SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 17, 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:

• Best of B2B Search Marketing 2009
  Articles and blog postings on B2B search marketing are often hard to find. At Search Engine Land, we’re fortunate to have a stable of experts who regularly contribute great content and make the Strictly Business column a success. But during the year, I’ve found a lot of other great content, too. I chose 30 of my favorite B2B search and internet marketing posts from 2009. To that I added three of my own articles that were especially popular or helpful to people. I know I’ve missed some great content. If you know of others, please add them via comments. Just as the search landscape has changed greatly in 2009, so has the economic landscape. There are a lot of people hurting out there, many who never dreamed they would be in situation they are now. If you’ve been blessed this year, be thankful. And if you sense somebody in need, pay it forward. Happy Holidays.
• Yahoo One-Ups Google With 90 Day Data Retention Policy
  Yahoo has announced they will be anonymizing their user log data to 90 days, compared to Google’s policy of 9 months. The data policy is not just inclusive of their search data but also their page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks. Yahoo does reserve the right to retain data longer than 90 days based on the exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations. Those exceptions will typically be held for 6-months, but possibly longer based on legal requirements.
• SearchBiz: Microsoft Search General Manager Brad Goldberg Leaving, Twitter Gets Serious About Revenue & Google Gives Good License
  Microsoft’s GM of search product management (on the marketing side), Brad Goldberg, is leaving the company to become CEO of online business at investment firm Peak6. This doesn’t impact the technical side of search at Microsoft, which just hired former Yahoo search exec Qi Lu to head up its overall online business unit. There’s also much speculation today about what Microsoft may do with its “Kumo” domain/brand. When the name initially surfaced last week the conjecture was that this would become the brand for search at Microsoft, replacing Live.
• Building Your Brand With Search: A Three Part Strategy
  If you’re like most marketers, you spend a lot of time and resources creating and promoting your brand through offline channels such as television, radio, and newspapers. Clearly, it’s something worth protecting. But what if you could improve your branding investment and make it even more worthwhile, reinforcing your offline branding efforts through search? Many search marketers doubt whether search can play a role in reinforcing brand perceptions. But evidence increasingly shows that the doubters are wrong: search can in fact play a powerful role in your overall branding efforts.
• Google Releases AdWords Editor 7.0
  It was just about two months ago when Google released AdWords Editor 6.5 and now 7.0 is live. You can download the new AdWords Editor at google.com/adwordseditor/. The new features include:
• Google AdWords Isn’t Perfect! Serves Up Phishing Sites & Malware
  News flash folks, Google AdWords is not perfect and can be exploited. There are times when people can go into the AdWords system and trick Google into serving up ads for phishing sites and malware downloads. Yes, this happens and happens often enough. I am not trying to depend Google but they probably automatically approve tens of thousands of ads daily. There is always a possibility of someone getting through the system. Let me share two examples.
• Google Maps Integrates YouTube Videos
  No surprise here: Google Blogoscoped has spotted YouTube videos showing up on Google Maps when you click the “more” button (upper right) and select video.
• Link Smart Or Die In 2009
  The recession is more than just news fodder these days, it’s a reality many of us as service providers are feeling. At Alliance-Link we’re watching our clients cut back their on and offline advertising expenditures which makes it difficult for us to build custom linking programs. All of our programs use offline elements to drive links and without the advertising budgets, we’ve had to regroup and seriously rethink our strategies. I’ve never been one to shrink from a challenge but even this has given me cause to pause. Our situation made me think about a quote I read a short while ago which said: “Perception is strong and sight weak. In strategy it is important to see distant things as if they were close and to take a distanced view of close things.” How true and smart! So smart we’ve taken the quote to heart and decided the key to our linking success in 2009 depends on our ability to look at long-term search trends and incorporate them into our linking mix as a key element now rather than an add-on or after thought later.

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Code 5, CogDogBlog
• Ten things I don’t like about Google Chrome, Matt Cutts

Business Issues

• Yahoo’s Santa Monica office ditches Hollywood perks in bow to frugality, Los Angeles Times
• A one-two-three on licensing your content to Google, Content Central Blog
• Another One Bites The Dust: Yahoo Shutters Kickstart, TechCrunch
• Ex-AOL CEO Miller Not Candidate to Buy or Run Yahoo, People Say, Bloomberg
• Google moon prize draws rocket car entry, cell phone on wheels, Mercury News
• Live Search GM leaving Microsoft, TechFlash
• Twitter Hiring Product Manager To Bring In The Revenue, TechCrunch
• Using Misleading Keyword Advertising to Draw Consumers Away from Actual Complaint Web Sites, Public Citizen
• Yahoo Putting Jumpcut In The Deadpool?, TechCrunch
• Your Privacy Is Protected Only if You Are Really Sick, New York Times

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Even more GPS trails in Google Earth, Google LatLong
• GeoData Explorations: Google’s Ever-Expanding Geo Investment, O’Reilly Radar
• The North Pole – A Virtual Earth Christmas Experience, Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog
• Verizon Relents! GPS to Open Up Next Year!, WMExperts

Link Building

• 10 SEO Bookmarklets to Analyze Page Links and Images, Search Engine Journal
• Headsmacking Tip #10 – Incentivize Links, SEOmoz
• Starting Up a Link Marketing Campaign, Wiep.net
• What the Economic Times Mean for Link Building, SEO Speedwagon

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google AdWords API To Refresh Sandbox & Fix Bugs, Search Engine Roundtable
• Interview with Tim Ash – Author of Landing Page Optimization, PPC Hero
• Offensive Google AdSense Ads Showing Up On Publisher Sites, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Burger King’s Whopper of a Virginal Search Slip-up, Ad Age
• Cemetery Search? Yep, Cemetery Search., AltSearchEngines
• Google’s Post Count: Not Too Accurate, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM Industry

• Elmer Cagape: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop
• Google Groups Levels: What Purpose Do They Serve?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Seattle Holiday Party 2008, juberjabber

SEO & SEM

• Small Businesses Likely To Stick With What They Know, Ad Age
• Webmaster Tools in 40 languages!, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Search Trails: Destinations, Interactive Hubs, and Way Stations, SEO By The Sea
• Top 500 Search Engine Keywords Of The Week – December 17, 2008, Search Engine Guide
• XML Sitemaps Are Not All That, Search Engine Guide

Social Media

• 7 Traits of a Social Media-Friendly Web Site, Small Business SEM
• Applications Menu Updates, Facebook Developers News
• MySpace Quietly Begins Encouraging Users To Use Their Real Names, TechCrunch
• Six Keys to a Viral Message that Sticks – Part Six: Tell a Story, Search Engine Guide

Video, Music & Image Search

• Picasa 3 (and name tags) go global, Official Google Blog
• New, Wider Layout For Your Channel, YouTube Blog

Other Items

• Google Czech Republic Xmas Special, Google Blogoscoped

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

• Marketers hone the focus of online search ads
• 5 Steps to Improve Traffic with Social Marketing
• Social Media Presence of the Top US Newspapers
• 6 SEO Experts Reveal How to Build the Best Natural Links
• 4 Step PPC Ad Optimization Process
• Are SEO Blackhats Turning White or Is The Industry Melting?