SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 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:

• Yahoo Search May 2008 Index Update
  The Yahoo Search blog posted a new weather report today. The report tells us to expect some fluctuations in the search results found at Yahoo Search. Priyank Garg & Sharad Verma of Yahoo said, that they are releasing “some changes to our crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the next…
• Search Illustrated: Increasing Brand Awareness With Search
  When brand awareness is the goal, it’s sometimes easy to implement PPC as a “go to” for increasing awareness quickly and effectively. But, paid search is just one part of a broader, long-term brand awareness campaign. This week’s infographic explores how SEMs can utilize all facets of search to…
• PPC Management Options – Are Your Fees Inline With The Advertiser’s Goals?
  There are many ways to bill for PPC management and each has its own distinct characteristics. Some of these billing techniques align more with an agency, and others more with an advertiser. For agencies, the proper billing types can make the difference between being profitable and going out of…
• Don’t Call Me Linkbait
  When use of the phrase “linkbait” first started to achieve critical mass, some dismissed it as nothing more than a fad that would be dead in a year. Some truly understood linkbait and tried to explain it while some of those who grasped it ran with it and went…
• Viacom And Google Assail Each Other In Court: Viacom “Threatens” Freedom, Says Google
  You may recall that the failure of Google and Viacom, which owns MTV and Comedy Central among other properties, to negotiate an agreement to work together (read: revenue sharing) resulted in a very public Viacom-Google “pissing match” over copyright infringement and whether Google had made good faith efforts to protect…
• 2008 Memorial Day Search Logos
  Today is Memorial Day, so we plan on keeping it light over here at the blog today. I have a post at the Search Engine Roundtable, with a collection of logos I have found from the various search related companies and blogs for the special day. Here is a single…
• Yes, Truthiness Is A Credibility Factor Google Cares About
  Doing A Fake Story For Linkbait? Disclose — Or Face The Wrath Of Google from last week is still a hot topic of discussion in the industry. In fact, Google’s Matt Cutts posted a more detailed explanation of why a fake story without disclosure is something, in some cases, Google…
• Travel Appears To Be Next Up For Google
  BusinessWeek writes about Google’s potential plans to enter the travel arena with a specialized offering. That offering, assuming it appears, would likely include a heavy dose of video. There would also likely be a heavy helping of Maps. Interestingly, Google is pushing Maps and MyMaps today as a travel/trip planning…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Stupid Google Tricks: Get a calendar from the search box, Matt Cutts
• The Do’s and Don’t’s for using Forms, Official Google Docs Blog
• Google to preach Web 2.0 gospel to developers, News.com
• Yahoo starts lawsuit against spammers, The Guardian

Business Issues

• MicroHoo: corporate penis envy? – O’Reilly Radar, radar.oreilly.com
• The Importance Of A Competitive Search Market, TechCrunch
• Why search competition isn’t the point – O’Reilly Radar, radar.oreilly.com
• Senators grill tech companies on aiding Chinese censorship, San Jose Mercury News
• Lycos Europe Courts AOL, Others; Asks For 200 Million Euros: Report, paidContent.org
• Google Opens Berlin Office to Influence Policies, Google Blogoscoped

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Online Sleuths Find Bizarre Images on Google Maps, Fox News
• Superpages’ Ads on NYTimes.com, Screenwerk
• Local Ad Spending Trumps National ROI, Screenwerk
• Google Street View Cars on Video, Google Blogoscoped
• Google’s CEO on Mobile Web, Cloud Computing, Privacy…, Google Blogoscoped
• Yelp Adds Video Advertising , Screenwerk

Link Building

• The Only Real Hoax is that Google Treats Everyone The Same, Michael Gray
• Deep Links: Web Users Want What They Want and They Want it Now!, Search Engine Guide
• It Pays to Link Consistently – Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Watch

Paid Search & Contextual

• Is somebody stealing your identity on Google AdWords?, Stephen Heise
• Yahoo (YSM) Mexico Upgraded to Panama, McAnerin Muse
• Search Engine Advertiser Litigation Updates, Eric Goldman
• Dayparting Ain’t So Tough – How To Start Simple, SEO Fast Start
• Inside AdSense, now in Traditional Chinese, Inside AdSense
• The Top of the Page, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog

Searching

• Search Engine for Instructional Information Launched, ResearchBuzz
• Peter Norvig on Google’s mistrust of machine learning, Googling Google
• Browsers Are a Battleground Once Again, New York Times
• How Search Engines Can Learn From Looking at Sequences of Search Queries, SEO By The Sea
• Google’s Optimized Discussion Board Result, Google Blogoscoped
• Scooped: Who Brought the Story to Techmeme First?, Louis Gray
• The Next Generation Internet Search Engine?, Alt Search Engines
• New Version Now Available: Google Book Search Bibliography, Version 2, ResourceShelf
• Paglo Launches Its Search Engine for IT, TechCrunch

SEM Industry

• SES Toronto 2008: Interview with Jill Whalen on SEO Donts, Myths, and Scams, Web Analytics World Blog
• Halfway Across Greenland, SEOmoz
• 3 Questions to Help You Plan Your Search Marketing Career, Search Engine Journal
• Gambert Strikes Back!! The Confidential Official Response to SEOmoz’s Opposition Proceeding, SEOmoz
• I Turn 50 in an Only-30-Somethings-Are-Hot World, Cre8PC
• Interview of Neil Patel, Social Media Marketing Legend, SEO Book
• SEOmoz’s 2008 Web 2.0 Awards: The Results, SEOmoz

SEO & SEM

• Helping hacked sites, Matt Cutts
• The Day Google Erased Me From the Internet – Why I Want Microsoft to Be Competitive in Search, Ryan Stewart
• Nice noframes spam.., Joost de Valk’s SEO Blog
• Making more housecalls, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Advanced Link: Operator to Explore Your Competitor’s Backlinks, Search Engine Journal
• Google Temporarily Purges .info Domain Names, SEO Book
• Google Temporarily Penalizes Blogspot & Info Domains, Search Engine Roundtable
• Yahoo Looooves Keywords in Domain Names, Small Business SEM
• Don’t Block Your 301 Redirects with a Robots.txt File, Search Engine Roundtable
• Googlebot Creates Pages Instead of Simply Indexing Them: New FORM Crawling Algo Goes Bad , Smackdown
• People Who Can’t Link, And A Vague Argument For Google Analytics, SEOmoz
• Google’s International Search Filters A Little Off?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Online Marketing Tips Video: Press Release Optimization, Search Marketing Gurus
• Spam: Want to spam Craigslist? Google makes it easy, Valleywag
• The Big Picture – Well Rounded SEM for SMBs, Part 1 , Search Engine Watch
• Why Businessed Should Include Their Phone Number(s) in Their Optimization, seoaware.com

Social Media

• How To Find FriendFeed Rooms With Google, Andy Beard
• Reputation Management Tips from Around the Web, ViperChill
• Blogging – No Longer a Unique Business Strategy, SEO Book
• Hints of a Facebook Operating System In New Design, TechCrunch
• Facebook Platform, One Year Later, TechCrunch
• Twitter Enforces ToS, Cares About Users, Twitter Blog
• Twitter and FriendFeed: Let it be, Outside the Lines
• Squeeze the Most Juice Out of Your Social Media Profile, Search Engine Journal
• Facebook To Open Source Facebook Platform, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• Google Video’s Player Detached from Search Results, Google Operating System

Other Items

• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: May 25, 2008, Search Engine Roundtable
• xkcd @ Google!, Matt Cutts

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

• Reputation Management Tips Some of the Biggest Names in SEO
• The Only Real Hoax is that Google Treats Everyone The Same
• Squeeze the Most Juice Out of Your Social Media Profile
• Advanced Link: Operator to Explore Your Competitor’s Backlinks
• Don’t Call Me Linkbait
• Google’s Plans to Expand into Travel
• “Halfway Across Greenland” A Global Search Poet Waxes Nostalgic
• News Frames: How Selective Reporting Can Help Improve Your Content’s Viral Potential
• Hey Google, How About a Memorial Day Logo?
• Reddit Officially Launches New Design
• 5 Tips for Being Successful on Digg
• Linkbuilding Using Fiction
• When 1,000,000 Natural Backlinks Won’t Get You Ranked
• How To Get More Followers On Twitter If You’re A Girl And Aren’t All That Interesting
• FriendFeed Rooms – including Sphinn
• We Apologise for our Hoax Story
• Stop Ruining The Internet, Mahalo. That’s My Job.
• Learning SEO – Do We Need Standards?
• 5 Domain Buying Mistakes
• What You Can Learn From Google’s SITE operator
• Social Media Marketer? Then Join the FriendFeed Social Media Group