SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 26, 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:

• Yahoo Gives A Sneak-Peek At Its New Home Page
  

  Yahoo continues to develop a new home page, and today has shared a sneak-peek at the latest design that’s being tested internally.

  The “My Favorites” column on the left side of the page seems to be where the big changes are happening. Yahoo currently lists more than a dozen of its own properties in this [...]

• SEOs Dissect How To Rank In Local Search
  

  Twenty-seven local search marketers from the U.S., Canada, and Europe have shared their opinions and insights in the second edition of the Local Search Ranking Factors. Organized by David Mihm, it’s a project that aims to help local businesses understand how Google and Yahoo rank local businesses. David sent out a questionnaire listing 49 possible [...]

• Google Testing More Inline Images In Web Search Results
  

  Blogstorm is reporting noticing Google testing showing several images within the search results for a search on personal development books, in the UK. This is unique in that there are 9 images under a search result’s title and above the description. Here is a screen capture, furnished by Blogstorm:

  In addition, it shows “17 images” in [...]

• SMX Advanced Next Week – Less Than 30 Tickets Left
  

  There’s still time, but not much. Register now or you may miss out on SMX Advanced, the year’s most anticipated conference for experienced search marketers. There are less than 30 tickets left for this exclusive event in Seattle, June 2-3. Still deciding? Here are some helpful links:

  Check out the complete agenda See who’s speaking Take a look at [...]

• Microsoft To Spend $80 Million Advertising New “Bing” Search Engine
  

  Call it Microsoft Week (or weeks as the case may be). We’ll likely hear the name of the new search engine this week from the AllThingsD conference and next week, to coincide with SMX Advanced, the public will get a chance to actually use it. While everyone who reads this blog will no doubt test drive [...]

• Google Search Click Tracking Changed
  

  I reported Google appears to be testing a new click tracking method in the search results. In the past, Google selectively tracked clicks by appending tracking URLs to the search results. Now, it appears that those tracking URLs are done through JavaScript and are virtually invisible to the end user. Here is a sample [...]

• Search + Display Advertising = Reduced Cost Per Acquisition
  

  There have been numerous reports published over the years by Google, Yahoo and Microsoft that attempt to prove how the use of display advertising, when combined with search, can increase your overall campaign performance. A recent report published by iProspect, Search Engine Marketing and Online Display Integration Study was featured in an article for MediaPost titled [...]

• Beyond Voting: Why Editorially Driven Social News Sites Matter
  

  Power to the people! Sites like Digg, Reddit, Propeller and Mixx have become popular social news sites due to the community driven aspect that fuels them. Traditionally these news sites offer “digital democracy” that entices users because they themselves are able to determine what is (and isn’t) news. However, a different form of social news [...]

• Twitter’s Biz Stone: Thoughts On Repositioning Twitter, Search Ads, The Twitter Ecosystem & More
  

  Last Thursday, I talked with Twitter cofounder Biz Stone on a variety of issues about Twitter but especially focused around search. In the interview, he discussed: how Twitter may redesign its home page to better reposition itself as a sharing and discovery service; how discovery might be enhanced by perhaps by allowing [...]

• Google’s Yellow Memorial Day Ribbon & Logos From Other Search Engines
  

  Today is Memorial Day, so please expect lighter then normal coverage here. I have

• How Will Google’s Recent Trademark Changes Affect You?
  

  Google has recently made two big changes regarding trademark usage within AdWords. One is a shift in the number of countries where trademarked words are allowed as keywords. The other is how trademarked words are allowed in ad copy within the US. Google’s trademark policy has been rehashed in several large media outlets. Unfortunately, most of [...]

• 14 Key Requirements For A Search Friendly CMS
  

  One of the most important SEO decisions you make is the selection of your content management system (CMS). Your CMS can make SEO easy, or, in some cases, make SEO virtually impossible. Here are 14 crucial elements you should verify in a CMS before you commit to using it. 1. Control over titles, H1 [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Spreadsheets power gFlashPro Flashcards for iPhone, Official Google Mac Blog
• New: Adjustable columns are here!, My Yahoo! Blog
• How to Avoid Promoting your Competitors Gadgets on iGoogle, SEOish

Business Issues

• Mission Control, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• Yahoo and Amici Seek Rehearing in Yahoo v. Barnes, Eric Goldman
• Yahoo’s Good-Bye Gift To Exec Jorgensen: $1.8 Million, paidContent.org
• Facebook’s Valuation Heading North Again. Up To $10 Billion Now., TechCrunch
• Secret of Googlenomics: Data-Fueled Recipe Brews Profitability, Wired
• Launch Weekend Video: Load Analysis, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• Microsoft Aims Search Guns at Google With Bing, Ad Age
• With ex-Google exec, AOL seeks another fresh start, San Francisco Chronicle
• China’s Search Engine Market Scale Reached CNY1.365 Billion In Q1 2009, ChinaTechNews.com
• Interview: Google’s David Eun: ‘We’re Monetizing More Than Anyone Else Is Making’, paidContent.org
• The Man Who Owns LiveSearch.com (No, He Doesn’t Work For Microsoft), paidContent.org
• Web Start-Ups Look Beyond Ads for Revenue, New York Times
• Yahoo to pay CFO $1.8 million in severance, Reuters
• Ask.com Will Not Renew Contract with LookSmart, Search Engine Watch Blog
• How Long Did It Take for the World to Identify Google as an AltaVista Killer?, Technologizer
• Microsoft’s Bing Logo Leaked By Way Of Favicon?, TechCrunch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Would you like some extra suggestions with that?, Google LatLong
• Google Maps offers a New Feature: Easy Stars, Mike Blumenthal
• Should Facebook "Just Buy Yelp"?, Screenwerk
• Friday Afternoon Humor: What Comes After Google Streetview?, blogs.praized.com
• Using Google Earth to visualize the toll of war, Google LatLong
• iPhone apps are Google’s biggest threat in mobile search, Tech Republic
• Google Maps Disables Swimming Directions, Search Engine Roundtable
• Pandora: Unleashing Mobile Phone Ads, BusinessWeek

Paid Search & Contextual

• Too Busy to Improve Your PPC Campaigns? Here Are 3 Simple Tasks That Will Change Your Mind, PPC Hero
• 5 Tips that Can Make Your Life Easier When Using Yahoo Search Marketing, PPC Hero
• Paid Referrals: Smart Marketing or Corrupt Bargain?, Rimm Kaufman
• Why The "WHAT" Is More Important Than The "HOW" In PPC Marketing: PPC Blog, SEM Geek

Searching

• Google Alerts Now Tracking Twitter Posts?, Search Marketing Communications
• Google vs. the Real-Time Web, gigaom.com
• Get Ready for a New PubMed Interface, Redesign is On Its Way, ResourceShelf
• Twoogle displays Twitter and Google simultaneously, AltSearchEngines

SEM Industry

• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: May 22, 2009, Search Engine Roundtable
• Speaking, Blogging Schedule for SMX Advanced 2009, outspokenmedia.com
• Hard Web Design & SEO Clients, Search Engine Roundtable
• If I Could Go Back In Time & Give Myself Some Advice, This Would Be It, SEOmoz
• The ABCs of a Great SEO Leader, Search Engine Journal

SEO & SEM

• Mommy, Where do Keywords Come From?, SEO.com
• Where You Start For Making Money Online, ShoeMoney
• Getting SEO Value from Follow-up Posts, Search Engine Journal
• Google News Listing Troubleshooting, SEO Scientist
• Is It Still Worth Using Keyword and Description Meta Tags?, Search Engine Journal
• Most Webmasters Will Use Google’s New Rich Snippet Markups, Search Engine Roundtable
• Recent Google Webmaster Tools API Errors, Search Engine Roundtable
• Track Keyword Positions with BLVD Status, Search Engine Journal
• Can product descriptions be considered duplicate content?, YouTube
• Did Matt Cutts Expose a Hole in Digg, Michael Gray
• Rich Snippets Showing in Google US & Beyond?, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• Six Small Conferences About Twitter, And Counting, TechCrunch
• How to Twitter… Naked, Local Search News
• Taking Yahoo Meme For A Spin: It’s A Mediocre Tumblr Clone, TechCrunch
• Twitter has millions tweeting in public communication service, USATODAY.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• A Feed for YouTube Subscriptions, Google Operating System

Web Analytics

• Where’s my data? Find out in 60 seconds, AdWords Agency Blog

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