SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 29, 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:

• 5 (More) Search Tools You May Not Know … But Should
  How would you like to track hot news geographically? Or see where social conversations are happening on a map? Maybe you’d like to find businesses that are open 24 hours a day, or research keywords on a state-by-state basis. If so, read on for a look at five search tools you may not know about, but should. About two months ago, we published 7 Search Tools You May Not Know … But Should. That became a popular article and let us know that we should continue uncovering largely unknown search tools in future articles. So, here’s the second in an …
• Blogger Image Thumbnails In Google A Bug?
  Steve Rubel reported seeing an excess of what he calls “Blog Thumbnails” in the Google search results. In short, when you do certain searches, Google may show little thumbnail alongside the first set of results. For Steve, this has been happening for “blogger’s name and some other related keywords.” Personally, I have been seeing these types of thumbnails for a while, but they only have come up for me for very specific searches, so I assumed it was a smaller bug then it really was. Google’s Matt Cutts has commented claiming this is some sort of bug and he has reported it to the right people. Matt said he hopes to “get it straightened out in short order.”
• Local Searches Set to Flip to Mobile Phone
  Given the continuing growth in the smartphone market, mobile phones are poised to become the first source people turn to when searching for local business information. Until widespread adoption of smartphones occurs, though, there will be a gap that smart businesses will seek to fill. There were some especially telling findings in comScore’s presentation, “New Takes on Local Audience Targeting,” at the Interactive Local Media 2008 conference hosted last month by the Kelsey Group.

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google: Firefox and Chrome Run Gmail Twice as Fast as IE, Says Google, lifehacker.com
• How to Promote Google Gadgets, SEOish
• What Was The Best Of The Web in 2008? A Voter’s Guide For The Crunchies., TechCrunch

Business Issues

• Cuil Fail: Traffic Nearly Hits Rock Bottom, TechCrunch
• Google, WalMart, and MyBarackObama.com: The Power of the Real Time Enterprise, O’Reilly Radar
• Paid Click Growth Will Benefit Google, Seeking Alpha

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google ’set to launch Street View service in the UK in spring’, Mail Online

Paid Search & Contextual

• Maximize Your International PPC Exposure in Microsoft adCenter, PPC Hero
• Why Online Ads Are Weathering the Recession, BusinessWeek

Searching

• Would you rather Google than think?, Newsday.com
• Google Alerts Sending Out False Alerts?, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Top 10 Health Search Engines of 2008, AltSearchEngines

SEM Industry

• Best of Search Conferences 2008: The Agenda, BruceClay.com
• Happy Birthday TopRankBlog & SEO Blogs Class of 2003, Online Marketing Blog
• Eric Enge interviews Alex Chudnovsky, Stone Temple
• Why We Are Lucky to be SEOs, SEO Book
• Dennis Edell: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop

SEO & SEM

• Re Inclusion Requests Only For Verified Sites, Wolf Howl
• Download Alexa Top 1,000,000 Websites for Free, SEO Book
• Google International Results Excessively ‘Yo-Yoing’?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Sitemaps Reporting Bug May Deceive You, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Webmaster Tools Not Allowing Setting Preferred Domain?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google, Microsoft, Yahoo Rattle SEO In 2009, MediaPost
• How a Search Engine Might Find Synonyms to Use to Expand Search Queries, SEO By The Sea
• SEO Site Structure 101, Part 2, Search Engine Watch
• Six Lessons from a Wooden Boy: Part One: Search Engines Want to be Real Boys, Search Engine Guide

Social Media

• Twitter We Need Search By Authority, Loic Le Meur Blog
• Ask And Ye Shall Receive: Twitority Launches Authority-Based Twitter Search, TechCrunch
• Social Media Search Engine: Social Mention, ResourceShelf
• Thanks Mike Arrington for taking us off the rails into Twitter idiot land, Scobleizer
• The Future Of Social Search (Or Why Google Should Buy Facebook), TechCrunch
• Tweetree: Twitter.com on Steroids, Twitterrati
• On Twitter, Followers Aren’t Really Friends, gigaom.com
• The Facebook Inbox Has Reliability Issues, allfacebook.com
• What Are the Important Social Marketing Values?, AIM Clear Blog
• Will Social Networks Become the New Inbox? Part 2, Search Engine Watch

Video, Music & Image Search

• High hopes at Yahoo, Intel for Internet-enabled TV | CES 2009, News.com
• Hulu CEO: More Global Moves Planned For ‘09, MediaPost

Other Items

• How .Edu Domain Names Work, Domain Name Wire
• How .Gov Domain Names Work, Domain Name Wire

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

• 6 Ways Being Snarky Will Come Back to Bite You
• 50 Resources for Getting the Most Out of Google Analytics