SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 23, 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:

• Has Google Ocean Uncovered Atlantis?
  

  Is that the lost city of Atlantis? Whatever it is, this grid-like pattern of lines on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean is getting a lot of buzz these days — and it’s all made possible by the recently launched Google Ocean. According to the Telegraph, a 38-year-old aeronautical engineer recently spotted the pattern off [...]

• Has The iPhone Made Mobile SEO Obsolete?
  

  Recently there’s been a lot of ‘mobile web is dead’ talk due to several ‘full HTML web’ announcements at Mobile World Congress (MWC), and response to a pragmatic Sitepoint article aimed at casual webmasters with limited budgets, so I thought it would be a good time to address this question that people have been asking [...]

• Offline Conversions: How To Get SEM Credit!
  

  Search marketers are pretty good at claiming credit for online sales, and they’re getting better at measuring phone sales as well. However, there’s a huge amount of activity in brick-and-mortar stores, in terms of walk-in sales in the offline world, which is not properly attributed to online search. How can we get some of the [...]

• Will Obama Be The Downfall Of Google?
  

  Is Google going to face a monopoly investigation? from The Guardian asks if President Obama’s appointment of Christine Varney to be Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust at the United States Department of Justice, will ultimately lead to more antitrust problems for Google. Varney has been quoted as saying and believing that Google “has acquired a monopoly [...]

• Why Is Google Now Requiring Ringtones Ads To Disclose Pricing
  

  A week ago, I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google is now requiring advertisers of ringtones to disclose the price of those ringtones in the actual ad copy. Supposedly, this will become a new policy required by advertisers in the upcoming weeks. We do not yet have confirmation on Google about [...]

• Will the “Deep Web” Slay Google?
  

  There are arguably two parallel tracks in the “what will succeed Google?” meme. An emerging one is “will the feds intervene to block Google?” The second is much older and involves the hypothetical “semantic web” or sometimes “deep web.” Essentially this asks, “who will do search better than Google?” (A third line of argument might [...]

• Yahoo CEO Bartz to Reorg for More ‘Top-Down’ Authority
  

  It’s probably safe to say that Yahoo has lots of fans rooting for the company to succeed under the management of new CEO Carol Bartz. In my vicarious observation of Bartz I’ve come to appreciate her no-nonsense approach and sense of humor. And as could have been anticipated after her appointment, another Yahoo reorganization is coming. [...]

• Registration Open for SMX Advanced
  

  Registration is now open for Search Marketing Expo – SMX Advanced, June 2-3 in Seattle. Now in its third year, SMX Advanced is the conference for experienced search marketers. Sessions are fast-paced, interactive, and don’t stop to cover the basics. Fluent in SEM? Come to Advanced and participate with others who speak your native language. [...]

• Post-Click Marketing For Search Marketers
  

  Over the past year, the term “post-click marketing” has come up more frequently in search marketing discussions, especially in the context of improving conversion rates and overall search ROI. At SMX West earlier this month, Gordon Hotchkiss of Enquiro unequivocally declared that post-click marketing moves the needle for their clients more than any other aspect [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• AOL Plus Oodle = AOL Classifieds, Screenwerk
• Features, releases, and other information on AOL’s Home Page, The AOL.com Blog

Business Issues

• Everyone Loves Google, Until It’s Too Big, New York Times
• Maybe Google Should Pay a Dividend, gigaom.com
• Oops: Microsoft Asks Some Laid Off Workers To Send Back Part Of Their Severance, TechCrunch
• Tim Armstrong’s "Patch" To Cash In On Death Of Newspapers?, Business Insider
• Why Yahoo! Doesn’t Matter Anymore, TIME
• Yahoo News Head Khemlani Departs for Hearst as VP Digital Media, AllThingsD by Kara Swisher
• Yahoo! Japan strikes deal to buy Softbank IDC for USD478m, TeleGeography Research

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Local.com Offers New Look, Enhancements, Screenwerk
• 3 Keys To Success For Local Search SEO, Search Engine Journal
• Google Maps: "System Error", Googlespeak for Banned?, Mike Blumenthal
• Google’s Phone (Android) Paid Apps Won’t Update, Search Engine Roundtable

Link Building

• 12 ‘DoFollow’ Video Sharing Sites to Distribute Videos and Build Links, Search Engine Journal
• Link Building 2009 – Build Your Own Cliques For Link Relevancy, Search Engine Roundtable
• Nofollow is Dying: The Impact of Micro-Blogging and Nofollow on SEO, SEOmoz
• Should I Disclose Paid Link Risks To Potential Link Sellers?, seoroi.com

Paid Search & Contextual

• Reach and Frequency Estimates for Google TV Ads, Google Traditional Media Blog
• Reminder: AdWords API v12 sunsetting, AdWords Agency Blog
• Air Travel Optimisation Tips, adCenter Blog for Advertisers
• Thesis Tutorial – How to Add Adsense Section Targeting, Michael Gray

Searching

• Arabic Search Engine iPhone App, AltSearchEngines
• A Look Behind the Curtain at Techmeme, Marshall Kirkpatrick

SEM Industry

• SES London 2009 – Link Building Basics, Search Marketing Gurus
• The Pirate’s Dilemma – SES London Keynote by Matt Mason, Search Marketing Gurus
• Searchfest 2009 Interview: Marty Weintraub, SEMpdx Blog

SEO & SEM

• Blackhat SEO Going Really Mainstream, Irishwonder
• Going international: considerations for your global website, Live Search Webmaster Center Blog
• Why it Makes Sense to Target Longtail Keywords First, SEO Book
• The Golden Rules of Keyword Research, SEOptimise
• 77 SES London Takeaway Tips & Tricks, SEOptimise
• Ask Is Going “Canonical”!, Ask.com Blog
• How to Control Your Site External Anchor Text, Daily SEO Tip
• How to make Google’s Blogger more search engine friendly, Pandia
• Introducing the Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Is There a Recent Big Brand Bias at Google Search?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Misinterpreting SEO Advice, Search Engine Roundtable
• Using Directories for Search Engine Reputation Management, Marketing Pilgrim
• What Does Alex Rodriguez Have to Do With SEO?, SEO.com

Social Media

• Finally, A Use for Twitter, A foot and a half
• Top Twitter HotSpots in Google Trends, Search Marketing Communications
• Who’s More Dumb: Facebook or its Users?, InternetNews
• A load of Twitter, Times Online

Video, Music & Image Search

• Is Hulu Driving People Back to Piracy?, NewTeeVee
• February ‘09 Google Image Search Update?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Picnik Is Emerging As One Of The Fastest-Growing Photo Sites On The Web, TechCrunch

Other Items

• Vint Cerf: We Still Have 80 Per Cent of the World to Connect, Read/Write Web

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

• The Golden Rules of Keyword Research
• 3 Keys To Success For Local Search SEO
• Nofollow is Dying: The Impact of Micro-Blogging and Nofollow on SEO
• Best SEO image I’ve ever seen
• Digg Finally Admits the Auto-Bury Exists
• How will XHTML 2.0 affect the way we do SEO
• SEO: a Process NOT a Project