SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 17, 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:

• Google AdSense Ads Making Their Way To iPhone Apps?
  

  Venture Beat noticed that the Urbanspoon iPhone app has what looks like Google AdSense ads on them. I immediately downloaded the Urbanspoon app and went to a restaurant review and saw a similar ad. Here is a screen capture:

  I am pointing to the small lowercase G, which looks much like Google’s second favicon, [...]

• St. Patrick’s Day Search Logos, Maps & Images
  

  Today is St. Patrick’s Day and the search engines have created special logos and maps for the day. Let’s start of with a collage of logos, that I compiled at the Search Engine Roundtable.

  The Live Search Blog has a blog post that shows how Live Search Maps has several maps that shows few collections [...]

• Twitter Adding Advertisements?
  

  Last night, there was some buzz and commotion over Twitter adding ads to the web interface. The screen shot provided here shows how Twitter is promoting Twitter Search, so technically, this might not be an advertisement but it shows how Twitter may be able to monetize the interface with text ads. I personally always envisioned [...]

• Rules Of Linking Engagement As The Web Turns Twenty
  

  After working in a profession for many years you might logically assume you don’t need to spend as much time learning still more about it. Take bowling. If you’ve been bowling for twenty years, do you still need lessons, or are you close to being as good a bowler as you’re ever going to be? [...]

• Making Sense Of All The Data: Google, Hadoop & Cloudera
  

  The article, Hadoop, a Free Software Program, Finds Uses Beyond Search, explains the very interesting history behind Hadoop. What is Hadoop? It’s distributed computing software that enables data mining and analysis on a huge scale. It also, apparently, is an open-source version of proprietary software developed by Google to process and analyze massive volumes of [...]

• Despite The Hype, Twitter Isn’t A Mainstream Social Marketing Tool
  

  Every so often a site comes along that, in the amount of hype it generates, blows away everything that has come before it. Not so long ago it was Second Life, then Facebook came along and now Twitter is scattering all before it in a blizzard of press-coverage that many of its start-ups peers would [...]

• How Many 301s Are Too Many?
  

  Google’s Matt Cutts talks about multiple domains and 301 redirects in one of the recent videos uploaded to the Google Webmaster Central YouTube channel. The question essentially asks if Google views the redirecting of many domains toward one domain as a sign of suspicious activity. Matt’s answer is that there are many companies — Google [...]

• Google Puts Ads On Hosted News Stories
  

  The monetization of white space across Google properties continues with an announcement this afternoon that Google is showing ads on hosted articles in Google News. Google’s announcement seems to indicate that the ads will always show beneath the story. Here’s an example from a story currently listed on the Google News home page:

  Will Money Lead [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Microsoft repels Google with 40,000 e-mail account deal, NetworkWorld
• Chat on iGoogle, Google Talkabout
• Google Chrome has a new beta, Google Chrome Blog
• Google Launches Certified Ad Manager Consultants, Search Engine Roundtable
• Yahoo testing livelier, more open home page, News.com

Business Issues

• Google lawyers seek to halt Italy trial, Times Online
• "Sizable" Layoffs Coming To MySpace, Says Analyst (NWS), Business Insider
• Baidu to hire more staff in Japan, China Business News
• Expedia shares gain on Google takeover talk, Reuters
• Fresh Evidence that Search Is Still Competitive? Not So Fast, Wall Street Journal
• Google, LVMH Spar Over Keyword Trademark Rights at Top EU Court, Bloomberg
• How to Juice AOL: A Spin-Out, Of Course, But Also a Reunion at Dulles HQ?, AllThingsD by Kara Swisher
• Two Years After Buying AdTech, AOL Completes Separation From Google’s DoubleClick, paidContent.org

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Maps: Cleaning up the Index, Mike Blumenthal
• HTC to Launch Extra Versions of Google Phone, Wall Street Journal
• The Plaza Hotel is Mapjacked, Mike Blumenthal
• Using MapQuest To Do Things You Never Thought You Could Series. Tip #1: Find and save a collection of parking garages for future use, MapQuest Blog
• Why we believe in geospatial data sharing, Google LatLong

Link Building

• 5 Ways to Tell if a Blog Link is Gold or Rotten, Daily SEO Tip
• Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day, smh.com.au

Paid Search & Contextual

• Monster of a PPC Campaign Giving You Nightmares?, Search Marketing Sage
• Quintura Awarded Interactive Search Display Patents, Quintura blog
• In-Text Media Links Service Apture Gets $4.1 Million Funding, paidContent.org
• PPC Made Easy: Learn How Google’s AdWords Editor and Microsoft’s adCenter Desktop Can Simplify PPC Management, PPC Hero
• Upload Your Google AdWords Campaigns into Yahoo and MSN adCenter in a Flash!, PPC Hero
• Your Ad is Only as Effective as your Landing Page, Rimm Kaufman

Searching

• EFF Launches Search Tool for Uncovered Government Documents, Electronic Frontier Foundation
• EyePlorer : a New Approach to Semantic Search, Search Engine Journal
• Find Out More About Your Favorite Films, AOL Search Blog
• Flight Status From Live.com, LiveSide
• More Hosted News partners in Europe!, Google News Blog

SEM Industry

• Coverage of SES Amsterdam, Yoast
• Live coverage SES Amsterdam: Kevin Ryan, Search Cowboys
• Net Builders Launches Sulumits Retsambew SEO Search Engine Optimization Contest, Bill Hartzer
• SEO Jobs on Gumtree, David Naylor
• SES Amsterdam – Cross Media Effect on Search, Search Cowboys
• SES Amsterdam – Google Analytics for your SEM campaign, Search Cowboys
• SES Amsterdam: Improve your SEM return and conversion, Search Cowboys
• SES Amsterdam: The Changing Face of Search, Search Cowboys

SEO & SEM

• Adobe Introduces Flash Info Site for SEO’s, Marketing Pilgrim
• Google Has a 500 Sitemaps File Limit Per Account, Search Engine Roundtable
• Rewriting the Beginner’s Guide Part IX: Myths, Penalties and Spam, SEOmoz
• Yes, Meta Tags ARE Important!, Vertical Measures

Social Media

• Five keys to social media launch planning, Econsultancy
• Search is Getting All Emotional Thanks to Twitter, Search Engine Journal
• Twitter Kills Tips @UserName Command?, Barry Schwartz
• Twitter Tip: Add a ‘Tweet This’ Link to your Blog on WordPress or Blogger, Digital Inspiration
• Twitter: A fine ‘pre-business’ but un-monetizable and a deadly acquisition target, ZDNet

Video, Music & Image Search

• [changelog] Revision of the Places page, also Neighborhoods, Code: Flickr Developer Blog
• High Definition Kitten Tuesday (New HD Search option), Code: Flickr Developer Blog
• U.K. Online Video Viewing Audience Grows 10 Percent during Past Year to Nearly 30 Million Viewers, comScore

Other Items

• Pot O’ (LEED) Gold, Official Google Blog

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

• Managing link relationships – Surely there is a better way than nofollow
• Hey SEO Community, Adapt or Die! Google Branding Update
• The Current Status of Flash & SE Indexing
• Signups for TweepMe Show That Many People are Open to Identity Fraud – Gave Twitter Passwords Away to Unknown 3rd Party.
• Why is Digg.com Taking the “Social” out of Social Media?
• Cannot Get to a Conference? Get on Twitter
• Social Media: Ethics, Ethics Everywhere, too bad they don’t Exist