SearchCap: The Day In Search, Dec. 18, 2006

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

From Search Engine Land:

• WSJ Bearish On Google? If Only 60% Growth Is Bearish…
  I’m seeing tons of references to a Wall Street Journal article saying Google’s earnings might slow, which seems related to Google’s stock also having dropped by nearly $8 so far today. If so, that’s a lot of tumble for ONE analyst firm stating the obvious. I’m pretty sure that Google itself has said that you can’t expect it to keep skyrocketing in growth as it has been going forward. That’s sort of a natural progression for any new business, so you’d think stating the obvious would be clear to potential investors and shareholders. However, the WSJ article doesn’t really focus…
• Google & NASA Partner To Make NASA’s Data More Accessible
  NASA has posted a press release that covers new details about the Google / NASA partnership announced earlier this year. In short, Google is going to bring in real-time weather information for Earth into Google Earth, plus make Google Moon and Google Mars more detailed with high-resolution 3-D imagery. In addition, they will explore more ways make NASA’s data more accessible in the future. Finally, the release also discusses sharing knowledge on "large-scale data management and massively distributed computing, to human-computer interfaces" between the two organizations….
• Top Google Search Terms Of 2006
  I went looking for Google’s top terms of 2006 today after seeing that some of them had been leaked to the UK press. Nothing public was up on either the Google press releases page (no surprise, typically hours behind when Google actually releases news) or the main Google Zeitgeist page or the 2006 page. I should have remembered to do what Garett Rogers thought of — follow the regular URL patterns from past years to see if they’d been posted but not publicized. Nice job, Garett. Google Zeitgeist 2006 is live. Top terms for 2006 were:…
• Google Explains AdWords Trademark Policies
  In a two part post at the AdWords blog, Google has added more detail to their trademark policies. In part one, Google explains how trademark owners can prevent use of their trademarks in AdWords and how they can exclude some advertisers from the trademark policy. In part two, Google explains how advertisers can request to use certain restricted trademarks in AdWords….
• UTube Monetizes Mistaken YouTube Traffic
  Philipp Lenssen takes a look at how UTube changed their approach on their suit against YouTube. Philipp notes that when you arrive at UTube.com you now see a search box with suggested search terms below the box. When you search or click on the suggested search terms you are taken to ads by SearchFeed. In addition, if you click on the UTube logo you are taken to a whats hot page with more of these searches. I wonder how well UTube is doing on this recent influx of 70,000+ unique people per day….
• Trademark Infringement Case Against Yahoo In Google AdWords Dismissed
  Steve Bryant reports that the case against Yahoo, brought by JP Enterprises for trademark infringement on the terms lovecity and lovecity.com have been dismissed with prejudice. Back in mid-June, the case was first filed against Yahoo and other companies for bidding on the brand name. Yahoo’s nor JP Enterprises’ attorneys responded to any comments about the case and why it was dismissed. It appears that there was some type of settlement, since the case can later be filed again….
• New York Times On Buzz Search
  Brands for the Chattering Masses from the New York Times covers a search engine most people can’t afford, the "buzz" search that Nielsen BuzzMetrics operates, along with those from others. The idea is that these services can scan what’s being posted on the web, in blogs and elsewhere, and generate buzz reports for companies. Personally, I’ve been pretty dubious of the attention that goes into buzz reporting tools like these, wondering if they aren’t going to be too heavily skewed by what "influencers" are writing about rather than actual opinion. It’s useful to know what the influences are saying….
• Google Acquired Endoxon: Geo Mapping Software
  Google Operating Systems reports that Google has acquired Endoxon, a company that specializes in internet mapping solutions. Google actually did not acquire the whole company, but rather just half of the business units, including internet, mapping and data processing business units. They were acquired because "Endoxon’s assets and its European network bolster engineering and technical resources for Google. This acquisition of Endoxon will enable us to leverage their analysis capabilities and will help us build out and improve the functionality of Google Earth and Google Maps across Europe." Postscript: The Google blog posted an entry on this acquisition, adding; The…
• Yahoo Names Nash New Chief Communications Officer
  Valleywag noted earlier this month that Yahoo chief communication officer Chris Castro had been quietly dropped from Yahoo’s management page. Her replacement has now been named, Jill Nash, who starts on January 16 of next year. Nash previously was vice president of global communications for Gap. Her predecessor Castro had held the position for nearly five years, since March 2002….
• Google In Russia & Europe: The International Challenge
  Two articles out today highlight Google’s not all powerful in every market. In Russia and some other countries, Google is fighting to gain share. New to Russia, Google Struggles to Find Its Footing from the New York Times shows that Google is number eight in Russia, where Yandex leads the pack, followed by Rambler. The rest of the engines all share only 9% of the search ad revenue in the Russian market. Why is Google lagging behind there? Most cite language and cultural issues, despite Sergey Brin being born in Russia. European search engines take on Google from the International…
• Yahoo Says No Directory Tag Coming January 2007
  I reported this morning at Search Engine Roundtable that Tim Mayer from Yahoo posted in a WebmasterWorld thread saying support for a "No Yahoo Directory" tag will be coming this January. A No Yahoo Directory tag will enable webmasters to tell Yahoo not to use their Yahoo Directory title in the search results. Yahoo began supporting the No Open Directory (noodp) tag on October 25 and promised us that they would support the no Yahoo directory tag equivalent sometime in the near future….
• Decipho Personalized Search Engine
  Decipho officially launched on December 14th after having been available since October. It’s an interesting search engine because it takes the concept of social search another stage further, while at the same time offering very useful personalisation. There are lots of things that you can do with it, but I would recommend registering and then uploading a list of your bookmarks to start you off. Unfortunately these have to be from your browser, rather than any other bookmarking services at the moment. Once you’ve done that, take a look at the search interface itself. Very straightforward, following the Google model…
• Yoople For Collaborative Searching
  Yoople is a collaborative search engine that I discovered over the weekend. Very simple idea – run your search and Yoople grabs results from Yahoo and displays the first 10 for you on the screen. You can then click and drag a result and place it in a different position in the top 10 if you think the result should be higher or lower than Yahoo has placed it. It’s a nice idea in theory, but when it comes down to the practicalities I’m less convinced. It would be lovely if we all lived in a world where everyone does…
• ‘Reverse Engineering’ Google Local Results
  Search engine marketer Mike Blumenthal on his blog, "Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local," has been doing an interesting investigation to try and understand the Google Maps and local search algorithm and what factors influence those rankings. As a basic matter, Google uses different algorithms for general and local search results. I spoke with Mike on Friday, and he said that one of the surprising takeaways from his ongoing research is that Google also appeared to be using different factors to determine results in the top three local results that appear on Google.com ("OneBox") and the rankings of results that…
• Google & Orange Talking Google Mobile Phone?
  The future for Orange could soon be Google in your pocket from The Observer talks about Google and mobile phone operator Orange apparently discussing the creation of a Google branded phone. I can’t feel there might be a bit of hype here leaking from the Orange side. Google has a very tight partnership with Orange competitor T-Mobile in the UK. Google’s preloaded on all those phones as a search default, plastered in T-Mobile brochures and so on. One quote especially makes me dubious: A source close to the talks told The Observer: ‘Google are software experts and are doing some…
• You (& Sort Of YouTube) Named Time Magazine Person Of The Year
  Time Magazine has declared You — that’s you, me, everyone — to be this year’s Person Of The Year. And You in a big way means YouTube, the video sharing site getting a long profile about how it has grown, with some interesting bits on how it now seeks to maintain its "underground image" as part of the "Google empire." So many ironies — Google as all grown up; YouTube, a place with much of its popularity due to commerical rather than user generated content being shared, as underground. I joked in my SES Chicago 2006 keynote last week…
• ODP Founder Skrenta On Dying Open Directory
  DMOZ had 9 lives. Used up yet? from one of the Open Directory’s founders Rich Skrenta covers how some of the ODP’s data has apparently been lost due to a main server crash, with backups not having been done. There’s apparently some attempt at recovery, but as Rich points out, does anyone at AOL really care? Sadly, it’s felt like not for many years. As with Rich, perhaps the best way forward is to just close the project. If not, c’mon Google, acquire it and reshape it somehow….

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere:

• German economics ministers reveals move away from ‘Quaero’, Multilingual Search Blog
• New Digg Features O’ Plenty, Digg Blog
• The Last 3 Years of the Digg Homepage Interface, The Mu Life
• Podcast: You(Tube) Named Time’s Person Of The Year; Buzz Search; Google Goes To Russia; Google Mobile Phone Coming? And More, Daily SearchCast
• Survivor Winner Yul Worked with Google, Search Engine Journal
• Google Discontinues The Free Google Search API Key – Is It Gone Forever?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Interview with Andy Beal of Marketing Pilgrim, Online Marketing Blog
• Creating Ad Copy that Clicks, Official Yahoo Search Marketing Blog
• Google Base Upload Errors, ComparionsEngines.com
• 2006 Top Searches Analyzed, Search Engine Watch Blog
• New Tool Looks for Copyright Violations on the Web, ResourceShelf
• Facebook, Courted By Yahoo, Won’t Sell, Director Says, Bloomberg.com
• Gather ’round the Google to hear radio ads, StarNewsOnline.com
• Building link-based popularity, Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Flash, AJAX, Usability, and SEO, ClickZ
• Think Organic, Act Paid, ClickZ
• How Do People Find Video?, iMedia Connection
• Skype team turns its attention to television, Financial Times
• Yahoo COO didn’t get `pink slip’, San Jose Mercury News
• Real Time Weather Information on a Google Map, Google Operating System
• Google In Negotiations With CBS On Selling Radio/TV Inventory, PaidContent.org
• SEObook’s Glossary – a valuable SEO resource, David Naylor
• Yahoo’s IM update bugs users, News.com
• Google, Baidu eye online video business, China Daily
• A New Review of Scirus from Peter Jacso, ResourceShelf
• Google Adds More Services to the Homepage, Google Operating System
• Yahoo Panama – Interview with John Slade of Yahoo!, Online Marketing Blog
• Smaller Screens Make Smarter Search Engines, SEO By The Sea
• Gmail Wants More Cowbell, InsideGoogle
• TrailFire’s Annotations Anywhere + Distribution Through Organic SERPs, Marketing Shift
• PayPerPost Does Something Right, TechCrunch
• The Trouble with Google Toolbar for Firefox, Google Operating System