SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 12, 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:

• Open Letter To Google: Do The Right Thing, Divest Yourself Of Performics
  At long last, Google owns DoubleClick. In doing so, the company has done something else that many people would have never believed possible. Become an SEO. That’s right — Google’s in the SEO business now, selling services through DoubleClick’s Performics to people who want to rank well on — um…
• News Corp. Appears To Close Door As AOL Opens One To A Potential Deal With Yahoo
  Monday News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch seemed to say that he won’t be doing a deal with Yahoo, which argued that Yahoo had few options left in its bid to stay independent. However today, in an article in the NY Times, Time Warner Chief Jeffrey L. Bewkes said that he’s ready…
• Search Biz: Google’s Project Management Tools, Iowa Seeks Microsoft & More
  Click Forensics gets $10 million in funding. An early Googler donates money to San Jose State. The fight to control IAC carries on. Disney doesn’t want AOL. Yahoo and Microsoft do research labs in Israel. A glimpse into the internal tools Google uses to manage products and Iowa passes…
• Health Insurance Carrier Aetna Introduces Personalized Health Search From Healthline
  Vertical health destination and search engine Healthline has teamed up with US health insurance carrier Aetna to offer what the company is calling Aetna SmartSource — customized health search. The service, powered by Healthline, will roll out on Aetna’s member self-service website and offer personalized search results based on individual…
• Eight Tips For Successful B2B Blogs
  Virtually all marketers have realized that blogs can be a powerful part of an overall search marketing campaign. This is especially true in the B2C marketplace, but what about for B2B focused companies? What do successful B2B blogs have in common? In looking at hundreds of B2B blogs, eight…
• Using Wikipedia To Reveal Web Traffic Data
  Before investing time and effort in search rankings, and even before setting client expectations, it makes sense to gather whatever intelligence you can about the keywords you’d like to rank for. SEOs and webmasters have few reliable sources of information about the relationship between rankings and traffic. But Wikipedia’s traffic…
• Linking Prowess For In-House Teams
  Linking is still de rigueur when optimizing for Google and all major engines. Linking strategies have run the gauntlet, from simple link exchange requests to buying links. For a good review of current best practices in linking tactics, I refer you to The Link Spiel by Debra Mastaler and…
• Got Duplicate Content? Don’t Let It Dilute Your SEO Efforts
  "Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink," laments a sailor adrift in Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The poor guy needs water to say alive—and he’s surrounded by it— yet if he drinks it, the salt content will kill him. As a search marketer,…
• Building Referral Links While You Sleep
  Most webmasters have two goals for their online businesses: to be financially successful and to be self-sustaining. Ideally, webmasters want to be fully established and top of mind so the business they have supplies all the business they need. Sweet scenario if you can get it but the reality…
• Message In A Bottle: Google Now Stores Messages For Unverified Webmaster Central Users
  Google Webmaster Central has announced that they now will have webmaster communication messages waiting for webmasters even if they have not yet verified their site in Google Webmaster Tools. Let me step back a bit and explain why this is incredibly important. In July 2007, Google released Message Center within…
• "Google Earth Town" Nanaimo Wires Self To Google Maps To Drive Tourism
  How Google Earth Ate Our Town from Time Magazine highlights Nanaimo, a British Columbia town on Vancouver Island, also known as "Google Earth Town" or "the capital of Google Earth." Nanaimo has been plotting virtually all of their town’s data directly on Google Maps and Google Earth. From real-time firefighter…
• Preview: Search Engine Land’s SMX Social Media Marketing Conference
  Last year in New York, Search Engine Land held its first SMX Social Media Marketing conference. I’ve been organizing conferences for nearly 10 years now, and this one was exceptional, if I say so myself. Every speaker blew me away with great ideas on how to tap into social media…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Announces 2008 Developer Events, Google
• How to back up your Gmail on Linux in four easy steps, Matt Cutts

Link Building

• 10 Good Links You Can Get in the Next 50 Minutes, Link Building Best Practices
• 65% of SEOs Prefer Old & Aged Links Over Fresh & New Links, Search Engine Roundtable
• Give A Warm Reception to Receptional Tool, The Link Spiel

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Chunghwa May Sell Chinese Google Phone, PC World
• MyVox Lets You Add Voice Notes to Google Maps, RockYou Widgets And More, TechCrunch

Paid Search & Contextual

• Reminder: Website Optimizer Online Seminar Tomorrow, Inside AdWords
• Do you have a problem with Google Adsense showing PSAs?, JenSense
• adCenter Analytics – How To Run Basic Traffic History Reports, adCenter Blog
• Eliot Spitzer, Pay to Play, ClickZ
• Google Promoting Content Network To AdWords Advertisers, Search Engine Roundtable
• Paid Search Briefing – March 2008 | Research, E-consultancy.com
• Save Time in AdWords – Copy Your Campaign Settings, PPC Hero

Searching

• Ask.com Scales Back to Target Its Core Customers, Info Today
• PeekYou: Openly edited people search, Pandia
• Searchme: A New Visual Search Engine, AllThingsD

SEM Industry

• SMX West 2008: Chloe Spencer WebProNews Videos, WebProNews
• Get Naked with Matt McGowan (Incisive Media, VP of Marketing), Compete
• Spying on Google: What is Spam? What is Relevant? Read This to Find Out, SEO Book
• New AdSenseAdvisor Comes to WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Roundtable
• SearchFest 2008 is in the books, Small Business SEM

SEO & SEM

• Creating Synergy in Your SEO Efforts, Search Engine Watch
• Google red cards Privila for gaming search engine, The Register
• MSNBot Again Failing Reverse DNS Test, Search Engine Roundtable
• Online Reputation Management Requires Cabinet War Rooms, Search Engine Watch
• Google Sitelinks Using Traffic Stats?, Google Operating System
• Webmaster Tools keeps your "messages waiting", Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

Social Media

• Authoritative Social Media Content, Stone Temple
• From the Quick Hits Dept.: Transferring Feeds Between Accounts, FeedBurner Blog
• Like Twitter, Chatterous offers instant chat, SeattlePi
• Sociable update, Joost de Valk’s SEO Blog
• SXSW Mark Zuckerberg Keynote, Techipedia

Video, Music & Image Search

• Hulu Launches with Warner, Lionsgate, NewTeeVee
• What Does YouTube Have Up Its Sleeve? Guess Right, And Win An iPod Shuffle, TechCrunch

Other Items

• Podcast: Google Banned From US Military Bases; Will Google Get 90% Of US Market , Daily SearchCast

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

• Google Expects To Be Very Significant In Display Ad Segment
• Link Building Via Blog Comments : Is It Spam Or Not?
• Ten Tactics That Could Save Your Online Reputation
• Google Presents – Search Box in the Seach Results?
• 7-Pack of SEO News Aggregators
• Six Explosive Organic & Paid Link Building Tips
• 101 Useful Resources for Online Entrepreneurs
• Squeezing The Link Juice Out Of Low-Hanging Fruit
• Open Letter To Google: Do The Right Thing, Divest Yourself Of Performics
• Giving free SEO advice to the Homeless
• Which Is Better, Unique or Exact Match?
• Firefox Extension Adds Digg Count to SERPs
• Google Doesn’t Care About You: You Are Guilty Until Proven Innocent
• Why Do the Same Topics Reach the Frontpage of Digg?
• Automated Twittering: You know, like spam!
• Craziest Internet Marketing Contest You’ve Ever Seen – $5,348 in FREE Cash & Prizes
• Why PPC is the American Idol of Search
• Should Twitter Be Used For Serious Stuff?
• Online Marketing Book: "The Soccer Mom Myth" Tackles Today’s Female Consumer