SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 24, 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:

• June 2008 California Fire Maps
  Wildfires, again, in my home state of California. People are looking for maps of where they are at, so here are some resources:…
• What’s a 404 to Do?
  Have you ever written a blog post or an article and after publishing it, gotten an email telling you that one of your links is broken? It happens to all of us once in a while. But what happens to the links that slip through the cracks and remain…
• Interview: Carter Maslan On Google’s Local Business Center Upgrade
  Google Maps recently introduced a new user interface for the Local Business Center. There were some issues with the upgrade and Carter Maslan, Google’s Director of Product Management for Local, agreed to answer some of my questions about the process in a phone conversation. Below, selected excerpts from our conversation:…
• Mr. Google, Tear Down This Google Trends Wall!
  About two seconds after Google Trends For Websites came out, people started noticing that one company’s websites oddly had no data available — Google’s own. Google will tell you all about the traffic to competitors like Yahoo and Microsoft but gives away nothing about itself. The same is true…
• Google Ad Planner Launches, Offers Site Demographic Profiles
  Google has launched Google Ad Planner as an invite-only beta. It’s designed to allow advertisers to identify sites with demographics they’re interested in — even sites that aren’t part of Google’s advertising network….
• Google Introduces Map Maker For “Uncharted” Regions
  There’s an interesting analogy to the 15th and 16th Centuries when European explorers (or colonialists) were out sailing and mapping the globe. The world was not entirely known and mapped at that time. So it is today on the Internet. While many areas are highly developed and well documented in…
• Google Adds “Report Images” To Web Search Results
  Finding adult images on Google by doing an ordinary web search is not all that uncommon these days. In fact, I reported one such as in March and another case this morning at the Search Engine Roundtable. What I also noticed this morning was a new feature to “report images”…
• Google The “Moral Compass” Of The US Justice System?
  What’s Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer from the New York Times documents a case that is underway in the US legal system where Google Trends was brought in to determine the morality of what is sexually explicit content. The case is about a Florida-based porn web site that the…
• Search Illustrated: Business To Consumer Credibility Through Optimization Of Content
  Search marketing campaigns for business-to-consumer websites need to address the issues of trust in the brand name as well as confidence in making a purchase. Third party validation and “wisdom of the crowds” mentality rule the day. This week’s infographic illustrates various pieces of content that can be created…
• Symbian Mobile Platform To Become Free, Rivaling Android & iPhone
  The Symbian mobile software is already what Google Android aspires to be: the world’s dominant smartphone operating system (it runs Nokia smartphones, among others). But it isn’t free, or I should say wasn’t free until today. Nokia announced that it was buying the shares of Symbian that it doesn’t own…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Multi-cloud application development made easier, Official Google Enterprise Blog
• Extra storage as students go Gmail, Australian IT
• New Home Page Unveiled At Yahoo AU, TechCrunch
• More real-time quotes on Google Finance, Official Google Blog

Business Issues

• Google Expands Its New York Footprint, New York Times
• Yahoo! Exec Joins MSLO, AdWeek
• Judge sets Facebook hearing status to ‘private’–hmm, News.com
• Movin’ on up-across, EricaJoy
• Start-up sues Google over e-mail switching tool, Reuters
• Microsoft and Yahoo In Talks: Two Sources Say "Search Only, Not Buyout", Silicon Alley Insider
• Sources: Microsoft And Yahoo Talks Back On, TechCrunch
• Thomas Weisel cuts Yahoo; shares down, Reuters
• Welcoming Bijan and Jeff, Twitter Blog
• Yahoo-Google Deal Runs Into Resistance, Ad Age

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Location-Based Mobile Services Gain Traction, altsearchengines.com
• My Location in your Palm, Official Google Mobile Blog

Link Building

• Education Links – "DoFollow" Tuesdays, Link Building Best Practices
• Measure Distribution to Project Content-Focused Link Building, seoroi.com
• Building Links for Geo Targeting, Search Engine Journal
• Directory Links = Paid Links. Or do they?, Search Engine Guide
• SMX Advanced: Link Building Strategies, Marketing Pilgrim

Paid Search & Contextual

• Use the Conversion Optimizer with AdWords Editor and the AdWords API, Inside AdWords
• AdSense going through major compliancy checking of publisher sites, JenSense
• Five steps to optimising your AdSense performance, Inside AdSense
• Get Google.com in Your AdWords Display URL, Search Engine Roundtable
• Is Google’s AdWords Search Too Inclusive?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Language and market distribution vs. targeting on adCenter: what’s the difference? – adCenter Advertiser, www.adcentercommunity.com
• Take a First Look at the adCenter Desktop Beta and Share Your Thoughts, PPC Hero
• Tips for Selling High-Ticket Items via Paid Search in Today’s Tough Economy, Rimm Kaufman
• Yet Another Reason Why Your Ads Aren’t Showing in Google, PPC Hero

Searching

• Yahoo Adds New Employee-Recruiting Advertisements, Bloomberg
• At Google, Slow Growth in News Site, New York Times
• Search Engines are Preferred Method for Researching Products and Services, Search Engine Watch Blog
• SearchMe Launches Stacks, Gets Serious About Search Relevance, TechCrunch
• The Future Google Trends is Out for Testing, Click and Beyond

SEM Industry

• One year of monitored European Webmaster Help Groups, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Yahoo! Chats with Semantic Web Expert, Ben Adida, Yahoo Search Blog

SEO & SEM

• Spank My Relevancy, SEOish
• 10 Ways to Increase Your Site Crawl Rate, Search Engine Journal
• Advanced SEO is Traditional White Hat SEO, BruceClay.com
• Online Marketing Tips Video: Promoting Your Blog, Search Marketing Gurus
• Projecting Keyword Demand for Free, Search Engine Guide

Social Media

• LinkedIn and The Strange Case of The Disappearing Market, Read/Write Web
• Plurkair: A Basic, Open Source Desktop Client For Plurk, Inquisitr
• Lessons on Marketing with Social Media, Search Marketing Standard
• SES & Social Media Strategy: what happened to ethics?! (A rant), www.rahafharfoush.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• New Personalized Homepage and Improved Email Notifications, YouTube Blog

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

• Mr. Google, Tear Down This Google Trends Wall!
• Predictive Copywriting – Fight Big Publishers and Win in 2009
• How To Game Twitter for 100,000s Of Dofollow Backlinks
• Best of the Web Gets Even Better by Going Local
• 10 Ways to Increase Your Site Crawl Rate
• The 5 Business Models of SEO – Pros & Cons, Discover the One For You
• Social Media Used To Be About Sharing
• Hey Googlers – It's OK To Be Honest & Direct When Answering Questions
• Google ads for your own site on your own site? What the heck?
• 500 Twitter Followers: We (Finally) Have a Winner
• George Carlin's Death Spikes Searches For His Seven Words You Can Never Say On TV
• Link Building Steps : Clean Up Your Own Backyard
• How to get more fans on social media | AlexTips.com
• Matt Cutts: Good directions drive traffic to your website – USATODAY.com
• Is Negative SEO Still Possible?
• 70+ Most Useful Mashable Posts for Search Marketers and Developers
• Tools to Evaluate Your SEO Competition
• Should You Be Ranking For [SEO]?
• Google Trends For Websites Rocks, Unless You Want Data On Google
• Google Says, Long URLs May Hurt You
• Recruiting SEM Employees: Job Boards, Headhunters & Account Planning Boot Camp
• What is more important: 1 million Impressions or 5 relationships?
• 11 FireFox Extensions to Search Google Properly