SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 25, 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:

• SEMPO Announces New 2008 Board of Directors
  SEMPO has announced the 2008 Board of Directors that will take office on March 12, 2008. The board of directors includes:…
• Ask.com Adds More Sponsored Ads, Pushing Organic Results Below Fold
  I was messing around with the Ask.com interface on my Mac and decided to compare some results between my Mac browser and Internet Explorer for PC. I noticed that Ask.com is now displaying five sponsored results for many keyword searches. The organic results are now below the fold, like they…
• SEOs Want The NOINDEX Tag To Not Show A Page In The Index
  Matt Cutts of Google posted a blog entry asking SEOs how they want Google to handle the NOINDEX meta tag. If you use the NOINDEX meta tag now, Google won’t show the page in any way in the Google index — not even a “link only” listing. Matt asks SEOs…
• Yahoo, You’re Not Off The Hook Over The Chinese Dissidents Case Says New Lawsuit
  Yahoo Sued Again for Assisting the Persecution of Chinese Dissidents from the Epoch Times reports Yahoo is being sued once again for allegedly leaking personal information and aiding the Chinese Communist Party in Internet censorship and the persecution of dissidents. The China Democratic Party, China Social Democratic Party and the…
• Pakistan YouTube Ban Propagates Worldwide Causing Major YouTube Outage
  Yesterday, I kept noticing Twitters of YouTube problems. Soon after, the BBC reported YouTube outage blamed on Pakistan. It appears that the recent Pakistan ban of YouTube not only caused Pakistan ISPs to block YouTube but also spread worldwide and stopped users from even the United States from accessing YouTube….
• Survey Says: Google Top Brand In UK
  Google takes UK’s top brand spot from the BBC reports Google took the BBC’s top spot in a Superbrands survey of the top brand in the UK. In fact, Google is the only company established after 1990 that is found within the top 50 brands in this survey. Microsoft secured…
• Hackers Launch Goolag: A Google Vulnerability Scanner
  Hackers turn Google into vulnerability scanner from Techworld reports a group of hackers named Cult of the Dead Cow (CDC) launched a search tool powered by Google to help see if your sites are vulnerable to a hacking attempt. The tool is named Goolag and by typing in a domain…
• The Secret Of Large Term Lists (It’s All In The Bidding)
  Last Monday, in a SEL post discussing the click quality by engine, I mentioned in passing an 89% drop-off between ‘phrases tested’ and ‘phrases actively generating good clicks’. Specifically, we posted 176,903 terms en route to discovering 20,152 active good terms for a client. Today I’ll revisit that drop-off…
• 24 Meets SMX West: Mike McDonald’s Funny Trailer At WebProNews
  In a few hours, I’m jumping on a plane and heading out to our SMX West search marketing conference, which hits Silicon Valley from Feb. 26-28. My journey will hopefully be much easier than Mike McDonald’s. To kick off his WebProNews video coverage of the show, he’s got a spoof…
• Microsoft’s Johnson: “Once Yahoo And Microsoft Agree On A Transaction”
  This afternoon, Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft Platforms & Services Division, issued an email to Microsoft employees (that was released via its PR firm). The letter has a tone of confidence that assumes a deal with Yahoo will ultimately take place. It reiterates what Microsoft believes to be the benefits…
• Is The Time Ripe For Search Marketing Standards?
  Over the past ten to twelve years, various SEM practitioners have brought up the need for industry standards. I started asking the question in 1998, and others have brought it up since, but the industry seems to have a laissez faire attitude. Albeit, we’ve seen some standardization steps taken by…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Get GrandCentral Invites, Google Operating System
• iGoogle Animated Video, SEOish
• Invisible Mode in Gmail Chat, Google Operating System
• Bloglines Suffers Major Outage, TechCrunch
• The Personalized Homepage War: Who Matters, TechCrunch

Business Issues

• Deadline in Viacom, Google copyright suit extended, Reuters
• Google and Facebook founders at TED, Telegraph
• Google manager joining Mountain View school board, Mercury News
• EBay moves Shopping.com CEO to head Skype, Yahoo! News
• Fox Said To Be Exploring Termination Of Google Advertising Deal, TechCrunch
• Mixx, social news competitor to Digg, raises another $2 million, VentureBeat
• Revolutionizing the online advertising market, Yodel Anecdotal
• Techland Internet portals losing ad dollars to search, FORTUNE
• Why Google Buys Companies, Google Blogoscoped

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Maps User Survey, Mike Blumenthal
• Putting Google Earth to the test (Answers), Google LatLong
• The art of science and engineering, Google LatLong
• The changing nature of Local Search, Mike Blumenthal
• Announcing LinkedIn Mobile (includes an iPhone version), The LinkedIn Blog
• NOAA Weather Data in Google Earth, Google Earth Blog

Link Building

• Nofollow still means don’t follow, and how to instruct Google to crawl nofollow’ed links nevertheless, Sebastians Pamphlets
• Google Webmaster Tools Links Not Being Update & Yahoo Site Explorer Up and Down, Search Engine Roundtable

Microhoo

• Maybe Microsoft Should Stalk Different Prey, New York Times
• Microsoft addresses Yahoo worries, Seattle Times Newspaper
• Microsoft President on Micro-Hoo: We Can Do It, New York Times
• Microsoft says jobs aplenty even after Yahoo deal, Reuters
• More Yahoo shareholders sue over Microsoft bid, News.com
• Yahoo sale gets a big boohoo, Times Online
• Yahoo sued for spurning Microsoft, Yahoo News
• Jerry Yang Calls on Sue Decker to Bolster Pitch, New York Times
• LiveBlogging Jerry Yang and Sue Decker At IAB Conference, John Battelle’s Searchblog
• Yahoo Holders Losing Patience With Fighting Microsoft, Bloomberg

Paid Search & Contextual

• Adwords’ New "Automatic Matching" – Don’t Fall For This!, SEO Fast Start
• Are You Flying Blind With Google Placement Targeting?, SEM Geek
• Forbes.com Doing Some Google Referral Action, Wolf Howl
• Optimizing for Relevancy, Yahoo Publisher Network Blog
• Tracking Bogus Google AdWords Conversions, SEO Book
• Game-Ad Boom Looms as Sony Opens Up PS3, Ad Age
• Google AdWords Contextual Advertising Mystery Solved, Search Engine Watch
• Google Releases Online Marketing Guides for Google AdWords, Search Engine Roundtable
• Microsoft Announces New Reporting Standard for Digital Campaign Performance, Microsoft
• Microsoft Leads Advertisers Into This Decade, BruceClay.com
• PPC, Trademark Laws, and Copyright Laws: How to Play Fair and Still Win, PPC Hero
• With Great Knowledge Comes Great PPC Performance, PPC Hero

Searching

• How’s discovery different from search?, Alt Search Engines
• United Nations Data Access System (UNdata), Alt Search Engines
• TV-SEO – Samsung Brings Search to Live Television, Reality SEO
• Blogged.com launches blog directory and reviews, Webware
• Rethinking Recommendation Engines, Read/Write Web

SEM Industry

• Celebrity Fame? Prove You’re The Real Deal, Cre8PC
• Final Update from Online Marketing Summit in San Diego, Search Marketing Standard
• IM-NY SES NY Charity Party Sponsored by BOTW, Wolf Howl
• SMX West 2008 WebProNews Videos, WebProNews
• Yahoo! Weighs in at SMX West, Yahoo Search Blog
• 1:1 Interview With Search Marketing Authority and Visionary Hamlet Batista, SEOmoz
• Hiding the Sphinn Button When a Post Fails to Go Hot, All Things SEM
• SES London 2008: The Wrap Up, Search Marketing Gurus
• We’re on our way to SMX West – Are You?, Live Search Webmaster Center Blog

SEO & SEM

• AdSense Still Useful for Getting Indexed, Irishwonder
• How To Grow Your Online Business 4X Overnight, PatrickGavin.com
• More on SEO Pricing and Costs, Marketmou
• New Google Process for Detecting Near Duplicate Content, SEO By The Sea
• Newbie Guide to SEO – Where Do I Start?, eVisibility.com
• Google Reconsideration Request Language Modified Again, Smackdown
• Google Webmaster Help Group Highlights Contributing Members, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google’s duplicate content filter is broken, BlogStorm
• Google’s Matt Cutts Replies to -60 Penalty Thread at Google, Search Engine Roundtable
• How Search Marketing Slays Seasonality in Travel, Search Engine Watch
• How to Market Your Search Engine Agency – Part 2, Search Engine Watch
• MSRBot Bot, Microsoft Bot Causing Havoc on Some Servers?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Quick, Cheap, & Easy Strategies to Dominate Google’s Search Results, SEO Book
• Rewriting the Beginner’s Guide – Part V: Keyword Research, SEOmoz

Social Media

• SEO Shenanigans Pose a Clear and Present Danger to Social Media, Micro Persuasion
• Facebook Targets FriendFeed; Opening Up The News Feed, TechCrunch
• How To Take a Seasonal Chart And Get a TechMeme Headline and Digg Traffic, CenterNetworks
• It’s Not Just Words: The Importance of Empowering Your Audience, DoshDosh
• Three Minutes With Google’s OpenSocial Director, Washington Post
• Yahoo Buzz Launching Soon, TechCrunch
• CrowdFound : Social Discovery Engine, Search Engine Journal
• Selling Social Media (Drug Dealer Style), SEOCO Blog
• Twitter Trivia – New Happy Fun Game!, danperry.com
• Group Social Media Interview with 4 Experts, ViperChill
• Exclusive: Leaked screenshots of Tumblr’s new front page, Valleywag
• Facebook’s Future: Why It’s Here to Stay, Rev2.org
• Nearly a million users, and no spam or trolls, RussellBeattie.com
• Plants that Twitter when they need to be watered, Webware

Video, Music & Image Search

• YouTube Offline, Stepforth
• HBO Launches Official YouTube Channel, SmartMoney.com
• MySpace founder targets YouTube generation, Vnunet.com
• Swedish Playaudiovideo indexes movies, music and images, Pandia

Other Items

• Google TiSP For Real?, Google Blogoscoped
• iPhone, Wii guests on stage at this year’s Oscars, Engadget
• Our secret sauce, Official Google Blog

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

• POOF! CopyBlogger Was “Disappeared” by Technorati
• @ALL: Give Google your feedback on NOINDEX, but read this pamphlet beforehand!
• Going for SEO Celebrity Fame? Prove You’re The Real Deal
• What should NOINDEX do?
• A guide to SEO Canonicalization and URL Normalization
• New Google Process for Detecting Near Duplicate Content
• Why Saying No Can Mean More People Saying Yes
• Brian Wallace Wants to know if …”He Can Has Interview?”
• Search Engine Marketing Job Boards
• It’s Not Just Words: The Importance of Empowering Your Audience
• How Search Really Works: “The” Index (1)
• How to SEO a Newspaper’s Web Site
• 1:1 Interview With Search Marketing Authority and Visionary Hamlet Batista
• The Tao of Crafting Strategic SEM Partnerships
• SocialBlade – Digg Tool That Shows Amazing Stats
• Why SEO Pundits Can’t Explain Search Algorithms
• The Diary of a PPC Newbie, and Why You Should Expand
• 15 Simple Ways to Refresh a Marketing Campaign
• Social Blade: A Tool That Dissects the Front Page of Digg
• Link condoms with juicy taste, or how to instruct Google to crawl nofollow’ed links
• Google Reconsideration Request Language Modified Again
• Banned From Sphinn? No Worries, Your Vote Counts Either Way
• Kidnapped: The SMX West 2008 Trailer
• Reputation Management is More Than Just Spamming Squidoo
• How to Use LinkedIn to Create Authoritative Content