SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 18, 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:

• Search in Pictures: Sheryl Crow At Yahoo, Google Cupcakes, Goooooooooooogle Amsterdam
  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….
• Center For The Digital Future: Perceptions Of Search Reliability And Accuracy Declining
  The University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication’s Center for the Digital Future is engaged in an ambitious longitudinal study on consumer behavior and media usage. Each year the The Center surveys the same 2,000 US adults to track attitudes toward media as well as any changes in actual…
• Jupiter: Local Online Advertising Will Be Worth $8.9 Billion In 2012
  There are now a range of local forecasts in the market, some more bullish and some more conservative. But all generally agree that locally targeted ads in search, display (including video) and classifieds are growing at rates faster than overall online ad growth….
• Singapore Offers Cash Incentives To Build New Search Engine
  Singapore launches contest for next-generation search engine from PhysOrg.com reports Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research is managing a contest to build out “a next-generation multi-media online search engine.” What I find humorous about the contest is that they expect a $100,000 and eight-months to be enough time and…
• 3rd Annual Yahoo Searchlight Awards
  The Yahoo Search Marketing Blog announced the 3rd Annual Yahoo Searchlight Awards. The awards will be taking place on February 12th in New York City. At the awards, Rob Norman, CEO of Group M Interaction, will be giving a keynote address. One of the four panelists is our very own…
• Google No Longer Displays Stop Words Warning
  In the past, a search on google stop words in search would return a warning that read, “”in” is a very common word and was not included in your search.” But if you do that search today, no such message is displayed. Here is a before an after picture, the…
• FeedBurner Numbers Spike — Blame FeedBlitz!
  Nice — I picked up 5,000 new feed subscribers today, while Barry Schwartz saw Search Engine Roundtable grow 35,000. Overnight! Obviously, the FeedBurner numbers we and others get have gone wonky. To blame? FeedBlitz seems to be putting out bad stats. Consider the comparison above. The left side shows…
• Scanning Barriers on the Search Results Page
  A few columns ago I talked about user behavior on the results page and compared to a shopping mall. In recent eye tracking studies, we’ve seen that several factors can create barriers, or “walls” in this mall that can keep traffic from ever finding your listing….

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Three new languages and a whole new direction for Blogger, Blogger Buzz
• Blogger Suffers Major Outage. Bloggers Not Happy, TechCrunch
• Google Checkout Available For Political Contributions – 01/18/2008, MediaPost
• Google Sites Closer to Launch?, Google Blogoscoped

Business Issues

• Yahoo May Be Looking To Buy Israel’s FoxyTunes, TechCrunch
• China Close To Becoming World’s Largest Internet Market By Users, TechCrunch
• Google Still Has Uphill Climb In Growing Chinese Market, MediaPost
• Microsoft Hires Tony Scott as Chief Information Officer, Microsoft
• Funded by Google , Entrepreneur.com
• Yahoo Asks Employees To Turn In Computers, TechCrunch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Maps: RSS feeds of data into My Maps?, Mike Blumenthal
• New Years Resolution: More Usable Mashups!, Google Maps API Blog
• Acxiom’s New Chief Plans To Focus On Mobile, MediaPost
• 700 MHz: Google Could Still Bid To Win; Bid To Lose More Likely: Analyst|, paidContent.org
• FCC Announces New White Space Broadband Tests – Microsoft, Google hope this round goes better than the last one, DSLreports.com
• Official Google Blog: Public transit made easy, Official Google Blog

Link Building

• The 4 Different Types of Authority Links (and 11 Ways to Get Them), wiep.net
• The Importance of Linking Out , BruceClay.com
• Image Links, "The Next Best Thing" to Text Links, Search Engine Roundtable
• Reciprocal Linking: Reports of Demise Greatly Exaggerated – Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Watch
• Do link exchanges fit in your link building campaign, www.searchnewz.com

Paid Search & Contextual

• Focus on non-brand terms to boost performance , adCenter Blog
• Google Taking Advantage of 2008 Elections with Extremely High CPC’s, SEM Geek
• Some PPC Tips For All Seasons, adCenter Blog
• 4 Keys for Maximizing the Long Tail, Rimm Kaufman
• 5 Tips That Will Make Bulk Uploading into MSN AdCenter Headache Free, PPC Hero

Searching

• Search Atheism On The Rise, TechCrunch
• 12 Popular Browser Toolbars Reviewed – The Worthwhile and the Worthless, SEOmoz

SEM Industry

• Recession Proof Search Engine Optimization Tips, Online Marketing Blog
• Conference Burnout, SEO Book
• 3 Reasons SEO won’t die anytime soon, SEOptimise

SEO & SEM

• Whiteboard Friday – Creating Marketing Personas, SEOmoz
• Baidu to Become Domain Registrar, Just Like Google?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Yahoo Search January 2008 Update, Search Engine Roundtable
• Blocking Opera users can also get you in trouble with Google search, operawatch.com
• Microsoft’s Live Search Not Ranking New Sites Well Anymore, Search Engine Roundtable
• Seth Godin’s Meatball Sundae: 14 Trends No Marketer Should Ignore , 10e20 Blog
• Top 5 Search Engine Marketing Trends 2008, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• 5 Viral Marketing Campaign Features I Learned from Clients, Collective Thoughts
• Digg Has Super Users Or Hates Ron Paul, TechCrunch
• Exclusive: Digg’s secret editors, Valleywag
• My Thoughts on Del.icio.us, Karl Ribas
• Permalinks: Up and hAtom!, Official Google Notebook Blog
• Types of forum members, forum marketing tips, 10e20 Blog
• They Say Don’t Rely on Search Engines, I Say Don’t Rely on Digg, ViperChill
• Why Ants Know More About Digg Than You Do, www.squareoak.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Google changes law firms in Viacom suit, MarketWatch

Web Analytics

• Announcing the new ConversionUniversity.com, Google Analytics Blog
• 2007 Global Website Stats – VisiStat, Web Analytics World
• CMS Watch says Google Analytics and Omniture are "over-hyped", Search Engine Watch Blog

Other Items

• Google’s Schmidt to NASA: Be more ‘open’, News.com
• 6 Ways to Overcome the Visibility Problem, Small Business SEM
• Podcast: Google Charity Cash; Yahoo IDs Get Open; SEO Rockstar Blues , Daily SearchCast

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

• Top 7 Reasons Why Optimizing Porn Sites is Hard
• The SEMMYS Launch, The WHINEYS TBA
• Is This the End of Sphinn
• How To Measure PPC Ad Effectiveness Through Split Testing
• Mixx Hits 100 Days Of Service; Reports Stats and Figures
• Why Breaking This Copywriting Rule Will Boost Your Profits
• Power To The Dojo
• Which is a Better Use of Your Time, a Blog or Email Newsletter?
• Google Indoctrinating (Brainwashing?) Teens In How to Buy AdWords
• SERP Control or SERP Hijacking?
• Exclusive: Digg’s Secret Editors
• Why The SEO Industry Needs Small Business
• Twitter: What Are You Thinking?
• Universities May Be Failing Our Next Great Search Marketers
• Make Google Analytics Show Your Most Popular Posts
• How to Create Social Media’s Favorite Type of Blog Post
• Social Media Mom – To De-Sphinn or Not to De-Sphinn??
• 6 Ways to Deal with Spam Blogs
• SEO Competition … Rules for the 2008 Contest
• 7 SEO Tips for Universal Search
• Mapquest 10x More Used Than Google Maps
• The 4 Different Types of Authority Links (and 11 Ways to Get Them)
• Ron Paul is the ‘Snakes on a Plane’ of 2008
• Get a grip on the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP)
• Most Online Newspapers Lack Functional Business Models