SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 15, 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:

• Yahoo! Announces Common Tag: Like The Meta Keywords Tag, But Even Better
  

  Yahoo! recently announced their role in creating and supporting Common Tag, a new semantic tagging format. Yahoo! says that Common Tag makes “web content more discoverable” and enables the community to “create more useful applications for aggregating, searching, and browsing the web.” Their blog post mentions that they want to accelerate the structuring of the web, [...]

• Voice Search Now On Google Maps For Android
  

  Android OS phone users can now use Google’s voice search tool inside of Google Maps. According to today’s announcement, the tool recognizes English-language speakers with American, Australian, and British accents. There are other improvements, too:

  Transit and walking directions are available for more than 250 cities Business listings have been upgraded to include store hours, prices, and ratings/reviews Google [...]

• Clean Up Your Local Data!
  

  Local search is a huge opportunity for many businesses, particularly those with hundreds (or more) of locations. In this article, we are going to cover one of the most difficult aspects of that – getting your data to show correctly in the search engines. This turns out to be an extremely important thing [...]

• MapQuest Launches iPhone App With Innovative Local Search Features
  

  AOL’s MapQuest has been in mobile mapping longer than any of its rivals, but it’s playing catch up when it comes to the iPhone, which remains the most important smartphone platform for the time being. This morning, MapQuest launched the iPhone version of its MapQuest4Mobile app (launches iTunes). Prior to this app the company has [...]

• Microsoft Makes It Easier To Filter Out Unsafe Images In Bing
  

  Microsoft announced two new ways Microsoft is making Bing image and video search safer to use. The first change Microsoft made was to serve up all adult related images and videos on a new domain, explicit.bing.net. Having the content served from a different domain will help schools and homes set their own safe [...]

• NY Post: “Fear Grips Google” — Really?
  

  Perhaps now more than ever traditional media’s challenge is to get and keep attention. That can lead to overreaching and hyperbole, as in the case of a headline and story appearing in the typically sensational NY Post over the weekend: “Fear Grips Google.” Cue the music. CNET picks up the story as do others. The Post [...]

• Hunch: Your “Personal Decision Maker”
  

  Hunch is not a “search engine” insists Flickr co-founder Caterina Fake, one of the people behind the new site. But you’ll probably start seeing it show up in (Google) search results, just like Wikipedia or Yahoo Answers. And in some ways it’s like a mix of both of those concepts, as Matt McGee discusses in [...]

• Hunch: A Real Decision Engine
  

  Caterina Fake’s enthusiasm for her latest project is contagious. Hunch is now open to the public, but it’s still three days pre-launch when we talk and, at this point, about the only uncertainty is how best to describe it in all the media interviews she’s doing. Phrases like “Q&A community” and “knowledge tool” are [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Check and reply from multiple email addresses in Gmail, Official Gmail Blog
• Google Calendar Gadgets Appearing, Google Blogoscoped

Business Issues

• Microsoft Internal Startup Exec To Leave, paidContent.org
• Facebook Nabs The Man Who Engineered Google AdSense For Many Years, TechCrunch
• Belgian court fines Yahoo over fraud non-cooperation, WA Today
• Use Their Work Free? Artists Say No to Google, New York Times

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Cool Feature! Landmarks to Be on the Lookout For When Using Bing Maps & Directions, ResourceShelf

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google’s Grab for the Display Ad Market, BusinessWeek
• Web Ad Sales Open Door to Viruses, Wall Street Journal
• Be it declared, a map for every feed!, AdSense for Feeds
• Diving Deeper into Targeting, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
• Get Real With Regional PPC Targeting, KoMarketing Associates
• How to Become a Google Authorized Adwords, Analytics or Website Optimiser Consultant, SEOmoz
• Local currency reports for nine more countries, Inside AdSense
• Quality Score: the Hype and the Reality, Rimm Kaufman
• Use Content Network Stats to Create High-Performing Placement Targeted Campaigns, PPC Hero
• Webinar: Landing page design, AdWords Agency Blog

Searching

• Google unveils research on executive Internet use, BtoB Magazine
• Make Wolfram|Alpha Your Home Page!, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• “Name” That Trend, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• Google Removes File Size From Search Results Page, Search Engine Roundtable
• How Google May Rate Raters, SEO By The Sea
• How to Use Google News Timeline as an RSS Reader, Digital Inspiration
• Koogle, a kosher Google, launches, Telegraph

SEM Industry

• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: June 12, 2009, Search Engine Roundtable
• Local Search Summit Announced, Mihmorandum
• Google AdSense Publishers: What Do You Call Yourself?, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Known issue: Sitemaps with Blogspot RSS feeds show "Invalid XML tag: author", Webmaster Help Forum Announcements
• 3 Tools to Extract Related Words from Google SERPs, Search Engine Journal
• 7-Minute SEO: The Guide You Hand to a Non-SEO, Marketing Pilgrim
• Bug: Google Sitemaps "Invalid XML Tag" Warning, Search Engine Roundtable
• Down and Dirty: Write Your Own URL Rewrite, SEOmoz
• How to Practice Kamikaze SEO, Michael Gray

Social Media

• Facebook Members Register Names at 550 a Second, Bloomberg
• Hey, Just a Minute (or Why Google Isn’t Twitter), New York Times
• Do Facebook Vanity URLs Equals Kill Twitter Vol. 2?, gigaom.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Browsers Cache YouTube Videos, Google Operating System
• YouTube Starts Giving Watchers Ad Choices, newteevee.com

Web Analytics

• Segment Your AdWords Data, Google Analytics Blog

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

• Su.pr Offers Short Urls With Your Own Domain
• How To Use Long-Tailed Keyphrases in Your Linking Campaign
• The New PR: How to Write Effective Press Releases in the Age of Twitter
• Top Ten Myths About Google Analytics – SEO Edition
• How to Compete with Bigger Advertisers on Popular Keywords
• 10 Sure-Fire Ways to Get Banned from Digg
• Google Change of Address Kit on Webmaster Tools
• 12 No-Brainer Steps to Internet Success