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 Finance Plus Signs In Google Search Results
  Vygantas Lipskas spotted plus signs within Google search results that contain Google Finance information. A search at one Google data center on computers brings back the follow results:…
• Understanding Link Reputation
  There was an interesting comment made in a private discussion list I’m a member of related to paid links. Someone I have great respect for gave an example of a page that had several links on it, one of which was paid for, the others which were not paid…
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets Coming To Apps In Weeks
  PC World reports that Google Apps will be adding Google Docs and Spreadsheets to the suite this quarter and possibly within a few weeks. We expected this to come sooner than later after Google decided to roll out fee-based Google Apps. PC World has quotes from lots of organizations that…
• Google Issues Paper On Hard Drive Failures
  Google has issued a paper on the reliability of certain types of hard drives named Failure Trends in a Large Disk Drive Population. Engadget sums up the study via Slashdot saying the following:…
• Google Sues Group Of Polish Poets Over Gmail.pl Name
  Google sues Polish poets over gmail.pl via the AFP reports that Google is now going after a group of Polish poets for the domain name gmail.pl. Gmail.pl is the domain name for “Grupa Młodych Artystów i Literatów” (GMAiL), but Google claims they poets have no rights to the name. Krawczyk…
• Google Sending Wikipedia A Ton Of Traffic
  Google Traffic To Wikipedia up 166% Year over Year by Hitwise’s LeeAnn Prescott gives us some of the data search marketers have been craving for years. We all knew that Wikipedia tends to rule in the Google results but these statistics show us by how much. 70% of Wikipedia’s upstream…
• Vacation & Brief Blog Downtime
  I’m officially on vacation, back on the blog again beginning February 26. The blog itself is also taking a very short break. Tomorrow — Saturday, February 17 — it will go offline for an hour or less at 10PM Pacific time, as we test a new server configuration that we…
• Google Customized Search Engines to Harness The Wisdom of Experts?
  Back in October, 2006, Google announced on the Official Google Blog that they were enabling people to create their own custom search engines. If you asked yourself why they were doing this, and how it might provide benefits to individual site owners, searchers as a whole, and Google itself, there…

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere

Business Moves:

• AOL Finance Chief to Leave Firm, WSJ.com
• Now starring on YouTube: Google, Washington Post
  

• Google’s Grainy Video Strategy, Forbes.com
• ASU set for move to Google service, AZ Central
• Judge Weighs Dismissal Of Google Trademark Case, InformationWeek
• Erasmic finds limited partner in Google, The Economic Times
• The Cat is Out of the Bag…, Bill Wise

SEO:

• Site Down Time Can Remove You From Google Index, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Fixes AdWords CPC Price Gouge Bug, Search Engine Roundtable
  

• Google AdSense Geo Targeting Break?, Search Engine Roundtable
  

• Online Poker – Too Competitive for White Hat SEO?, SEOmoz
• Updated We Build Pages SEO Tools, Jim Boykin
  

• Selling SEO: How I Lost a Big Potential Client, SEO Speedwagon
  
• Dmoz Abuse Report Form up again – While the Rest of the System is still trashed, Search Engine Journal

• Alexa add geographical info to traffic stats, SEOptimise

• SES London Session Recap – Auditing Paid Click and Click Fraud, Bruceclay.com
• How to Build Trusted Links, Link Building Blog

• Ultimate Social Media Optimization List, SEOptimise

• Help! My Site Is Not Being Crawled By Google, V7N
• Using honey pots and sleepers to get higher search engine rankings, Pandia

• Rev Up Your Local Web Marketing, Entrepreneur.com

Paid Search:

• AdWords Editor Invalid String Errors, eWhisper
  
• Low Quality Keywords CAN Lower Other Keyword’s Quality Scores, eWhisper
  
• Microsoft adCenter advertising on TV, eWhisper
• AdSense Arbitragers Using Free Domain Names Thanks to Loophole, Marketing Pilgrim
• How to Not to Get Sales Increases from Current Affiliates (and Piss Them Off), Sugarrae

Feeds & Social:

• When Did Google Kill Bloglines?, Cartoon Barry
  

• Wow. Google is Kicking Bloglines’ A–, Small Business SEM
  
• Google Reader Starts Reporting Subscriber Numbers and Shows How Much Ground They’ve Taken from Bloglines, Problogger
  
• Did Your Feedburner Stats Just Increase, ShoeMoney
• The Secret List of Sites Banned by Digg, Naffziger’s Net
• Finding Custom Search Engines, Google Operating System
• Latest MyBlogLog Spam — Adding Coauthors?, Daggle
• StumbleUpon Replaces Search With Browse, MarketingShift
• The Lisa’s Problem With Wikipedia Explained, Bruceclay.com

Other Stuff:

• Amazon.com Adds More Info for “Search Inside The Book” Titles, ResourceShelf
  
• Google’s Page urges scientists to market themselves, News.com
  

• Google at work on AI?, News.com
  
• Google hears static on radio bid, News.com
  
• A Cool JSF and Maps Mashup, Google Maps API
  
• Is Google overrated? Tapped out? Due for a fall? Two experts take sides, Fast Company
• Google lets you suggest a better translation, Googling Google
• LondonSEO.org Party Photos, SEO blog UK
• Massive Google hard drive survey turns up very interesting things, Engadget
• MSN Soapbox Public Beta Out, Techtree.com
  

• Google should make a Linux, The Inquirer
  
• Google edges into wireless e-mail, globeandmail.com
• New Logo, New Decade!, ClickZ
• Gung Hay Fat Choy!, Yahoo! Publisher Network
• Google News isn’t top dog in UK news search, either, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Gothamist Goes To Google, Gothamist
• Google Earth, Presented by a Google Employee, Google Operating Systems
  

Related Topics: 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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