SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 9, 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:

• Doing Keyword Research? Here Are Some Resources To Help!
  Search term research is one of the fundamental activities for a successful search marketing campaign. You’ve got to know the words people are using if you want to target them properly. To help, I’ve expanded the Search Term Research section of Search Engine Land to list a variety of resources…
• Google Buys Security Company Postini For $625 Million
  Google announced (and here) the acquisition of Postini, a software security for electronic communications company for $625 million. Google said that this company would become a division of Google Apps. They will help secure Google Apps including Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk, Calendar and Google’s other applications. "With this transaction,…
• FTC OKs Microsoft’s aQuantive Acquisition
  Microsoft’s bid to acquire online marketing firm aQuantive for $6 billion has cleared an antitrust regulatory hurdle, the companies said today. The FTC-mandated waiting period to review anticompetitive fallout from large mergers has passed without additional inquiries from the FTC, clearing the companies to move forward with the deal. A…
• eBay: Only 14 Percent Pleased With Google Checkout
  Readers will recall Google recently backing down from eBay in pushing Google Checkout against eBay’s PayPal. Google, eBay battle it out over online payments from Bloomberg is a good article shedding fresh light on how important PayPal is to eBay, to the degree that it would pull its ads from…
• Facebook One Of The Top Search Engines? I Dunno About That!
  I shouldn’t — but I couldn’t resist doing a quick poke at Facebook’s pronouncement that it is the "most used people search engine on the web." Really? According to? Facebook gives some stats that perhaps back up this claim, but only if you consider Facebook a people search engine. I…
• Local Lessons From A Massive Launch
  As reported here and elsewhere, Marchex recently launched more than 100,000 local and vertical Web sites. This involved aggregating and organizing millions of pieces of data, crafting refinements to help users pinpoint businesses, designing sites to support the variety of use cases involved in look up and discovery of…
• Link Analysis Beyond Search Rank
  I’m an extreme believer in linking analysis and competitive linking intelligence. I have tools that analyze millions of links every week. I have scripts that compare, contrast, group, separate, divide and categorize links to a degree that would make your eyes cross. As I type this one of my…

Applications & Portal Features

• GrandCentral invitations now available, Googling Google
• Yahoo Sidebar Patent Applications, SEO By The Sea
• JotSpot joining Google Apps revolution, Between the Lines
• Vista SP1 beta 1 to launch in mid-July, All About Microsoft

Business Issues

• Google Director Sells Shares, Forbes.com
• Yahoo responds to reports of site outages, News.com
• Yahoo Bill Pay To Shut, Techcrunch
• At Ann Arbor Google office, the good life, Ann Arbor
• Microsoft tweaks the Live side of the house, All About Microsoft
• Google vs Everyone: 10 Markets Where Google Wants to Win, Mashable
• What Should Yahoo Do: Sue Decker’s Listening Tour, All Things Digital
• Google Trails in Asian Markets, PC World

Conferences

• SMX Local & Mobile Panels Open for Business, Screenwerk

Link Building

• May I suggest some new Backlink acronyms?, SEO Scoop
• SEO & Link Building Via Blog Comments, Search Engine Journal

Local, Maps & Mobile

• UK Geocoding Now Available in the Maps API, Google Maps API Blog
• Wrong On Hyperlocal: Google And Web 1.0 Killed Backfence, Publishing 2.0
• New Version of Google Maps for Palm OS Released, Palm Info Center
• New Seven Wonders of the World in Google Earth, Google Earth Blog
• Virtual Earth: 26 Terabyte update; includes new 3d and "hill shaded", LiveSide
• Simpson’s Kwik-E-Mart Locations in Virtual Earth, Windows Live Local Virtual Earth Blog
• Does Microsoft Cork the Bat in Virtual Earth?, Windows Live Local Virtual Earth Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• Top 6 Settings to Check When Starting a New Adwords Account, PPC Hero
• Automotive Industry Newsletter now available, Inside AdWords
• A Brief Interview with Michael Yavonditte, Quigo, John Battelle
• How Bid Technology Got Me Banned From The Delivery Room, MediaPost
• Lose Your Google AdWords Account if You Change Payment Options, Search Engine Roundtable
• Fixing Typos by Web Users, Without Raising Hackles, New York Times

Podcasts

• Google Buys Security Company; eBay Says Google Checkout Only Liked By 14%; Virtual Earth Maps Kwik-E-Marts & More!, Daily SearchCast

Searching

• Can Web Search Use Wikipedia to Understand References to Names?, SEO By The Sea
• Google File Search, Google Operating System
• Bizarre Searches Stranger Than Fiction, Epiar
• People often repeat web searches, Geeking With Greg
• Eric Enge interviews Udi Manber about Search Quality, StoneTemple
• Google Updates Google Code Search, ResearchBuzz
• A Hipper Crowd Of Shushers, New York Times

SEM Industry

• WPP 2 Acquired Refinery, ClickZ
• UK CEO Warns "never allowing your programmers to try any kind of SEO at all", Marketing Pilgrim

SEO & SEM

• Google China Webmaster Blog, Googlified
• Search Engine Optimization for Universal Search – Back to Square One?, Search Engine Guide
• How John Chow can get his Google ranking back, Blogstorm
• Google.com Has Multiple Cache Pages & Snippet Archives, Search Engine Roundtable
• Do "Chained" 301 Redirects Not Carry Link Popularity Over in Google?, Search Engine Roundtable
• netbenefit.co.uk web hosting Hijacks 10000’s of it clients, Dave Naylor’
• Whiteboard Friday – "If I Had A Hammer", SEOmoz
• Where’s the Google search result?, Natural Search Blog

Social Media

• More on Squidoo spam (and Hubpages doing a good job?), Jason Calacanis
• Squidoo addresses spam concerns, Jason Calacanis
• The Squidoo Spam Problem, GigaOM
• Google’s Social Networking Projects, Google Operating System
• Mosh, Yahoo’s New Social Network Initiative, Techcrunch
• Ron Paul Supporters Need A Lesson In Social Media Marketing, Pronet Advertising

Video, Music & Image Search

• Video Ads: Every Startup Has A Different Solution, Techcrunch
• Microsoft’s LiveStation: Live TV With A P2P Twist, Epicenter
• Exalead : A Look Into Semantic Image Search, Search Engine Journal

Other Items

• Friday Fun with Search Engine Optimisation Songs, FroggBlog
• Live Earth may set new stage for Web viewing, Reuters
• Google Australia celebrates NAIDOC Week, Google Australia Blog
• Google Wall of Ideas, Googlified
• The Pressure of Google NDA, Google Operating System
• Live Search commercial, Dave Naylor