SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 3, 2009

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Suspends Local Listing Ads — For Now Today Google announced that the company was suspending Local Listing Ads, for the time being: “Starting today, we will no longer accept new […]

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

From Search Engine Land:

  • Google Suspends Local Listing Ads — For Now

    Today Google announced that the company was suspending Local Listing Ads, for the time being:
    “Starting today, we will no longer accept new sign-ups for Local Listing Ads in the Local Business Center, and in mid-December, existing Local Listing Ads will stop running. This limited free trial was one of many beta tests that we develop […]

  • “See No Evil” Is No Way For Big Companies To Deal With Search Spam

    It started innocently enough. A client, whom I’ll refer to as BigCo, asked a question about the success that one of their divisions was having with a different search consulting company. I wasn’t familiar with the company, so I asked a few questions and then started to investigate them. What I found disturbed me.
    It was […]

  • Google’s Eric Schmidt Chronicles Newspapers’ Decline As He Offers To Help

    Newspaper reader Eric Schmidt, who happens to be Google’s CEO, has spoken frequently about his reverence for news journalism and the important role it plays in society. He and his organization have worked with and reached out to publishers to find ways to promote and expose their content online. Yet despite these overtures many newspaper […]

  • A Roundup Of 2009’s Best Search Advertising Books

    The world of paid search has evolved from “all you need is five minutes and a credit card” to a complex ecosystem with lots of moving parts that and obstacles that can cause serious damage for the unwary. In this second in a series of search marketing book reviews, I look at some of the […]

  • The “Other 20%” Of Local SEO: Advanced Ranking Factors

    Last month, I highlighted 10 fundamentals of Local SEO, most of them involving techniques to ensure consistent, accurate business data at the major search engines, and some simple on-site recommendations. I compared those strategies with the football analogy of “blocking and tackling” — basic no-brainers that will lay the foundation for success in local search.
    In fact, […]

  • Google Starts Public DNS Project

    Google is introducing their own public DNS (domain name system) today named Google Public DNS. DNS is basically the Internet service that converts a web address (i.e. searchengineland.com) to an IP address of a server.
    Google says in many cases, DNS can be slow and we all know how much Google is obsessed […]

  • Get Google’s Matt Cutts To Answer Your Questions

    Matt Cutts of Google has been doing these daily videos, answering questions from the industry and it has been a huge success. You can see many of the videos on the Google Webmaster Help Channel on YouTube. But now, it is your turn to ask Matt questions for him to answer in his […]

  • Get “Inside The Mind Of Google” On CNBC Tonight At 9PM ET/PT

    Tonight at 9pm ET/PT on CNBC there will be a special premier of “Inside the Mind of Google.” The show will go over how Google got started, how they grew over the years and what challenges they have had recently. Our very own Danny Sullivan is interviewed in this documentary, so you […]

  • My Video Search Holiday Wish List

    The holiday season is well on its way in the U.S. with our biggest feast, Thanksgiving, and largest shopping day of the year, Black Friday, behind us. Now, it’s more crucial than ever for advertisers to work like Santa’s elves to ensure their products and/or services land on everyone’s list. As both an online consumer […]

  • Diller Backs Off Ask.com Sale, Talks Consolidation Instead

    In what might just be a bit of posturing, Barry Diller told the Reuters Global Media Summit in New York that he’s turned away companies interested in buying Ask.com and thinks consolidation with another search company is the way to go.
    Diller, the CEO of IAC — Ask.com’s parent company — was clarifying comments made in […]

  • Official: Google Switches To Fading Home Page

    After a couple months of testing, Google has confirmed that it’s switching to a home page that fades in as it loads. The rest of the text and links on the home page will only appear when a user moves his/her mouse.

    During a recent interview with Danny Sullivan, Google’s Marissa Mayer suggested that Google wasn’t […]

  • Google Releases Page Speed Report In Webmaster Tools

    In the wake of page speed becoming a ranking factor in 2010, Google has announced a new labs feature in Google Webmaster Tools.
    The new feature is the “Site performance” report under the “Labs” section of the tool. The site performance basically shows you how fast your site loads compared to other sites. It […]

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About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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