning such a company. Today,…
• Pew: Daily Search Usage Approaching Email Levels
  According to a new report from The Pew Internet & American Life Project, daily use of search engines is growing and starting to approach email usage levels. New research conducted by telephone among 2,251 US adults, age 18 and older, found that 49 percent of internet users use a search…
• Switching Gears With Paid Search: 6 Steps To Redefining Success For A Branding Campaign
  Sweat glistened down his chiseled, tan face. Clad in his trademark gold jersey and black sunglasses, the icon finally put the finish line where it belongs… behind him. Yet despite the obvious missing hardware—his bike—and his dismal 488th place finish, the seven-time winner of the Tour de France considered…
• After Re-Tally, “No” Votes Against Yahoo Board Higher Than First Reported
  I must have done something in a past life that now requires me, as punishment, to write about the obscure politics of Yahoo’s corporate governance on an almost daily basis. Accordingly, a recount of board votes from last Friday’s Yahoo annual shareholder meeting found that the “no” votes against most…
• Google China Launches Music Search
  Music 2.0 has shared detailed screen captures and commentary on the launch of Google China Music Search. I personally cannot get to this site (”Sorry, Google is not your region provide you with the services they need” message appears”), but Music 2.0 does have screen captures and calls this Google…
• Local Shopping Coming To A Mobile Phone Near You
  For some time I’ve tried to argue that product search is part of “local search,” because 90 percent or more of all products searched for online are purchased in physical stores. This is a neglected part of the local search story, which has heretofore largely been about “plumbers and pizza.”…
• Q&A With Rob Crigler, Director Of Interactive Marketing For Orkin
  Rob Crigler is the Director of Interactive Marketing for Orkin (NYSE: ROL), overseeing online media, DRTV, web dev, Internet yellow pages, SEO, and SEM. Rob has over 20 years of marketing experience, and he has been working in the interactive space for so long that he can actually remember…
• Using Search Engines To Reach Business Executives
  Many B2B marketers are frustrated by their inability to reach executive-level decision makers. Recent research indicates they needn’t look further than the internet. Let’s explore how marketers can utilize search engines to easily and cost-effectively reach executives online….
• Google Insights For Search Launches
  Google has launched Google Insights for Search, a tool that helps advertisers and marketers understand searcher behavior. The tool offers a comprehensive set of statistics based on search volume and patters. You can compare seasonal trends, geographic distributions, and category-specific searches, and you can group all these variables together to…
• Google Adds Olympics One Box Results
  I was chatting with Danny about the Yahoo Olympics Shortcut on the Daily SearchCast and Danny noticed that a search for beach volleyball olympics on Google returns a Google OneBox result….

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Anonymous referrers for private sites, Google Sites Blog
• Google Gadgets Under Attack at Black Hat, InternetNews
• Picasa Web Albums prints now available at Walgreens, Google Photos Blog
• When Google Owns You, chrisbrogan.com

Business Issues

• Russian Online Advertising Spending Up 73% in 1H 2008, Quintura blog
• Facebook Stock for Sale, BusinessWeek
• UBS says Microsoft aims for $20 billion buyback: report, Yahoo! News

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Says Android’s Fine, No Need To Join LiMo, InformationWeek
• Leverage Local Listings in Live Search, WebProNews

Link Building

• Risk Management: Transitioning Away From Paid Links, Stone Temple
• Your Link Here – Link Buying Goes Too Far | Ranked Hard – SEO Comic, www.bigoakinc.com
• SEOs Split On Buying Links Have The NoFollow Attribute, Search Engine Roundtable
• Tools to Explore and Validate Page Outbound Links, Search Engine Journal
• Internal Link Building Update, seoroi.com
• Link Building vs Content Promotion for Links, Online Marketing Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• Deadline is approaching for adCenter API version 5.1 update, version 4 sunset – adCenter API Blog for Developers, adcentercommunity.com
• Google AdWords Keyword Tool Suffers Temporary Outage, Search Engine Roundtable
• How to Determine if Your Landing Page is Hurting Your AdWords Qualty Score , PPC Hero

Searching

• Diagnosing Search Issues from the Query Box, Part 2, ClickZ
• Google Search Appliance gets bigger, better, stores 10M docs in a box, VentureBeat
• Is ChaCha "Imploding" or Growing?, Screenwerk
• TicketStumbler Aggregates Secondary Ticket Search, TechCrunch
• New News Search Engine: Newsflashr, Search Engine Watch Blog
• AJAX Libraries API Update, Google AJAX Search API Blog

SEM Industry

• Dear SEO Community, It’s Not Me, It’s You, Sugarrae
• How Many of You Meet with SEO Clients?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Roderick Ioerger: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop

SEO & SEM

• Surprising Branding Benefits of Search, Search Engine Guide
• To infinity and beyond? No!, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Google Stopwords Patent, SEO By The Sea
• Is Yahoo Search More Relevant Now? SEOs Claim "More Like Google", Search Engine Roundtable
• Robots.txt vs Rel=Nofollow vs Meta Robots Nofollow, SEO Book
• The Most Valuable Lesson I Learned When Pursuing a Finance Major, SEOmoz
• Thinking Outside The SEO Box, Search This
• WebPosition Ranking Software Being Blocked by Google?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Advanced Tips for Optimizing Your Blog, WebOptimist.com
• Flash and SEO: Like Oil and Water, Search Engine Guide
• The Ultimate Guide To: SERP Click Through Rates, Searchlight Digital

Social Media

• 3 ways to search Twitter, Pandia
• ToAnswer: Twitter Meets Yahoo Answers, TechCrunch
• An Actual "Non Big Brand" Twitter Case Study, Sugarrae
• Twitter Marketing Tools: How to Use Twitter as a Marketing Tool with Tweet Pro, Gray Wolf

Web Analytics

• Google Analytics Auto-Tagging, Shimon Sandler

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

• Nailing the Coffin Shut on the "Don't Link to External Sites" Philosophy
• An Actual “Non Big Brand” Twitter Case Study
• Are people really this clueless? Woman on the Street Interview!
• Google Insights for Search – New Killer Keyword Research Tool
• Questions to Ask a Candidate During A SEM Job Interview
• Google Insights for Search Launches
• 10 Reasons Why Sphinn Makes Me Hate SEO (This headline is one of them)
• SEO Wars – Empire Googletron
• Top SEO Firms Paid for by the Following…
• Find Customers and Backlinks by Adding Your Site to Coupon Directories
• Are The Best SEOs Not Taking on Client Work?
• Dear SEO Community, It’s Not Me, It’s You
• Examining a Search Ranking Fluctuation