SearchCap: The Day In Search, Dec. 21, 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:

• Wish List: Interactive Help From Google’s Matt Cutts & MattPasses
  I’ve been making up a Google wish list to update from my earlier one this year. Pandia just came out their own wish list, as did David Wallace more generally. And for whatever reason, it came to me. I want an interactive Matt Cutts to provide Google webmaster assistance. Think Ms Dewey meets Matt Cutts. Plus, I also want MattPasses to be issued for fast support….
• Why Did Google Stop Supporting The SOAP API?
  Earlier this week, Google dropped some support for the SOAP API, finally making a formal announcement about it here. New sign-ups aren’t allowed, but the API calls will continue to be served. Why did they drop sign-ups? Google doesn’t explain, and so others are speculating. Techdirt feels they did this for business reasons over technical reasons. John Battelle quotes Tim Bray’s thoughts, where Bray explains that without the SOAP API, Google is forcing: you to hand over part of your web page to Google so that Google can display the search box and show the results the way they want…
• Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom Signs Mobile Deal With Google
  Chunghwa Telecom, Google Sign Agreement from the Associated Press reports Taiwan’s Chunghwa Telecom has signed a mobile deal with Google. Google will provide mobile web search services to Chunghwa’s user base starting this January. According to the story, Chunghwa Telecom is the largest phone company by revenue in Taiwan, with 840,000 3G users and is aiming for 1.5 million in 2007. They have 8 million mobile phone subscribers to-date….

• Yahoo China Wins Suit Against Hongyi’s Qihoo For Unfair Competition
  Reuters reports Yahoo China has won a lawsuit brought against Qihoo search engine for unfair competition. The lawsuit first came to light back in September. The court found that “Qihoo’s 360safe software prompted users to de-install the Yahoo Toolbar by making users believe the toolbar was malware – software that users download unknowingly and is difficult to remove.”…

• Screaming About The Search Tail
  Over the years, I’ve done many introduction to search marketing sessions where I talk about the value of having good, descriptive pages. Those let you tap into the search tail, the “onesies and twosies” terms, as I’ve called them, that might come up only once in a month. Add all those up, and they can outweigh or be as important as the top terms you deliberately target. Today, I had to chuckle at one particular query that brought us a visitor that illustrates the search tail concept:…
• Germany Leaves Quaero To France, To Start Theseus Search Project
  

  Threadwatch points to a PC Advisor report that the euro search engine project Quaero between France and Germany is now being split up. France will continue developing Quaero to help counter American-based search giants like Google and Yahoo. Germany is to start their own search technology project called Theseus. The German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology spokesperson said, “We will still see cooperation but in another form, such as workgroups. But the consortium between the German and French governments is over.”…

• New Delicious Tagometer Badge
  Yahoo’s Delicious has rolled out a new Tagometer allowing people to better bookmark your pages plus see how they have been tagged. In addition, it shows the number of others who have save a page — reminiscent of Digg’s Digg Count button….
• Yes Virginia, SEO Is Rocket Science – Defending Search Engine Optimization Once Again
  Like Greg Boser, I saw the articles and counter-articles emerge from Did-It’s swing at search engine optimization back in October, rolled my eyes and moved on. The argument’s been done before, done to death. But Greg’s got his back up now, and he provides an excellent read in The Half-Truths of Talking Frogs. I’ll highlight part of his post defending SEO plus jump in along with him….
• Search Patents Filings from 12-20-06 – Reranking on Information Redundancy and on Searcher Affinities
  Some processes covered in patents granted last week by the US Patent and Trademark Office: Microsoft reranking results based upon redundancy of information, Ask reranking pages based upon affinities between searchers, Hewlett-Packard creating queries for searchers to investigate from scanned documents, and; Exalead forming dynamic query refinements from words found in documents located within search results. A number of new patent applications were published also, which involve search in some manner. Microsoft describes targeted contextual advertising in alerts, and debuts two versions of a way to transform large screen web pages to smaller sizes for handheld devices. Nokia echoes Microsoft…
• Search Blog Awards By Search Engine Journal
  Loren Barker’s Search Engine Journal is running his annual Search Blog Awards contest. You can vote for your favorite blog over here. The categories available for you to vote for include:…

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere:

• Google Claims to Return Result in 0.00 Seconds, Google Blogoscoped

• The Worst Stock for 2007: Google, Fool.com
  

• Breaking Out of Google’s Supplemental Index, Search Engine Guide

• Google Decorates Its Ads For The Holidays, Again, InsideGoogle

• What does a link campaign look like for Local?, Understanding Google Maps & Yahoo Local
• Google Advertising On Billboards, Kiosks, TV, and Other Displays, SEO By The Sea
• Less Cutting and Pasting – More Maps and Local in Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo Local Blog
• New multimedia guide about the Google content network, Google AdWords Blog

• Snap Releases Image Search Tool; Video Search Review, ResourceShelf

• A force for change at Yahoo [Susan Decker], News.com
• Delhi SEO Meet II — March 31, Delhi, India, Link Building Blog
• Microsoft adCenter Buy Causes Reports To Be Delayed “A Day Or So”, Search Engine Roundtable
• If You Don’t Have a Duplicate Content Problem; Don’t Fix It, Search Engine Roundtable

• Google Books Generates Results in No Time, Google Blogoscoped

• The Year in Search: A 2006 Review, ClickZ
• Local Search Optimization, ClickZ
• Search Engine Optimization for . . . Jesus!!!, SEO BlackHat
• 2006 Predictions: How Did I Do?, John Battelle

• The SBS Interview: Lee Odden, Small Business SEM

• Happy Holidays with Google Desktop 4.5, Official Google Desktop Blog

• Holiday Gadgets, Official Google Gadgets Blog

• Year Later, Google Talk and AIM Still Don’t Interoperate, Micro Persuasion
• The hypocrisy of digg and spam, Online Marketing Blog
• Google – Update on Executed Searches (U.S.), Hitwise
• Privacy Breached by Phone Book, Wall Street Journal

• Google and the Entertainment Industry – a Snapshot, John Battelle

• Five Things Folks Don’t Know About Me, Tara Calishain

• Apparently Daypop is Back?, ResearchBuzz

• Google Zeitgeist last updated Jan 2006?, Phil Bradley
• NYT hires Yahoo! executive for digital growth, Crain’s New York Business
• SEO 2.0 And The Pageless Web: The RIA Search Conundrum, Search Insider
• 2002 Stanford Videos with Larry Page and Eric Schmidt, SEO By The Sea
• Regifting SEO tools, calculators and images for the holidays, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Google Holiday Gift – iPod Shuffle, Shimon Sandler
• Unleashing the Fury on Keyword Research Tools, SEOmoz

• Pligg: a CMS framework to build digg-like sites, SEOmoz

• News can be Great content, SEOmoz

• The Link Building Conundrum – Eric Ward’s View, Search Engine Watch Blog

• YPN SNOW Chistmas Card, SEO News Blog
• What Google Can’t Do, Red Herring