SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 21, 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:

• Search Biz: Probing Wikipedia’s Finances, Facebook Toast? & Google Denies Evading Chinese Taxes
  It’s well known that Wikipedia is maintained by a legion of volunteers throughout the world. Structured as a non-profit, the site features no advertising, despite being the #7 most visited destination on the web, and a property that most advertisers would kill to get exposure on. Which begs the…
• Search In Pictures: Snoop Dogg, St. Patrick’s Day & Danny Exposed
  In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more….
• LinkedIn Adds New Company Directory
  LinkedIn, with help from BusinessWeek’s CapitalIQ, has added a company directory and related factual information to its business network. It’s not easy to get to the company directory, which is only accessible to LinkedIn users at the moment. One can’t simply go to the LinkedIn search box and type a…
• Google Suggest Becoming A Default Feature?
  I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable spotting a WebmasterWorld thread that has three members noticing Google Suggest like features on Google.com. Basically, when these users go to Google.com and begin typing in a query, Google begins to offer search suggestions. Google has implemented this feature as a default on…
• Google Analytics Benchmarking Data Now Live
  The Google Analytics Benchmarking feature is now live for those users who have chosen to opt in to the program. You can access the data by visiting a site profile and clicking on “Visitors” and then on “Benchmarking (Beta).” Google said that the current list of “verticals and the quality…
• Google Gets What It Wanted From 700MHz Auction
  The US 700MHz auction is now over; the winners were announced yesterday. The spectrum is becoming available as television broadcasters make the mandated switch to digital signals in early 2009. The big winners (no surprises here) were US carriers Verizon and AT&T. Verizon bid more than $9 billion and won…
• Human Hardware: Men and Women
  In this week’s column on Human Hardware, we look at the differences between the two basic models of humans: men and women. As a species, the vast majority of our history has been spent not really thinking about the differences between men and women. The distinctions seemed obvious, and…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google’s Broken Bookmarking Systems, Google Operating System
• Introducing the AJAX Language API - Tools for Translation and Language Detection, Google AJAX Search API Blog
• Trackur’s Online Reputation Monitoring Now Just $18, Marketing Pilgrim

Business Issues

• When Google Speaks, InformationWeek
• YouTube Founder Launches VC Fund, Private Equity HUB
• China’s Baidu appoints Jennifer Li as CFO, Reuters
• New York Bill Could Cripple Google et al’s Personal Data Collection, Marketing Pilgrim
• Search Engine Retrevo Closes $8M Financing!, altsearchengines.com
• Yahoo Newspapers Join quadrantONE, Screenwerk

Local, Maps & Mobile

• International radar updates in Google Earth, Google LatLong
• Satellites: Google Takes Initiative to Find Extraterrestrials by 2012, io9.com

Link Building

• Why Does Google Hate Link Manipulation?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Wordpress 2.3.3 Hidden Links Injection Exploit and How To Not Let It Happen To You, ShoeMoney

Paid Search & Contextual

• Your adCenter Questions Answered: Part I - Negative Keywords, Excel Bulk Uploads and Editing - adCenter Advertiser, adcentercommunity.com
• An Update on Yahoo Search Marketing, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Shuts Down Support For AdWords API Version 10, Search Engine Roundtable
• Hey Google? Open Your Eyes And Let Political Campaigns Open Their Wallets, SEM Geek

Searching

• Get Into The SearchMe Private Beta Right Now, TechCrunch
• Search SEO Forums and More with Twing, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Search Engine for Twitter - Tweet Scan, altsearchengines.com
• The Wall Street Journal’s Web site is already (secretly) free, Salon.com

SEO & SEM

• Good housekeeping, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Semantify - Automate Your Semantic Web SEO in Five Minutes, Read/Write Web
• WSJ: Paid Content Painful in Google’s World, InternetNews
• 11 Ways to Recognize a Bad SEO Firm, Stone Temple
• Learning SEO: Search engine optimisation from a beginner’s perspective, Performancing.com
• Presenting Search Marketing Results for Large Clients, Search Engine Guide
• Sales and Your Search Marketing Agency - Part 2, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• Facebook Toast? Hot Today, Dead Tomorrow–Like AOL?, Silicon Alley Insider

Video, Music & Image Search

• Jewish group seeks to purge YouTube of anti-Semitic videos, Haaretz

Other Items

• Internet Statistics Israel February 2008, Ophir Cohen

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

• Video Interview With Todd Malicoat & Brent Csutoras @ SES New York 2008
• SEMpdx Searchfest 08 Speaker Reflections
• Disguising Text Links: Passing Manual Reviews the Grayhat Way
• 6 Psychological Changes of the Webmaster
• WHAT is Social Media Marketing Good For Anyway?
• SES New York 2008: Video Interview With Greg Boser by WebProNews
• Life, Death, and Links
• The Triangle Strategy: How To Market Your Blog Efficiently
• Tips for Overcoming Client-Created Roadblocks
• Is It Time to Expand Your B2B Internet Marketing Strategy?
• Keyword and Competitive Research Done Right - RankSense