SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 25, 2007

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Digg Buries Google AdSense For Microsoft Ads
  Digg has dropped Google as its ad provider in exchange for for a three-year exclusive ad deal with Microsoft. Microsoft will be providing the display and contextual advertising on Digg’s popular social news site, with traffic estimated at over 17 million unique monthly visitors. The switch over will take place…
• Networking: The In-House Search Marketer’s Most Powerful Tool
  You are a pillar. You are on an island. You are alone – a stranger in your own land. Such is the life of an in-house SEM. Or is it? True, you may be the only one in your company talking your talk and walking your walk, but you…
• CA & Yahoo Team Up To Offer Co-Branded Yahoo Toolbar
  CA and Yahoo have teamed up to offer a co-branded version of the Yahoo Toolbar. This Yahoo Toolbar will be bundled in all CA Home/Home Office products. CA Anti-Spyware will continue to power Yahoo’s anti-spyware feature in the toolbar. From the press release:…
• Advocacy Group Sues Over North Carolina’s Incentives To Woo Google
  Suit filed against state Google incentives from Triangle Business Journal reports that the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law has filed a lawsuit to challenge the incentives given to Google to build a server farm in North Carolina. The advocacy group claims the incentives violate various laws and provisions in…
• Report: Search Most Popular Online Marketing Strategy For Realtors
  Real estate website and publisher Inman.com has put out a new report called The State of Real Estate Marketing. It’s based on results from an online survey of US real estate professionals, which had a total of 770 respondents. The survey found that search engine marketing was the most popular…
• Microsoft Scores Video Game Ad Deal With EA
  Microsoft, EA sign sports game ad deal from Reuters reports Microsoft signed a video game ad deal with Electronic Arts. Microsoft will feed EA’s games, such as Madden, NASCAR, Tiger Woods, NHL and Skate, with advertisements. Cory Van Arsdale, chief executive of Massive, a game ad company Microsoft bought last…
• From The SEO Trenches: Google Bans Immortality, But College Students Party With Cialis
  Google’s Matt Cutts explained in a blog post why Google has banned Alex Chiu’s web page selling an immortality device. It’s not that Google wants to help hide the secret of immortality, as Chiu claims. Rather, it’s because of massive and irrelevant keyword stuffing. Meanwhile, Erik Dafforn showed how the…
• FCC: Nice Ideas, Google — But We Don’t Like All Of Them
  FCC shuns Google plans for open mobile network from Computer Business Review reports that US Federal Communications Commission chair Kevin Martin likes Google’s wireless spectrum bid proposal but is not a fan of all of Google’s requirements. Google said they would bid $4.6 billion on the wireless spectrum, if the…
• What’s Google Doing At An MVNO Show?
  Gary Price noticed and notified us that Google’s Sumit Agarwal is speaking at an MVNO conference. MVNO stands for mobile virtual network operator. Bankrupt (and likely soon to close) Amp’d Mobile is one example; Helio ("don’t call us a phone company") is another. Yahoo is reportedly also going to be…
• Live Search Now Supporting Sitemaps Autodiscovery Via Robots.txt File
  This morning I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Microsoft Live Search is finally now supporting sitemaps via autodiscovery. Microsoft will only use your sitemaps file if it is listed in your robots.txt file. You cannot currently ping Microsoft or upload your sitemaps file to Microsoft….
• UK Survey Shows Public Expects Google To Remain Search Leader
  An online survey of approximately 1,100 people in the UK commissioned by bigmouthmedia found that 61% of respondents believed that Google would still be the leading search engine in five years. When asked "Do you want Google to be the leading search engine in five years time?" the response was…
• Yahoo & Others Form Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse
  Brand Owners on Web Offensive from Red Herring reports that Yahoo, Dell, Coca Cola, Hilton and others have joined together to fight cybersquatting. The companies formed a collation against cybersquatters named Coalition Against Domain Name Abuse. Cybersquatters purchase domain names that are similar to trademark names, such as yahooemail.com and…
• B2B Search Marketers: Keep It Simple
  What! No webcasts, demos or podcasts available for download on your site? Worried you’re getting left in the dust by more savvy digital marketers? Don’t despair. Business buyers continue to show a preference for fast and simple online information…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Gmail Improves Document Preview, Google Operating System
• Yahoo YSlow Shows Site Slowness, WebProNews
• Help make a Gmail video, Official Gmail Blog
• The winners of the 2007 Google-O’Reilly Open Source Awards are…, Google Code Blog
• Yahoo’s Hadoop Involvement and YSlow Release, Jeremy Zawodny

Business Issues

• Google Tussles With Autonomy Over Search Criticism, InformationWeek
• Facebook Hires Yu as Finance Chief, Wall Street Journal
• Kokich Promoted to CEO at Avenue A/Razorfish, ClickZ
• Yahoo Japan Records 23% Jump in Net Profit – WSJ.com, Wall Street Journal
• Comparison Engines Drag On Scripps Interactive Results, MediaPost
• Baidu Takes On `Don’t Be Evil’ Google in China, Bloomberg
• Yahoo!, Macrovision, PC World Execs Join Retrevo, Bill Hartzer

Conferences

• AdWords Seminar Heading to Philly, Brad Geddes
• We have been very busy here at SES, Search Engine Strategies
• Sphinn Calendar Offers Nifty Conference Head Count, Sphinn
• Now Accepting Speaking Pitches for SMX Local/Mobile, Social, Search Marketing Expo Blog

Local, Maps & Mobile

• The No. 1 Local Search Query is…., Small Business SEM
• BBC Interactive Flood Map, Google LatLong
• Find a Garage Sale on ZipGarage, Read/Write Web

Paid Search & Contextual

• Search’s Dirty Money, InformationWeek
• Yahoo Referrals Found in Google AdWords Placement Reports, Search Engine Roundtable
• Taking Your PPC Campaigns Beyond the Majors, Search Engine Watch
• comScore Report Likely Misses Large Internet Segments : Natural Search Blog, Natural Search Blog
• What Everybody Ought To Know About Paid Search Match Types, Rimm Kaufman
• AdWords – Preferred Bidding and Budget Optimiser or not?, E-Consultancy

Searching

• What You Need to Know to Get Better Search Results, Google Operating System
• Google Patent Granted on Semantic Units (Meaningful Compounds) – SEO by the SEA, SEO By The Sea
• Mahalo: Jason Calacanis searches for hits, Valleywag
• Google Universal Search Needs Customization, Marketing Shift
• Proceedings: Third International Workshop on Adversarial Information Retrieval on the Web, ResourceShelf

SEM Industry

• SEO Service Pricing: SEO Grows up slowly, John Andrews
• SEM Immaturity Threatens Industry Future, ClickZ

SEO & SEM

• How ‘unavailable_after’ Should (But Won’t) Be Used, ClickZ
• Google Gadgets and SEO, SEOish
• 9 Reasons Why Your Google Rankings May Tank : SEO Book.com, SEO Book
• Google Prevents Indexing of Google Custom Search Blog, Search Engine Roundtable
• Delisting Sites For Sale?, Sphinn
• Fighting Duplicate Content On Wordpress, Search Engine Journal
• Crawlscore’s Search Engine Simulator Helps You Clean Up Your Website, Jason Bartholme
• The Wisdom The Wisdom & Folly of Directory Link Building, SEOmoz
• Intent and Extent, Search Engine Watch Blog
• How Long Does it Take Yahoo to Index Your Site?, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• Cloning Web 2.0: A Look at Copycat Applications, Read/Write Web
• Irony Alert: Article Blaming Wikipedia For Unreliable Info Gets Its Facts Wrong
• Desktop RSS Readers Are (Nearly) Dead, Read/Write Web
• Google about to give Digg and Wikipedia huge traffic boost, Blogstorm
• MySpace Had 4 Times the Sex Offenders Originally Reported, Techcrunch
• "Subvert and Profit" Profits No One, Techipedia
• How to be my friend, Vanessa Fox
• Using Facebook Apps to Increase Traffic by 300%, Pronet Advertising
• Beta: RustyBudget Makes Group Blogging Easier; Also Useful for Solo Bloggers, ResourceShelf
• Digg Story Gets Promoted 7 Days After Submission, Techipedia
• MyBlogLog SchMOes: Two Months Later, Marketing Pilgrim

Video, Music & Image Search

• You Tube user sues music business, News.com

Web Analytics

• Google Analytics Outage for 30 Minutes, Search Engine Roundtable

Other Items

• Podcast: Yahoo Enlists In Fight Against Type Domains; No, Google’s Still Not Launching The Gphone, Daily SearchCast

Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Newsflash: You’re Damn Right It’s a Popularity Contest (Sphinn)

• Go Huge and Stay Core: A Lesson in Marketing from Volcom
• Digg’s New Ad Provider? Microsoft
• Sitemaps Autodiscovery Finally Comes to Live Search
• This is why you should NEVER source Wikipedia
• How to Determine if a Link Passes Reputation / Authority / Equity / Juice / etc
• Sphinn Support – Antisocial (SEO Friendly Sociable) Wordpress Plugin
• SF Loses Power, Craigslist & Other Sites Unplugged
• Sphinn is Like 5 Hungry Lions Feeding in a 10 Foot Square Cage
• Top 25 SEO Blogs