SearchCap: The Day In Search, Jan. 24, 2007

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Search B2B With Zibb
  Noticed on Search Engine Watch, the B2B arm of mega-publisher Reed Elsevier has launched Zibb.com, a “vertical” search engine for business users. I say that in quotes because it’s vertical in the way that Business.com is vertical. It’s really a general engine for B2B users. Zibb also offers general Web…
• Beyond Google: Social Media Engines First, Other Search Engines Second
  I’ve never encouraged a "Google First" or "Google Only" mentality for search marketers to follow. This is where you focus only on Google, figuring the other major search engines don’t matter. Instead, I’ve said that all the search engines are important traffic channels to pursue. Don’t forget the search engines…
• Yell Expanding Mobile Services
  U.K. directory publisher and local search provider Yell, parent of U.S. yellow pages publisher YellowBook, announced the expansion of mobile services in the U.K. Yell directory database listings, interactive maps and turn-by-turn directions will be available either through a downloadable application or on a mobile browser. Information may also be…
• Google Checkout Testing Large Buttons On AdWords
  Google Operating Systems spotted Google testing large Google Checkout buttons underneath AdWords ads that are from merchants that accept Google Checkout. Here is a comparison image: This begs the question, is Google going to far with giving Google Checkout merchants an unfair advantage or not? More discussion at Google Pushing…
• Norwegian Data Inspectorate To Investigate Privacy Issues With Google
  Gary Price pointed me to a Pandia article that reports Google is to undergo an investigation by the Norwegian Data Inspectorate, to understand what data Google is storing about users, why they are doing so, for how long and the security measures they take place. Norwegian Data Inspectorate’s Senior Engineer,…
• Search SEO & SEM Forums With Google Custom Search Engine
  I have created a Google Custom Search Engine (CSE) that specifically searches the various search marketing and search engine optimization forums on the web. Currently, the Google CSE searches 14 SEM/SEO forums, and I have honestly been very surprised at how relevant the results have been. You can give the…
• Baidu Earns License To Produce News Content In China
  Reuters reports that Baidu, the large Chinese based search engine, has earned a license by China’s State Council Information Office (SCIO) to produce news content in China. This enables Baidu to produce their own content, as opposed to just showing snippets of content from 3rd party sources….
• Yahoo Fixes Lower Case Titles Bug In Search Results
  A week ago, we thought that Lower Case Titles In Yahoo Coming From Anchor Text, and asked Yahoo about it. Tim Mayer of Yahoo has commented on original post at the Search Engine Roundtable saying that this has now been fixed. And, based on the examples in our post from…
• A Design Change For Google Images
  Philipp Lenssen reports that Google Images has undergone a design change. The most noticeable changes include: Removal of row by row light blue background color Addition of mouse over light blue background color on an image by image basis Removal of image URL source Removal of image file size Removal…
• Google Groups Beta Design Comes Out Of Beta
  Google Groups launched their beta design to the public last night. The new design change switched from an orange/yellow/white color scheme to a light blue and white color scheme. The new design also comes with some feature additions including: Pages. Create and contribute to shared web pages with simple drag,…
• Yahoo Announces 4th Quarter Financial Results: Stock Up In Pre Market
  Yahoo has posted their year-end financial results, showing a drop in profits by but increase in overall revenues. Based on that news alone, Yahoo’s stock fell in after hours trading, but when Terry Semel, Yahoo’s CEO, announced the release of the new ranking model, the stock went up in after…
• Yahoo Search Marketing To Launch New Ranking Model February 5th
  Huge news last night was that Yahoo announced that they will be launching their new ranking algorithm for their sponsored search ads on February 5th. The new ranking model is a huge change from the old model, which was based on a pure auction bidding environment. Now advertisers are going…

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere:

• Google Sues Leo Stoller for Racketeering, Google Watch
  
• The Godfather of Search? What About the Godmother?, Marketing Pilgrim