SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 8, 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:

• FAST Misses Q2 Revenues, Changes Accounting Practices
  FAST Search & Transfer said that Q2 earnings were off based largely on a change in accounting practices. The company had formerly booked MOUs (memoranda of understanding) as revenue and that practice has been eliminated. We were informed but have been unable to substantiate that the company’s accounting practices are…
• Google News To Newsmakers: Send Us Your Comments
  Weird. That’s the only way I can describe it. Google News is asking people who are in news stories to email them comments about the story, which will be associated with those articles. From the Google News Blog post:…
• People Search Engine Spock Goes Live
  In the increasingly popular category of “people search” much-anticipated new search engine Spock launched with a public beta today. It’s running very slowly this morning and so it has been challenging to use. However Spock joins a growing list of “vertical” engines focused on the segment such as Zoominfo, Wink,…
• Google’s Universal Search Spells Opportunity For B2B
  News flash! The rules of the game have changed. Again. Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock for the last couple of months, by now you’ve heard that Google recently rolled out a new interface called Universal Search. Not surprisingly, Google’s latest change has caused a lot of industry…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Is Google’s free ride as fast as Vista?, CNN Money
• Google’s purchase of Postini gets antitrust OK, Reuters

Business Issues

• Search Engines Top Best Online Brands Report, PC Magazine
• Eric Schmidt Defines Web 3.0, Read/Write Web
• Microsoft Registers Plenty of New Domains: From RSSNewsSkimmer.com to LocalSearchPuids.com, ResourceShelf
• Hearst Buys Kaboodle, ComparisonEngines.com

Conferences

• AMA Hot Topic Search Marketing: Back By Popular Demand, But Going Fast, Rimm Kaufman

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Request for L.A. and San Diego Street Sightings: Submit and Vote on the Best Urban Images Captured by Expanded Google Maps Tool, Wired Blogs
• Yellow Pages and Search, Search Engine Watch

Link Building

• Google Webmaster Link Tool August 2007 Update, Search Engine Roundtable

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdWords system maintenance on August 11, Inside AdWords
• V9 Sunset Extended to September 10, AdWords API Blog

Podcasts

• Podcast: SEO with Shoemoney part 2, SEO Beginning Podcast
• Podcast: Google News Gets Comments (If You’re A Newsmaker); Beam People Up, Spock!, Daily SearchCast

Searching

• How Effective is Google Personalized Search? 57% Say There’s No Difference, or it’s Worse!, Read/Write Web
• Should Google Hide the Toolbar PageRank Score?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Pasquale & Bracha on Regulating Search Engines, Eric Goldman
• Cornell University becomes newest partner in Library Project, Inside Google Book Search

SEM Industry

• Search Marketing in Brazil: Report from SES Latino, Search Engine Watch Blog

SEO & SEM

• Google Hack: Finding Supplemental Results, BruceClay.com
• When Does a Google AdWords Advertiser Become a Can’t Ban Whitelist Top Ranking Organic Search Result?, SEO Book
• Click-Through Rates in the SERPs – What Are the Real Numbers?, SEOmoz
• On Supplemental Results, Partitioned Indexing, and Extended Indexes, SEO By The Sea
• Why frames and search engine optimization don’t mix, Pandia
• Let SEMCheck Test Your Site for Search Friendliness, Marketing Pilgrim

Social Media

• Forbes buys social bookmarking site Clipmarks, VentureBeat
• Google Gadget Submit Guide, SEOish

Video, Music & Image Search

• Google Video with Multi-Lingual Closed Captions, Google Operating System
• Google Filters Torrents From Search Results, TorrentFreak

Other Items

• 2008 Summer Olympics Countdown, Googlified
• Ask.com, Dell Partner for a Better Planet, BusinessWire
• Google Aids Account Planning, AdWeek
• Society: Marissa Mayer pays $60K for Oscar de la Renta lunch, Valleywag

Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Write Mind-Grabbing Titles and Get Traffic and Links: The Ultimate Guide
• The SEO Invasion of Facebook
• Top 15 SEO Company Website Designs
• The Day Chuck Norris Sent his Lawyers on me!
• Sad: Microsoft Can’t Handle adCenter Volume
• Wanna be a Web 2.0 Mogul? What degree do you need?
• New York Times to End Paid Web Service
• Google’s motto should be ‘don’t be arrogant’
• Awkward: Google forgot an X-Robots-Tag
• Outting Unethical .gov Link Techniques
• Google Hack: Finding Supplemental Results