SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 13, 2007

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 Settles Lawsuit With Chinese Dissidents
  Yahoo Settles With Chinese Dissidents from the Wall Street Journal reports Yahoo has settled the lawsuit brought to them over the two Chinese dissidents who were jailed illegally due to Yahoo handing over evidence to the Chinese government. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but we do know…
• 
  Search Illustrated: Podcast Optimization
  Optimizing your audio files takes more than just recording your message. Today’s infographic details the steps needed to ensure your podcasts have the best potential of being found by the listeners and search engines alike:…
• 
  Go Daddy Customers Now Get Bonus Google Webmaster Tools
  A new partnership between Go Daddy web hosting and Google Webmaster Tools gives Go Daddy customers easy access to the features available within Google Webmaster Tools. According to the release, Go Daddy customers can opt-in to the integration for their hosted sites directly from their control centers. This jump starts…
• 
  Andy Baio To Leave Yahoo/Upcoming
  Andy Baio has posted on his blog that he is leaving Yahoo and Upcoming, the social events site he started in roughly 2003. The co-founder of Upcoming says many friendly and favorable things about Yahoo and says that he’s taking some time off and next year will be “focusing exclusively…
• 
  Google AdSense: When A Click No Longer Counts As A Click
  This morning I reported that Google is changing what constitutes a click on an AdSense ad. In the past, a click on the URL, title or background of the ad would trigger a click and earn an AdSense publisher money. In the future, a click on the background of the…
• 
  Online Advertising Continues To Grow: Q3 Worth $5.2 Billion
  Online ad revenues recorded 25 percent year-over-year growth for a $5.2 billion dollar performance in the third quarter, according to the IAB. Growth from last quarter was a less impressive 3 percent however. The Internet is on pace to break $20 billion in ad revenues this year, compared with $16.9…
• 
  Google’s Larry Page To Marry Lucy Southworth On December 8th
  Now the other Google founder is planning a secret wedding from SFGate.com reports Google’s co-founder, Larry Page is going to marry his long time girlfriend, Lucy Southworth. The wedding is scheduled for the weekend of December 8th. The location is unknown at this moment, since Page is keeping the wedding…
• 
  Yahoo’s Big Asian Mobile Push
  Yahoo put out a dizzying slew of press releases today aimed at highlighting its carrier partnerships and what it claims is its mobile leadership position. The core of these releases is the announcement of nine new Asian mobile operators, adding to the company’s other Asian carrier relationships. Yahoo’s oneSearch will…
• 
  Live Search’s Link Command Now Working
  Karen Blakeman reported that you can now search use link command searches at Live Search again. Microsoft first pulled back the link command in March of this year, due to trouble with automated queries. But as Karen reported, it seems to be back with a new prefix. Just add a…
• 
  Is Your Domain Name Triggering A Red Flag?
  The audience that makes up the majority of Digg users tends to be very fickle. The slightest whiff of linkbait and they will bury your story into the depths of hell where it will never see the light of day again. They hate SEO and it’s no secret. This…
• 
  Paid Search Trends: 2006 vs. 2007
  We’re entering the home stretch: Christmas is about six weeks out. For many of our online retail clients, the next month and half of revenue will make or break their year. PPC impressions will soar. CPCs will rise. And SPCs (sales-per-click) will skyrocket. Most clients will see big profits…
• 
  Search Engine Land’s Blogroll, Sliced, Diced & Categorized
  We’ve had a huge blogroll on Search Engine Land since we started last year. Inspired by some recent posts, I’ve now organized that massive list into categories, to make it easier for those looking to find some good blog reading. Below, a guide to our blogroll, designed to help those…
• 
  Why After 14 Years I Still Love Link Building
  In looking over my past few columns, I worried my commentary had drifted perhaps a bit too much to the negative side of the link building milieu (always wanted to write a sentence with the word milieu in it). So, as a Yin to that Yang, here are several…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Postini Upgrades Help Google Answer Critics, eWeek
• Introducing AxsJAX — Access-Enabling AJAX, Google Code Blog
• Web sites await SEC on real-time stock quotes, Reuters

Business Issues

• Calling aspiring tech policy wonks, Google Public Policy Blog
• Google Moves More Domains To Own Servers, ResourceShelf
• gOS PC Sells Out: People Like A Google Focused PC, TechCrunch
• Baidu’s Censored Answer to Wikipedia, BusinessWeek
• The Ask.com Blog: New Ask.com Ads Show You How it’s Done, Ask.com Blog

Conferences

• Countries That Aren’t America, SEOmoz
• How BlogWorld Was Different From an SEO Conference, BruceClay.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Geography Awareness Week, Google LatLong
• The Web in Google’s Mobile Browser, Google Operating System
• Yahoo! Extends Global Mobile Leadership Through Nine New Partnerships With Mobile Operators in Asia Pacific, Yahoo Press Releases
• Yahoo! Launches Chinese Language Version of Yahoo! Go 2.0 for Taiwan, Yahoo Press Releases
• Architect ideas with Project Spectrum, Google LatLong
• Building Local Business Pages on Facebook, Screenwerk
• Zillow’s Big Newspaper Deal, Screenwerk

Link Building

• Publish Your Full RSS Feed and Build Links at the Same Time, Bill Hartzer

Paid Search & Contextual

• Martha Stewart Launches Ad Network, Marketing Pilgrim
• Say hello to placement targeting, Inside AdSense
• Who Owns Your Keyword List: You or Your PPC Manager?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Debunking the Operation Camouflage Strategy: Is Deceit Really a PPC Best Practice?, PPC Hero
• Do Your Recherche: Advertising in the French Canadian Market, adCenter Blog
• Google content network tips: Part 1 – Recent improvements, Inside AdWords
• Keyword Discovery Integrates with BidHero, Web Analytics World

Searching

• Learn About the "Query the Obscure" Project at Yahoo Research, ResourceShelf
• Summarizing user reviews for computers and electronics, Live Search
• Want to ask but don’t want your friends to know? Ask Anonymously!, askville-blog.amazon.com

SEM Industry

• Speaking Publicly About Online Marketing, Online Marketing Blog
• Sullivan on search, technologyweekly.mad.co.uk

SEO & SEM

• Google’s Sitelinks and Brand Domination through Keyword Ownership, SEOmoz
• How to Break Through Traffic Barriers, BlogStorm
• Plan for life without Google, SEOptimise
• Big Picture SEO vs Small Detail Obsessions, Search Engine Guide
• Leased Domains as a Strategy to Increase Traffic, Shimon Sandler
• Past Time For MSN To Pony Up To The Real Truth About Referrer Spam, The SEO Scoop
• Targeting Your Press Release With Google Trends, eVisibility
• What Laziness Taught Me About the Importance of Flat Architecture, SEOmoz
• Yell if Microsoft’s Live.com Spammed You Too, ekstreme.com

Social Media

• Add your Picasa Web Photos to your Scrapbook!, Orkut Blog
• Using Your Blog To Keep Fires on Your Own Site, BruceClay.com
• How to Transform Readers Into Raving Fans, Problogger
• OpenSocial and Facebook Stats from Rapleaf, Read/Write Web
• Results from Facebook Ads, Jonathan Mendez’s Blog
• hi5, Ning, and Plaxo sandboxes go live, OpenSocial API Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• Microsoft Intends to Acquire Musiwave, Microsoft.com
• Bebo Open Media: Bebo Makes Its Platform Move, Mashable
• Confusing New YouTube Player, Google Blogoscoped
• 10 Places to Find Free Images Online and Make Your Content More Linkable, Search Engine Journal

Web Analytics

• Google Analytics celebrates second birthday, E-Consultancy
• Not That I’m Obsessed With My Feedburner Subscriber Numbers, Vanessa Fox
• 4 Tips and 11 Resources for Increasing Subscribers, Search Engine Guide

Other Items

• Podcast: Microsoft Says We’ll Beat You, Google; Digg For Sale? Outlook Cloudy On Google Earth , Daily SearchCast
• News Corp. Says Business Strong, Sees End to Journal Web Fees, Wall Street Journal
• 10 Ways How to Earn Revenue Without Selling Links, Search Engine Journal
• BizRate.com & Google Break Up, SEO Book
• Of wigs, dunk tanks, and doing good, Yodel Anecdotal
• Site search for Checkout customers, Official Google Checkout Blog
• Special Logos and Resources for Rememberance Day (Australia, Canada, UK) and Veteran’s Day (U.S.), ResourceShelf

Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• 10 Places to Find Free Images Online and Make Your Content More Linkable
• AdSense Publisher Will See Drop in Earnings: Click Behavior Change Coming
• Wendy Is On The Warpath… The Smart Way
• Act out your sophisticated affiliate link paranoia
• The Sphinn Awards Part 2
• It’s the participation economy, stupid!
• Full RSS Feeds + NO Link Building = Waste Waste WASTE
• Aaron Wall Blogoscoped: The US Search Engine Optimization Market
• With Blogging, Size Matters….If You Want Traffic
• The Perfect SEO Specialist For Jason Calacanis
• Al Gore’s WordPress Blog Hacked
• Will Google Offer Amnesty To SocialSpark & PayPerPost Bloggers?
• New Online Library for Search Engine Marketing Industry
• Chris Bennett on Reputation Management (E-Tourism Summit)
• Top Sphinners – How Much Are Their Blogs
• Optimizing the speed and quality of your link building process
• 17 Creative Link Building Ideas : Please Add Your Own
• Using Images to Take Your Posts to a New Level
• Search Engine Land’s Secrets: Mining SearchCap
• Conversational Marketing Versus Market Conversations
• The Best To Worst Sources of Site Traffic
• Google Cracks Down on the Mommy Bloggers
• Warning signs your SEO is a bad pick
• Survival Guide to Being an SEO – 10 Tips to Making it in the SEO Community