SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 9, 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:

• adCenter Launches Quality-Based Ranking Algorithm In UK & Canada
  Over a year ago, Microsoft adCenter launched a quality ranking component to their search ads. That rollout was available to US advertisers, that is, until now. The adCenter blog announced that the UK and Canadian ads will now be based of this quality-based ranking system. So now, for your ads…
• Google Ranking (Partly) Explained
  Google has historically been criticized for being a black box. But for the past couple of years the company has been trying to be more transparent in key areas (Matt Cutts in particular has been very helpful here). As the latest in a series of such posts, Amit Singhal, who…
• Report: Google To Launch Conventional “Preroll” Ads On YouTube
  Nobody in social media is making the money they think they should be. That would include YouTube if you put the site into the social media bucket. But if you see YouTube instead as the dominant video site online instead then its revenues, reportedly to reach about $200 million this…
• Flickr Partners With Getty Images To License Images
  Getty Images Begins Licensing Flickr Photos from TechCrunch reports Getty Images and Flickr have formed an agreement to allow Getty Images to potential license images from Flickr’s users. Getty editors will scan through the Flickr database, using tools developed by both companies. When the editor finds an image of interest,…
• Q&A With Bill Macaitis, SVP Online Marketing For Fox Interactive Media
  Bill Macaitis is the SVP of Online Marketing for Fox Interactive Media (FIM) which runs a network of entertainment sites which include MySpace, Fox Sports, IGN, Photobucket, AskMen, Rotten Tomatoes and American Idol, GameSpy, Scout and Flektor. The FIM network reaches over 171 million monthly unique visitors. Bill has…
• Lively New Virtual World From Google
  In a way it’s very un-Google. The new Lively 3D “virtual world” that launched today is perhaps another run at social networking after the mixed experience of Orkut (popular in Brazil and India, among a few other places). Apparently aimed at teens and even tweens, cutting their virtual teeth on…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Live blogging with Docs, Official Google Docs Blog

Business Issues

• Google’s political head-fake, San Francisco Chronicle
• Legg Mason’s Miller to Icahn: Put Up, Or Shut Up, TechCrunch
• Rumor Denied: Jerry Yang Not Resigning*, Alley Insider
• Yahoo Takes A Gander At Demand Media To Plug Some Holes, TechCrunch
• Yahoo: Three Weeks Away From Next Mass Exodus, TechCrunch
• Yang Denounces Microsoft, Icahn Over Proxy Move, Wall Street Journal

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google’s Marissa Mayer a Yelp User, Screenwerk
• New WebCams Layer for Google Earth, Google Earth Blog

Link Building

• Blog Links Are Important, Just Not For Traffic, BruceClay.com
• How Do Big Brands Do Link Building?, Search Engine Roundtable
• LIVE: Download Link for Internal Link Building, seoroi.com

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdWords Downtime: July 12, 10am-2pm PST, AdWords API Blog
• Join our Live Meeting to discuss adCenter API Version 5.1 updates: July 15th, 1 PST – adCenter API, adcentercommunity.com
• Optimizing your search box, Inside AdSense
• Where’d My Ad Go?, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
• AdWords API: Ten Best Practices, AdWords API Blog
• Google SERP Colour Test Follow Up, iCrossing
• PPC Bid Management: Requirement #3, The Feedback Loop, Rimm Kaufman
• Privacy implications of online advertising, Google Public Policy Blog
• The Tide Has Shifted: Microsoft adCenter Begins to Outpace Yahoo Search Marketing, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Google and the Italian Search Engines, altsearchengines.com
• Unveiling the Most Popular Destination Wedding Locations, Ask.com Blog

SEO & SEM

• 3 Search Marketing Tools Worth a Look – Refined Ads, WordButler & Advanced Web Ranking, SEOmoz
• A prime website compromise, Stop Badware
• Reputation Crises Management: 8 SEO Triage Tips, AIM Clear Blog
• SEO Answers: "I Have Some Essential Content Duplicated Across My Websites, Will I Be Penalized for This?", Stepforth
• Bruce’s Guide to Appropriate Use of Flash, BruceClay.com
• Coherency in Landing Page Testing, Search Engine Watch
• Do Meta Descriptions Help You Rank Higher in Google?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Loves Wikipedia – Even the Empty Pages, Michael Gray
• Googlebot using Yahoo IP range for crawling?, JLH Design Blog
• How to Grow Search Engine Traffic to Your Blog, ProBlogger
• If a Ranking Falls on the First Page, But There is Nobody Around to See it, Does it Still Make Any Difference?, Search Engine Guide
• Reading Between the Lines: Eric Enge’s Interview with Priyank Garg, Small Business SEM
• Search Marketing Is a Roller Coaster, Search Engine Guide
• SEO Teams – Search Engine Optimization is a Team Effort, Online Marketing Blog
• What is SEO Consulting? SEO Consultant? It Depends on the Vision of the Consultant, seoaware.com

Social Media

• US: Twitter growth continues despite outages, Hitwise
• Why the Social Media World NEEDS to Understand SEO, Search Engine Guide
• Gosh, How Many Diggs Does It Take To Get To The Home Page, Anyway?, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• VideoEgg Launches New Video Ad Units. Maybe YouTube Should Pay Attention, TechCrunch

Other Items

• Where To Find Good Bloggers?, BruceClay.com
• Doofing it up at Google, San Francisco Chronicle
• Google Lively – Google Music or Google Autos Next?, Hitwise
• Hotel talks with Google fizzle, but Mountain View still pushing for a top flight resort, Mercury News

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

• Are You a Viral VIP? – The Definitive Guide to Viral Video Marketing!
• Fixing duplicate content in SEO site architecture
• Revisited again: Google(.de) passes first link's anchor only !
• adCenter Beating Yahoo's Panama?
• How to Switch Your User-Agent to Googlebot
• The Power of Search Queries for Link Building: The Basics and Beyond Part 1
• Enterprise SEO and the art of the pushback
• The ProtoViral Posts, So Far
• Importance of Documenting Your SEO Changes
• Top 10 URL Design Failures of Famous Websites
• 5 ways to improve rankings through content management
• PPC Advertising: Art or Science?
• Positioning yourself using SEO and PPC for Customer Acquisition
• 10 Emergency SEO Tips For When Things Go Wrong
• Social Media: Get Productive with Social Media (and Stay Sane)
• How To Promote Yourself on Social Sites Without Actually "Promoting Yourself"
• 15 Internet Sites That Can Make or Break Your Brand
• Ways To Tell What Color Hat You Are Wearing…
• The Six SEOs I Would Want to Be Stuck in an Elevator With
• An Olympic 'Sport' for SMM? 24 Hours of Twitter 08-08-08
• 14 Steps to Super SEO Status
• Top 5 Reasons To Attend SMX Local & Mobile