SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 27, 2012

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• Google Confirms Panda 3.3 Update, Plus Changes To How It Evaluates Links, Local Search Rankings & Much More

  Google has confirmed a new Panda update at the same time that it’s announcing 40 search updates that happened in February (or are in progress right now). It would be all but impossible to fully sum up the full slate of changes here, but there are a few that seem especially noteworthy and will no […]
• Google, Yahoo Both Fail At Moneyballing Oscar Predictions

  Both Google and Yahoo used search data to create their own Oscar ballots. Turns out, their predictions were terribly wrong. At best, Google may have correctly predicted Meryl Streep winning, depending on how you read things. But overall, neither of them really got the winners right. Google’s predictions are here; Yahoo’s here. Let’s see how […]

• Google: 1 Billion People Will Use Mobile As Primary Internet Access Point In 2012

  Former AdMob executive Jason Spero, who is now Google’s head of mobile sales, took the stage earlier today at the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona to offer up some new, global smartphone user survey data and 2012 predictions. The Google-sponsored survey had a sample size of roughly 1,000 respondents in each of the represented […]

• How To Best Optimize Your Mobile Site For SEO

  Last week my colleague, Michael Martin presented Mongoose Metrics data that demonstrates that less than 10% of you are mobile ready in 2012. He also presented some pretty compelling reasons for going mobile in 2012, including the Compuware study that 57% of customers would not recommend a business with a bad mobile site, and 40% […]

• Google Mobile Tests Large Black Menu Drop Down Bar

  Despite Google moving away from the large black navigation menu on the web version, it seems like they are testing that exact same version on the mobile version of Google. Alex Chitu posted screen shots of Google testing the new large black drop down menu on Google mobile. Here are pictures: The second image shows […]

• Enterprise SEO Panel Preview For SMX West 2012

  SMX West is approaching fast, and one of the sessions that caught my eye was the Enterprise SEO – Challenges & Solutions. The panel is loaded with speakers with deep experience in enterprise SEO. I decided to reach out to the panelists and get a preview of their presentations, so I asked each of them […]

• 5 Ways To Give Your PPC Account A Kick In The Butt

  So you’ve set up your PPC account, have been monitoring it for a while, and things are going swimmingly. But now what? You feel you’ve done everything you think you can do to the PPC account. Not so! There’s always more to do! In this article, I’ll discuss some ideas you can use to give […]

• Are Check-Ins A Local Ranking Factor?

  Check-in services have been one of the few Web 2.0 concepts to tightly combine location data with social media interactions, but it has not been clear if such services convey distinct local ranking benefit beyond the sort of citational reference provided by general online business directories. However, there are some good reasons to believe check-ins […]

• WSJ Pulls Back On What Google Searchers Can Read For Free

  Are you used to using Google as a way around the Wall Street Journal’s paywall? Think again. The WSJ has been holding back stories available through Google’s “First Click Free” program, a move that I suspect other newspapers might soon emulate. Over the past few weeks, I’ve noticed that I wasn’t able to read some […]

Recent Headlines From MarTech, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

• LinkedIn Follow Button Makes It Easier To Connect To Companies
• Report: Real Time Insights Coming To A Facebook Page Near You
• Why Display’s Moneyball Event Hasn’t Happened…Yet
• Google’s Smartphone Dominance, Tablet Weakness And Surprising Mobile Ad Numbers
• IAB Releases Bigger, More Immersive Display Ad Unit Standards
• Getting Down & Dirty With Campaign Variables For Social Media
• On Google & Being “Evil”
• Flickr Uses “Nopin” Meta Tag To Keep Some Images Off Pinterest

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Google Invents an Original Search Gesture for Future Devices, Patently Apple
• Google, Apple Hit With Patent Over Street View For iPad, paidContent.org
• Spain asks: If Google search results make your business look bad, can you sue?, Ars Technica

Local, Maps & Mobile

• LG in talks with Google for Nexus device, CNET News
• Microsoft Rolling Out Windows Phone Software to 23 New Countries, Bloomberg

Link Building

• How To: Remove Paid Links Without Hurting Your Search Engine Rankings, Bill Hartzer

Paid Search & Contextual

• Details On How Google Prices AdSense Ads, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM Industry

• SMX West 2012 Conference Coverage Schedule, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• How Hardware Innovations (Mobile & Tablets) Change the Online World, internetmarketingninjas.com
• Managing Bingbot – crawl control in your hands, Bing Webmaster Center blog
• A Nod’s As Good As A Wink To A Search Engine Visitor, ppcassociates.com
• Closed Off Search Portals Aim to Monetize Every Click, SEO Book
• Create Crawlable, Link-Friendly AJAX Websites Using pushState(), SEOmoz
• Expect +1 Metrics Housekeeping In Google Webmaster Tools, Search Engine Roundtable
• PPC Reporting and the joy of data visualization, Jacqueline Dooley
• Spring Cleaning: Improve Performance in Your Microsoft Advertising adCenter Campaigns, adCenter Blog
• What Online Marketers Need to Know About the Siri Search, dailyseotip.com

Social Media

• LinkedIn Follow Button: Companies, Look Who’s Following You Now, The LinkedIn Blog