SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 19, 2008

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 Makes Big Customer Satisfaction Gains In Search
  The Yahoo Search Blog discusses improvements in consumer satisfaction scores for Yahoo Search, according to the most recent Keynote Customer Experience Rankings of search engines. According to Keynote Systems, “Yahoo! is, indeed, achieving noticeable improvements in user experience and beginning to close the gap with Google in several key search…
• SES London Day One Recap
  SES London kicked off today and now that it is after 7pm in London, day one is over. Below is a collection of live blogging and sessions I found from the conference. If more day one coverage comes out after this post, I will add it to day two coverage….
• Why Commercial Domains Don’t Get On Digg Any More
  Last year I wrote a post called 5 Reasons To Put Viral Content On Mini-Sites, providing reasons why you might opt to use a mini-site rather than keeping all the content on your main domain. One of the reasons was because content might not spread due to your domain….
• Last Call – SMX West Next Week in Santa Clara
  Search Marketing Expo – SMX West, the conference only the editors of Search Engine Land could bring you, is just a week away. Don’t miss out. Register today. Join the more than 1600 search marketers from more than 800 companies who will attend SMX West for cutting-edge SEO and PPC…
• A Big Roundup Of Link Building Tools
  Ask any link builder what link issues they’re consistently asked about and one of them will be linking tools. Link building is such a time consuming and detailed process that it’s only natural people look for tools and techniques to maximize their time. Those who spend a lot of…
• Topix To Power Community For Local NBC Affiliates
  Community and local news site Topix struck an agreement to power discussion forums for NBC Universal’s 10 local owned and operated station web sites. Topix already does this for selected newspapers and Gannett TV sites and claims 100 media partners for its local news and/or community features….
• China Government Censured Baidu For Spreading “Filthy Pictures”
  China’s top Internet search engine, Baidu.com, censured for allegedly spreading racy photos from the International Herald Tribune reports Baidu has been censured by a government backed watchdog group for helping spread “filthy pictures.” Internet users in China were reportedly using Baidu to find images of actor Edison Chen and several…
• Google Earth Image Update: Spain Images
  Google Earth is constantly obtaining new satellite images and updating their old ones. The Google Earth Blog stays on top of most these updates and has notified us of a recent update where Google has added more detailed imagery of Spain. The Google Earth Blog reports the imagery update covers…
• Microsoft Signals Long Term Commitment To Search Even Without Yahoo
  Bill Gates told Reuters that with or without Yahoo the company would be investing heavily in Web search over the long term to compete with Google. Whether genuine or a negotiating position, Gates’ remarks also suggest that there won’t be any significant adjustments in the bid amount, currently valued at…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Add Full Web Pages to iGoogle, Google Operating System
• Pondering a Google Docs Feature Directory, Google Blogoscoped

Business Issues

• Why Did A California Court Hide All Of WikiLeaks Over A Single Document?, TechDirt
• Google Moves Ahead In The Mobile Web Race, StayGoLinks
• Google’s 2007 UK revenues – the UK’s single largest advertising channel, Virtual Economics
• Google’s annual report by the charts, ZDNet
• Google: U.N. critic accuses Google of censorship, Valleywag
• Silicon Valley Continues On Economic Comeback, Wall Street Journal

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Microsoft To Announce WorldWide Telescope On February 27, TechCrunch
• Google Mapspam takes on international flavor, Mike Blumenthal
• Microsoft to squish Google Sky like a bug?, Googling Google

Link Building

• Link exchange in 2008, SEOptimise
• Survival of the Small Webmaster in a World of Link Building, Search Engine Roundtable

Microhoo

• The 7-Eleven deal: Could Yahoo Japan buy Yahoo?, Valleywag
• Could Yahoo "Keep Things In the Family" By Selling to Yahoo Japan?, mashable.com
• MSN Bids to Buyout Yahoo – Yahoo Rejects the Offer, eVisibility

Paid Search & Contextual

• American Express Axes Ellen DeGeneres: Au Natural On Amex Site, Search Engine Watch
• EfficientPPC – Quality Score, Keyword, Ad Generation Made Easy, ShoeMoney
• Google AdSense Tests Google Logo Placement Again, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Google Changes the Way It Handles Unavailable Results, Irishwonder
• Google News Getting More Local (Localer?), ResearchBuzz
• Just Give Me a Search Engine That Competes!, BruceClay.com
• Surf Canyon Launches Discovery Engine for Search, Alt Search Engines

SEM Industry

• My speaking schedule for early 2008, Matt Cutts
• Enterprise Search Vendors Evolving Faster Than Search Products, Web Analytics World
• Goodbye Local Hello Answers, Locally Type
• Premium Content Training During a Special Session at SMX West, SEOmoz
• Search Marketing Expo West coming right up, adCenter Blog
• SMX West and SES New York City 2008 Party Schedule, Search Engine Roundtable
• v7n Network For Sale : $500,000, Search Engine Journal
• What a Blackhat SEO Looks Like, Barry Schwartz

SEO & SEM

• Google Webmaster Tool Update Already!, imnotadoctor.com
• Google’s Glossary Search Engine, Google Operating System
• Google Indexing Unlinked Pages?, Search Engine Roundtable
• How Long Should Your Google SEO Changes Take?, Search Engine Roundtable
• How to Deal with Negative Blog Posts, ViperChill
• How To Outrank Your SEO Competitors, Search Engine Watch
• New Round of Google PageRank Penalties on February 15th, Search Engine Roundtable
• SEO benefits of publishing news on your site, E-Consultancy

Social Media

• Just How Much Traffic Can You Get From Social Media Websites?, SEOCO Blog
• Mixx To Cluster Related Stories – Digg Should Have Done This, TechCrunch
• Social Networking Sites I Love and Depend On, Marketmou
• Three Case Studies on the Importance of Monitoring Social Media (Blogs, Wikipedia, etc.), NLC Internet Marketing Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• Twitxr: Instant Photo Blogging Done Right, Rev2.org

Web Analytics

• How to Set Up Conversion Funnels in Google Analytics, PPC Hero
• FeedBurner Quietly Kills All-Time RSS Feed Stats, louisgray.com

Other Items

• Censored: This Site Full Of Leaked Documents Is So Good, The Government Just Broke The Constitution To Shut It Down, gawker.com
• Criticism of Unreserved Google Praise, Google Blogoscoped
• ‘Second Life’ coming to mobile devices?, News.com
• Google funds Photoshop-on-Linux work, News.com
• Yahoo! Search running Apache Hadoop on Large Scale, Jeremy Zawodny

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