SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 4, 2010

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• StumbleUpon Becomes Android App Discovery Tool

  StumbleUpon, which these days calls itself a “discovery engine,” has integrated app discovery into its Android application’s repertoire. It takes into account a range of variables to make recommendations to individual users. Those include user preferences, interests and the choices of friends and other “like-minded users.” Once installed, you simply hit the StumbleUpon logo/button in […]

• Google Instant Now Available On iPhone & Android

  The blogs are buzzing about Google Instant finally coming to iPhones and Android devices now. If you go to Google.com and conduct a search using your iPhone, you may just see it. I do! In fact, I believe I saw it yesterday, but being that I often use the Google search box in the toolbar […]

• Nicaragua Raids Costa Rica, Blames Google Maps

  An error on Google Maps has caused an international conflict in Central America. A Nicaraguan military commander, relying on Google Maps, moved troops into an area near San Juan Lake along the border between his country and Costa Rica. The troops are accused of setting up camp there, taking down a Costa Rican flag and […]

• 4 Tips For Search (And User) Friendly Design

  Great design, happy users and optimal search visibility can coexist. But it takes a some subtle balancing on the part of the site design team. I’ve got no great ‘ah-ha’ suggestions here, but 10 small things you can do to reach that goal, without violence between team members. Put The SEO On The Design Team […]

• Google Enhances Analytics Intelligence Tools

  Last year, we covered Google Analytics’ launch of Google Analytics Intelligence, an engine that helps the analyst by applying data mining and other techniques. Today, Google Analytics announced a major upgrade to the intelligence engine through a feature called “Major Contributors.” From the Google Analytics blog post: “When Google Analytics detects causes to a major […]

• Report: 7 Percent Of Mobile Internet Users Have Checked Out Location-Based Services

  The Pew Internet Project published findings from a recent survey about usage of “location-based services” (LBS). According to the Pew data, 7 percent of mobile Internet users are on location-based services and 4 percent of all internet-using adults “use a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla that allows them to share their location with friends […]

• How Old Spice Found The Sweet Smell Of Viral Video Success

  In a recent session at SMX East, I discussed “The Five M’s: A roadmap for creating and executing winning YouTube campaigns.” The session dissected multiple layers of genius at work in the Old Spice campaign created and executed by Wieden+Kennedy. So let’s dive in and consider the Five M’s that will keep your YouTube campaigns […]

• Optimize Your Site Lists On The Google Display Network

  For the past month, this column has focused on the non-search triggered ad inventory available to you from search engines. Google AdWords offers two such products: content targeting (appearing on sites relevant to keywords you specify) and placement targeting (choose sites and placements for your ads to appear). The arena of these ads is the […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Foursquare Growing Just As Fast As Twitter Did In Its Early Days, Business Insider
• Foursquare: A Glimpse at the Future, mashable.com
• Why Google Maps Transit Routes May Not Be Correct, Search Engine Roundtable

Link Building

• Can Link Building Make Your Website Popular?, dailyseotip.com
• Link Building Tip: Discover Broken Links & Request Those Links, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• StumbleUpon Takes Aim at Android App Discovery, gigaom.com

SEO & SEM

• 5 Ways To Fix SEO’s Reputation Problem, outspokenmedia.com
• Are you creating your own hell?, SEO Copywriting
• Google’s Unspoken Failures Are Limiting Your Potential, SEOmoz
• Is Flash Bad for SEO, Michael Gray
• November 2010 Google Webmaster Report, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Art and Science of SEO Site Audits, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• 5 Google Suggest Services to Keep an Eye On, blueglass.com
• The 2010 elections: Twitter isn’t a very reliable prediction tool, Los Angeles Times
• The “Bury” Button Returns to Digg, mashable.com
• Twitter for Android: Update available, Twitter Blog
• Twitter Now Has A D.C. Presence; Hires Adam Sharp As Government Liaison, TechCrunch
• Why Facebook Deals Isn’t a Game-Changer, Small Business SEM

Video, Music & Image Search

• How To Get Found On YouTube, Search Engine People
• Hulu Plus Opens to All, No Invite Needed, Read/Write Web

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

• 5 Ways To Fix SEO’s Reputation Problem – Great discussion here & good tips for SEOs and how to clean up your image as an SEO.
• Report: 7% Of Mobile Internet Users Do Location-Based Services – Greg Sterling breaks down the data in the most recent Pew Internet Project report, including compelling reasons to not ignore this young but growing field of services. From the article: The Pew Interenet Project published findings from a recent survey about usage of “location-based services” (LBS). According to the Pew data, 7 percent of mobile Internet users are on location-based services and 4 percent of all internet-using adults “use a service such as Foursquare or Gowalla that allows them to share their location with friends and to find others who are nearby.”
• How Google may Manage Reputations for Reviewers and Raters – Bill Slawski: "Do reviews of businesses and products at Google influence how well those might show up in Place searches or product searches? It’s possible that they may, and a bigger question might be how much weight might Google give to each review that it sees. An answer, in part, to that may depend upon a reputation score associated with the people leaving reviews."
• What Is Social CRM? – This article is handy for guiding clients from old school CRM to new school CRM through the social web. Includes helpful graphics and data.
• The 2010 SEO Industry Survey Results – The 2010 SEO Industry Survey from SEOmoz unveils fascinating trends about salary, gender, priorities and more from over 10,000 marketing professionals. Plus there's a cool infographic on "The Anatomy of a Search Marketer"
• PayPal Beats Google Checkout To Local Space – PayPal released a new iPhone app that allows users to find businesses near by that accept PayPal, the feature encourages merchants to post deals and promotions as incentive for customers to visit their businesses
• The Google Holiday Update Conspiracy Theory – Does Google engineer changes to occur right before the holidays to drive up ad revenue?Michael Gray doesn't think so, "Google makes its decisions based on what it thinks is best for users … not publishers" .