SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 8, 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 Sues To Stop Online Scams Using Its Name

  Google is fighting back against the get-rich-quick and work-from-home scams that use its name. The company says it’s suing to stop what it calls “a widespread Internet advertising scam” that often goes under names like “Google Cash,” “Google Money Kit,” “Google Profits,” and more.
  Google has made available the text of its lawsuit (PDF) against a […]
• Google Launches Living Stories News Experiment With New York Times & Washington Post

  Google has unveiled a new Living Stories are, where the New York Times and the Washington Post are experimenting with how coverage of a particular news story would look if content was all centralized within a single page.
  The experiment puts into practice a vision that Google has long expressed previously as […]

• Yahoo Engaged In Effort To Remove “Spying Guide” From Public View

  Telecoms, cable companies and search engines are fairly routinely asked to divulge information about their users’ activities (and even location in the case of wireless carriers) by the government and law enforcement. Disclosure of this information and the fact that they charge for these “spying” services would potentially upset or outrage users and badly damage […]

• 12 Social Media New Year’s Resolutions For 2010

  Since 2010 is right around the corner, I wanted to get a bit proactive on our New Year’s resolutions, and do it social media style. There are so many issues in the social realm that this list could be endless, but I chose the 12 most important items to work on in social media […]

• Top Searches Can Attract Top Links

  The search engines have been publishing their “Top Searches” lists for 2009, so far I’ve collected lists from Bing , Yahoo!, and Google. Other sites posting “top” searches are ESPN, Snopes, and my favorite, Yahoo’s Top Video’s (warning: time killer!). I set my alerts to catch these lists because they spark ideas for link bait and content development […]

• Google’s Popeye the Sailorman Logo

  Go to Google today and you will see a Google Doodle for Popeye, Popeye the Sailorman. The logo is to celebrate Popeye’s creator, E. C. Segar’s 115th birthday, which is today. He was born on December 8, 1894 and created Popeye, which debuted on January 17, 1929.
  It is a fun and lovable […]

• Google Mobile Gets “What’s Nearby,” Voice Search Expands & “Goggles” Search By Snapping Pictures

  The Google Search Evolution event today featured a fair amount of discussion of the impact of mobile on the future direction of search and the user experience. There was a flurry of announcements about mobile products and feature upgrades, summarized on the Google Mobile Blog. Danny live-blogged the event.
  Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering, discussed […]

• SES Chicago ‘09: Day Two Live Blogging

  Day two of SES Chicago 2009 is just about complete. Here is some of the live blog coverage from today. I may add to this coverage later on today, but if you spot anything I missed, feel free to comment with links.

  Cool Mobile Apps, Augmented Reality – It’s a Brave New World from […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Change owner in a Google spreadsheet, Official Google Docs Blog
• Google Chrome for the holidays: Mac, Linux and extensions in beta, Official Google Blog
• Offline Gmail graduates from Labs, Official Gmail Blog

Business Issues

• ‘You In?’ — Yahoo! Launches Campaign to Inspire Kindness Around the World, Yahoo Press Releases
• CONFIRMED: Saul Hansell Quits The New York Times For AOL, Business Insider
• France’s Sarkozy takes on Google in books dispute, Reuters
• Is Time Money? Why Yahoo’s $100M Gamble Might Pay Off, Nielsen Wire
• Yahoo open to sell HotJobs for right price, Reuters

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Changing your perspective, Google LatLong
• Flights to Chicago: Google Local spam, David Naylor
• Getting a Better View with the Maps API v2: Aerial Imagery, Google Geo Developers Blog
• How to SEO for Google PlaceRank, Net Magellan

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdSense Pirates: Being Extorted Via Google AdSense, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Machine Learning with Quantum Algorithms, Official Google Research Blog

SEM Industry

• Tony Ruscoe: Going Google, Google Blogoscoped

SEO & SEM

• Search Integration: The Online/Offline Mix, AIM Clear Blog
• 3 Common URL Problems and How to Fix Them, SEO.com
• Great Content Equals Great Rankings, Right? Wrong., SEOmoz

Social Media

• Local Small Businesses and Social Media Marketing, Search Engine Watch
• Transition to AIM Lifestream, socialthing.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Picasa 3.6: Now with collaborative albums, Google Photos Blog

Web Analytics

• Show your live Google Analytics data on blogs, websites, intranets, etc., youcalc