SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 21, 2010

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Writing HTML Title Tags For Humans, Google & Bing

  I generally enjoy John Gruber’s writings, but today he’s dishing out SEO advice about HTML title tags. Some of it is bad advice. So with respect, here’s how I’d suggest you write page titles in a way that can please search engines and humans alike. What Is An HTML Title Tag? Let me go back […]
• Google TV: Snatching Failure From The Jaws Of Success?

  When I first saw Google TV at the Google developer conference in May I was impressed. Google appeared to have created a powerful new combination of TV and web — and a new market for itself — built on the Android OS. But since that time the company has very publicly stumbled, getting blocked by […]

• Video: Search Trends By Matt Cutts & Danny Sullivan

  In Matt’s second Google Webmaster Video for the new season, he picked the question, “what are some search trends on your radar?” In this video, our very own Danny Sullivan ‘stumbled’ on Matt during his video and joined him to discuss trends in search. So Matt and Danny both shared their thoughts on search trends. […]

• Global Search Marketing: The Year In Review

  It has been a busy year in global search, and interest in multinational marketing seems to be expanding more rapidly than most expected. Today, I’m going to look back of some of the changes this year, and in my next article will talk about some new trends for 2011 and how we might be able […]

• NY Times Argues Against Google-ITA Acquisition — Delicately

  In a curious editorial yesterday the NY Times makes a kind of luke-warm argument against Google’s acquisition of travel software company ITA. Here’s the operative paragraph: Regulators must consider that if Google extends its dominance to the business of steering online customers to airlines and travel agencies, it would be in a position to charge […]

• Taking A Closer Look At Link Changes

  When you’re trying to build as natural a backlink profile as possible, you need to carefully think about all the things that could make it look strange. If your typical link growth each month over the past 12 months has been 5 links, getting 100 will seem odd. Suddenly focusing on an incredibly bizarre long-tailed […]

• Google Drops Google Directory Search Option

  The Google Directory seems to have dropped the option to search within the directory. If you visit the Google Directory the only search box you will see is a “Google search” box. A week or two ago it was a “Search Directory” button, but that is now gone. Google is even missing the search within […]

• Google Testing “Top References” Refinements In Search Results

  Patrick Altoft spotted Google testing a new form of search refinements named “top references.” Patrick explains the refinement filters you to search through all the existing search results for a specific keyword that show any pages referencing or sourcing that image. Patrick added, “the interesting part of this feature is that unlike other filters the […]

• 5 Social Marketing Predictions For 2011

  Another year is almost over. The Christmas Number 1 song has been decided (in the UK at least); the web has proved that even after a brutal recession, people still need to shop; and, after a year in which Facebook & Twitter became (if they weren’t already) true phenomenons, we had the interesting experience of watching […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Announcing Google Shared Spaces, Google Wave Blog
• comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top 50 U.S. Web Properties for November 2010, comScore
• Latest from the Lab, Official Google Blog

Business Issues

• CHART OF THE DAY: Facebook Revenue Is Not Growing Like Google’s Did, Business Insider
• Fluther Flocks to Twitter, Twitter Blog
• Google shopping for Groupon wannabe, NYPOST.com
• Judge Sides With Google, Throws Out Android Trademark Suit, TechCrunch
• Real Estate Site Trulia Acquires Movity, AllThingsD

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Lunar Eclipse Live, Google LatLong
• Some cool Android tips and tricks, Official Google Blog
• Support for WAP mobile search ad formats extended to more countries, Google Mobile Ads Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• Account Level Quality Score, PPC Hero

Searching

• The Decade In Search, Search Engine People

SEM Industry

• Winter 2010 Logos From Yahoo, Bing, Dogpile But Not Google, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• 5 Tips for Dominating Page One Results With Social Sites, Distilled blog
• A 10 Day Plan to Overhaul Your PPC Campaigns, Part 3, Search Engine Watch
• Google Product Listing Ads (PLAs) Performance Data vs. Text Ads, Rimm Kaufman
• Holiday source code housekeeping: Website clinic for non-profits, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Local Rankings: Business Listings and Directories, BruceClay.com
• Microblogging & the Growth of Crowdsourced SEO, www.blueglass.com
• Multilingual and Multi-Regional Web Site URL and Link Structures, Search Engine Roundtable
• Ranking Signals Hiding Beneath the Surface, SEOmoz
• Small SEO Changes That Make A Difference, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Best Keyword Research Method Ever Invented For Blogs, SEO.com
• Tips for creating a free business listing in Google Places: business types, Google LatLong
• Why Google Added Hacked Site Label To Search Results, Search Engine Roundtable

Web Analytics

• Optimize And Analyze For Mobile, part 3, Google Analytics Blog

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

• Excel For SEOs: Manipulating URL Strings with Functions – After talking with some of my colleagues I found that I wasn't alone in my feelings of Excel inadequacy. So Excel for SEOs: Lessons for Aspiring Ninjas was born as a means to help others by documenting my quest for Excel Ninj-ocity.The full document will be released sometime in January, but here is a selection that I hope provides some value alone.
• Is Google Now a Phone Company by Grace of Verizon? – On November 8, 2010, Google acquired a bunch of phone related patents from Verizon. Bill Slawski asks if that was the payment for giving up on net neutrality on the mobile Internet as outlined in the "joint policy proposal for an open Internet" paper by Google and Verizon from August 9, 2010.
• Mechanical Turk: Now with 40.92% spam – On all social media outlets, you'll see bot spam, manual spam, and legit stuff. As for the spammy activities executed by humans, here is a hint where it comes from.
• Title Junk – John Gruber, a widely-read and -quoted technology and culture guy, is fed up with Title tags that make no sense and/or are filled with useless keywords. He also says that Title tags won't help you to be ranked in Google(!). What say you?
• How to Crack the New York Times Most-Emailed List – Just how many people does it take to propel a story onto the Times' influential most-emailed list? And can it be gamed? Write down your bet, then read the report.