SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 31, 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:

• Internet Yellow Page Video SEM: Worth The Effort?
  Informational videos are a excellent way for local businesss to get positions with the natural search engines, through the trend toward blended or universal search results which mixes video in with traditional results. Videos are also becoming an attractive way to bring in leads, sales and new customers from…
• Video Search: New Column From Search Engine Land
  Our newest Search Engine Land column, Video Search, launches today. Video Search looks at how search engines index videos, and explores the unique search engine optimization techniques that can make videos visible in search results. Our video search columnists are: Grant Crowell, CEO and Creative Director, Granttastic Designs Bob…
• Report: Click Fraud Up 15% In 2007
  Click Forensics, the company that maintains the Click Fraud Index, a network that monitors and reports on data gathered from more than 4,000 online advertisers and their agencies, has released its most recent quarterly report on click fraud. The company found that the overall industry average click fraud rate rose…
• Google’s Marissa Mayer On Social Search / Search 4.0
  VentureBeat has a nice Q&A with Google’s Marissa Mayer on how the search engine is considering using social data to improve its search results — what I’ve described as "Search 4.0" as a generational jump in my Search 3.0 article from earlier this year. Some highlights below:…
• Making a Good Impression With About Us Pages
  Sipping on a cup of coffee, on a Wednesday morning in the lounge of the local bowling alley last summer, surrounded by shop keepers, and insurance salesmen, and other small business owners, I hand out my business card. Most of these merchants have actual places I can visit, while…
• Vote Now For SMX Search Bowl’s Search Marketer Team
  The nominations are in, and now it’s time for search marketers to vote on which two people should represent SEMs against the major search engines in the SMX Search Bowl search trivia contest, which happens at our SMX West three-day search conference next month in California. The nomination round…
• New "Show Search Options" Broadens Google Maps
  As the Google LatLong Blog reports, Google has added a new "show search options" link beside the main search box in Google Maps. This is a very interesting development for several reasons. It’s a pull-down menu that allows you to narrow or expand results for the same query and more…
• Google’s Founders & CEO Promised To Work Together Until 2024
  Google CEO, Co-Founders Made Long-Term Promise from the Wall Street Journal reports Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt, said they would work together until the year 2024. Google spokesperson Jon Murchinson told the Wall Street Journal that the "informal pact" between the three top…
• 5 Reasons Why Rankings Are A Poor Measure Of Success
  Are you still measuring your SEO success by the rankings you obtain? If so, you need to stop—right now! Here’s why:…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• How to Make Google Gadgets – Lesson Five, SEOish
• Official Gmail Blog: IMAP on Windows Mobile devices, Official Gmail Blog
• Google slams Autonomy over enterprise search claims, Washington Post

Business Issues

• Blog Search Provider Lijit Acquires Comment Searcher BigSwerve, paidContent.org
• California high court to hear Google age-discrimination case, News.com
• Google, Facebook Battle For Computer Science Grads. Salaries Soar., TechCrunch
• Stock Report – Scripps (SSP), The Future of Shopzilla, ComparisonEngines.com
• Stifel Says EU Drafts Objections To Google-DoubleClick Deal, SmartMoney

Link Building

• 11 Experts on Link Development Speak Out, Sugarrae
• The Times (UK) Spamming Social Media Sites, Waxy.org
• Times Online and the case of the site link spammer, The Guardian
• Techmeme PageRank Penalty?, Andy Beard

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Tips for Google Mobile Search, Google Operating System
• Redfin Continues To Shrink The Real Estate Market, TechCrunch
• Video Tutorials for Google Earth, Google Earth Blog
• Google LatLong: My Map of travel conditions during China’s snowstorm, Google LatLong

Paid Search & Contextual

• Efficient Frontier Insights: Global SEM Breakdown: Mostly Google, Efficient Frontier
• Fresh from New York: Trends in online advertising, VentureBeat
• Google’s Tim Armstrong: Web Will Unleash Ad Creativity, Ad Age
• Microsoft adLab Tools Review Part 1: Introduction, adCenter Blog
• Google AdSense Earnings Way Down in January 2008?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Weird Excite AdWords, Google Blogoscoped
• Why Yahoo must launch its Publisher Network internationally, E-Consultancy

Searching

• SpotSigs: Near Duplicate Detection in Web Page Collections (Thesis), ResourceShelf
• 10 Search Engines You Don’t Know About | Services | bMighty.com, bMighty.com
• Search Engine War: Permanently Disable Google Personalized Web Search, Search Engine War
• Who Owns Trust? The First Click or the Second Click?, Learn To Duck

SEM Industry

• Survey of SEM Customers Shows Google Grabbed Most Ad Dollars, ClickZ
• Is Sphinn Bad For The Industry?, BruceClay.com
• T.R.A.F.F.I.C. Affiliate Summit SMX?, John Andrews
• Ask the SEO Guru – With One Remarkable Move, The SEO Guru Kills the in-house, out-house Debate, Bob Massa
• Finding The Right Search Engine Marketing Company: Part One, SEO Speedwagon
• How To Educate Search Staff from Scratch, Search Engine Watch
• Ranking Affiliate Sites vs Corporate Search Engine Marketer : SEO Book.com, SEO Book

SEO & SEM

• But Will It Google?, SEOmoz
• SEO Suggestions for the Yahoo! Store Development Team, Karl Ribas
• Google.com’s Country Specific Weights Getting Stronger?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Is SEO Possible Without Inbound Links?, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• ‘Facebook fatigue’ kicks in as people tire of social networks, The Register
• Considering Social Media Marketing, Yahoo Publisher Network Blog
• Social Media Smarts – Tips on Marketing with Social Media, Online Marketing Blog
• We had a rough night. But now we’re back., Twitter Blog
• Twitter Tools, SEOWife
• The Rise of Twitter as a Platform for Serious Discourse, Read/Write Web
• Instapaper, A Beautifully Simple Bookmarking Tool, ParisLemon

Video, Music & Image Search

• Flickr makes a living, Yahoo Blog
• YouTube Partner Program: Now in the UK, YouTube Blog

Web Analytics

• Rating Burner Debuts With RSS Feed Ranking, Growth Stats, www.louisgray.com

Other Items

• Google Suggest and Obama, Google Blogoscoped
• comScore Releases 2007 U.S. Internet Year in Review, comScore
• Take a Look at the BetaBlue Aircraft: Complete with Yahoo and Blackberry Logos, ResourceShelf

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

• Google Universal Search: 2008 Edition
• SEO RoundTable Poll: Are SEO’s Worth $350 Per Hour?
• The Blogosphere: Power Of The People
• 11 Experts on Link Development Speak Out
• Following Twitter Tweets Beyond 10 Pages
• The Best In Mom Networking Sites
• Is Sphinn Bad For The Industry?
• Top 10 search engine optimization techniques
• The Ultimate Resource For Free WordPress Themes
• SEOs Fight Fat For Charity
• Four Easy Ways to Create Innovative Content With Interactivity
• Sociable WordPress plugin take-over
• Yahoo Laying Off 1,000 Employees; Names New CTO
• SEO First Aid: What to Do When The Rankings Crash
• Twitter Packs- a Way to Share Interests
• Social Media Smarts – Tips on Marketing with Social Media
• Search Engine Reputation Management: Setting & Managing Expectations
• How to Deal with a Ripoff Report Listing
• 34 Google Local Maps Sources For Hospitality Industry Reviews
• Does Google Use "THEM-ING" to Group Similar Sites?