SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 16, 2013

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Report: PLAs Drove 28% Of Google Non-Brand Ad Clicks In Q4
  Google Product Listing Ads generated 28% of Google non-brand clicks in Q4 according to RKG’s latest Digital Marketing Report released today. PLA CPCs were 26% lower than CPCs for competitive text ads. RKG also found a larger than average gap between bids and actual CPCs for PLAs, suggesting competition is still relatively light. Product Listing Ads […]
• Back To Basics: Getting Started With Keyword Research & Content Creation
  Sometimes, the best path to success in SEO is going back to the basics of good old fashioned keyword research and content creation with the end goal in mind: the customer and the conversion. In this article, I’ll look at a website that was submitted for review from a “Keywords and Content” focus. The site is […]
• Google’s Matt Cutts & Bing’s Duane Forrester On “Search Police” Panel At SMX West
  As an ethical (and effective) search marketer, you spend your time diligently trying to create good content, providing an excellent user experience, and generally striving to delight your current and future customers. But some marketers have succumbed to the dark side, and the black hat tactics they utilize cause major headaches for both search engines […]
• Winning The Conversion But Losing The War
  I’m writing this from a cruise ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (well, actually, about 500 yards from Cabo San Lucas). This is my first cruise, and it’s been an interesting experience. My expectation was that this would be an all-inclusive vacation on water; the reality has been somewhere between a crass timeshare […]
• How Facebook Exchange (FBX) Can Help Search Marketers Improve Reach & Performance
  Since its launch a few months back, the Facebook Exchange (aka FBX) has created lots of buzz amongst companies involved in Real Time Bidding (RTB). While much of the initial discussion about FBX was centered around low-funnel tactics such as site retargeting, more companies (including my company, Simpli.fi) are now complementing site retargeting with upper […]
• Play The Frank Zamboni Google Doodle
  Google has a special worldwide logo, aka Doodle, for Frank Zamboni’s 112th birthday. The interactive Doodle allows searchers to play the Zamboni game by cleaning the ice after it is being used by children, hockey players and ice dancers. Frank Zamboni invented the Zamboni ice resurfacer in 1949, and it’s found on virtually every ice […]

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

• Report: Mobile Travel Callers Convert At Much Higher Rates Than PC Users
• Report: iOS Continues To Dominate Web Traffic
• Yahoo Executive Shashi Seth Leaves The Company
• Mythbusting: Video In Email
• Google Analytics Gets a Facelift – Navigation, Dashboards & More
• Google Glass Gets Its First Developer Hackathon At Glass Foundry Event
• A New MySpace Relaunches (Again) On The Back Of Justin Timberlake’s First Single In 7 Years

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Facebook Search Could Be Good for Google, Support Antitrust Case, All Things D
• Google named best company to work for for fourth year, CBS News
• Google, Seen as Print’s Nemesis, Is Honored by USA Today for Creativity, New York Times

Local Search & Maps

• Never ass-ume, Google LatLong

Link Building

• 3 Core Link Baiting Strategies for 2013, Search Engine Journal
• Facebook Likes May Now Be as Valuable as Links, martinibuster.com
• Post-Penguin Anchor Text Case Study, SEOmoz
• Seven quick tips for anchor text links in 2013, econsultancy.com
• The Pitfalls Of A ‘Just Build Great Content’ Approach To Link Building, koozai.com

Paid Search

• Google AdSense Site Management Beta Released, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Introducing a Suite of Wolfram|Alpha-Powered Finance Apps, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• New Research Database: The Archaeological Archive of Israel is Scanned and Going Online, LJ INFOdocket

SEM Industry

• 5 Things You Should Never Say To An SEO Expert, SEO.com
• Facebook Graph Search: What Local U Faculty Members Think, Local University

SEO & SEM

• 3 FireFox Addons to Use Google’s SITE: More Effectively, Shimon Sandler
• Does Brick & Mortar’s Online Success Signal an End to ‘Pure E-Commerce’ Dominance?, Conductor Blog
• Is It Worth Suing Over Stolen Content That Outranks You, Search Engine Roundtable
• Optimising Your SEO Campaign Using Multi-Channel Funnels & Assisted Conversions, Branded3
• Our Team Resolutions for Bing Ads and You, Bing Ads Blog
• SEO for Ecommerce Websites – Managing Duplicate Content, Online Marketing Blog
• SEO Reporting for 2013 and Beyond, John Doherty
• SEO: The Secrets of Closing the Sale, State of Search
• Stop With the SEO Doom and Gloom, Daily SEO Tip
• The Most Common Google News Errors and How to Avoid Them, Adam Sherk
• What Facebook’s Graph Search Means For Marketers, socialmediaexplorer.com
• What Facebook’s new search engine means for retailers, Internet Retailer
• What Local Search Looks Like in Facebook’s New Graph Search, Small Business SEM
• Why Does Google Modify My Title Tags?, internetmarketingninjas.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Happy 5th Birthday to the Flickr Commons!, LJ INFOdocket