SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 6, 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:

• Google Image Search Makes SafeSearch Toggle Switch Quicker
  

  Google Image Search has made it a bit easier to toggle between the three levels of SafeSearch. SafeSearch is the adult image filter Google uses to help prevent adult content from showing up in the image search results. The new toggle switch allows you to click on the filter type and then [...]

• Automated Keyword Bidding? More Like Automated Money Sink
  

  Search Engine Marketing agencies scale not by creativity or innovation but by overhead. This is a fact that many agencies deny but is the cold hard truth. This is true even for agencies that have developed in-house technology or license technology from others. Even the “advanced” agencies are not very sophisticated – they will use [...]

• Matching Local Advertising to Consumer Intent
  

  The adage “time is money” often proves true in business, however, these days, most of us feel like we don’t have nearly enough of either. A few months ago, I attended an industry conference and happened to strike up a conversation with the owner of a small travel agency. As I was expressing my enthusiasm over [...]

• Land Grab: Google Expands Real Estate Listings
  

  MLS, Zillow, Trulia, Realtor.com, Craigslist, fellow real estate listings sites, newspapers and other classified ad providers … please meet your new neighbor: Google.com. Google has expanded its real estate listings and added extra search functionality for users to find property listings in Google Maps.

  A Google Maps search for “seattle real estate” looks mostly like it [...]

• Google, Yahoo, Bing & Others Do 4th Of July Logos
  

  It’s the 4th Of July! Happy 4th to those celebrating today, and here’s a look at how search engines are recognizing the holiday in logos: Google went with a cookout theme for its logo:

  Yahoo had a small eagle next to its logo, which produced fireworks-stars if you hovered over it:

  Bing went with fireworks exploding behind the [...]

• US Justice Dept. Formally Confirms Google Books Inquiry
  

  It’s not really a surprise or even news that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) confirmed yesterday it was formally investigating the terms of the Google Book Search settlement. This was known as far back as April and essentially confirmed last month by various publications reporting that formal requests (called “civil investigative demands”) had been [...]

• The 3 SEO/SEM Conference Personas
  

  I recently returned from the successful SMX-Advanced search engine optimization and advertising conference, and I had an epiphany: as a speaker, usability principles are applicable to these conferences. Which usability principle, you might ask? Before usability professionals create an information architecture and corresponding interfaces, they must identify and address various personas or profiles. The primary persona [...]

• FriendFeed Joins The Real-Time Search Race
  

  Add FriendFeed to the long and growing list of players who are trying to win the race for comprehensive and quick real-time search. FriendFeed has always had a real-time element — the ability to track social activities almost as they happen. But the company has announced the addition of real-time search today.

  If you’ve used search.twitter.com, [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Microsoft Wishes You Happy Porn Browsing in New Vomit-Filled Video, Then Retracts Ad, Read/Write Web
• Creating a Gmail Account Requires SMS Verification, Google Operating System
• Google code cloud punts on-demand embarrassment, The Register
• Google or Microsoft could hold NHS patient records say Tories, Times Online
• Omg! Positive tone boosts Yahoo celeb site, USATODAY.com
• Since March, Internet Explorer Lost 11.4 Percent Share To Firefox, Safari, And Chrome, TechCrunch

Business Issues

• In India, Google Searches For Users With Print Ads, TechCrunch
• My Interview With Antitrust Expert Gary Reback: Google’s Looming Antitrust Issues, TechCrunch
• Google advertises in newspapers. Why?, Proven SEO
• Google Expected To Post Second-Quarter Gains In China, paidContent.org
• Yahoo Gets A New Marketing Director For Europe, Too, TechCrunch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Beta No More: Wikipedia Mobile Officially Launches with Important Changes for Editors, Read/Write Web
• MapQuest 4 Mobile on iPhone Updated to 1.0.2, MapQuest Blog
• Social Network Marketing Meets Small Business, Small Business Computing

Link Building

• How Important is DMOZ in Your SEO Process?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Poll: How Addicted To Links Are You?, Search Engine Roundtable

Paid Search & Contextual

• New Interface Thursday: You said it, we’re fixing it!, Inside AdWords
• When Google AdSense Is Banned In Your Country, Search Engine Roundtable
• Advertising set for mild 2010 recovery-forecast, Reuters
• Google Begins Banning Google AdWords Scams, Search Engine Roundtable
• June YoY Benchmarks in PPC, Rimm Kaufman
• PPC Checklist (for moderate AdWords management), KoMarketing Associates

Searching

• New ways to search within a book, Inside Google Books
• Google has a realtime feed of Twitter, johannburkard.de
• Become a Wolfram|Alpha Volunteer Curator!, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• Known issue: Firefox 3.5 crashes when searchbox suggestions close, Google Toolbar Announcements
• Ordering Images (and other Multimedia) in Search Results By Predicting Clickthroughs, SEO By The Sea
• Prevent your search default from being changed, News.com
• The Use Cases, Read/Write Web

SEM Industry

• Video: Is the Search Industry Heating Up?, WebProNews
• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: July 3, 2009, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Google’s Recent PageRank "Technical Quirk"?, Search Engine Roundtable
• July 2009 Google Webmaster Report, Search Engine Roundtable
• SEO Audits: What You Need to Know, outspokenmedia.com
• Whiteboard Friday – Crawling & Indexing, SEOmoz
• Content Strategy is More than Just Filling Space, SEO.com
• How do meta geo tags influence the search results?, YouTube
• Search Engine Crawling and Indexing Factors, Natural Search Blog
• Tips on Hiring and Getting the Most Value from SEO Consultants, Online Marketing Blog

Social Media

• 12-Step Social Media Guide: Put your Local Business on the Map, The SEO Scoop
• Marketers Call For Twitter To Filter Content For Pornography, Spam, MediaPost
• Ads Spotted on Twitter.com – Did You Notice?, Read/Write Web
• Cybercrooks descend on Twitter with spam, attacks, USATODAY.com
• Facebook revenue to be billions in 5 years: board member, Reuters
• Influx of Twitter Account Suspensions Creating Confusion, mashable.com
• Stop Using Twitter… For Fun, QuickSprout.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Update on New Channels, YouTube Blog

Web Analytics

• Using Google Analytics and Website Optimizer Together — in 60 Seconds, Google Analytics Blog

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

• Internet Liberalisation – Is it really for the greater good?
• Moonfruit, the most talked about company on Twitter
• Five Ways To Turn Blog Comments Into Conversations
• On Growing Demand for Real Time Search Engines