SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 30, 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:

• SMX East Agenda Posted: All the Search Marketing Topics for All Skill Levels
  

  Come to Search Marketing Expo – SMX East for content so compelling, you may be implementing what you’ve learned while still attending a session. And with 50 sessions and keynotes on the agenda, there’s plenty to choose from. See the complete agenda here. Topics include paid search advertising (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), local & [...]

• Yahoo Improves Local Search Results With More Business Info
  

  Yahoo has announced a nice change to the way it shows local search results for businesses. The Local Shortcut, which has always indicated things like how many reviews/ratings a business has, is now expanded to include the actual text of those reviews and other information like photos and driving directions. All of this is available [...]

• What Site Owners, Web Developers & SEOs Should Know About The Yahoo Microsoft Deal
  

  By now, everyone has read all about the news that Yahoo is replacing its search index with Microsoft’s Bing. In a way, it’s a great story of complete reversal, as in 2002, Microsoft didn’t have its own index and instead used Inktomi. Late that year, Yahoo! acquired Inktomi, which spurred Microsoft to start building its [...]

• How Many Categories Should A Local Business Have?
  

  When dealing with someone, the first thing that you want to know, is who that person is. In the SMB world, this boils down to what category a local business belongs to. In the old days of the yellow pages, consumers were used to knowing search the pages for, and media companies were used to [...]

• Google Rolling Out Bid Simulator
  

  Barry originally wrote about AdWords Bid Simulator early last month. The tool shows you estimated costs, impressions, position and clicks tied to bid price. It’s now apparently rolling out to more advertisers.

  Image credit: E-Commerce Circle The irony is that Panama had a very similar feature when it launched, using a slider to show increased traffic levels [...]

• Blending Free & Paid Content To Maximize Visibility And Profit
  

  You only get to launch a product or service or piece of featured content once. Is the best way to maximize economic yield to make it free or paid? If it is free is can spread far and get many links, but it does not produce any revenue directly. If it is paid a much [...]

• The Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal, In Simple Terms
  

  What a day! Still trying to digest all the news about the Yahoo Microsoft search deal? So are we. While answers are still coming in, here’s what we know so far. In a nutshell, what just happened? Yahoo and Microsoft both have behind-the-scenes technology used to generate those listings you get when you perform [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• AOL Newsroom Now Has (Wow) 1,500 Writers, TechCrunch
• Use Google Docs & Google Checkout to Sell Online, Official Google Docs Blog

Business Issues

• Bing Yahoo! Now Equals 26% of Search Market, Hitwise
• Google Dumps Another Half-Million Free Titles Into Sony’s eBook Store – Sony eBook Reader, Gizmodo
• For Bartz, Potential Pitfalls Arise, Wall Street Journal
• Marissa Mayer Interview at Digg, Google Blogoscoped
• Microsoft-Yahoo: Antitrust Hurdles Loom, BusinessWeek
• The World According to Google, Marketing Pilgrim
• Yahoo Tie-Up Is Latest Sign Tide Turning for Microsoft’s Ballmer, Wall Street Journal

Local, Maps & Mobile

• U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Adds New Data To Google Earth, ResourceShelf
• Update: Citysearch & Free Business Listings, Small Business SEM
• Welcome to Boston: the MBTA on Google Maps, Google LatLong

Paid Search & Contextual

• 10 Questions You Should Ask a Potential New PPC Management Firm, PPC Hero
• Advertisers Welcome Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal, New York Times
• Google Money Scams Take To Phone?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Now even more AdWords campaigns can use the Conversion Optimiser!, Conversion Room
• What you need to know about search engine policies and trademarks, Brad Geddes

Searching

• KidsPost: Today’s News: Will ‘Bing’ Also Become a Household Word?, Washington Post

SEM Industry

• The Have’s and Have-Not’s Fight in the SEO Industry, Cre8PC
• Central Park horror leaves Google engineer Blair-Goldensohn in coma, NY Daily News

SEO & SEM

• How The MS/Bing/Yahoo Deal Changes SEO, SEO Faststart
• A Year Later, Google Still Requires You To Split Sitemap Files By Type, Search Engine Roundtable
• Bing’s Geo Targeting Algorithm Needs Some Work, Search Engine Roundtable
• Does Page Load Time influence SEO?, SEO By The Sea
• How To Handle DMCA Take Downs in Google Webmaster Tools, Search Engine Roundtable
• How to Spam Blogs and Possibly Get Away With It, SEOmoz
• Indexing slow? Blame Wordpress 2.8, BlogStorm
• Search Spammers Hacking More Websites, Technology Review
• The 30 Free SEO Tools You Must Know, SEOptimise
• The Contruction of an Optimized Web Page, Search Engine Guide

Social Media

• Digg Commenters To Get At Least 10,000 Times More Annoying, TechCrunch
• Facebook erroneously sucking in Twitter updates, News.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• I now pronounce you monetized: a YouTube video case study, YouTube Biz Blog

Web Analytics

• Trust a Professional, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog

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

• How to be a Digger by Louie Baur
• SEO Predators: Prepared to Lie for Business
• The Ultimate List of Basic SEO Resources for a Kick-Ass Start
• Use Trends to Keep Your Business Rocking All Year Long
• Conversion Attribution and the John Wanamaker Problem