SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 11, 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:

• New AOL Finance Gains Market Share To Become Top Site
  TechCrunch is reporting comScore data that shows AOL’s new finance site (which we wrote about here) passing Yahoo Finance and MSN Money to become the internet’s top finance destination. If these traffic numbers are accurate it would be a very striking development — especially beating out Yahoo, which has held…
• Search in Pictures: Jeremy Zawodny Weds, Google’s Mascot, Yahoo’s Clothing Line
  In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more….
• Microsoft Business Division Head Raikes Retiring
  President of the Microsoft Business Division, Jeff Raikes is retiring and will be succeeded in that same role at the end of the month by Juniper Networks’ COO Stephen Elop. The Business Division controls Microsoft Office, Unified Communications and Microsoft Business Solutions. The announcement comes a day after news of…
• Yahoo Moves Metasearch Engine FareChase To Travel Homepage
  TechCrunch noticed that Yahoo has moved the FareChase metasearch engine to the homepage of Yahoo Travel. TechCrunch attributes this move to the recent nearly $200 million acquistion of SideStep by competitor Kayak. I’ve always thought that FareChase was a very strong property that wasn’t being fully leveraged by Yahoo. Yahoo…
• Facebook’s Zuckerberg In the Hot Seat In Upcoming “60 Minutes” Interview
  This Sunday night one of the “60 Minutes” segments on CBS will feature an interview with Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg. There’s a snippet of the interview on the CBS website together with an article that previews the segment. In the video excerpt of the interview Zuckerberg looks uncomfortable…
• The New Yorker On Google: Avoiding Regulation, Arrogance
  Just before New Year’s, I published a fictional look at what might happen to Google if it was force to break-up due to government regulation. In The Search Party this week from The New Yorker, there’s a nice long look by author Ken Auletta on how such efforts to regulate…
• Get A Free Link From Wired
  Some SEOs were saddened when Wikipedia added nofollows to external links. Perhaps they’ll perk up to discover that Wired’s semi-Wikipedia challenger has no such blocking….
• Yahoo Directory Places Images On Sponsored Ads
  Yahoo Serving Images in Sponsored Search Listings from Search Engine Journal reports the Yahoo Directory is displaying image ads near the sponsored results. The images appear on the left hand side of each sponsored result within the directory pages. The images appear to be hosted by ImageAdvantage and draw your…
• Google Launches Google Checkout Trends
  The Google Checkout blog announced that they have launched Google Checkout Trends. Google Checkout Trends is a flavor of Google Trends, but limits the data to that collected from Google Checkout merchants. It basically shows you what people are buying and selling online via Google Checkout. You can plug in…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Import Your Hotmail Messages into Gmail, Google Operating System
• Create personal mailing lists through contact manager, Official Gmail Blog

Business Issues

• MicroHoo? YaBay? No Deal!, All Things D
• Yell Shares Rise on Renewed Speculation About Bid by Google , Bloomberg

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google’s Wireless World, Forbes
• New Magellan GPS unit lets you Google local places, SlipperyBrick
• Google Android hacked to run on Sharp Zaurus, Download Squad
• iGoogle for iPhone, Google Operating System
• Local Search Lives or Dies by User Reviews, Search Engine Watch
• Tracking Flights in Google Earth, Google Earth Blog

Link Building

• When Offline Linkbait Ignores the Online Part, 10e20 Blog
• Linking out? Make sure people notice!, Joost de Valk
• Paid Links: More effective than ever, BlogStorm

Paid Search & Contextual

• The Conversion Optimizer: Increase profits and save time, Inside AdWords
• Google Finally Fixes AdSense Video Units Problem, Search Engine Roundtable
• IncrediMail says Google ends AdSense deal, Reuters
• Political Campaigns Make Big Push for Paid Search, SEM Geek

Searching

• A Sizeable Helping of New Search-Related Patent Applications (Various Companies), ResourceShelf
• Bebo Opens Up 100% in Bid For More Third Party Apps, Read/Write Web
• New Beta Site Pushes AOL Finance To Top Spot, TechCrunch

SEM Industry

• 19 Insider Secrets to Polishing a Turd (or Social Media vs Influencing Thought Leaders), SEO Book
• 10 Industry Blogs, 14 Days – Feedburner Stats, ViperChill
• Why SEOs and Astronomers are so much alike, Brisbane SEO Blog

SEO & SEM

• Ad Intellegence – New Slick Free Microsoft AdCenter Keyword Tool, SEO Book
• Vanessa Fox is One Smart Cookie, SEOmoz
• Google Bookmarks and Personalization, SEO By The Sea
• How to Check for Position 6 Penalty, Half’s SEO Notebook
• I’m #1 but I Don’t Get Traffic, Search Engine Roundtable
• Republican Debate in South Carolina , Search Marketing Gurus
• Review: MarketingSherpas’ 2008 Landing Page Handbook, Marketing Pilgrim
• Whiteboard Friday – Content Categorization for SEO, SEOmoz

Social Media

• Ask Not What Community Can Do For YOU, AIM Clear Blog
• Facebook To Allow Users To Hide Apps From Profile, TechCrunch
• Social Media Ninja Winners!, Collective Thoughts
• StumbleUpon without the toolbar – OS X Safari, Locally Type
• Your Privacy is an Illusion on Digg, Techipedia

Video, Music & Image Search

• Has The Writers Strike Reinvented the Online Video Star?, BruceClay.com
• A New Blog for the New Year, Yahoo! Video Blog

Web Analytics

• Secret Coded Keyword Messages in My Traffic Data, Cre8PC

Other Items

• Geeking with Greg: Joining Microsoft Live Labs, Greg Linden
• In the Travel Hot Zone, Yodel Anecdotal

Last 20 Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Using Stats and Goal Tracking for Your Blog
• Twitter – How many followers do you have?
• How PPC Ads Aid Organic Conversions: Analytic Case Study
• Wikia Search tested by a 11yr old… oh and her mum!
• In-House SEM Salary Survey Results from SEMPO
• IzeaRanks & RealRank: How Many Lies Can You Tell Your Advertisers?
• Social Media Ninja Winners!
• Peek-a-boo ;)
• 7 Ways to Resuscitate a Boring Links Post
• The 7 Most Important Metrics for Bloggers
• Yahoo Serving Images in Sponsored Search Listings
• Best SEO Plugin for Wordpress of 2007
• Ask Not What Community Can Do For YOU
• Journalists USE Blogs as Critical Resources For Stories
• When Small Businesses Shouldn’t Act Like A Small Business
• 14 Website Usability Guidelines That Keep them Coming Back for More
• High Rankings Launches New Site
• This 20 Year Old Pisher Speaking at SMX West; Are You Going?
• Uber SEO Company
• The War Against Live Blogging
• 4 Indispensable “SEO TOOLS” for Competitive Research
• Will A Recommender Industry Ultimately Surpass & Dwarf Search?
• Image Optimization Techniques for Search Engine Results
• Best Blogs of 2007 You’re Not Reading – Quiet Blogs That Make Big Noise
• YouTube Viral Video Rocket Ship Optimization Tactics