SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 27, 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:

• SMX West Day Two Coverage
  Day two is pretty much over now, we still have the Google Grove later but the sessions are now complete. Here is coverage of the conference picking up from where we left off last night….
• Google Takes Top Prize At SMX Search Bowl
  Last night was the first every SMX Search Bowl. Basically, the Search Engine Land team created fifty questions that were asked to the various teams. The teams consisted of two players from Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, Live Search and the SEM All Star team. Danny displayed the questions on the…
• Yahoo’s Apex Preview: An Ambitious, Unified Ad Platform
  At the IAB conference in Phoenix on Monday, Yahoo President Sue Decker made some tantalizing allusions to a new ad platform called “Apex.” According to the NY Times, this stands for “advertiser publisher exchange.”…
• Microsoft’s Chief Strategy Officer: “Google Owes Its Business To Us”
  Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium, Microsoft’s Chief Strategy Officer Craig Mundie made the perhaps technically correct but strange remark that Google’s business was essentially derivative of Microsoft’s success. “If we didn’t succeed at the PC, they wouldn’t have a business,” Mundie is quoted as saying. Yet Microsoft…
• EFF Sues Googler For Correspondence With Horvath
  Group Sues Justice for Google Contacts from Washington Post reports that the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed suit against a former Googler. The EFF want to know what was said between Google and Jane Horvath, a former US Justice Department privacy lawyer who now works for Google. The suit was filed…
• Lessons Learned As An In-House SEO Consultant
  Jessica Bowman’s article in the Winter issue of Search Marketing Standard, “Bringing SEO In-House,” defines the In-House SEO Life Cycle as: Courtship, Honeymoon, Reality, and Synergy phases. In the courtship phase you recruit the best in-house SEO possible. When the honeymoon is over, reality sets in. That’s when you…
• In-Depth With EveryZing Chief Revenue Officer Stephen Baker
  EveryZing, the search solutions provider well-known for offering speech-recognizable, time-coded, linkable transcripts for video and audio content in their multimedia search engine, today announced the official launch of its commercial program to larger media publishers. Recently I conducted an exclusive interview Stephen Baker, Chief Revenue Officer for EveryZing. Months…
• EveryZing Introduces Multimedia Optimization Tools For Publishers, SEOs
  EveryZing announced today that it has launched ezSEO AND ezSEARCH, two products designed to improve the findability of audio and video content by both web search engines and content provider site search services. ezSEO is a templated publishing system can rapidly build thousands of pages that are search friendly, even…
• Leveraging Search To Meet B2B Challenges
  B-to-B marketers have unique challenges to overcome—everything from the lengthy sales cycle, to tracking gaps from leads to sales, to heavy competition on top terms. But the good news is that search engine marketing helps marketers meet these challenges head-on. The bad news is that this list of challenges…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Gmail CAPTCHA Cracked, Slashdot
• Announcing the Open Source Google Apps Provisioning Toolkit, Official Google Enterprise Blog
• Now Yahoo Mail is having problems, News.com
• Google Docs Redesign, Google Blogoscoped

Business Issues

• Yelp raises $15 Million fourth round, valuation $200 Million, TechCrunch
• BREAKING: About.com CEO Scott Meyer To Leav, paidContent.org
• EU fines Microsoft another $1.3 billion for antitrust abuse, InfoWorld
• Microsoft Picks Up Israeli Ad-Targetting Software Startup YaData for a Reported $20 Million to $30 Million, TechCrunch
• Music Copyright Society of China Sues Baidu for Copyright Violation, RedlineChina
• Powerset Co-Founder to Launch Crowdsourced Green VC Fund, Wired

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Are Yahoo and Yelp Dating?, Small Business SEM
• How Google is handling the UK earthquake, BlogStorm
• Opera brings Google search to your pocket, Opera
• Oscars in Google Earth (1958 – 2008), Google Earth Blog
• UK Earthquake – View Data in Google Earth, Google Earth Blog
• Google Maps Record Failures – Can they handle my personal medical records?, Mike Blumenthal

Link Building

• Analyzing Your Competitor’s Backlinking Strategies, Search Engine Journal
• Bad Links Can Kick You Once You Are Down, Search Engine Roundtable
• How To Build 22,938 Links To Your Blog, ProBlogger
• You can’t escape from Google-Jail when, Sebastians Pamphlets

Microhoo

• Microsoft recasts legal team for Yahoo bid, News.com
• How Yahoo’s Stakes in Asia May Affect Microsoft’s Bid, Wall Street Journal
• Yahoo Calls Microsoft Takeover Offer a Distraction, Bloomberg
• Wishing for the Old Yodel From Yahoo, New York Times
• Yahoo’s Deteriorating Defenses Against the Microsoft Bid, Wall Street Journal

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdSense Click Fraud in India – How The Whole System Works?, Digital Inspiration
• Boost your adCenter traffic with Microsoft Content Ads, adCenter Blog
• International PPC Campaigns: How to Target Outside the US With Success, PPC Hero
• UK Live Search Users Placing Trust In Pay-Per-Click, adCenter Blog

Searching

• Answers.com invites you to the AnswerThon!, Alt Search Engines
• Eurekster Debuts Improved Swicki Results Pages, TechCrunch
• Gigablast Debuts a New Look, Features (Beta), ResourceShelf
• Stumpedia – the Democratic Search Engine, Alt Search Engines

SEM Industry

• Do you work for Matt Cutts?, Andrew R H Girdwood

SEO & SEM

• Google Gadgets in Google Search Results, SEOish
• How many angles are you looking at keyword research from?, Jennifer Slegg
• SEO Automation or Smart SEO Tools?, The SEO Scoop
• Why SEO is expensive, E-Consultancy
• Authority Building: Tools of the Trade, Search Engine People
• Is Microsoft Screening Its Search Results?, Seeking Alpha

Social Media

• Pownce to Release More Complete API this Friday, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• All Yahoo!’s Video Are Belong To Us, Yahoo! Video Blog

Other Items

• Giving a whole new meaning to "power lunch", Yodel Anecdotal
• Project CARE in San Francisco, Official Google Blog
• Tim Berners-Lee Says the Time for the Semantic Web is Now, Read/Write Web
• Google: Marissa Mayer gets the cupcake treatment, Valleywag

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

• New Global Search Engine
• Social Media FAQ: How Do I Measure ROI?
• Using Social Media to Determine your Brand Power
• Free! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business
• How Many Angles Do You Have for Keyword Research?
• You can’t escape from Google-Jail when you’ve spread a bazillion of stinky links
• Search Economics – The Law of Diminishing Returns
• Google Admits Next Step in World Domination
• Dear Sphinn: We Have a SPAM Report Button, Please Use It
• Steve Rubel Attacks SEOs’ Use of Social Media – The Pot Calling the Kettle Black?
• How To Manage Your Online Reputation
• Digg Town Hall Summary
• A Thumbs Down Kills Stumble Traffic
• Shana Hits 100 Sphinns Gone Hot – Part of the Fab 5
• How Depending on Quality Content Can Actually Cost You Links