Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web:

From Search Engine Land:

• Google: Click Fraud Is 0.02% Of Clicks
  Finally, we have a click fraud rate from Google itself: less than 0.02 percent of all clicks slip past its filters and are caught after advertisers request reviews. That low figure is sure to bring out the critics who will disagree. Below, more about how Google comes up with the…
• Hard Data On Yahoo Panama From Avenue A | Razorfish
  Matt Greitzer and Chris Boggs of Avenue A/Razorfish have complied a report based on the experiences of 33 Avenue A | Razorfish since the release of Panama, Yahoo’s new search ad system. As you know, when Yahoo released the new algorithm, it changed the core foundation of how search ads…
• Outside.in: Building The ‘Hyper-Local’ Internet
  The awkward phrase "hyper-local" is now embedded in the discussion about local search. It’s a phrase, for example, that online newspapers are using to describe their community strategies, and it’s a phrase that I may unwittingly have coined in 2005 (if I did, I apologize) to describe a category of…
• Citysearch Buys InsiderPages
  VentureBeat is reporting that Citysearch/IAC is the mystery buyer of InsiderPages. A purchase price was not disclosed. The formal announcement will apparently come later today or early tomorrow [now confirmed, see below]. I would guess the purchase price wasn’t more than 2x what the investors put in (TechCrunch guesses $13…
• Quintura Relaunches With New Interface
  Quintura recently relaunched with a new interface, which has been receiving a fair amount of comment. I originally wrote about the search engine back in November, and I was fairly lukewarm in my praise of it; while it was a nice idea, the interface held it back. Well, the relaunched…
• Keane, Head Of Advertising Sales Strategy At Google Goes To CBS Interactive
  CBS Interactive has named Patrick Keane their new Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. Keane was previous Google’s Head Of Advertising Sales Strategy. He worked at Google for four years, where he was "responsible for developing and managing the strategic plans and relationships critical to growing Google’s advertising customer…
• Good Cloaking, Evil Cloaking & Detection
  Is cloaking evil? It’s one of the most heavily debated topics in the SEO industry — and people often can’t even agree on what defines cloaking. In this column, I wanted to look at an example of what even the search engines might consider "good" cloaking, the middle-ground territory…
• How Spotplex’s "Trafficracy" Could Beat Digg But Probably Won’t
  Will today’s launch of Spotplex be the beginning of the end for Digg? Probably not, but this new social media site might prove a more civilized "trafficracy" alternative to the mob democracy of Digg. For those seeking attention and traffic, Digg has long been the crowdsourcing 800lb gorilla. Unfortunately, explosive…
• Here’s What’s Different About Being Small
  Last week’s Small is Beautiful column asked, "What’s So Different About Being Small?" The answer? Time. Money. Knowledge. Those are the three biggest challenges a small business must overcome to achieve search marketing success, and the three things that make small business search marketing unique. Many small businesses have…
• Danny Sullivan’s Ad Age Column & Fast Company Debate
  I’ve been spreading the word about search in print recently and wanted to share more about that. At the end of January, I started doing a regular monthly column in Ad Age on search marketing. Meanwhile, this month I took part in a Fast Company debate about Google. For those…

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere

Applications

• Twittering with Google Talk, Google Talkabout
• Gmail Spam Filtering: Smart but could be Smarter, Jeremy Zawodny

Business Issues

• Google Gains Foothold in China, Marketing Pilgrim
• Yahoo sued for $10M for illegal image use, Google Watch

Events Update & News

• Maximizing the Impact of Paid Search Listings Webinar, March 8, Search Marketing Now
• High Rankings Search Engine Marketing Seminar, Minneapolis, March 15-16, 2007, High Rankings
• Search Engine Room 2007, Australia, March 20-21, 2007, Search Engine Room
• Seodays Conference 20th – 21st March 2007 – London, Dave Naylor
• Search Marketing World 2007, Ireland, March 21, 2007, Search Marketing World 2007
• Google AdWords Seminars Coming to Detroit March 27 & Minneapolis March 29, eWhisper
• SES NY 2007, April 10-13, 2007, Search Engine Strategies
• SMX Advanced Opens For Registration & Two New SMX Shows Announced, Search Marketing Expo
• Where’s Danny Sullivan Speaking At In 2007?, Daggle

Local Search

• The Long Tail of Local Search, ClickZ
• Local Search : User Recommendations Make Your Business Money, Search Engine Journal
• Ultimate Local SEO Tactics, Natural Search Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• Open to everyone: The Microsoft adCenter beta, adCenter Blog
• Bid Management tool from The Search Works leaks Adwords data, Netters.nl

Searching

• Google: First result for "Yahoo email privacy" is Gmail privacy policy, Google Watch

SEO

• What Makes SEO & SEM So Damn Hard, SEOmoz
• NOYDIR Tag By Yahoo! Does Not Impact Rankings, Search Engine Roundtable
• Tired of Opting Out When You Never Opted In?, Search Engine Guide
• Domain Names and Defensible Traffic, SEO Book
• How To Get Links from Bloggers, Search Engine Journal
• Patent Application on Google’s Sitemaps and Mobile Sitemaps, SEO By The Sea
• Is Squidoo becoming a massive, dirty SEO back alley?, Jason Calacanis
• And The Dave Pasternack SEO Contest Winner Is…,Threadwatch

Social Media

• Social Networks Can Drive Traffic – Case Study of ASOS and TopShop, Hitwise
• 34 Reasons Why Readers Unsubscribe from Your Blog, ProBlogger
• The Power Of Digg In Link Building, Search Engine Roundtable
• Netscape’s anti-spam efforts are working, Pronet Advertising
• The Why, How and Who of Marketing in StumbleUpon, Search Engine Journal
• Cre8asite Launches New Social Media Forum, 10e20
• Tricking the social voting sites, Boing Boing
• I Bought Votes on Digg, Wired

Podcasts

• SEO & SMM, RushHour
• Emergent Web Marketing Show, Clickinfluence

Other Vertical Search

• Google News Played by Foreign Sources?, WebProNews
• "Label" attribute no longer supported, Google Base
• Publishers try to stave off Google, Amazon with book search, Arstechnica
• ReportLinker: Vertical Search Engine For Marketing Research, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Specialty Search: PsychSpider – Psychology Search Engine, ResourceShelf
• Autobytel Hopes to Usher in Second Phase of Automobile Search, SearchDay

Other Stuff

• Google redirector broken; Are you losing traffic?, Things Of Sorts
• GOSwards, Google Operating System
• February ‘07: Best Search/Marketing Posts, Small Business SEM

Related Topics: SearchCap

About The Author: Danny Sullivan is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also oversees Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He maintains a personal blog called Daggle (and maintains his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan