SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 27, 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:

• Drilling Into Google’s Decline In Paid Clicks
  More doom and gloom on the paid search side for Google. comScore is once again reporting a drop in sponsored clicks, something that also happened last month. After last month’s fallout, comScore did a lot of further analysis shared at the Searchscape panel at our SMX West conference and online…
• Google Offers Robots.txt Generator
  Google’s rolled out a new tool at Google Webmaster Central, a robots.txt generator. It’s designed to allow site owners to easily create a robots.txt file, one of the two main ways (along with the meta robots tag) to prevent search engines from indexing content. Robots.txt generators aren’t new. You can…
• Privacy Policies And Search Engines
  A few weeks back, I started wondering about whether or not search engines might care whether a web site had a privacy policy or not. Is the content of a page less relevant or more relevant if there’s a link on it to information about how any data collected…
• Details Posted On Google Webmaster Central’s Live Chat Session
  I have more details on the Google live chat session that is taking place this Friday. Adam Lasnik posted the agenda, which starts at 8:45am (PST) this Friday and ends at 10am (PST). In short, Google will give an introduction, then do site reviews, then a topic on image search,…
• Earth Hour: Google Shuts Out The Lights In Israel
  Google Israel turned out the lights and flipped their white background color to black for שעת כדור הארץ (aka Earth Hour). What is ironic is that we reported in the past that Google argued that black uses more energy that white. (Although they participated in Lights Out San Francisco last…
• YouTube Insight: View Your YouTube Video Statistics
  The YouTube Blog and Google Blog announced YouTube Insight, YouTube’s new video statistics area. In short, additional statistics are now available to users who upload videos to YouTube. You can get stats on the number of views per day your video received, where those viewers are in the world and…
• We Don’t Need SEO Standards!
  Last month I attended the SMX West session in Santa Clara entitled Is it Time for Search Marketing Standards? It was an interesting session, but I wasn’t really sure where I stood on the issue at the time. Now that I’ve had a few weeks to think about it,…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google to Add Language Translation in Gmail, Google Operating System

Business Issues

• Google ad viewership up 3 pct on comsCore: sources, Reuters
• GNM hires Yahoo developer, The Guardian
• Yahoo Eases Newspaper Consortium Fears – For Now, paidContent.org
• Yahoo Search : Better Than Googling?, Search Engine Journal

Local, Maps & Mobile

• A fitting send-off, Google LatLong
• Will Google Earth Be Banned By China?, Google Earth Blog

Link Building

• Creating a Link Building System, Search Engine Watch
• The Fundamentals of Link Building, AudetteMedia

Microhoo

• Is Microhoo silence a sign of progress?, News.com

Paid Search & Contextual

• CPC: Maximum, average and minimum. An earlier post re-visited, Inside AdWords
• Supplementing AdSense with affiliate ads, JenSense
• Use dynamic text to keep your ad text within limits – adCenter Advertiser, adcentercommunity.com
• Is Google AdWords Demographic Bidding coming to the UK?, SEOptimise
• Use these 5 Tips to Increase Last Minute Traffic, Conversions & Sales!, PPC Hero
• How Often Does the Yahoo Search Marketing Quality Index Update?, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Bridging the Designer-User Gap, Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox
• Labels in Custom Search, Google Custom Search

SEM Industry

• Bionic Posters help webmasters worldwide, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Journalist Math: If you round up, Larry Page turns 40 today, Valleywag

SEO & SEM

• 5 Keyword Research Tips to Finding the Questions Your Readers Want Answered, keywordsem.com
• Black Out Your Google Listing in the Google Search Results, Bill Hartzer
• Google Can Keep Its Site Search To Itself, BruceClay.com
• Should Google Universal Search be part of your SEO strategy?, SEOptimise
• Using a Search Engine Optimization Company vs. Hiring an In-House Expert: The True Dollar Cost, Search Engine Guide
• 10 Ways to Fight Back Content Thieves, SEO 2.0
• March ‘08 Google Sitelinks Update, Search Engine Roundtable
• Read Any Good SEO Books Lately? Try These, Search Engine Watch
• The META Description & Google Search Engine Snippet, Search Engine Roundtable
• Why Does Your Search Traffic Suck? The 7 Most Likely Reasons, SEOmoz
• 10 Things To Expect from a Good SEO Firm, Stone Temple
• 52 easy ways optimize your blog while on your coffee break, Jennifer Slegg

Social Media

• A Different Kind of OpenSocial Container, OpenSocial API Blog
• Is Facebook for Business Really Coming?, Read/Write Web
• Facebook quietly launches ‘People You May Know’, www.cnet.com
• How FriendFeed could dwarf Facebook and Twitter, Dion Almaer’s Blog
• Phishing Scam Targeting Facebook Users, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• The Best Image Search Engine, DazzlinDonna
• Add your own buttons to Picasa, upload photos all over the Web, Google Code Blog

Other Items

• Google Ice Cream Project, Googlified
• Google: No kids allowed, News.com

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

• Should Google Universal Search be part of your SEO strategy?
• Yahoo! Buzz takes the Social out of Social Media
• Blogging – Step 1 of the Authority Building Process
• Think Beyond The Link: How Exposure Building Trumps Link Building
• SES New York: Social Media & Why It Matters (Part 4)
• How to (Actually) Earn Money (Now) with Social Media (Really)
• Social Media Starter Moves for Freelancers
• We Don’t Need SEO Standards!
• Google Switches from White to Black
• The Fundamentals of Link Building (No Wait, Don’t Leave, This One’s Good!)
• Are We Giving Google too Much Credit?
• Matt Cutts 1 – DaveN 0
• Microsoft Gatineau – Google Analytics Killer?
• What To Look For When Hiring Bloggers
• Interview with Social Media Aficionado Shana Albert
• What A Waste…Oh The SEO!!
• Reference Pages: How You Can Use Them to Attract Links and Traffic
• Launching a New Site : With SEO in Mind & Out of the Box
• Google Blended Video Offers Small Business Marketing Opportunities
• Nationwide Google Wireless ISP Plan, – Aaron Wall on the Future of Search
• SEO Opinions, SEO Facts, & SEO Wisdom
• How to Use PPC to Capitalize on Unexpected Offline PR