SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 13, 2009

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Bing’s Impact: 3 Things Search Marketers Need To Know
  

  Bing has made a splash in the media recently – but now that the hype has faded, what will be the real impact of the new search engine for search marketers in the trenches? Most professional search marketers are now used to the perpetual changes in algorithms, bidding systems, performance metrics, and ad center tools [...]

• Using User Generated Content To Enhance Conversion-Driven SEO
  

  p>Following a series of presentations on eMetrics Summit about ‘Measuring the Voice of the Customer’, I will give some examples on how User Generated Content can be used to both improve the organic results and the conversion rates of a website. The idea behind using UGC in a website is a two-sided effort that can improve both conversions rates and SEO (see other examples in this previous conversion-driven SEO post).

• At One Month, Bing Says Unique Users Up; Compete Says Barely Any Gain In Searches
  

  A second major ratings service, Compete, has now released search engine share figures for June 2009 showing Microsoft’s new Bing service making a tiny gain. That, following Hitwise’s mixed stats from last week, keeps Bing in “it’s too early to say” territory. Meanwhile, Bing itself says at one month old, unique [...]

• Best Practices For Auditing An SEM Account
  

  The big take-away from this is an understanding of how match types can work together. Match type optimization is the first step in the process to minimize costs without reducing click volume – and is the simplest step to execute.

• Gaining Buy-In for Your PPC Account Plans
  

  In some cases, clients are not receptive to new PPC account ideas. It’s even possible for PPC ideas to be kiboshed before they’ve had a chance to make it into campaigns. In this article, I’ll discuss some client obstacles and some important factors involved in getting good ideas incorporated into PPC accounts. For the purposes [...]

• Microsoft Looking To Sell Razorfish, Good Move
  

  Microsoft Pitches Razorfish Deal to Big Agencies via the Wall Street Journal reports Microsoft is finally looking to sell off Razorfish, something we have been asking them to do since they acquired them. Google sold search marketing firm Performics a while back, mostly due to the conflict of interest in Google running an unbiased search [...]

• Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” Value, Not As Prominent At Google
  

  Google’s Microsoft Moment by Anil Dash is an excellent write up on how Google might now be perceived as if they are evil, even if they are not. Anil’s piece goes through why this is the case and why it matters to Google. What I found more interesting was Matt Cutts, long time Googler, thoughts [...]

• Report: Search Ad Spending Stabilizes While Bing Gains On Google, Yahoo
  

  Search ad spending is stabilizing, advertisers are getting smarter, and Bing is making gains on Google and Yahoo. Those are a few of the trends cited in the latest research report from search marketing provider Efficient Frontier. The company regularly shares reports based on data collected from a portion of its U.S. advertisers. This new [...]

• Google Posts List Of All Its Official Twitter Accounts
  

  Earlier this year, we published The Big List Of Search Engines & Their Employees On Twitter, which included plenty of Google accounts on Twitter. Now Google’s made life even easier by publishing its own list of official Twitter accounts. Google accounts on Twitter is the list on the official Google blog. Also see our past post, [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Planned Outage: July 14, 15, and 16, Yahoo! Groups Blog
• What’s all the hubbub about PubSubHubbub?, AdSense for Feeds
• Google Chrome Suggests Popular Web Pages, Google Operating System
• New in Labs: The super-trustworthy, anti-phishing key, Official Gmail Blog
• The Complete Guide To Microsoft’s Office 2010, TechCrunch

Business Issues

• Google Chrome netbook announcements could come later this year, Liliputing
• Why Google Is Stealing Apple’s Ideas, Forbes
• Twitter Nabs a Legal Eagle from Google, New York Times
• What You Pay For, New York Times
• bing at month one, Bing Community
• Facebook Employees and Investors Can Finally Unload Stock, New York Times
• How the Yahoo! deal got done, The Buffalo News
• Yahoo! protects user privacy — and gets fined?, PolicyBeta
• Yahoo! to Hold Second Quarter 2009 Earnings Conference Call Tuesday, July 21, 2009 at 2:00 PM PT / 5:00 PM ET, Yahoo Press Releases

Local, Maps & Mobile

• New Google Earth Imagery – July 2009 – Good and Bad Part 2, Google Earth Blog
• Google Geocoding, Ambiguous Locations, and User Submitted Data, SEO By The Sea

Paid Search & Contextual

• Bid Management Misconception #2: “Bid Rules”, Rimm Kaufman
• Quality Score: 3 UnFrequently Asked Questions, Search Engine Journal

Searching

• A new view of Data.gov, Google Public Policy Blog
• Google News and Warez, Omgenius.com
• searching for health information, Bing Community

SEM Industry

• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: July 10, 2009, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• architecting content for seo (sem 101), Bing Community
• Best Practices for Video Optimization, Bill Hartzer
• Reputation Management Crises? 8 Crucial Priorities, AIM Clear Blog
• Subscribers Are A Vital Element Of Your Growth Strategy, Online Marketing Blog
• URL Structure: The Closer to the Root – the Better?, Search Engine Journal

Social Media

• Approval by a Blogger May Please a Sponsor, New York Times
• Jeremy Abelson: Embrace For Impact: Alex Bogusky Discusses Social Media and Long Term Changes in the Media Landscape, Huffingtonpost.com
• Tweet Tweet! The British Royal Family joins Twitter, TechShout

Video, Music & Image Search

• Picasa Web Albums Lets You Block Users, Google Operating System

Web Analytics

• How to convert clicks into profit – download free Google how-to guide, Conversion Room

Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• I Don’t Do Follow Friday Twitter Lists But If I Did…
• In Tweet We Trust?
• Evolve or Die? Amazon.com Chooses To Die
• Google Pitches New Small Business Customers, Ignores Existing Ones