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 Pics: Google Bumper Sticker, Knitted Android Sleeve & Yahoo’s CEOs
  

  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. Bumper Sticker For Google Self Driving Car: Knitted Android Holder: Louis Gray’s Android Shrine: Large Android [...]

• Last Call To Speak At SMX West
  

  We’re finalizing the speaker lineup for SMX West, and there are still a few openings. We’re particularly interested in hearing from you if you can speak knowledgeably on the following topics: Best Practices With adCenter For Bing & Yahoo Beyond The Google AdWords Tool Duplication, Aggregation, Syndication, Affiliates, Scraping And Information Architecture Enterprise PPC Siri: [...]

• 10 Search & Website Usability New Year Resolutions for 2012
  

  No matter where in the world you live, it’s likely you have rituals that you participate in at various times of the year. Website owners have a New Year ritual too. The first item we need to address is updating the copyright year in the footer of our website. Not only does this show that [...]

• How Much Is A Click Really Worth?
  

  All forms of paid advertising use the max bid – it’s the most basic concept yet calculating the theoretical maximum value to pay for a click is surprisingly difficult. It’s not that the math is tough; it just takes stepping back from the granularity of channel specific optimization to get a more holistic look at [...]

• Infographic: Search & Call Tracking
  

  Are you tracking search-related conversions that come in by phone? Perhaps you should, when 43% of them are estimated to come in that way. Ads that contain phone numbers are also said to have a 10% increase in clickthrough rate. These stats on search and phone calls, along with some general statistics about ad spending, [...]

• 2012: The Year Of The Independent Search Marketer?
  

  For the past few years, experts and hacks alike have declared – and debated – it being the “Year of Mobile” or the “Year of Attribution.” So, let me go ahead and make my own personal declaration for 2012. It is not just the “Year of the Dragon,” although that makes me feel much more [...]

• Bing Makes Driving Directions Twice As Fast
  

  Chris Pendleton announced on the Bing Maps blog that they have pushed out a major update to their driving directions “routing engine.” The new routing engine is twice as fast as the old one and adds more features like adding up to 3 routes in one request. Previously, Bing Maps used a routing algorithm named [...]

• Attend SMX West for What Works and What’s New in Search Engine Marketing – Feb. 28 to March 1
  

  You need proven tactics to build site traffic, grow sales and boost ROI. And, since search marketing changes daily, success often means knowing what’s new – and how to adapt. SMX West delivers both… what works and what’s new. Here are 10 reasons you should join us February 28 to March 1 in San Jose, [...]

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

• Google Wins Five YouTube Typo-Squatted Domains
• Google’s Toy Study Exposes Complex Consumer Purchase Path
• Ogling Bing’s Year In Pictures 2011
• Infographic: Email Isn’t Dead
• Will The New Google TV Partners Be Enough To Help The Platform?

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• New Yahoo Chief Rallies the Troops, Wall Street Journal
• Yahoo Puzzles Over $4 Billion Tax Break, Wall Street Journal
• 5 things that should be on new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s “To Do” list, VentureBeat
• Yahoo Needs To Become Yahoo Local, www.localseoguide.com

Link Building

• Interim Linkscape Update for January, SEOmoz
• The Difference Between Good Links and Great Links, Search Engine People

Paid Search & Contextual

• The Single Biggest Mistake You Can Make In PPC, PPC Hero

Searching

• Ask the Editor: Top Trending New Year’s Resolutions, ycorpblog.com

SEM Industry

• 50 Pages & People Every SEO Should Have In Their Circles, pointblankseo.com
• SearchFest 2012 Mini-Interview: Wil Reynolds, www.sempdx.org

SEO & SEM

• 55 days until AdWords API deprecation deadline, Google Ads Developer Blog
• 6 On-Page SEO Strategies That’ll Boost Your Rankings, quicksprout.com
• All About Anchor Text – Whiteboard Friday, SEOmoz
• More Panda Rumors: Is It A Google Panda Update?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Online Reputation Management: You Really Want To Defend This Company?, Search Engine People
• SEO 2012 – Will Schema Be A Factor – Guest post, State of Search
• Video: Google Chrome Buys Links & Bans Themselves, Yahoo Gets New CEO & Webmaster Report, Search Engine Roundtable
• White Hats Using Black Hat SEO Techniques, Search Engine Roundtable

Related Topics: Channel: Other | SearchCap

About The Author: Matt McGee is Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land. His news career includes time spent in TV, radio, and print journalism. His web career continues to include a small number of SEO and social media consulting clients, as well as regular speaking engagements at marketing events around the U.S. He blogs at Small Business Search Marketing and can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee and/or on Google Plus. You can read Matt's disclosures on his personal blog. See more articles by Matt McGee

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