SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 20, 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:

• This July: Try Google-Free Fridays!
  Back in 2002, I called Google the "Marcia Brady" of search. Fans of the Brady Bunch know that Marcia was one of six children, and middle daughter Jan felt Marcia got all the attention. "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia," she’d often complain, just as today, it often seems to be "Google, Google,…
• eBay Security Removes Google Checkout Reps From eBay Conference?
  Philipp Lenssen reports that two Google Checkout representatives were removed by eBay security from the eBay conference. Either Google or eBay have not confirmed these reports, but they come from a person who was said to be attending the conference. This comes after eBay Pulls Google AdWords Ads To Protest…
• Dating Tips For B2B Marketers
  Just what do search marketing and dating have in common? According to Seth Godin, the keynote speaker at last week’s Search Engine Strategies Conference in Toronto… plenty! When it comes to finding an appropriate partner and building a long-term relationship, there are some interesting analogies….
• Microsoft To Change Desktop Search In Vista Over Google Antitrust Claim
  Microsoft to change Vista after Google complaint from Reuters reports that Microsoft has agreed to make changes to their Vista desktop search application to make it easier for people to change the default search provider. Microsoft preempted action by the Justice Department from a Google antitrust complaint. In short, Google…
• Yahoo May Buy MySpace For 25% Stock Swap
  News Corp explores swap of MySpace site for Yahoo! stake from TimesOnline reports that News Corp is interested in handing over MySpace to Yahoo in exchange for 25% of Yahoo’s stock. Such a deal would value MySpace, the very popular social networking and video site, at about $12 billion. But…
• Google Acquires Zenter, Online Presentation Software Company
  Google has announced that they have acquired Zenter, an online presentation software company. The acquisition will enable them to add presentation software to their Google Docs & Spreadsheets offering. In mid-April, Google purchased Marratech, a video conferencing company and purchased Tonic, a company that built software for presentation creation and…
• How To Structure An In-House SEO Team
  Why are businesses so persistent about handling search in-house? There are many good reasons for centralizing both natural and paid search in a large organization. We’ll be talking about natural search in this article. Web site optimization for natural search visibility, commonly referred to as SEO, touches every aspect…
• AOL’s Truveo Builds Video Search Network With 40 Million Users
  Video search engine Truveo, acquired by AOL in late 2005, announced that it now has a user base of almost 40 million monthly uniques (per comScore). This is not at Truveo.com but across a diverse network of partner sites, which it powers. The company also said that since late last…
• Yahoo Go Comes Out Of Beta With Big Global Push
  Yahoo Go 2.0 and related mobile oneSearch offerings are coming out of beta this Friday and going into “general availability” in the U.S. While consumers pay no attention to these distinctions — alpha, beta, gamma and so on — it signals Yahoo’s confidence in the product. Simultaneously, nation-specific versions of…

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere

Applications & Portal Features

• Getting Google and AJAX to Play Nice, Caydel
• Google Press Release Analyzer, Google Blogoscoped

• Base diving with Google Gears, Google Code Blog

Business Issues

• Five steps to a Yahoo turnaround, News.com

• Ask.com Asks a Ninja for Ad Help, Search Engine Watch Blog

Conferences

• Search Engine Strategies Toronto Was … Different, Search Engine Watch
• Afterthoughts on SES Latino, Jon Mendez

• Search Engine Strategies Latino ‘07 Wrapup, Search Engine Roundtable

• SES Latino Coverage, Search Engine Watch Blog

Local, Maps & Mobile

• The Next Net: Yahoo Local Steps Up Its Game, Business 2.0
• Databases: Melissa DATA Lookup Databases Now Available on Mobile Site, ResourceShelf

• Google Earth Helping Amazon Indians, Google Earth Blog

• Google Local PPC Ads: Box Out Your “OneBox” Competitors, SEOmoz
• Tour de France 2007 in Google Earth, Google Earth Blog

• Yahoo! Shortcuts: Illumination @ the Point of Inspiration, Yahoo Search Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• Adsense Publishers Report Massive Dip in Earnings and CTR at Digital Inspiration Technology Guide, Digital Inspiration
• Google AdWords Quality Score : Affiliates Worst Nightmare?, Search Engine Journal
• Publishers Switching Back to Yahoo! Publisher Network, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM Industry

• How Wendy Piersall, Barry Schwartz & Jeremy Schoemaker Got Started, Viper Chill
• Overheard at SMX and SES Toronto: Superset Edition, SEOmoz

SEO & SEM

• Google Scraping & Spamming, Threadwatch.org
• Yahoo selling entire sub domains to affiliate sites, Threadwatch.org
• Mmmm! Tasty Search Goulash: Weighing in on Universal Search, Search Engine Guide
• Are IT Buyers and Marketers Search-Aligned?, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Hot New Way To Gain Authority Links, Search Marketing Standard
• Matt this is not an Update Cutts, Wolf Howl
• The Impact of User Registration on Generating Real Estate Leads, Search Engine Watch
• More Fake German Google Penalty Emails Go Out, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• Seven Deadly Sins of Social Media, Search Engine Guide
• Analysts say Yahoo lags in social media, USATODAY.com

Video & Image Search

• Just An Online Minute… More Legal Woes For YouTube With Global Expansion?, MediaPost Publications

Other Items

• New Research Project from Yahoo: Squeeze Every Drop of Meaning from Data, ResourceShelf
• Google Adds Two New Disallow Entries to their Robots.txt File, ResourceShelf
• How to Set Up Your Shopzilla.com Account, PPC Hero
• Carbon neutrality by end of 2007, Google Blog
• Asia-Pacific Open House June 28th, Google Blog
• 2008 Presidential Candidate Search Marketing Face-off, 10e20 Blog
• Podcast: Google Arbitrage/MFA, Devcon, & Tips For Startup Sites – Net Income 6-19-2007, ShoeMoney
• Xerox: The Enterprise Search Company?; Review of Selected Xerox Search Patents, ResourceShelf