SearchCap: The Day In Search, Feb. 26, 2007

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Video Search Challenge Isn’t Speech Recognition, It’s Content Owner Management
  Millions of Videos, and Now a Way to Search Inside Them from the New York Times is a big giant love story to video search firm Blinkx, suggesting that the idea of finding video content will take a leap through new idea of speech recognition. In reality, it’s not…
• Google Video Plus Box Results
  Philipp Lenssen spotted plus box results at Google for Google Video results. He noticed it for a search on nightwish videos, but I do not see it myself. For a screen capture check out Philipp’s Google Blogoscoped. We have covered two other plus box results in the past. Google "Plus…
• Google AdWords To Show Advertisers Exactly Where Their Contextual Ads Are Displayed
  If you are an advertiser running Google AdWords on the content network, the only way to know where those ads are being run is to dig through raw logs and extract the content site URLs from the massively long AdWords referral strings. But in an article in the New York…
• Google Checkout Australia Coming Soon?
  Is Google Checkout coming to Australia? It appears that Google registered Google Payment Australia PTY. LTD. in Australia recently, which could be a sign of that. A reader pointed me to the Australian Securities & Investments Commission web site that shows a record for a Google Australia payments company. On…
• Google Ordered To Change AdSense Contract By South Korea’s Watchdog
  S. Korean watchdog orders Google to fix unfair contract clauses by Yonhap News (and see longer version here) reports that Google has been ordered to change its AdSense contract to be more publisher friendly. The Fair Trade Commission said the contract is currently enabling Google to "one-sidedly cancel advertisement deals"…
• Pew Research: Wireless Internet Grows
  Amid an increasing body of consumer research showing that more Americans are using their mobile devices for more than just voice, The Pew Internet Project surveyed 1,623 U.S. adult Internet users in December, 2006. The survey broadly asked about wireless Internet access, whether on desktops, laptops or mobile phones….
• 2007 SEMPO Board of Directors Announced
  SEMPO has released the names of the 2007 board of directors. The board for 2007 includes: Chris Boggs, Avenue A/Razorfish (reelected) Massimo Burgio, Global Search Interactive (new) Fionn Downhill, Elixir Systems (new) Dave Fall, DoubleClick Inc. (new) Duane Forrester, Sports Direct Inc. (new) Sara Holoubek, Free Agent Consultant (reelected, currently…
• 3 Jump-Start Methods For Passionate Linking
  For a lot of people, link building is a drag. It’s like going to the dentist or writing that tax check every quarter… you don’t really want to do it but you know you have to. It’s that drag factor that makes a lot of people look for short…
• NASA & Google Earth Color Earth With Near Real Time Information
  Garett Rogers summarizes a post at the Google Earth Blog explaining that Google and NASA now have added more KMLs (a file format used to display geographic data in an Earth browser) to Google Earth. The new files provide almost real-time information including: Sea Surface Temperature [KML File] Chlorophyll Concentration…
• Google Steps Up Web Page Malware Notifications
  The Google Webmaster Central Blog announced that they are now stepping up malware notifications to webmasters. They are giving more detailed reports on the malware issues with a specific site and they are also sending email notifications to webmasters about these malware warnings. In the past, Google just posted a…

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere

Business Issues

• Yahoo shareholders submit ‘Plan B’, BusinessWeek
• Some Google deal records blocked, Charlotte Observer
• Google in Content Deal With Media Companies, New York Times
• Gmail domain dispute looms for Google in China, Reuters.co.uk
• Microsoft to Buy Medical Search Engine, New York Times

Local Search

• Local Search Engine Marketing White Paper, Blumenthals
• CTO of Google Earth On Adding Web Search, O’Reilly Radar
• Google Maps Stickers Are For UK Businesses Only, Search Engine Roundtable
• Local Online Advertising, Entrepreneur

Paid Search

• MyBlogLog Tracks Your Visitors Ad Clicks, Shoemoney
• Yahoo Publisher Network’s Trojan Horse, Techcrunch
• Link unit, front and center, Inside AdSense
• Microsoft Refunds adCenter Advertisers Over Weekend, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO

• Google Selling PR7 Links For $10,000!, Conversion Rater
• Chip expert says Google threatened to blacklist his sites, News.com
• Misc bits, Matt Cutts [comments on above two items]
• Five Steps to Effective Keyword Research, Search Engine Guide
• New Keyword List Cleaner Tool, SEO Book.com
• Is Effective SEO Always Good SEO?, Search Engine Guide
• Ready to Become an ODP Editor at Dmoz.org?, Search Engine Journal
• Building Links through YouTube, Link Building Blog
• Asking Bloggers For Links, Link Building Blog

Security

• Second Google Desktop Vulnerability Reported, PC World

Shopping Search

• Item Quality: Keep Your Items Live, Google Base Blog

Other Stuff

• An Update on the Image Wall, Bloglines, News
• SES London 2007: The Comic Strip, SEOmoz
• Know your Road Rules with Ask.com, Ask.com
• A visit to Apple, Official Google Mac Blog
• The Blank Test Ad, Google Operating System
• Tips for Google Toolbar, Google Operating Systems
• New Version (Beta) of Skype Released, Offers User-Built Business Directory, ResourceShelf
• The Content Warning for Google-hosted Blogs, Google Blogoscoped
• New Hot Properties: YouTube Celebrities, New York Times
• Podcast: What Video Search Needs Is More Video; Matt Cutts Does Google Accusation Debunking & More!, Daily SearchCast