SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 5, 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:

• How Google & Yahoo Make Money Off A Twitter Typo Domain
  

  Like many people, I misspelled a domain name today when I was trying to visit a web site. I typed Twiter.com (with one T) rather than Twitter.com. I wasn’t surprised to land on a site with ads, as is common when entering typos. I was surprised that both Google and Yahoo were making money off [...]

• Google Tests New AdSense Management Console
  

  Google AdSense announced today at the CRS Conference that they are currently testing a new interface for the AdSense console. The beta is currently being tested by few publishers, but Google promises to allow “thousands of publishers” to test this out “over the coming weeks.” Here is a picture of one of the screens:

  Features include:

  More [...]

• Yahoo Helps Music Lovers Find Videos More Easily
  

  Yahoo has added a set of refinements to its video search engine that will help music lovers find videos more quickly. A video search for [U2] shows the new refinements in action: On the left side of the screen are new options to drill down to see U2 videos related to specific albums or specific [...]

• Blocking And Tackling: 10 Fundamentals Of Local SEO
  

  We’ve reached the midpoint of fantasy football season, and in our SEMpdx league, my team is hanging on to a playoff slot by a thread. (Yes, I am “that guy” who roots for the Patriots to get into the red zone and then stall out, just so my fantasy kicker Stephen Gostkowski gets a chance [...]

• MicroHoo-Ying Eyeing Global Reach, What About Ask?
  

  There’s a report from Reuters this morning that Microsoft and Yahoo are considering expanding the scope of their search deal “outside the United States”: Microsoft Corp Chief Executive Steve Ballmer said on Thursday the company could look to extend its search engine partnership with Yahoo outside the United States, if it gets regulatory approval. Wasn’t that already the [...]

• MSNBot 1.1 Gives Way to Bot 2.0
  

  Microsoft is retiring its MSNBot1.1 and introducing its next bot: 2.0B. According to the Bing Community blog:

  As MSNBot 2.0b enters full-scale production, the time has come to retire our previous generation bot, MSNBot 1.1. By the end of the first week in November, you will no longer see the following user agent in your referrer [...]

• Google Removes Phone Numbers From 7 Pack
  

  Google has apparently removed phone numbers from the so-called 7 Pack of organic local results. The numbers were present as recently as 24-36 hours ago. Immediately below is an example of a recent search result for “dentist, San Francisco” (within the last several weeks) and then for the same query this morning:

  The result on the [...]

• Cheers to SEO: How It Pays To Be Optimized
  

  The Free Dictionary definition for optimize: op·ti·mize: To make as perfect or effective as possible. My long-standing definition of Search Engine Optimization (SEO): “Making your site the best it can be for users and search engines.” SEO is both as simple and as difficult that Making something optimal by its very nature is going to be hard work. Being the [...]

• Does Bing Have What It Takes To Flaunt Video Search Results?
  

  Now that Bing is officially a major player, it’s time to ask some important questions. Are Bing video search results delivering a winning performance? Does Bing match searcher queries with relevant results? For advertisers, what is needed from an optimization standpoint to make your video standout among a search crowd? Let’s use the popular music group [...]

• Google Dashboard Offers New Privacy Controls
  

  Google has launched a new privacy dashboard — technically just called Google Dashboard — that gives users quicker access to, and more control over, the personal information stored in Google’s databases. The dashboard is a one-stop shop for managing this data and the settings that are associated with the Google products you use when [...]

• Google Gets Into The Shopping Cart Business With Commerce Search
  

  Google has just announced a new enterprise search service called Commerce Search. The name might remind you of Froogle, but this is not that kind of commerce/product search. With Commerce Search, Google has created what is essentially a shopping cart solution for online retailers.

  Commerce Search, as Google describes it, promises to improve an e-commerce web [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Choose which messages get downloaded for offline use, Official Gmail Blog
• MyCoupons.com Teams Up With Brand New Ask Deals, Reuters
• Google privacy controls: Most people won’t care, news.cnet.com
• Introducing Closure Tools, Google Code Blog

Business Issues

• Google Seeks Damages In Android Suit, Forbes
• Commerce Search: Google Attempts to Boost Online Stores With Boringness, Fast Company
• Google CEO Eric Schmidt envisions the news consumer of the future, Nieman Journalism Lab
• Judge In Google Book Settlement Case Says Photographers Are Not Authors, TechCrunch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• DigitalGlobe Announces New Agreement with Microsoft for High-Resolution Aerial Imagery, DigitalGlobe
• Guide To FREE Google Local Business Centre Listings, Hobo
• Dealing with multiple phone numbers in Google Local, BlogStorm
• Federal Bust of Dependable Locksmith in Florida Strikes at Heart of National Locksmith Scams, Mike Blumenthal
• Google Pulls Local Phone Numbers from Search Display, Small Business SEM

Link Building

• What Makes a Link Worthy Post – Part 2, SEOmoz

Searching

• Google NEAR Operator & Exclude Faces on Image Search, Search Engine Roundtable
• List of all magazines now available in Google Books, Inside Google Books

SEM Industry

• Google’s Matt Cutts Goes a Year Without Posting at WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Roundtable
• Ken Aulleta, Author of "Googled": Biography Of A Company, And An Age Chats with Terry Gross on NPR, ResourceShelf
• SEOmoz 2009 Search Spam PubCon Party, SEOmoz

SEO & SEM

• Fixing 404 File Not Found frustrations (SEM 101), Bing Webmaster Blog
• The "Complete Marketer" Search Agency Model, AIM Clear Blog
• Using Google AdWords Data to Inform Your SEO Strategy, SEO Book
• Draft Microformats – the Future Looks Structured, seogadget.co.uk
• Going Down The Long Tail of Local Search, Search Engine Guide
• Google UK Results Still Showing Irrelevant US Sites, David Naylor
• Microformats: What, How, and Why, Van SEO Design
• More Ways for Google to Embed Themselves in Your Conversion Stream, SEO Book
• Should I expect increased traffic if I optimize my images?, YouTube

Social Media

• Testing new tweet notifications, Twitter Status
• Buying Twitter followers?, BusinessWeek
• Massive Facebook and MySpace Flash Vulnerability Exposes User Data, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• YouTube Gives Partners More Control Over Video Blocking, TechCrunch