SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 23, 2012

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Move Over, Wikipedia: Amazon May Be The King Of Google Rankings

  While the SEO industry has spent years decrying how well Wikipedia seems to dominate Google’s rankings, it may be that Amazon.com is the real king of visibility. For most of the past 18 months or so, Amazon has shown up on the first page of Google search results more often than Wikipedia and currently lands […]
• AdSense Ad Review Center Gets Overhaul

  Google has revamped the Ad Review Center for AdSense, aiming to make it easier for publishers to control the ads that appear on their sites. The new Ad Review center will show ads of all targeting types that have previously appeared, and allow publishers to review and block future display of them. If ads are […]

• Search In Pics: Google Drinks, Yahoo Soup & +1 That Plate

  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. Google Drinks: Source: Google+ Yahoo Soup: Source: Flickr Panda Food: Source: absolutelyfobulous.com Lego Cake: Source: Pinterest […]

• Survey: Google Pays Less, Harder Interviews But Better Place To Work Than At Facebook

  Glassdoor has released their 2012 survey of best places to work in 2012 and Google has beat Facebook for the first time in four years in that survey. Google scored a 3.9 overall by their employees while Facebook scored a 3.7. In 2011 Facebook scored a 4.2 and Google scored a 4.1. Although Facebook employees […]

• Dear Google: Take Me To Dinner First Before You Try To Score

  In the ongoing wake of Search Plus Your World, there has been a lot of piling on the ‘beat down Google’ bandwagon. Much that has been written has been fair criticism of the search giant, but more than a small portion has been a gratuitous ‘piling on’ frenzy. I myself admittedly took part in some […]

• Google Remembers Juan Gris, Cubism Artist With Logo

  Today’s Google Logo is to remember Spanish painter known for his work in Cubism art with a Google logo resembling the art he helped innovate. Juan Gris was born 125 years ago today and died 40 years later from renal failure on May 11, 1927. He was born on March 23, 1887 in Madrid, Spain. […]

• Display Gets Its Own Interface, New Keyword Targeting In AdWords

  Google says it’s tired of squeezing display advertising into an interface made for search, so it’s giving display its own tab within the AdWords interface. Given that display was launched almost as an afterthought to AdWords’ core search ads business, it makes sense to start from scratch and give display its due. The new interface […]

Recent Headlines From MarTech, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

• Marketing Biz: Google Rethinks Wallet Strategy, Pinterest Gets Serious About Revenue & PeerIndex Scores $3M In Funding
• Heard Through the Grapevine: Lessons from Wine.com’s Performance Marketing Success
• Tweetdeck Adds List Management, Activities & Editable Retweets
• Mobile Apps vs. the Mobile Web: “It Doesn’t Matter to Consumers”

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• LinkedIn Chairman Hoffman Sells Facebook Stock Before IPO, Bloomberg
• Google Hasn’t Explained Why Users Would Want a Unified Online Identity, AllThingsD
• Google won’t be top dog forever says father of the internet, Pocket-lint
• The Case Against Google, Gizmodo
• The legal history of Google: infographic, econsultancy.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Don’t Serve Clients at Your Business? Hide Your Location – Or else, Mike Blumenthal
• Street View on Google Maps comes to Thailand, Google LatLong

Link Building

• Blog Networks Dropping Like Flies – Is The Sky Falling?, PotPieGirl.com
• What Every Link Builder Should Ask: Interview with Jamie Steven, blueglass.com

Searching

• Google Near Realtime Hot Queries Patent, SEO By The Sea
• Google: When Search Results Suck, It’s Not Because Of Money Opportunities, Search Engine Roundtable
• Paul Graham, the Commons, and How Google Stopped Being Google, The Atlantic

SEM Industry

• SMX London 2012 Interview with Danny Sullivan, SEOptimise
• Video: Google On Stupid vs. Money, SSL Search Firefox & HTML5 SEO, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Surviving Venice – Build your Site to Float!, State of Search
• Think like a search engine, 312digital.com
• Top 10 PPC Campaign Mistakes, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• Protecting Your Passwords and Your Privacy, Facebook

Web Analytics

• Better Insights with Flow Visualization Enhancements, Google Analytics Blog
• Measure your website’s performance with improved Site Speed reports, Google Analytics Blog