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

From Search Engine Land:

• Blekko Expands: Bigger Index, More Slashtags & New Design
  

  Blekko is closing out 2011 with a round of updates that affect the search engine’s front- and back-end — both how it looks and how it works. The upstart search engine has announced three changes as part of a “major upgrade” to end the year: 1.) “Significant improvements to index quality and relevance” Blekko has [...]

• The Most Popular SEO Posts Of 2011
  

  If there’s one thing anyone can say about the state of search engine optimization (SEO) in 2011, it’s that this year certainly wasn’t boring. Barely two months in, on February 24, 2011 – we were first introduced to the now infamous Panda Update at Google. That story alone gave our expert SEO columnists and staff [...]

• Hitwise: “Facebook” Was 4 Of Top 10 Search Queries In 2011
  

  Following the major engines themselves, Experian Hitwise announced the top search terms of 2011. The company looked at the top 1,000 search queries of 2011 and found that Facebook topped the list for the third year in a row. Overall Facebook had four of the top 10 search terms for 2011, the same as in [...]

• Google News Brings Back Search The Web Option
  

  In June, Google dropped the option to search the general web index from the Google News search box. Google redesigned the Google News search box to add the ability to search the general web index. Here is a screen shot: As you can see, you can click on the last result in the suggestions, you [...]

• Yahoo’s Bay Bridge Billboard Removed After 12-Year Legacy
  

  Iconic Yahoo billboard taken down via the Associated Press reports that Yahoo’s “iconic” billboard has been taken down after 12 years of standing tall and proud on the highway as you approached the Bay Bridge. The billboard space is managed by Clear Channel and currently is being offered at an extremely low rate of $65,000 [...]

• Yelping In The Beemer: Review Site Inks Deal With BMW
  

  Yelp is now established and mainstream enough to be included in BMW’s Online/in-car content. Yelp reviews and related content will shortly be available to BMW owners “who subscribe to the optional BMW Assist Convenience Plan and have a navigation-equipped vehicle capable of receiving the BMW Online service.” This means select BMW vehicles (see below for [...]

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

• Google Triples Its Spending To Keep Default Search Spot In Firefox
• Here Are The Top Mobile Call Spammers Of 2011
• Pinterest, The Most Improved Social Site Of 2011?
• Report: Social Networking Accounts for 19% Of Time Spent Online & Social Ads The U.S. Leader In Display
• Marketers Reveal Their Favorite Mobile Apps To Inspire Your Strategy In 2012
• 77 Of Top 100 Brands Now Have Google+ Pages
• Typosquatters Target Apple, Google & Facebook More Than Twitter, Microsoft

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Offline Google eBooks, Google Operating System

Business Issues

• Employees From Yahoo, Google, And Facebook Are Flocking To These Start-Ups, businessinsider.com
• Oracle-Google Patent Trial Is at Least 4 Months Away, Judge Says, Bloomberg
• Aol Shareholders Freak Out Over Exec Departures — As They Should, TechCrunch
• Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal, AllThingsD

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Incorporating Google AdMob ads into a Table View in iOS, Google Ads Developer Blog

Link Building

• SEO Spyglass Review: A Brand New Link Source, SEO Book
• To blog comment or not to blog comment? 65% say YES to blog commenting!, www.seoptimise.com

Searching

• 3 Reasons We Hope Google Books Gets Better, Read/Write Web

SEM Industry

• The Best of 2011 – Posts & People Who Rocked Our World, SEOmoz

SEO & SEM

• 2011: Year Of The (Google) Panda, WebProNews
• 5 Steps to a Better SEO Strategy, quicksprout.com
• ABC’s of SEO: N is for No-Follow, Site Visibility
• Bing Sitelinks: Now Up To 8, Search Engine Roundtable
• Domination Of Local Search, Search Engine People
• Download search queries data using Python, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Google Panda Update: 3.2 – Minor Holiday Update?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Recipe Rich Snippets: A Guide for Santa Cookies, Search Marketing Sage
• Webmasters Faking Rich Snippet Data For Boost In CTR, Search Engine Roundtable

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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