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 Board Of Directors Nominations Open
  SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization, sends word that the organization has opened nominations for the 2007-2008 Board Of Directors election. Any SEMPO member can nominate another member or themselves through next Thursday, January 18, by 5pm Eastern. Nominations are accepted via email, through the member login section of the SEMPO web site. Actual elections will happen in mid-March. Here are the key dates that SEMPO sent me covering the process: January 8th through 18th, nominations for board candidates are accepted January 25th all confirmed nominees will be announced and their bios will be posted on the SEMPO web…
• More Rounds In The "Is SEO Overrated" Debate
  The "Is SEO Overrated Or Rocket Science" debate continues. Sigh. OK, I give up. I guess we have to have this every two or three years. All the arguments I’m reading, I’ve read (or made before). But maybe that’s healthy in an industry where you always have new people coming in. I’ll give you the rundown on the latest leaders that are weighing in. And yes, it will be a kick-butt debate I’m also going to do for our first Search Marketing Expo this June. Kevin, Todd, Greg, Mike, Jeremy: I’ll be coming for you and others! For now, let’s…
• January 2007 Update On Google Indexing & Ranking Issues
  Google’s Matt Cutts has issued a weather report on Google indexing and ranking issues, which I’ll get into below. In addition, I’ll recap a number of Google concerns that I’ve noted over the past two or three weeks. I’ve been saving these to follow up on when I’m out at Google later this month. I’m meeting up with Matt and others from the search quality team in Mountain View, then with Vanessa Fox and others from Google Webmaster Central up in the Kirkland / Seattle office. So expect to hear back. And if you’ve got things you’d like me to…
• Zuula Meta Search Engine
  Zuula is a multi/meta search engine that I noticed the other day. It provides access to search engines in the areas of Web, News, Images, Blogs and Jobs. It takes results from various different engines in each category, but mainly uses Google, Yahoo, Ask, and MSN. It works in a similar fashion to engines such as TurboScout, which is to say that it displays results from one search engine, searchers click on another engine tab and it displays results from that one and so on. It has a ‘recent search’ function, a few advanced search features (such as limiting to…
• Search Engine Land: Top Stories & Stats, Jan. 10, 2007
  Back again with a daily stats and traffic review for Search Engine Land. When I did the first one yesterday, I warned this wouldn’t be a daily activity. But we had another record traffic day, including making the Delicious home page. That’s going to make for some nice comparison to Digg traffic for a future post. In the meantime, here’s are the top stories yesterday on Search Engine Land and what drove traffic to them, as well as some tips on Google Analytics and analytics from FeedBurner….
• A Search Engine For Geriatrics
  Attention all you over-50 types: The folks behind new search engine Cranky.com think they’ve got just what you need to avoid search rage and information overload. The new service, which is really a select directory of 5,000 sites most popular among users 45 and older, simplifies search results by only presenting you four links and specially created annotations, along with ads served by partner Ask.com. Like many new search services cropping up these days, there’s also a social component, with "member" ratings and reviews. More coverage at CNN’s Tired of Google and Yahoo? Try Cranky.com, the AP’s New Search Engine…
• The Social Side Of Trustrank
  A newly published patent application from Yahoo, Using community annotations as anchortext, provides a hint at some of the research and work that Yahoo is doing to incorporate user created tags, annotations, bookmarks, and social profiles into the way that they index and organize information, and rank that information. Danny asked me if I would mention a recent SEO by the Sea post here, where I went into some depth on the processes described in that document. It is at Social Trustrank and User Annotations as Anchor Text. One of the most interesting aspects the patent covers is how trustrank…

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere:

• Charts for Google Spreadsheets, Google Operating System
• The Panama Moniker Sticks, Traffick
• Appropriate Discoverability, Skrentablog
• Quality Score, AdWords Quirk In Delivery, Search Engine Watch Blog
• What Google Might Do to Be Really Evil/ Good, Google Blogoscoped
• Yahoo COO Exercises Options (AP via Yahoo! Finance)
• MSNDude Still Missing, Webmasters Think He Was Replaced By MSNBot, Search Engine Roundtable
• Firms Fret as Office E-Mail Jumps Security Walls, New York Times
• Podcast: Update On Google Indexing Issues; Debate Continues On SEO & More, Daily SearchCast
• Typing Trumps Pointing, Skrentablog
• Extreme Local Search Optimization Tactics, Natural Search Blog
• Microsoft Live Analytics Enters Alpha Stage, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Google Adsense Team Sends Invitations To Webmasters To Help Optimize Ads, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Robot Ate My Web Page…, Yahoo Search Marketing Blog
• Google gives Kansas Education Service Center the finger too, Googling Google
• Building Blog Traffic By Commenting, Marketing Pilgrim
• Keyword Discovery Updates Features, Online Marketing Blog
• SEM’s Seven-Year Itch, Part One, MediaPost
• Questions for StumbleUpon: What Would You Ask Their Co-Founder?, Search Engine Journal
• Gooogie, Phil Bradley
• Google irks Web site owners over malware alerts, InfoWorld
• Google Earth 4 Released Out Of Beta, InsideGoogle
• Search Engine Relationship Chart, Phil Bradley
• UPDATE on Cisco’s iPhone Trademark, Official Cisco Blog
• Free Advertising on TechCrunch with MyBlogLog Flaw, Solo SEO
• MyBlogLog Got Spammed (and so did we), TechCrunch
• Google tops brand-popularity poll, ZDNet UK
• Social Features Key to Yahoo Local, SearchDay
• The SBS Interview: Andrew Goodman, Small Business SEM
• Neil Gaiman’s son coming to Google, Matt Cutts
• Our top 10 of 2006, Inside AdWords Blog
• ShoeMoney Search Engine Ranking Script Remastered, ShoeMoney
• The Latest Pay-For-Digg Email, The Mu Life
• Statistics For Domains Banned From Digg – Part 1, The Mu Life
• Yahoo Photos working again after weekend problems, News.com
• Unequivocal Proof of Effective SEO & Marketing Techniques, SEO Book
• Yahoo Personalized Search Stream Queue, SEO By The Sea
• Top Google Custom Search Engines, Google Blogoscoped
• The SEM Search Engine, Out Of My Gord
• Weird Google AdWords Layout, Google Blogoscoped

Related Topics: SearchCap

About The Author: Danny Sullivan is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also oversees Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He maintains a personal blog called Daggle (and maintains his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan