SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 6, 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 Home Page Promotes Motorola Droid
  

  Google really wants you to buy a Motorola Droid, the hot new phone that just hit stores today. In fact, Google is so enamored that it’s advertising the Droid on its homepage: “The Droid is on sale now. Learn more.” Clicking the “learn more” link leads to this “mobile partners” page that touts the Google search [...]

• Search In Pictures: Halloween Edition
  

  In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Random Halloween Pictures from the various search engines:

  This May Not Be Halloween Related:

• Twitter Finally Begins Adding Search Relevancy Features
  

  The Twitter Blog has a short blog post mentioning that they have added technology “to show higher quality results for trend queries by returning tweets that are more useful.” Clearly, this is Twitter’s first step in improving Twitter Search by adding relevancy and search quality factors to the search algorithm. Currently, Twitter Search [...]

• Google AdWords Makes Conversion Tracking “Easier”
  

  The Google AdWords blog announced they have made it easier for advertisers to add and track the conversions for their search ads. Google has added to the AdWords interface sections for (1) Conversions, (2) Webpages, and (3) Code. The Conversion page shows you the conversion actions you’re tracking. Web pages shows the web pages [...]

• Best Buy: “Would You Like A Google App With That?”
  

  In the increasingly high stakes game of mobile search, Google is leaving almost nothing to chance. Take the company’s very interesting new partnership with Best Buy stores for example. According to the Google Mobile Blog: We’re happy to announce today that we’ve partnered with Best Buy Mobile to make Google Mobile App available through Best Buy [...]

• 4 Ways Budgets Get Off Track & Tips For Fixing Pacing
  

  Pacing may be the most important task for the search marketer. Ending an account overspent means you might have blown through money the client just doesn’t have and you could be on the hook for the difference. Ending a campaign under budget can be worse based on the missed opportunity. I remember [...]

• Search Month European Edition, October 2009
  

  In Search Month European Edition we bring you a monthly update of European search news, with related links to full coverage. Here’s what happened in October. Yandex and Google dominate in Russia. Numbers show the Russian search market is dominated by Yandex and Google. Both giants account for 96% of all search traffic in Russia in [...]

• Should You Bid All Brand Keywords To The First Position?
  

  A common way of managing a brand in paid search results is to bid all brand terms to the first position. While this strategy may seem correct from a brand management standpoint, it misses out on many of the nuances of search engine marketing(SEM). For one, many brand campaigns contain over a 1,000 brand variations, [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Retailer and Google spar over checkout requirements, InternetRetailer.com
• Exclusive: Jimmy Wales on what’s next for Wikipedia, silicon.com
• iPhone OS 3.1.2 Breaks Gmail Push: Not Covered by SLA, Search Engine Roundtable
• Microsoft Sites Captures Largest Share of Time Spent Online Worldwide, comScore
• Wikimedia and comScore Announce Partnership; Top 10 Countries by Engagement on Wikimedia Sites, ResourceShelf

Business Issues

• Early Results From Google’s China Music Service, paidContent.org
• Google’s China Music Service Attracts Users, Few Ads, Wall Street Journal
• Yahoo Settles Mary Kay Trademark Lawsuit Over Online Ad Logos, Bloomberg
• Google AdWords Litigation Keeps Rolling In–Parts Geek v. US Auto Parts, Eric Goldman
• Google CEO: Hopefully we won’t repeat Microsoft’s past mistakes, www.techflash.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Blackboard and Microsoft Team To Put Course Info on Bing, Campus Technology
• On-The-Go Mobile Coupons: Almost As Cool As Minority Report. Not Quite As Creepy., TechCrunch
• Google Changes Guidelines AGAIN!, Mike Blumenthal
• Has Google Maps Fixed the OneBox Problem?, Mike Blumenthal

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdWords Keyword Phrase Not Triggering Ads? You May Be Banned, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Keeps Banning AdWords Advertisers, Search Engine Roundtable
• Some Keywords in AdWords Ads Diagnostic Tool Require Content Network?, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Excuse Me, But Where Did Google’s Organic Search Results Go?, SEO Book
• Learn About and Try OpenCalais (a Free Service from Thomson Reuters), ResourceShelf
• New Research Paper from Stanford InfoLab: A Dynamic Navigation Guide for Webpages, ResourceShelf
• Splitting Up Search, Technology Review

SEM Industry

• Another Google Heir Is Born: Larry Page’s Son, Valleywag
• Google Really Likes, Really Likes, Sesame Street: Adds Cookie Monster and Ernie & Bert, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Warning: Use Google Commerce Search At Your Own Risk, SEO Contrarian
• Google To Treat .UA Domains as Root Domains Soon, Search Engine Roundtable
• Leveraging Social Media for SEO: How to Get Started, TAG Community
• SEJ Tools: The Advanced SEO Toolkit, Search Engine Journal
• Whiteboard Friday – How SEOs Know SEO, SEOmoz

Social Media

• Facebook To Increase Enforcement Of Anti-Scam Rules, TechCrunch
• A new design for LinkedIn, The LinkedIn Blog
• Affiliates Adding Links to your bit.ly Account, BrandVerity.com
• Bettween Makes Tracking And Sharing Twitter Conversations A Breeze, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• The Flickr Collection by Getty Images Announces Call for Artists, Yodel Anecdotal
• Even more music for you to find with Google search, Official Google Blog

Web Analytics

• Google Analytics adds advanced filters in content reports, BlogStorm