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

From Search Engine Land:

• A/B Testing From Search To Conversion
  

  As I mentioned in a previous post, search marketers should work on finding the middle ground between a high CTR (appealing ads) and a high conversion rate (qualified traffic). This process is trickier than it seems because of the inverse relationship between those two metrics. In this article, I’ll share a couple of thoughts which [...]

• Want To Speak @ SMX West? Here’s How
  

  The agenda is live, and we’re now accepting submissions to speak at Search Marketing Expo – SMX West, March 11-13, 2013, at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center.. To increase the odds of being selected, be sure to read the agenda. Understand what the sessions are about. Ensure that your pitch is on target to [...]

• Only 5% Of News Publishers Use The Google News Keywords Meta Tag
  

  Just over three months ago, Google launched the news keyword meta tag designed to let news publishers have a better chance of ranking for words they might not have included in their headlines. Adoption rate so far? Only about 5% of the sources within Google News use the tag, according to new data provided by [...]

• Would You Pass The End Of Year Digital Marketing Quiz?
  

  2012 has been another big year for digital. And in such a fast changing industry, how do we really expect everyone to keep up? Being ahead of the game on the topics that matter will put you head and shoulders above the competition, so take the quiz below and see how you would fare. Then [...]

• Five Linking Myths That Need To Go Away In 2013
  

  Goodbye 2012, hello 2013. For my last column of the year, I’m selecting five link building myths that I hope go away completely in 2013, and giving my rationale as to why they should be gone. The only reason I’m picking five is because it’s the day after Christmas, and if I had written about [...]

• SEOMoz + GetListed: Let The SMB Toolset Death March Begin
  

  SEOMoz’s recent acquisition of GetListed has got me thinking — there’s a dangerous trend going on in the SEO Tools market. I call it the SMB Death March. SEO Tool Market The SEO Tool market has exploded over the past couple of years, and with good reason. These days, it seems like most businesses understand that showing [...]

• International Search Predictions For 2013 – Perhaps More Accurate Than The Mayans?
  

  As I write this piece, the Mayan calendar is about to end bringing about the demise of everything. So, if you’re reading this, we survived and the predictions were wrong. Predicting the future is always tricky, but I’m going to have a go at predicting 2013 in the confidence that more of what I say [...]

• Google Tests “Quick View” Button In Mobile Search Results
  

  Google seems to be testing a new feature named “Quick View” in their smart phone enabled search results. The feature lets you load a page from the source web site in a quicker method, instead of loading the full page, which might require longer download time. Here is a picture of searching for [seo] on [...]

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

• Facebook To “Vigorously” Defend Instagram Against Suit Over Terms Of Service
• Forget The Kiss – Facebook Now Lets Users Seal New Years Eve With A Private Message
• How Facebook Tagging Helped Make Randi Zuckerberg’s “Private” Photo Go Public
• Choose The Best Responsive Email Layout For Your Message
• Content Marketing In The Organization

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Apple Wins Strategically Important Micro SIM Patent, Patently Apple
• Google Apps Moving Onto Microsoft’s Business Turf, New York Times
• Seven Questions for Google Enterprise Chief Amit Singh, AllThingsD
• Apple vs. Google vs. Facebook vs. Amazon, Wall Street Journal
• Google’s Search Box Defamed Him, Doc Says, Courthouse News Service
• Mark Zuckerberg’s Sister Complains Of Facebook Privacy Breach, BuzzFeed Mobile

Link Building

• Link Diversity Revisited for 2013, Search Commander Blog
• Google Explains Why Links & Server Responsiveness Is Important, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Says Press Release Links Won’t Help Your Search Rankings, Search Engine Roundtable
• What Are 5 Different Link Building Techniques? [VIDEO], Vertical Measures

SEM Industry

• Google Offers Webmaster Support On Christmas Day, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Naughty or nice? The need for an ethical search algorithm, ZDNet
• 6 Sites to Find Website Alternatives, internetmarketingninjas.com
• Google Not Fooled By Adult Looking Domain Names, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Cassandra Memorandum: Google in 2013, SEOmoz

Video, Music & Image Search

• Google’s music matching reportedly replacing explicit songs with clean versions, The Verge

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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