SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 11, 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 Maps Nearly Catches MapQuest: Hitwise Report
  Google Maps and MapQuest are neck-and-neck in the fight to be the most popular US mapping site. A new report issued today from Hitwise shows the continuing ascent of Google Maps and the simultaneous decline of MapQuest traffic during 2008, with MapQuest pulling away again in the last few weeks: In November, we wrote how MapQuest was coming “out of hibernation” with a concerted effort to hold on to its leads among mapping sites. As Heather Hopkins suggests in the Hitwise post, those new features may be responsible for MapQuest’s recent upswing …
• Innovative Search And Its Impact On Brand
  Can an innovative search campaign actually benefit your brand?  In a word: Yes.  In fact, research shows that 39% of search users feel that the brands that appear in the top of the search results are the leaders in their field.  Moreover, brands that aren’t innovative online also don’t move up the rankings.  For example, who do you think is ranking in the top spot for “car insurance” in Google and Yahoo!?  If you guessed Geico, you are correct. Marketers need to realize that an innovative search campaign has the potential to do more than drive …
• Yahoo! BOSS Expands Feature Set; Adds Usage Fees
  Today, Yahoo! has announced several new features to their Build Your Own Search Service (BOSS) platform as well as usage fees. When BOSS launched in July 2008, the stated goal was to spur innovation and disrupt the search market. Will the additional of usage fees hinder that goal and become a barrier to entry for the cost-limited startups Yahoo! was originally trying to help? Yahoo says no, that they “believe that introducing the proposed pricing structure will improve the ecosystem by optimizing capacity for our serious developers.” Fee structure The BOSS charges kick in only once queries exceed 10,000 a …
• Microsoft Beefs Up Enterprise Search
  Microsoft bought FAST Search & Transfer almost exactly a year ago. Now Microsoft is starting to integrate FAST’s capabilities into its other products and to market FAST more aggressively: FAST Search for SharePoint, a new search server that will add the high-end search capabilities of FAST ESP into Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, will be available as a part of the next release of the Microsoft Office system. For customers who are interested in the product, Microsoft also announced ESP for SharePoint, a special offering that allows customers to purchase high-end search capabilities today, with a defined licensing path to …
• New Ask Datacenter Expands Search Capacity
  In the on again off again debate about whether Ask remains serious about search, a new blog post suggests that Ask is making a bid to improve its search index and efficiency, having completed a move to a new datacenter: Our engineers were going to have to spend more time on improving efficiency, and less time on new feature development. So we’ve been in the planning stages for moving to new datacenter spaces since 2006, and we’ve executed the move of thousands of systems over the past several months . . . We’re excited about our …
• How To Track Keyword-Based Tweets Within Your Twitter Stream
  With our SMX West search marketing conference happening this week, I wanted to keep track of the real-time buzz for SMX on Twitter. I knew how to do this manually by checking Twitter Search, but was there a way to have this flow into my regular Twitter stream, along with posts from people that I normally follow? Thanks to suggestions from people on Twitter, there was! Ideally, I wanted Twitter itself to let me create a “person” that was really a search term, so that I could follow that person and have …
• Gmail Labs Adds Location To Signatures
  The Gmail Blog announced that you can now activate a new labs feature that will append your current location to your email signature, when you use Gmail or Google Apps email within the Gmail interface. To activate it, go to “Settings” and click on “Labs.” Scroll down to the location feature and enable it. Then go back to “Settings” and scroll down to your “Signature” and check off the box to “Append your location to the signature”. Google will then activate the Google Gears location module, which will tell Google where you are, when you compose your …
• Where Professional Service Firms Fall Short
  It seems like professional services firms really struggle with search engine optimization. Few do it well. In the audits we do for clients, perhaps the most common issue is inadequate site architecture. That is, not having enough pages in the site to respond to the diverse range of potential search terms. But there are other common problems, too. Here are some of the issues and what you can do about them. Types of staff Prospects and referral sources may be searching for a particular type of staff member. With law firms, there is typically only one class of professional staff member-attorneys. …
• SMX West 2009 – Day Two Coverage
  Day two of SMX West 2009 is just about over. Here is live blogging and other coverage from the day, here in Santa Clara: Google’s SearchWiki, Customized & Personalized Results, outspokenmedia.com Improving Google Maps Search Rankings SMX West 2009, WebProNews Just Behave, A Look at Searcher Behavior, outspokenmedia.co Keynote Conversation with Vint Cerf, outspokenmedia.com Landing Pages & Multivariate Testing, BruceClay.com Live Coverage of 301 Redirect, How Do I Love You? Let Me Count The Ways at SMX West, Search Engine Roundtable Live Coverage of Google’s SearchWiki, Customized & Personalized Results at SMX West, Search Engine Roundtable Live Coverage of Just …

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Mighty Morphin’ Gmail: Dawn of the Daily Upgrade, Technologizer
• Spell Check Dictionary Improvements, Chromium Blog

Business Issues

• Yahoo shares slide after analyst downgrade, Forbes
• Ask.com Launches Serial Nascar Ad Campaign, BrandWeek
• Google Book Settlement Site Is Up; Paying Authors $60 Per Scanned Book, TechCrunch
• Google to Present at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference, Google
• Twitter’s Jack Dorsey Joins Ustream.tv Advisory Board, TechCrunch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Apple, Google, and Palm, Daring Fireball
• Adult Spam Makes Its Way Into Google Maps, Search Engine Roundtable
• Australia on Fire, Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog
• Google Earth Leads Man to ‘Buried Treasure’, Fox News
• Google Maps Edges Closer To MapQuest, Hitwise
• Google Maps Needs a Public Face, Mike Blumenthal
• How to Rank for Your Local Keywords in Google Maps, Search Engine Journal
• Navigation: Turn-By-Turn Voice Navigation Comes to Jailbroken iPhones, Gizmodo
• Paid Apps Coming to Android Phones This Week, Wired
• Real estate sites like Trulia see record traffic and revenue, VentureBeat
• Time to refine the Local 10 Pack?, Mike Blumenthal
• Trulia in Co-Brand Deal with WashPo, Screenwerk

Link Building

• Is Your Industry too Boring for Link Building?, SEO Speedwagon
• Links & Traffic : You Gotta Give Some to Get Some, Search Engine Journal
• Search for Backlink Opportunities on Facebook, Search Engine Journal

Paid Search & Contextual

• Agencies and Analytics: Expectations in Hard Times, adCenter Blog for Advertisers
• Analytic Mashups For Advanced Keyword Research, AIM Clear Blog
• Google Adwords Beta: Latest Browsers Only, Search Marketing Communications
• Increase Conversion Rates with User Driven Feedback, PPC Hero
• Keyword Analysis Exercise: Comparing Google, Yahoo, and MSN, ClickZ
• Microsoft adCenter Editorial Guidelines: Get your ads live faster and help improve performance, adCenter Blog for Advertisers
• Tips and Tools for Expanding Keywords Lists, Google Analytics Blog

Searching

• Alexa Updates Numbers: Should We Care?, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM Industry

• Jennifer Evans Laycock Joining SiteLogic, SiteLogic
• SEO Companies Continue Using Fear Tactics To Keep Clients, Search Engine Roundtable
• WebmasterRadio.FM Throws "WebmasterRadio.FM’s Searchbash @ SMX West" Party for SMX West Attendees, PRWeb

SEO & SEM

• Advertising with Google AdWords is not protection money for organic SERPs, Econsultancy
• All-in-one portal for search engine and SEO research, Pandia
• Eight Ways to Help Google News Better Crawl Your Site, Google News Blog
• How SEO Services Have Changed Over Time, Shimon Sandler
• Optimizing your very large site for search — Part 4, Live Search Webmaster Center Blog
• Target Several Keywords Without Stuffing Your Page Title, Daily SEO Tip

Social Media

• And Twitter Goes Down Again, TechCrunch
• BoomTown Decodes the Twitter-Is-Really-Serious-Folks-About-Not-Making-$$ Memo, AllThingsD by Kara Swisher
• BREAKING: Maryland General Assembly Will Lift Facebook Ban, Legum’s New Line
• Google Friend Connect introduces the social bar, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Is Twitter Testing Ajax Updates?, Read/Write Web
• Why Facebook’s Future Is Mobile, gigaom.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Will the Mafia Spark an Italian Ban on YouTube?, NewTeeVee

Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Analyze Delicious Tags, Bookmarks and URLs
• LinkBait Launch Cycle
• Setting Client Expectations To Avoid THAT client
• Dvorak Has Nerve To Bash SEO As If He Had A Clue