SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 29, 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:

• SearchBiz: Google And The “M-Word,” Mozilla Engineering VP To Facebook, Flickr Founder Criticizes Yahoo & Digg Confirms Google Rumors (Sort Of)
  The “M-word” has popped up recently several times around Google’s search market share and its paid search deal with Yahoo (now under Justice Department review). Google, of course, doesn’t see itself as a monopoly and is taking pains to distinguish itself from the likes of Microsoft and others who were…
• Google Maps Cleans Up Its Act
  Google Maps (Earth) is far and away the company’s most successful product after search. It is now the second most popular mapping service online (Mapquest still leads) and the most popular mobile mapping tool (Mapquest Mobile is second), according to comScore. Every few months, it seems, Google “tweaks” the service,…
• Looking For Old News? Use Google’s News Archive Search
  Today, the Search Engine Roundtable has a post explaining that Google News only shows results for news articles up to thirty-days old. To access any older news content, you must use Google News Archive Search. The thing is, not all Google News sources are included in Google News Archive Search….
• Google’s Send Mail Server Security Certificate Expires
  It appears that Google’s Gmail SMTP (send mail) server might have let their secure certificate expire. I personally just got notified that the smtp.gmail.com server was not secure, due to the certificate expiring. Here is a screen capture:…
• Google Logos For NASA’s & Beatrix Potter’s Birthdays
  Today, Google has a special logo up for NASA’s birthday. Yesterday, Google had a logo up for the late Beatrix Potter’s birthday. NASA was established on July 29, 1958. Potter was born on July 28, 1866 and died on December 22, 1943. Here are the logos:…
• A Comprehensive Look at Digg’s Recommendation Engine
  It’s hard to believe but Digg’s latest feature, the recommendation engine is one that has been in the works for over two years. Before they developed images functionality, launched visualization tools, released Google, Netvibes, and Myspace widgets, developed Facebook functionality, rolled out dataportability enhancements, released updates to the comment…
• Search Illustrated: The ROI Of SEO
  Organic optimization brings more than just results in the search engines. This week’s infographic shows off the additional benefits and return on investment that comes along with properly optimizing a site and pursuing targeted keywords:…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• IAC’s Life123 Comes To Life; Goals Include Saving You Time, Ranking Well In Search, paidContent.org
• Knol is Google’s Wikia, Scripting News

Business Issues

• HP, Yahoo, Intel Announce Cloud Computing Research Initiative, TechCrunch
• Industry Moves: Scripps; NBCU; PermissionTV; Yahoo; Facebook, paidContent.org

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google’s Sergey Brin on Local Mobile Search, Search Engine Watch
• Could A Google Android, Symbian Foundation Pairing Be Pending?, CRN
• Google Maps: New User Content Tab, Mike Blumenthal
• Indian IT Firm outsources Local US Mapspam to itself, Mike Blumenthal
• Microsoft Virtual Earth to Be Offered With ESRI’s ArcGIS Online Services, Microsoft

Link Building

• Jim’s "Where’s the Unnatural Links?" Quiz, Jim Boykin
• Jewelry & Watch Links - DoFollow Tuesdays, Link building Best Practices

Paid Search & Contextual

• 3 Ways to Give Your Keywords Prominence, Search Engine Journal
• Google AdWords Search Updates Design, Search Engine Roundtable
• Tips on Uploading Google Campaigns into Yahoo, PPC Hero

Searching

• Health Search Part III - OrganizedWisdom, altsearchengines.com
• SearchCloud Weights Keywords To Improve Search Relevance, TechCrunch
• Can we please kill the Google killer talk? , DMNews
• How do we know if a new search engine is any good?, Slate Magazine
• The Latest Cool SearchMonkey Apps, Yahoo Search Blog

SEM Industry

• Interview: Michael Gray on Link Building and SEO Intervention, Search Engine Guide
• My schedule for late 2008, Matt Cutts
• Stephen Pitts: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop

SEO & SEM

• Why You Should Give Yourself the "Opportunity To Cure" In Your SEO Consulting Contracts, SEOmoz
• Blue Hat SEO-Advanced SEO Tactics, Blue Hat SEO
• Seven Building Blocks of a Destination Website: , Search Engine Guide
• Checking Page HTTP Headers, Search Engine Journal
• When’s an Outage More than Just an Outage?, Search Engine Watch
• Is The Google "Yo-Yo Effect" Due to Universal Search?, Search Engine Roundtable
• More Killer Keyword Techniques: Personas and Buckets, Search Engine Watch
• My "Give It Up" Presentation from SMX Advanced in Blog Format, SEOmoz
• Press Releases and Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• How Your LinkedIn Profile Is Connected To Your Company’s Success, The LinkedIn Blog
• The Use of Fake Avatars In Social Media, BruceClay.com
• Ambush Marketing: The Art of Diverting Attention, DoshDosh
• MyBlogLog’s New Design Goes Live, Digital Inspiration
• Looking at Fake Social Media Profiles, Michael Gray

Other Items

• Mine Flies Higher: Google’s other party plane revealed, Valleywag
• Google’s coding champions go for the gold in contest, Los Angeles Times

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

• Cuil Launches — Can This Search Start-Up Really Best Google?
• Widget Optimization Demystified - 16 Experts Weigh In
• 7 FireFox Extensions to Explore Page Source Code
• 12 Common Blogging Mistakes To Avoid
• New Search Engine Cuil Launches But Something is Amiss
• Interview with SEO: Dave Harry aka TheGypsy
• Needy Karma Turning Off Casual Plurkers?
• Looking at Fake Social Media Profiles