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

From Search Engine Land:

• On Hanukkah Google Adds Festivus Decorations But No Dreidels
  

  This week is Hanukkah and typically Google adds holiday decorations in the form of Jewish Stars, Menorahs, Dreidels or other Hanukkah related decorations. This year, Hanukkah began on Saturday night, December 8th but Google has no such Hanukkah decorations this year. Instead, they have decorations for Festivus, just Google [festivus] and you will see the [...]

• A Search Marketer’s Guide To Google Display Advertising, Part 2
  

  Last month, in A Search Marketer’s Guide to Google Display Advertising, I discussed recent changes to the Google Display Network (GDN) that are important to search marketers who use both search and display advertising to reach customers. This month, we’ll dig in and try to make some sense of GDN targeting options. Targeting Options On [...]

• Bing Expands Its Snapshot To Include People & Landmarks
  

  There’s no escaping it: It looks and acts a lot like Google’s Knowledge Graph. But Bing calls it “Snapshot” — that middle column in between its main search results and the social sidebar on the far right. And today, Snapshot expands to begin showing facts and related information for both people and landmarks. So, on [...]

• Mobile SEO Is Not A Myth: 8 Popular Claims Refuted
  

  Last year at this time, I refuted 7 myths in mobile SEO, saying mobile SEO isn’t a myth, but there are myths in mobile SEO. As we near the end of 2012, there are still too many SEOs who put mobile SEO in the same category as Santa Claus and his elves: good story but [...]

• A Year-End Checklist For Evaluating Your Enterprise SEO Program
  

  As the year comes to a close it is a good time to evaluate your enterprise SEO program and ensure that needed adjustments are made. The best time to do this is actually during budget season so you are able to make a case for additional resources as necessary. But, since budget timing varies from [...]

• 7 Key Takeaways From BIA/Kelsey’s ILM Conference
  

  I just returned from the jam-packed annual BIA/Kelsey ILM West conference in Los Angeles, where there was a lot of excitement about what’s next in local SMB advertising. As we head into 2013, local businesses have some important trends to consider when developing their marketing plans. The ways in which consumers are both searching and [...]

• In-Depth Workshops at SMX West – Super Early Bird Rates Expire Next Week
  

  Attend a comprehensive workshop conducted by leading experts in internet and search marketing at Search Engine Land’s SMX West conference. Workshops will be held on March 14, immediately following SMX West on March 11-13 in San Jose, CA. Here’s the workshop lineup: Advanced AdWords Training: Boost your PPC campaigns with this full day of AdWords [...]

• Google Logo For First Computer Programmer, Ada Lovelace
  

  Today on Google is a special logo, aka Google Doodle, for Ada Lovelace. Ada Lovelace was born 197 years ago today and invented the first algorithm or computer program in 1842. That means she invented the first program 170 years ago! In her very short life of 36 years she was able to see the [...]

• Australian Police Tell iPhone Users Not To Rely On Apple Maps
  

  This is a bit of bad PR: Macrumors reports that Australian police have warned iPhone owners in that country not to rely upon Apple Maps due to “safety concerns.” According to a local police statement: Mildura Police are urging motorists to be careful when relying on the mapping system on the Apple i-phones operating on the iOS [...]

Recent Headlines From Marketing Land, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

• Twitter Switching Everyone To New Profiles In Two Days
• FTC: Privacy Disclosures For Kids’ Mobile Apps Incomplete, Deceptive
• 5 Things Likely To Shape Social In 2013
• Strange Bedfellows: Apple-Google Team Up In $500MM Bid For Kodak Patents
• Would Google Still Be Interested In Groupon?
• Pinterest Gets Presidential As The White House Joins & Throws A Social For Pinners
• Report: 23% Of Top Brands Have A Separate Twitter Account For Customer Service

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Reader, "Constantly on the Chopping Block", Google Operating System
• Google’s Lost Social Network, BuzzFeed
• Gmail Goes Down, thenextweb.com

Business Issues

• Apple, Samsung Back in Court, Wall Street Journal
• Exclusive: Google to replace M&A chief, launch late-stage investment fund, Reuters
• Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg sells 946K shares for $26.2M gain, VentureBeat
• Google Seeks Dismissal of Viacom’s YouTube Copyright Case, BusinessWeek
• Yelp review lawsuit: Jane Perez ordered to change negative comments about business, Mail Online
• Google Fiber nationwide build out estimate: $140 billion, BGR
• Google Revenues Sheltered in No-Tax Bermuda Soar to $10 Billion, Bloomberg
• Motorola to Exit South Korea, Cutting 500+ Jobs, thenextweb.com
• Supporting Israel’s “start-up nation”, Official Google Blog

Local Search & Maps

• Facebook Data Points to Massive Windows Phone Quarter, thenextweb.com

Link Building

• Look Outside Your Niche for Link Building Opportunities, Search Engine Guide
• SEO Audits – Large Scale Link Evaluation, Search Engine Journal
• The Broken Link Building Bible, SEOmoz
• The Importance of Trusted Data, Majestic SEO Blog

Searching

• Funny Google Flights Messages, Google Operating System
• Nobel Prizes with Wolfram|Alpha, Wolfram|Alpha Blog

SEM Industry

• 2012 in Review: Marketing’s 12 Biggest Search Stories, vocus.com
• Be a Real Person with a Real Expert when Building Guest Contribution Links, SEER Interactive
• How to Build Agency & Client Trust, outspokenmedia.com

SEO & SEM

• You Don’t Need to Hire an SEO, You Need to Hire a Journalist, Spread Effect
• Bing Bing Webmaster Tools SEO 101 Webinar Video and reminder, Bing Webmaster Center blog
• How Google May Identify Navigational Queries and Resources, SEO By The Sea
• 3 Ways to get "Back to the Basics" of SEO copywriting, SEO Copywriting
• Actionable SEO – Site Explorer Summary, Majestic SEO Blog
• Are You Really a Content Marketer or Just an SEO?, SEO 2.0
• Google Update On December 5, 2012?, Search Engine Roundtable
• How can I make the pages on my site unique?, YouTube
• How Load Time Affects Google Rankings, quicksprout.com
• It doesn’t click.You still don’t know who I am and what I want., tenscores.com
• Mobile Search in the Age of Holiday Shopping Insanity, Search Engine Watch
• Take Advantage of Google Analytics Data in AdWords, PPC Associates Blog
• The 10 Reports that Made Me Fall in Love with Pivot Tables, PPC Hero
• What Makes for a Good Author Photo in the Local Results? (Part 1), Mike Blumenthal

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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