SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 17, 2008

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 Adds Local Content To Search Results Via SearchMonkey
  Yahoo has announced the addition of more local business content to their web search results thanks to Yahoo’s SearchMonkey program. Yahoo has turned on the SearchMonkey applications for both Citysearch and Zagat; users don’t have to opt-in to see enhanced content from those sites — it’s now turned on by default for all users. In fact, [...]
• Google’s First Click Free Program For Web Content, Not Just News
  Google’s long had a “first click free” (FCF) program that allows news publishers to make their content accessible to search spiders, while requiring some users to login after viewing the content a second time. Earlier this year, Google said this was OK for web publishers to use and today, they’ve done a post more [...]
• Fall Fun: Viewing Cornfield Mazes Via Online Maps
  One of the unique seasonal activities to do this time of year is to make a trip out to a nearby farm and wander through mazes carved out of corn fields. Designers of these mazes often make them to form interesting pictures or written messages when seen from a bird’s-eye view. I’ve selected a handful [...]
• Search In Pictures: Buddy Guy At Yahoo, Google’s Beta Store & Yahoo Open Cupcakes
  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. What is cooler than Buddy Guy performing at Yahoo Live? Tasty Yahoo Open Cupcakes: YouTube Balloons! Geek-factor: Google’s “Onsite Store” [...]
• Crucial Firefox Plugins For SEM Professionals; Put Google To Work To Meet CPA Goals
  Today’s news briefs: Google AdWords Editor update, Yahoo Search Marketing content upgrades, and upcoming features for Microsoft’s adCenter. An in-depth guide to some great Firefox plug-ins for search engine marketing professionals, followed up by the free tool of the week: Google’s Conversion Optimizer. Quick News Briefs Google Adwords: AdWords Editor 6.5 for Windows and [...]
• Google AdWords Finally Breaking Out Search Traffic From Partners
  The Google AdWords blog announced they have added a method to the AdWords console to break out search traffic between Google and search partners. Beforehand, you were only able to see a breakout between your content campaigns and search campaigns. Now, you can breakout your AdWords results based on your content campaigns, Google [...]
• Google Earnings Beat Expectations, Shares Climb
  Many Wall Street analysts and Google watchers were anticipating that Google might “come down to Earth” with its Q3 earnings today, given the turmoil in the US economy. But in fact the company soundly beat expectations and posted very healthy revenues, driven by Google’s dominance of the only strong segment of online advertising — search. Google [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Announcing HTTPS support for appspot.com!, Google App Engine Blog
• Footnotes in Google Docs, Google Blogoscoped

Business Issues

• Meet Our CEO and Chairman, Again, Twitter Blog
• Difficult Times, Difficult Decisions, Zillow Blog
• Google hedges against foreign currency swings, News.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• 400: Bad Request for Virtual Earth Web Service, Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog
• A sneak peek at Gmail on Android, Official Gmail Blog
• Making the Most of Your Local Search Marketing Dollars, Search Engine Watch

Paid Search & Contextual

• Scaring Up Clicks, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
• 30 Pay-Per-Click Definitions Every Advertiser Should Know: A PPC Terminology Glossary, PPC Hero
• Google Adds Est. First Page Bid & Quality Score To AdWords Reports, Search Engine Roundtable
• Looking For An Alternative To Adsense? What About Adcenter?, The SEO Scoop
• Rookie or Veteran – PPC Basics Every Advertiser Should Know and Use, PPC Hero

Searching

• Search findings from the third presidential debate, Official Google Blog
• Can You Name a Location Where Wikipedia Doesn’t Rank in Google’s Top 10?, www.seoptimise.com
• High-powered search for Arabic-speaking engineers, Official Google Blog
• New Ticket Search Engine Launches, Inquisitr

SEM Industry

• (TheLisa) SMX East Charity Party Raises $13,000!, Jim Boykin

SEO & SEM

• Google Drops Home Page Crawl Date From Webmaster Tools, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google glass ceiling, dixonjones.com
• Google Profiles Now Indexable in Search Engines, Search Engine Journal
• Google’s New Tools for Site Link Strengthening, Search Engine Watch
• How to Find SEO Competitor Keywords, Social Media & Backlinks, Search Engine Journal
• Whiteboard Friday – Implementing Keyword Research, SEOmoz

Social Media

• BREAKING: Facebook May or May Not Launch Music Service, AllThingsD
• Man killed wife in Facebook row, BBC NEWS
• Social Media Campaigns: Doing It Right, BruceClay.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Welcome to your new Home Page, Flickr Blog
• Google Advertising on TV, Podcasts, and Radio, SEO By The Sea

Web Analytics

• Reminder: Hands-On Google Analytics Training this Monday, Google Analytics Blog
• The Ultimate Google Analytics Plugins, Hacks & Tricks Collection, Future Now

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

• Does Google Have A Glass Ceiling?
• Use You Online Power For Some Good
• The SEO Career Kickstart : How to get a Job in SEO
• Kentucky Judge Rules: Forfeit Gambling Domains
• The Worst “About” Pages In SEO Today
• Google Optimizing Their Optimizer?
• Neil Patel Wants to Give You $250,000
• Easy 1 Step SEO Attack
• Correcting the History of Search Engine Optimization
• A World Without Google
• 100 Web Designers to follow on Twitter