SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 21, 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:

• Starting Conversations with Contact Pages
  Starting out with my first website in 1996, I hadn’t realized that one of the most important pages that I had put on the site was a contact page. With a copy of “Learn HTML in 2 Weeks” at my side, and a design that reflected my limited skills,…
• SES London Day Three Recap
  SES London has now wrapped up by now. I have found some coverage for the day, but if I missed anything, please Sphinn the thread below and add more coverage that way. Here is what I found for day three:…
• Google May Buy Ukrainian Portal
  The Quintura Blog repeats a rumor that Google may be poised to buy the Ukrainian portal Bigmir.net, the leading Ukrainian destination site with 2.5 million users. Quintura speculates the deal might be worth $100 million and says online advertising in the Ukraine was worth an estimated $12 million in 2007….
• Google Health Readies For Launch, In Test With Cleveland Clinic
  The very long awaited Google Health may be about to launch. The New York Times and CNN have reports this morning that Google and the Cleveland Clinic are announcing a pilot program that reportedly will involve the creation of personal health profiles on Google for anywhere between 1,500 and 10,000…
• Ask.com Binoculars Adds Compete.com Stats
  Ask.com has announced that they have added site statistics from Compete.com to the binoculars feature in the search results. Now, instead of just getting a site preview, you also get estimated visitor stats, site rank, a line chart to plot this data over time and a link to a more…
• Google Pushes AdSense For Video Again
  As expected Google announced another push to get advertisers and publishers to utilize video ads. Yes, Google did a pilot video ad program back in May 2007 and then another video ad push in October 2007 but Google has said they learned a lot from these tests programs and has…
• Gmail User Gains Access To 30 Other Gmail Accounts Due To ISP Caching Glitch
  Google says ISP glitch exposes Gmail data in Kuwait from News.com has confirmed reports that a Gmail user in Kuwait has inadvertently accessed about 30 Gmail accounts that were not his. Supposedly, he also accessed an email that had “keycodes for some embassy gate.” Whose fault is this? Not Google!…
• Google May Launch Balloons Across World To Provide Mobile Access
  We have been covering how Google may provide internet access to those users who don’t have it yet for a while now. While the Submarine Cable Negotiator job at Google was pretty interesting, I think this new story may be even more interesting. Floating a New Idea For Going Wireless,…
• Video Ads On Google: A Win-Win For Consumers & Advertisers?
  There’s been a lot of buzz and chatter about the promise of online video advertising during the past year, accelerating considerably in just the past week, since the New York Times reported that Google is testing video ads on its search results page. Forrester Research recently released a report…
• Microsoft Launches adExcellence Program For UK Advertisers
  The adCenter blog announced the launch of the Microsoft adExcellence program for UK advertisers today. In December 2007, Microsoft launched the program from US advertisers but today they rolled it out for UK advertisers. It provides advertisers “free training to help you become a Microsoft adCenter expert,” says the adCenter…
• How to Write a Killer RFP (Request for Proposal) For Hiring An SEO Firm
  Over the years I’ve seen quite a few Requests for Proposal from companies seeking to buy SEO services. If your RFP is not written well, it hinders the SEO firm’s ability to understand and define your needs and to scope and price your project. This in turn leads to…
• Newspond Lauches News Aggregation Site That Uses A “Tireless Electronic Brain”
  Newspond is a news aggregation site that boasts “No editors. No voting. Just an AI news engine.” Presumably, the lack of voting distinguishes it from sites like Digg and the lack of editing from the Mahalo-like and maybe Slashdot? Does this mean it’s like Ask’s recent news aggregation entry BigNews…
• The Art Of Growing An In-House Search Marketing Team
  So you’ve been tasked with building an in-house search marketing team, and now you’re wondering where to start. It’s a daunting task, to be sure. Do you start by rousting the programmers to get the content management system (CMS) into shape? Do you grab a credit card and start…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Docs in Hebrew and Arabic, Official Google Docs Blog
• AOL ending all support for Netscape on March 1, Ars Technica
• Do You Maintain Multiple Google Accounts ? Solve That Headache of Logging In and Out, Digital Inspiration
• First Reports of Google Reader Spam Injection?, Search Engine Roundtable
• No conversations in the Bin?, SEO Home

Business Issues

• Google, the U.N., and the gadfly, News.com
• Strong Ad Growth Boosts Sina’s Net, Wall Street Journal
• AOL Launches in Mexico, Expanding Global Presence, AOL Corporate
• How Vulnerable is Google on Search?, Read/Write Web

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Maps: Conflated Records, Mike Blumenthal
• Where in the world is… (Answers), Google LatLong
• Google Releases Native Search client for S60, allaboutsymbian.com

Link Building

• Conversations with an Underground Text Link Seller, ProBlogger
• I Don’t Buy Links, SEOmoz
• Why You Should Ignore Most Link Requests, Marketing Pilgrim
• Will Search Engines Ever Regulate Your Linkbait?, SEOmoz
• Flickr No-Follows (Some) Outbound Links, Small Business SEM
• Link Buying: Is EVERY Link Purchased?, Link Building Best Practices
• 5 Ways to Discover Link Building Ideas, Search Engine Watch
• Link buying in competitive industries, BlogStorm

Microhoo

• Bill Gates pooh-poohed Yahoo deal last year, SeattlePi
• Gates explains why Microsoft needs Yahoo, News.com
• How Much Will Yahoo’s New Severance Plan Cost Microsoft?, Silicon Alley Insider
• Microsoft steps up Yahoo campaign, BBC NEWS
• M&A Bankers on Yahoo-Microsoft: Done Deal, Silicon Valley Insider
• Microsoft’s Bid For Yahoo A Major Bet On Boom In Display Ads, SmartMoney.com

Paid Search & Contextual

• Healthcare and Real Estate Industry Knowledge Centers, Inside AdWords
• Meet with the adCenter Product Team at SMX, adCenter Blog
• Microsoft adCenter’s Dynamic Keyword Feature Broken: Work Arounds?, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• NewsClipper Brings All The News Video from Around the Web to One Place, TechCrunch
• Personalised search is still the holy grail, The Guardian
• Can Social Bookmarking Improve Web Search?, Heymann
• FAROO P2P Web Search Announces Public Beta!, Alt Search Engines

SEM Industry

• Coverage Schedule For SMX West, BruceClay.com
• Order Radically Transparent NOW , Marketing Pilgrim
• History of TLA, PatrickGavin.com
• SEO Osmosis Quiz, Sugarrae
• The Secret to Becoming an SEO Celebrity, Gonzo SEO

SEO & SEM

• Instilling Fear In Site Owners, BruceClay.com
• 5 Ways to Better Leverage Your SEO Firm, Online Marketing Blog
• Google Asks For Feedback With Webmaster Tools User Survey, Search Engine Roundtable
• Hiding Content Temporarily Is OKAY, Google Says, Search Engine Roundtable
• Save bandwidth costs: Dynamic pages can support If-Modified-Since too, Sebastians Pamphlets
• Search Engine Marketing Myths, SEO Speedwagon

Social Media

• Twitter Web Traffic Around the World, Twitter Blog
• Don’t Pee in the Pool. Responsible Social Media Marketing, AIM Clear Blog
• Facebook sees first dip in UK users, The Guardian
• Problem at StumbleUpon, Some Features are Missing Today, Old School SEO
• Social Media and Online Commerce: Birth of Socialommerce, Search Engine Watch

Video, Music & Image Search

• Text mining search engine SenseBot adds images, Alt Search Engines

Web Analytics

• 5 Google Analytics metrics to enhance your AdWords campaigns, SEOptimise
• Google Analytics Blog: Where Did My Paid Search Traffic Go?, Google Analytics Blog

Other Items

• Hello? Hellooooo?, Burning Questions
• Search for missing Seattle man reaches YouTube, SeattlePi
• Blogger Play, Matt Cutts
• Being Sexy On The Internetz, BruceClay.com
• Google Drops From Alexa , InsideGoogle

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