SearchCap: The Day In Search, Feb. 28, 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:

• Yahoo Provides NOYDIR Opt-Out Of Yahoo Directory Titles & Descriptions
  Yahoo! Search Support for ‘NOYDIR’ Meta Tags and Weather Update from the Yahoo Search Blog covers how at long last, you can now tell Yahoo to not use Yahoo Directory information to make a title and/or description for your web page listings. It also cover how Yahoo’s currently doing a…
• 40 Percent Frustrated With Video Search
  I’m generally suspicious of surveys that say things you’d expect them to say by the company that commissioned them. In this case, ClipBlast — a video search site — sends word of a survey covering frustration with video search. Still, I’ll pass along some stats and the press release, for…
• Google Buying TV Scatter Units
  Google Lays Groundwork for TV Scatter Sales Sortie at Advertising Age reports that Google is looking to hire a head of national TV sales in New York and dive into their TV ad play with "scatter inventory," ads that aren’t sold well in advance. Google has been hiring TV engineers…
• The SEOs Doing It In-House
  The Natural Search Blog has complied a list of prominent SEOs who work within a company, in house work, rather than working for firms that specialize in SEO. Often SEOs who work within a company do not get as much recognition as those who work at SEO firms. In fact,…
• Are You Putting Web Search Results at Risk with Paid Advertising?
  If you bid on keywords for a term or phrase that you rank well for in a search engine, might your organic result be filtered in some instances, when your ad appears on the same page? A newly granted Microsoft patent is the first I recall seeing which discusses such…
• Google Stepping Up Governmental Sales
  Google Searches For Government Work by the Washington Post has details on Google’s current and future government sales operations. Yesterday, Google started a two-day sales event aimed at the U.S. government. The event reportedly brought in "200 federal contractors, engineers and uniformed military members." Rob Painter, director of the Google…
• Is Voice And Mobile Search Company TellMe For Sale?
  TechCrunch speculates that voice services and mobile local search provider TellMe is going to be sold to Microsoft. Right now this is unconfirmed rumor. But it would be a very interesting acquisition for Microsoft, and addition to their mobile local search/voice assets, if true. I’ve written more about this on…
• Monitoring Buries At Digg
  Earlier this month, I wrote a long article looking at how some people at Digg might bury stories just because they disliked the topic rather than the story content itself. Indeed, many doing buries might not have read the article. Worse, they might use the bury reason of "spam" rather…
• Google Maps Tailgates Yahoo, Microsoft With Real-Time Traffic Info
  Google Maps has caught up with Yahoo and Microsoft in adding live traffic reporting for the United States to their online mapping service. Google Operating System spotted the change today (and Google now has the official word up here). To see the traffic yourself, just go to Google Maps and…

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere

Applications

• Yahoo Slams Google’s Usability, Marketing Pilgrim
• Export a Notebook to Google Docs, Google Operating System
• IBM teams up with Google over gadgets, News.com
• Google’s Gadget Numbers Revealed, O’Reilly Radar

Business Issues

• Is a ‘Google killer’ on the horizon?, Christian Science Monitor
• Industry Moves: Patrick Keane [formerly of Google] New EVP & CMO, CBS Interactive, PaidContent.org
• Search Ad Firm Vantage Media Gets $70 Million Round, PaidContent.org
• Yahoo! to Participate at Upcoming Morgan Stanley and Thomas Weisel Partners Investor Conferences, Yahoo Press Release

Image Search

• Pixsy and Quigo Announce Strategic Partnership to Develop Customized Visual Search Engines, Quigo Press Release
• Pixsy’s Starhabit Database, ResourceShelf

Local Search

• Skype Adds Yellow Pages Tools – Local Search for VOIP, Natural Search Blog
• Virtual Earth’s Curlander on Google Earth, Ogle Earth

Paid Search & Contextual

• Canadian Companies Now Invited To Be Google AdWords Qualified Professionals, Search Engine Roundtable
• Paused Google AdWords Ads Still Running, Search Engine Roundtable
• Good Google AdSense Resources, Search Engine Roundtable
• Yahoo! Panama First Look, Search Marketing Trends

Searching

• Searching for Current Events on Google and Yahoo, Jeremy Zawodny
• Publishing Houses Think That Expensive, Fragmented And Limited Book Search Is Better Than Letting Google And Amazon Do It?, Techdirt

SEO

• DIY SEO, ClickZ
• The Value of Ranking #1 in Dollars and Cents, Small Business SEM
• Has SEO Ruined PR & the Press Release?, Search Engine Journal
• Optimizing for Relevancy, Part III, Yahoo! Publisher Network
• SEO is so Simple, Dave Naylor
• Yahoo Says Buy Viagra From Google, Dave Naylor
• Google Reinclusion Requests Going Unheard Or Not? Getting Your Site Back in Google.com, Search Engine Roundtable
• Yahoo! Changes Yahoo Search Submit Express to Basic & Adds Analytics, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• How To Buy Stumbles From Stumbleupon NOT, Shoemoney
• Everything you need to know about Social Media in One Killer RSS Feed, Clickinfluence

Video Search

• Joost Founders: We’re Going After Cable TV, Not YouTube, New York Times

• GooTube lookout: Jeremy Allaire debuts "Aftermix" as part of a re-tooled Brightcove, David Berlind
• Over-Aggressive Filtering Snags Video Producers, BusinessWeek
• Academy threatens YouTube, Variety
• Video Sites: YouTube, Google stay strong, smaller sites have good showing, Compete Blog

Podcasts

• Design, Google Update, Patent Apps, AdWords Algorithm, & More, Search Pulse
• Google Goes For TV Ads; How Fresh Is Your Search Engine? Real Time Traffic Data On Map & More!, Daily SearchCast=

Other Stuff

• Traveling Down Under: GWC at Search Engine Room and Search Summit Australia, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Reader Poll: Best SEO SEM Conferences, Search Engine Journal
• Google ReBang : Chinese Language Zeitgest, Search Engine Journal
• Applying Styles to Search Results, Google Search API Blog
• Testapalooza, Official Google Testing Blog