SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 11, 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:

• McCain Website Gaffes
  I spotted an interesting story on Talking Points Memo about how John McCain had a menu item “Golf Gear” on his campaign website. My first thought was that this must have been clever hacker trying to make McCain look like an elitist. But no, the McCain campaign earnestly thinks golf…
• SMN Webcasts Next Week: Ad Networks On Tuesday, Quality Score On Wednesday
  Two hot topics on Search Marketing Now webcasts coming up next week – on Tuesday, June 17 at 1 PM EDT, it’s Ad Networks Best Practices: Keeping Your Advertisers Happy. Dana Todd, President Emeritus of SEMPO, and Tom Cuthbert, Moderator of the Click Quality Council, will talk about the current…
• Googlers In Space: Google Founder Brin Books Flight
  Google Co-Founder Brin Books First Private Space Flight from SmartMoney reports that Sergey Brin, Google’s co-founder, is booked to visit the International Space Station in 2011. The one of two seats available for the first private space flight to the International Space Station was reserved by Brin. Google Co-Founder Books…
• Looking For Stations With Cheap Gas Prices? Search Tools The Rescue!
  As the price of gasoline is speeds toward $5.00, it’s no surprise that tools helping consumers find less expensive gas are gaining visibility and popularity. Search Engine Journal and Google Maps Mania both have had nice roundups recently. Below, a look at some of the tools from them plus…
• Google “Skip Intro” Link Skips You Past Splash Pages, Plus Google Offers Query Translation
  Sick of sites that force you to sit through a Flash splash screen? Now Google’s offering a “Skip Intro” link to save you that annoyance. Plus, Google’s also offering to translate your queries into other languages. More on both, below….
• Live Search xRank: Ranking Politicians & Bloggers, Too
  Microsoft Live Search’s xRank feature got some attention when it launched as a way to track celebrities. But you might not realize the service also now tracks buzz about musicians, politicians and — yes — bloggers….
• Invest First In Conversions, Then In Driving Traffic
  Much time and energy has been devoted to improving PPC campaigns and SEO programs for B2B websites. The basic premise of advertising and optimization is to improve visibility and response. i.e. get that click! But, I’ve noticed recently that many marketers are focusing their initial marketing efforts not on…
• Rallying The Troops When Support Turns To Apathy
  When you first started your in-house SEO program, it was likely a tough sell. You had to convince executives to green-light your idea, which many probably didn’t understand the first time around. They wanted projected ROI, and you tried to explain the difficulty of predicting that. Your boss wanted…
• Microsoft Decides It Doesn’t Want To Play In Classifieds, Shutters Live Expo
  Microsoft’s Live Expo was an interesting mix of listings and social networking features. But it was an experiment that Microsoft has decided it doesn’t want to continue, like Book Search. Expo is closing down on July 31….

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Do You Trust Google to Resist Data Mining Across Services?, Read/Write Web
• A Dashboard for Google Docs, Google Operating System
• Another One Bites the Dust – Windows Live for TV, LiveSide
• Google Offers Stock Screener for Investors, Search Engine Roundtable
• Featured Gadget: Bars of Stuff add *bling* to your charts, Official Google Docs Blog

Business Issues

• Google says it would support U.S. privacy law, Reuters
• Google And Salesforce Cooking Up Something New Together, TechCrunch
• Google App Engine "Accidentally" Blocks PayPal, TechCrunch
• Google’s Eric Schmidt talks about how to run the world (not that he wants to), Los Angeles Times
• Google CEO Speech Sours DC Press Corps, Tech Daily Dose
• Yahoo begins ad pact with German social-network site, news.cnet.com
• Yahoo facing possible trial before Icahn showdown, Yahoo! News
• Yahoo Says an Icahn Win Triggers Plan, Wall Street Journal
• At Glassdoor, Find Out How Much People Really Make At Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, And Everywhere Else., TechCrunch
• Yahoo Exec Spec Swirling Again; Weiner Returning From Paternity Leave But Will He Stay?, paidContent.org
• Yahoo Execs Under Stress – Whither Weiner?, AllThingsD
• Yahoo: Severance Plan Not "Nuts"; Not Easily Revoked; And It Wouldn’t Cost Microsoft $2.4 Billion, paidContent.org
• Google’s Secret Weapon, Red Herring

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Maps Driving Simulator, Google Blogoscoped
• June 2008 Update Has More Unannounced 3D Buildings, Google Earth Blog
• Mapping the 2008 US Storm Season, Google Maps Mania

Link Building

• How To Build Links, BlogStorm

Paid Search & Contextual

• 4 Hidden Benefits to Monetizing via Google AdSense, SEO Book
• Finding your ad on Live Search – adCenter Advertiser, adcentercommunity.com
• The latest newsletters to start the summer, Inside AdWords
• Intelligent Web: Where Search & Display Advertising Meet, Jonathan Mendez’s Blog
• Riding the Wave, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
• Decrypting Quality Scores, Search Marketing Now
• Don’t Make This Mistake When Opening A New PPC Account!, PPC Hero

Searching

• Using Semantics to Improve Machine Translation, altsearchengines.com
• Delicious Bookmarks for Firefox 3: Signed, Sealed, and Delivered, delicious blog
• Move Over Universal Search, Illustrated Search Is Smarter?, SEO By The Sea
• Do You Have A Favorite Water Park?, AOL Hot Searches
• How Google Measures Search Quality, Datawocky

SEM Industry

• SMX Advanced 2008 Wrap-up, Matt Cutts
• SMX Advanced 2008 – Top 10 Nuggets of Knowledge, SEMpdx Blog
• Advanced SEO, John Andrews
• Parting Ways With Webmaster Radio, ShoeMoney
• SEO, Colored Hats & The Pollyanna Pissing Match, AIM Clear Blog

SEO & SEM

• The must read article about WordPress SEO, Yoast
• How Long Can a Google Sandbox Last?, Search Engine Journal
• SEO Guerrilla Warfare, Digerati Marketing
• SEO Trust Matters, DaveN
• How to Deal with Google Personalised Results and the Effects, ViperChill
• Seven Short SEO Scribbles, SEOmoz
• How Does Google Handle The HTML <base> Tag?, Search Engine Roundtable
• SEO 101 – Why Duplicate content is a problem for search engines, Live With Ani
• Many Webmasters Notice Major Traffic Loss From Google, Search Engine Roundtable
• When, Why and How to Construct a Meta Description Tag, Search Engine Guide

Social Media

• Relationships and Online Social Networks: The Value of Sites Like Twitter and Plurk, Dosh Dosh
• Twhirl Supports FriendFeed Rooms, But Not Seesmic – Quite Yet, TechCrunch
• Use Twiddict For Those Inevitable Twitter Downtimes, TechCrunch
• Mintel On Social Networking And Viral Marketing, SEOmoz

Video, Music & Image Search

• Google CEO:Not Sure How To Make Significant Money On YouTube, SmartMoney.com
• Hulu Wins Big Programs But Not Yet Traffic, Hitwise
• New Day, New Features, Yahoo! Video Blog

Web Analytics

• The Web Analytics Championship!, Google Analytics Blog

Other Items

• Google: Making Nick Carr Stupid, But It’s Made This Guy Smarter, John Battelle’s Searchblog
• Will you read Microsoft’s obit here?, SeattlePi

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

• FriendFeed Adds New Services, Ignores Sphinn, So I Guess We Yell
• Are You Losing Your Shirt Because You’re Wearing the Wrong Shirt?
• Online Marketing Tips From TopRank
• Google SERPs Now Offer “Skip Intro”
• Should You Explicitly Target Social Media?
• Organizing Your Link Lists for Effective Link Building
• How To Build Links that are Effective
• 5 Alternatives to Social Media Marketing
• Has Lyndon taken linkbait offline?
• Building Bricks: Keyword Discovery Process for Small Businesses
• 5 Reasons Why Your Google Traffic Might Have Dropped
• Instant (Bad) Karma’s Gonna Get Ya: AdWords Account Quality At Startup
• Five Takeaways from SMX Advanced
• Is black hat SEO advanced enough to be called advanced SEO? — utter crap and nonsense!
• Managing Robot’s Access To Your Website
• The Beginner’s Checklist For Search Conferences
• Must Read WordPress SEO