SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 14, 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:

• eBay Pulls Google AdWords Ads To Protest Google Checkout Moves
  This week, eBay Live is happening in Boston, but the event is likely to be overshadowed by a fascinating and fast-developing controversy between the auction giant and Google. Rumors from ComparisonEngines.com and other sources last night and earlier today reported that eBay had pulled its ads off Google to protest…
• Google Video Morphs Further Into New Video Meta Search Role
  Last month in Video Hits Google Universal Search & Google Video Now Live With Meta Search?, we covered how Google Video was morphing into its new role as a meta search engine. Now reports of new video sources have emerged….
• The Big SMX Advanced 2007 Wrap-Up
  I had a great time doing our first conference, SMX Advanced, last week in Seattle. Tons of coverage came out of the show, while the attendees learned a lot, had fun networking and enjoyed some good food. Need to remember what happened? Want to hear about what you missed?…
• In House: New Column From Search Engine Land
  Our newest Search Engine Land column, In House, launches today. In House takes an insider’s look at the life of search marketers who work for large or multi-national organizations. Columnists write about technical challenges as well as the cultural, organizational, budgeting and other issues that arise while working within…
• When To Bring Search Marketing In-House
  As with many other areas of the business, the decision to ‘make or buy’ applies to the search engine marketing function. Whether you decide to go with an outside agency, or develop and train a dedicated in-house team depends on whether search is considered a core component of your…
• Stepping Stones Of User Conversions: A Step-By-Step Guide
  Let’s face it, in a world where almost every conceivable metric of analyzing your website traffic is available to you, the only metric that really truly matters is conversions. Click through rates, page views, time spent on site, number of pages read, entrance and exit points, abandonment; all of…
• Google’s T-Mobile Ad On Why To Do SEO
  My mobile phone company in the UK is T-Mobile, and I had to laugh when I was flipping through the latest in-house magazine I got from them. Apparently, as the headline of an advertorial tells me, "Search Engine Optimisation vital to enable business to compete online." And to learn…
• Google: Off-The-Record, Unless Eric Schmidt Is Saying It
  I had to love the contrast in two items that hit my feed reader today: one where a talk by Google’s chief internet evangelist Vint Cerf was declared off-the-record by Google, upsetting some people, then another where Google CEO Eric Schmidt was at an off-the-record event but said he wanted…
• Vanessa Fox Leaves Google, Heads To Zillow
  Google Webmaster Central product manager Vanessa Fox is heading for pastures new — jumping over to become product team lead at real estate start-up Zillow. She’ll be overseeing the development of new ad, feed and email products there. Vanessa talks about the move more on her blog, saying:…

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere

Applications & Portal Features

• Introducing Blogger… in draft, Blogger Blog
• Blogger Adds Video Uploading, Google Operating System

Business Issues

• Is Ask.com the Target of Search?, Search Engine Guide
• 78% of Diggers Thought Ask.com’s Campaign was Google’s Campaign, Search Engine Roundtable
• Yahoo Finance: Yahoo fires another key exec, Valleywag

Conferences

• SMX Notes – Pump Up Your Paid Search, Marketing Pilgrim
• SMX Notes – Debate: Is Bid Management Dead?, Marketing Pilgrim
• Matt Cutts and Tim Mayer - tidbits from SMX, Eric Enge
• SMX vs. SES, Stoddart
• Special Pandia discounts for upcoming search engine marketing events, Pandia
• Bruce Clay’s Search Engine Optimization Training Hits the UK, Bruce Clay
• What’s Danny Sullivan doing these days?, DM News
• The New Direction of SES & An Interview with Kevin Ryan, SEOmoz

Link Building

• Creating Link Bait With Hot Content and Promotions

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google lobbies for ‘open’ wireless networks, News.com
• Google Preparing Map Visualizations for Books, Google Earth Blog
• Yelp by the Numbers, Screenwerk

Paid Search & Contextual

• Alert: Please upgrade to AdWords Editor 3.5 by July 10, Inside AdWords
• Acova and Adwords, Dave Naylor
• AdWords to Break Out Other Google Properties in Placement Performance Reports Soon, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Inverse Google China, Google Blogoscoped
• Google User Distributed Search Results in Emails, IMs, Blogger, SEO By The Sea
• How to add Mahalo to Firefox, Jason Calacanis
• It’s pink, it’s cute, it’s the Light Iris search engine for moms, Pandia
• Retrospective: My Day Without Google Fails to Impress, Read/Write Web
• Research Reading: New Papers Added to Google Research Publications Collection, ResourceShelf
• Thumbstrips – great way to see and track your search results, Download Squad

SEM Industry

• Expanding the webmaster central team, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• What Skills Should a Full-Time SEO Have?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Canada, It’s Time To Clue Into Search!, MediaPost
• Search Engine Optimization Shouldn’t Come with a Money Back Guarnatee, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Viagra and adlabs, Dave Naylor
• Laying the Foundation for In-House SEO Success in Large Organizations, Search Engine Watch
• Yahoo! Appears to Order Your Links in Site Explorer by Quality, Search Engine Roundtable
• It’s Not About Buying You’re Way to The Top, Wolf Howl
• The Business Case for Expanding B2B SEM, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• Yahoo Pipes: Analyzing Digg, Part 3: Filter by Votes, Search Engine Journal
• Xing integrates with ZoomInfo, in move to overtake LinkedIn, VentureBeat
• Kara Visits Sphere (and Finds No Place Like Om), All Things Digital

Video & Image Search

• Give your Yahoo Photos the fun of Flickr, Yodel Anecdotal

Other Items

• Cheat sheet for finding online cheat sheets, Download Squad
• Housekeeping: Owen Thomas is the Valleywag, Valleywag
• Podcast: eBay Yanks Ads In Google Checkout Dispute; Google Video Goes Meta Search & More!, Daily SearchCast