SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 10, 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 Remains Big In Japan (& Beating Google)
  

  While stats out from Hitwise today show Google still reigns supreme in the United States, in Japan, it’s a different story. Yahoo remains the top search engine there, the latest stats from comScore show, and it’s growing faster than Google. comScore reports Yahoo is still leading, in a major way, in Japan. Yahoo [...]

• Want To Speak At SMX London? Let Us Know!
  

  I’m now accepting speaking proposals for SMX London. We’ve moved the conference dates to May 18 and 19, the perfect time to be in London, especially at our venue, the New Connaught Rooms in the heart of London at Covent Garden. Please note that the agenda for the show is final, and I will only consider [...]

• Wolfram Alpha To Challenge Google?
  

  Better Search Doesn’t Mean Beating Google from Saul Hansell at the New York Times does an excellent job breaking down the latest Google threat, or lack there of. A secret search engine named Wolfram Alpha is being designed now by Stephen Wolfram, a British mathematician. Wolfram Alpha differs from Google in that it hopes to [...]

• SEMPO Report Cuts Search Ads Forecast
  

  SEMPO’s new report, due to be released this week, cuts its forecast for search advertising. The results are based on a survey of almost 900 agencies and search marketers. According to the Wall Street Journal, the report scales back previous growth projections considerably: [SEMPO] says North American search marketing spending will increase only 9% to $14.7 [...]

• A Link Building Stimulus Plan
  

  With the economy the way it is, we’re getting a lot of inquires from people asking for package programs. They’re willing to cut back on the number of link building techniques they contract for, but not the quality of the links secured. Because of the volume of requests we were getting, I decided to look for a way to trim a couple [...]

• How To Use Social Proof For Social Content Promotion
  

  You’ve heard it before, “Content is king”, but is it really? When it comes to promoting content in social media, content is not what’s solely going to drive popularity to your campaign. Content is still a very important factor, especially if you are using a resource hook to drive traffic and links. I’ll wait for future [...]

• Search Week: March 9, 2009
  

  Search Week is an exclusive weekly newsletter for Search Engine Land premium members that recaps stories covered on Search Engine Land over the past week. Below are top stories organized by topic that happened over the past week. Each topic (or Search Engine Land column) is also a link, where [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• An important reminder for our MyBrand users, AdSense for Feeds
• March Madness Goes Mobile Via Yahoo, MediaPost

Business Issues

• Google, Cisco eyed as possible Dow candidates, Reuters
• AOL Layoffs In Progress (TWX), Business Insider
• Google Executive, N.Y. Times Wrestle in New Jersey for Local Ads, Bloomberg
• Google, LG settle visual voicemail patent disputes, Electronista
• Yahoo Newspaper Consortium Adds Boston Globe And St. Petersburg Times At CEO Summit, paidContent.org

Link Building

• Backlink Anchor Text Analysis: Powered by Linkscape, SEOmoz
• Link Building Guide, link-building-guide.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Local.com: We Now Have 30K Customers, Screenwerk
• New Yorkers Upset Google Label’s World Trade Center Site as Ground Zero, Search Engine Roundtable

Paid Search & Contextual

• Yahoo! Thinks My PPC Accounts Suck, PPC Hero

Searching

• Since You Asked: The Technorati Attention Index, Technorati Weblog
• "Search Is A Pencil", John Battelle’s Searchblog
• 88 great people search tools, Pandia
• Google Postpones Blog Search Ranking Update, Search Engine Roundtable
• Stephen Wolfram’s Answer To Google, InformationWeek
• UK: TV and Games are UK’s most searched for subjects, Hitwise

SEM Industry

• 55% Of SEO Companies Won’t Offer Pay For Performance Deals, Search Engine Roundtable
• Ask the Link Builders Q&A – SMX West, Marketing Pilgrim
• Happy Purim: No Logo From Google This Year, Search Engine Roundtable
• SearchFest Keynote: Danny Sullivan, SEMpdx Blog

SEO & SEM

• SEM Planning and Forecasting, Industrial Strength SEM
• Crawl Your Site for Broken Links, Errors and Duplicate Content, Daily SEO Tip
• How many links per page?, Matt Cutts
• SBS Mailbag: Is Syndicating Content Good or Bad?, Small Business SEM
• Soft-Bundling: The Value of Perceived Authenticity & Transparency, SEO Book
• The Point of Increasing Returns, SEO Book
• The Waggish 10 Step SEO Guide to Finding the Success and Prestige of a Spammer, SEO.com

Social Media

• Facebook Sending More Traffic Than Google to Some Sites, Ad Age
• Human Resources Managers Should Measure Social Media Marketing, seoroi.com
• New orkut Help Forum, Orkut Blog
• Retweet RT @ – Twitter Retweeting Rules of Engagement, SEO Consultants
• Social Networks & Blogs Now 4th Most Popular Online Activity, Ahead of Personal Email, Nielsen Reports, ResourceShelf

Video, Music & Image Search

• Google Video for business: now featuring larger videos and [insert caption here], Official Google Enterprise Blog

Web Analytics

• Back to Basics: New Getting Started Guide for Google Analytics, Google Analytics Blog

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

• Comprehensive Keyword Analysis. It Is Not All About Keyword Research Tools
• A Link Building Stimulus Plan
• Analysis of an SEO story going Viral on Twitter
• Google Is Killing Its Golden Goose
• UK Search engine market research in depth
• Top Twitter Search Apps : Better Than Twitter & Google
• SEO & Analytics: 4 Useful Ways To Assess Your Organic Traffic
• Writing Tips for the Reluctant Writer