SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 24, 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:

• Google’s ‘New’ Search Ad Formats
  

  The Google Blog formally announced the new search ad formats Google has been showing in the search results. The new ads include the relatively old AdWords video ad, AdWords Sitelinks, local AdWords, product AdWords, comparison ads and more. The product ads are now available to all U.S. advertisers. Here is how to get started: [...]

• Hold On: Are More Papers Really Joining Murdoch’s Google Block Party?
  

  Bloomberg has a story out suggesting that the publishers of the Denver Post and the Dallas Morning News may be joining Rupert Murdoch’s coalition of the willing to block Google. But I don’t think that’s what going on at all, and I’m trying to clarify things. Dean Singleton, CEO of MediaNews Group, which publishes the Denver [...]

• Are Your Language Detection Methods Blocking Search Engine Crawlers?
  

  At a recent international search marketing conference in London the most frequent question asked by the audience was “How do I get my content found and indexed by global and local search engines?” During the breaks I talked to a few people who indicated little or none of their local market content was being indexed [...]

• Busted: Three Boneheaded Paid Search Myths
  

  Paid search marketing is complicated enough, and several long-held industry myths aren’t helping make your job any easier. Debunk these SEM tall tales once and for all, and your campaigns will be well on their way to higher ROI.

• More (Alleged) Detail On The GooglePhone
  

  In October TheStreet reported a rumor that Google was building its own mobile phone. That was repeated again recently by TechCrunch, which said emphatically that Google was building a branded phone — despite Android founder Andy Rubin’s denials that Google was going to design its own hardware. Now we get the Times of London with lots [...]

• Yahoo’s Search Box Gets Smarter
  

  Yahoo has announced a new set of features for its Search Assist service that makes the Yahoo search box a lot smarter. Perhaps the main innovation here is the inclusion of content and information right inside the Search Assist dropdown. For example, do a search for a company’s stock symbol, and Yahoo will show real-time [...]

• Google In Data Deal With TiVo To Find More Willing Audiences For TV Ads
  

  Google is doing some very interesting things in TV and video advertising these days. Not long ago it licensed Nielsen’s PRIZM audience segmentation data for enhanced audience targeting through TVAds. Google also recently introduced “skippable” pre-roll ads on YouTube. The idea is to find willing audiences and make advertisers (potentially) only pay when someone watches [...]

• Under The Hood: Google News & Ranking Stories
  

  Forget PageRank, at least if you’re a news publisher looking to do well in Google News. Google’s news service doesn’t rely on the same algorithm used by “regular” Google, of which PageRank is a part of. Instead, Google News taps into its own unique ranking signals, which include user clicks, the [...]

• Google AdSense Bug Showing Broken HTML Characters In Ads
  

  I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that Google AdSense is displaying ads with weird characters in the titles and ad descriptions. The characters seem to be broken HTML entities of some sort, where the HTML is not escaping properly. Here are screen shots from the ads on this site and my personal blog:

  Google is [...]

• Reminder: AdWords v200906 API Sunsetting February 2, 2010
  

  The Google AdWords API blog reminds us that version 200906 of the beta AdWords API will be shut down on February 2, 2010. Replacing that is version 200909, which has been available since October. Also, as a reminder, version 13 of the API is closing April 22, 2010. I keep reminding AdWords advertisers and [...]

• 8 Tips To Make PPC Work With Link Building Efforts
  

  In this crazy digital era where even people like my poor old gospel-singing father look online for almost everything (usually guns and cashews), you really need to understand how to use as many types of advertising as possible in order to improve your efforts and expand your reach. Since link building is all over the [...]

• Why TV, Traditional News & Yahoo Might Yet Benefit From Social
  

  I’ve just had a rather surreal afternoon, having been asked (at very short notice) to appear on Channel 4 News (the main news show on one of the UK’s 5 terrestrial broadcasters.) I was invited on the program to to discuss Rupert Murdoch’s reported plans to link up with Bing at the same time as [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Is Bing Cashback Costing Users Money? Sometimes, Yes, Read/Write Web
• Let your subscriptions’ personality come through, Official Google Reader Blog
• Send attachments while offline, Official Gmail Blog

Business Issues

• Achtung! Google Analytics is illegal, say German government officials, TechCrunch
• Facebook Creates Dual-Class Stock Structure, Wall Street Journal
• Google CEO: A New Iraq Means Business Opportunities, Wall Street Journal
• News Corp. – If You de-Index Will They Still Come?, Hitwise
• Twitter eyes acquisitions, sees making money in 2010, Reuters

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Bing™ for mobile availability continues to grow, Bing Search Blog
• Local Shopping Search Engine Milo Gets $4 Million From Mint’s Patzer, Others, paidContent.org
• New Local Listing Ad Layout & Whatever Happened to the 7-Pack for Web Designers?, Mike Blumenthal
• Testing Google Versus Standalone Navigation Systems, NPR

Paid Search & Contextual

• A deeper look at channels: Custom channels (Part II of III), Inside AdSense
• Increase PPC Conversion Rates by Targeting High Volume Locations, PPC Hero

Searching

• Cuil for iPhone, Cuil Blog
• Google documents Iraqi treasures, The Associated Press
• Launch That Pumpkin!, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• Which search feature would you add to Google?, YouTube

SEM Industry

• SEO Gets a Google Birthday Cake, Search Engine Roundtable
• Thankful To Be Part Of The Thriving SEO Industry, The SEO Girl

SEO & SEM

• How can I remove old content from Google’s index?, YouTube
• The Top 5 Reasons we Canucks use Google Differently CanuckSEO, CanuckSEO
• Vogue Sees Web Lessons in Obama’s Campaign, Wall Street Journal
• Buy a Banned Domain? Should You Ask Google for Forgiveness?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Discover What Google Really Thinks Of Your Pages, Search Engine People Blog
• How often should you review your SEO strategy?, Econsultancy
• Illustrating the Long Tail, SEOmoz
• What does my perfect SEO training scheme look like?, The SEO Scoop
• Your SEO Kung-Fu is Strong!, Search Engine Guide

Social Media

• Twitter’s Biz Stone says could go IPO route, Reuters
• Why You (Might) Need a Social Media Consultant, 10e20
• Digg For Bargains: Deals.Woot Is Now Open To The Public, TechCrunch
• Five Things Common to Communites & Families, outspokenmedia.com