SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 5, 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:

• AOL: Tomorrow’s Google Free Friday Alternative
  Tomorrow is the first of the Google Free Fridays that Search Engine Land is promoting in July. As our previous This July: Try Google-Free Fridays! post explains, the point is to encourage people to open their eyes to some of the other major search engines, whether it to be to…
• History Of AOL Search
  In preparation for those trying AOL tomorrow as part of our first Google-Free Friday, I thought it would be helpful to give some background on AOL in search. AOL has long offered search — and even owned several web crawling technologies — over the years. Don’t forget to read AOL:…
• Deconstructing Grouped Google Results
  My favorite session at SMX Advanced last month was "Give It Up," the session where panelists shared little-known secrets. I’m a little biased, since that was the panel I spoke on. But still, as the last session of the two days, it really ended the conference with a bang….
• eBay Brings Classifieds Site Kijiji To The U.S.
  According to the Newspaper Association of America, U.S. print newspaper classified advertising was worth about $17 billion in 2006. The category has been under pressure for years from top online verticals, some of which are owned by newspapers, eBay, Craigslist and, now, new aggregators and destinations such as Oodle ,…
• FAST Buys Recommendations Engine AgentArts
  Enterprise search provider FAST Search & Transfer has acquired personalization platform and recommendations engine AgentArts. The technology will be folded into FAST’s various enterprise search offerings, which include a range of site search and monetization options for online publishers. The company also has a mobile search partnership with InfoSpace. FAST…
• The Challenges Of Bringing Search Marketing In-House
  Many organizations are making the transition from using an agency for search marketing to bringing it in-house and along with this transition comes many challenges. To find out how organizations cope with the transition, we posed the following question to some of the top in-house SEO analysts: What is…
• Profile Of Susan Wojcicki: Mother Of AdSense
  The house that helped build Google from the USA Today looks back at how Susan Wojcicki’s decision to let Google’s founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, rent out space in her garage changed her life and ours. Wojcicki purchased her 4-bedroom home on 232 Santa Margarita Ave. for about $600,000…
• eBay Partners With Yahoo To Create "eBay Toolbar"
  eBay Launches Yahoo Co-Branded Toolbar from AuctionBytes reports that eBay has partnered with Yahoo to co-brand a toolbar. The eBay Toolbar not only allows you to search the complete web, but also enables you to search eBay properties such as eBay, eBay Express and Half.com. You can also easily access…
• Naver, The Google Of South Korea
  Crowd’s wisdom helps South Korean search engine beat Google and Yahoo from the New York Times describes South Korea’s most popular search engine, Naver. Naver currently has a 77 percent share of all searches from within South Korea. Daum.net follows with 10.8 percent, Yahoo with just 4.4 percent and Google…
• Finding Customers Through Anti-Commercial Queries
  There’s a fallacy that sellers create for themselves, that most people go online to spend money. — Ammon Johns, from How Many Search Queries Are Really Unique?, I checked the AOL database :-) You research a niche for a business online, and find a genuine need in an area…
• Understanding Your Audience With Search, B2B Style
  Isn’t it funny how things have a way of coming full circle? It’s been years since I last talked with my mentor, but his sage advice rings true today more than ever. He told me that anyone can ramble on about anything without regard for their audience, but that…

Applications & Portal Features

• Welcome to the Official Gmail Blog, Official Gmail Blog
• Paul Buchheit, the Man Behind Gmail, Google Operating System
• Google Code Search gets major upgrade, Googling Google

Business Issues

• Investor activist who targeted Yahoo is at it again, News.com
• 2007 Half-Year Web Technology Report: A’s for Google and Facebook, Read/Write Web
• Yahoo targeting next 8M Filipino Internet users, Asian Journal
• Archrivals ally: Walla! to work with Google Israel, Haaretz
• Microsoft Continues Registering New Domains, Transfer Others, ResourceShelf
• Google cuts Founders’ Awards, Geeking With Greg
• Close to the Vest, Forbes

Conferences

• Give It Up at Search Marketing Expo (June 5th, 2007), Search Engine Roundtable
• SMX Notes – Give It Up!, Marketing Pilgrim
• The Top SEOs ‘Give it Up’ In Seattle for SMX, Bruce Clay Blog
• 30 Day SMX Embargo Lifted on "Give it Up" Session, Search Engine Guide

Link Building

• How to Achieve Higher Rankings and Stay out of Google Hell Via Optimized Internal Linking, Jim Boykin
• How I built 10,000 links in 3 weeks, Blogstrom
• How Many Links Could a Link Lover Love?, Search Engine Watch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Editing your mashup without Google Mashup Editor, Google Mashup Editor Blog
• How Google Earth Really Works, Google Earth Blog
• Philosophy Behind Google Earth and Maps, Google Earth Blog
• Carhenge, here we come, Google Public Policy Blog
• Google Maps With Updated Cloud Cover Satelite Imagery, Inside Google
• Monthly Virtual Earth Data publish is complete, Virtual Windows Live Local Earth Blog
• Mapping N-E-W-S, Windows Live Local Blog
• Google Earth shows Chinese nuclear sub, News.com

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google Opting AdWords Advertisers Out of Content Network Automatically?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Top Search Queries Google AdSense Report Broken, Search Engine Roundtable
• New click quality reports in adCenter, adCenter Blog
• Shopping Engines in the Dark Ages, Comparison Engines
• Can Pay Per Click Conversions be Based on CTR Rates?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google And Valleywag "Fight" Over AdSense Creation, CNBC
• Easing Back Into Civilization, Looking for Signal Over Noise, Traffick
• A level playing field for the BBC on Google AdWords?, Currybet
• So long Hotmail, Hello Fraudwall, Richard Sim

Podcasts

• Affiliate Summit, Pubcon, SES, Adtech Which One Is For You?, Shoemoney
• Yahoo Struggles to Chip Into Google’s Act, NPR
• eBay To Do Classified Ads; Google Wants Microsoft Anti-Trust Restrictions Extended & More!, Daily SearchCast

Searching

• adCenter / Live.com / MSN Search Changing Layouts?, PPC Lab
• Ever more books to read, Google Blog
• MSN is now in Russian, Russia-InfoCentre
• Learning cluster labels from search logs, Geeking With Greg
• Characterizing the value of personalized search, Geeking With Greg
• Chris Benoit The Fifth Most Searched Term Last Week, Hitwise
• Science Direct-ly into Google, O’Reilly Radar
• Elsevier Has No Fear Of Google Scholar, WebProNews
• Google’s Advanced Search Syntax, Google Blogoscoped
• Check Which Google Result Number is Censored, Google Blogoscoped
• Is Personalization The Path To Follow?, Search Insider
• A Collection of Google Universal Search Thoughts, Search Engine Journal
• Google Subpoenaed for Keyword Purchase Data–Rhino Sports v. Sport Court, Eric Goldman

SEM Industry

• Reader Poll: Most SEO Friendly Industries, Online Marketing Blog
• Who Paid ThreadWatch to Close?, John Andrews
• American Lawyer Media Being Bought By UK’s Incisive Media For $600 Million: Report, PaidContent.org
• Advantages of Ongoing SEO Consulting, Online Marketing Blog
• Answers.com Trying Creative Writing Challenge, InsideGoogle

SEO & SEM

• Do It Yourself SEO?, Search This
• Page Rank, and Query Specific Page Rank, Eric Enge
• Oh, What a Tangled Web…, Yahoo Publisher Network
• Building a Web Site Theme with Silos, Part Three: Folder/Directory Structure, Bruce Clay
• Telling Google Your Domain Moved, Google Blogoscoped
• How To Own Those ‘Seasonal’ Keywords, Pronet Advertising

Social Media

• Farewells and Welcomes, Technorati Blog
• Silicon Valley Politics: Technorati Staff Changes, Epicenter
• Google offers service to facilitate removal of illegal contents, Xinhua
• New Netscape.com – One Year On, Read/Write Web
• Wikipedia I’m in Ur Index Rulin’ Ur Serpz, Graywolf
• Newsreader: Organize and search your feeds with Fastladder, Lifehacker
• Irony: People Soliciting Diggs on Pownce, Mashable
• Looks like Wales v. Calacanis is… ON!!! (sort of), Jason Calacanis
• Wikipedia Chief: Mahalo ‘Just Not That Interesting’, Epicenter
• Jason Calacanis: Mahalo, a top-20,000 website, Valleywag
• Sphere Quietly Nailing Its Business Model, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• Fox deal for Photobucket gets U.S. antitrust OK, Reuters
• SomaFM Founder: SoundExchange Wants Google to Buy Pandora, Wired
• China’s Baidu sets up online music partnership, Reuters
• Mute Math, Yahoo, and Flickr, John Battelle
• NBBC Joins The Deadpool, TechCrunch
• YouTube Running Ads Under Videos, InsideGoogle

Other Items

• Googleplex and the Hispanics, Googlified
• Google Employees on Wikipedia, Google Blogoscoped
• Google Gay Pride Gallery, Google Blogoscoped
• Hope You Enjoyed Your Fourth, InsideGoogle
• July 4th from the Search Industry, Search Engine Roundtable
• Jackie O., Sandra Oh, and Lindsay Lo: July Smart Answers, Ask.com Blog
• SEO Graffiti, Wiep
• Good To See You Alan!, Eyefall
• Have You Used Your Search Knowledge to Play the Stock Market?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Sandia Worker Cracked Yahoo To Stalk Singer, WebProNews
• Google Product Connections Map, Google Blogoscoped