SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 18, 2007

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

From Search Engine Land:

• With Dogpile Beating Google In Satisfaction, Owner InfoSpace Needs To Reinvent Itself, Be Risky With Metasearch
  InfoSpace recently sold both its local and directory assets and its mobile platform business to Idearc/Superpages and Motricity respectively. So what’s left? Specifically Dogpile and its cousins Metacrawler, Webcrawler and the domain InfoSpace.com. The company also owns the kid-friendly search site Zoo.com. Amid all this, JD Power & Associates named…
• Confirmed: Google Sitelinks Grow To Eight Links
  We have received confirmed reports that Google Sitelinks has been expanded to up to eight links. The other day we reported the finding and today we now have official confirmation. The new feature that will allow you to manage sitelinks in webmaster tools is not connected to this expansion of…
• Searcharazzi Alert: Interwoven to Acquire Optimost
  Just a few weeks after Offermatica was picked up by Omniture, TechCrunch reports that Interwoven has agreed to buy Optimost for $52 million in cash. While we were pretty sure that AKQA would get the deal, it looks like the CMS won out. The Interwoven website is now serving up…
• Google Health To Launch In Early 2008
  Marrisa Mayer, taking over the Google Health initiative from Adam Bosworth, who recently left the company, announced at the Web 2.0 conference yesterday that people could “expect a lot of activity in the coming months.” This points to an early 2008 launch for the product….
• Viacom Will Still Sue Google, Even After YouTube Piracy Filter
  Viacom Says The Google Suit Is Still On from MediaPost reports that Viacom will continue their $1 billion suit over unauthorized YouTube videos, even after Google launched the YouTube piracy filter. Viacom spokesman Jeremy Zweig said the video identification tool “doesn’t have any impact” on the lawsuit. Zweig added that…
• Top Countries To Search On Sex, Hitler, Viagra, Jihad & Hangover
  Sex, Nazi, burrito and Viagra: Who Googles what? from Reuters reports on keywords released by Google by country. Reuters ordered the list by country that is most likely to search on certain words. Here is a brief rundown:…
• Offline Conversion Tracking: The Missing Metric
  “I know that half of my advertising dollars are wasted…I just don’t know which half.” It’s not a joke: it’s an astute observation from pioneer marketer John Wanamaker. John was a Philadelphia businessman who conceptualized the department store in the early 1900s. Today, 100 years later, we share the…
• Report: HTC To Be Handset That Goes With Google Mobile OS
  In the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t game of anticipating the Google Phone or Google mobile OS on a handset, UBS analyst Benjamin Schachter issued a report that predicts “Taiwanese handset manufacturer HTC will ship about 50,000 cell phones running on a mobile operating system made by the Mountain View, Calif.-based search giant by…
• The Search Engine Unfriendliness Of Web 2.0
  Wouldn’t it be great if all those whiz-bang Web 2.0 interactive elements based on AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML) and Flash—such as widgets and gadgets and Google Maps mashups— were search engine optimal? Unfortunately, that’s not the case. In fact, these technologies are inherently unfriendly to search engine spiders….
• Did Dalai Lama Award Cause China To Redirect Google, Yahoo & Microsoft Search Traffic To Baidu?
  Reports have been coming in that people trying to reach Google, Yahoo and Microsoft from within China or via Chinese ISPs are being redirected to Baidu. Some have accused Baidu of hijacking the traffic, but we think it’s likely that China is upset with the US over the award it…
• Google Adds Sitelinks Control To Webmaster Tools & Much More
  Google has informed us that today they are releasing a new update to Google Webmaster Central’s tools. The new features include a way to manage your Google Sitelinks, more historical query statistics, an extension of sitemaps to support code search, an improved message center and a warning that may help…
• Karen Wickre: Mother Of The Google Blog On Google’s Official Blogging
  When Google launched the Official Google Blog back in 2004, it started as sort of a ho-hum event. There wasn’t anything particularly gripping, and some wondered if the company should be more edgy with its posts. Since then, Google has launched more than 70 additional official blogs over the…
• The Big SMX Social Media NY ‘07 Roundup
  The first SMX Social Media conference is now wrapping up. The only session left is a clinic, which normally are not covered. Below is a list of all the coverage, stories, blogs and so on that I have found that discussed the conference and/or covered sessions. The list is in…
• Live Blogging: SMX Social Media - Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers & Answer Sharing
  Vanessa Fox had to catch a plane, so I decided to copy Tamar Weinberg’s coverage from the Search Engine Roundtable. It’s the fourth session of the second day of SMX Social Media and it’s all about Wikipedia….

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Ticker Symbol Lookup in Yahoo! Finance Now Like Google Finance, Digital Inspiration

Business Issues

• Why Google Won’t Help Your VC Pitch, BusinessWeek
• AOL Guns for Google, Others in Online Ads, www.eweek.com
• Microsoft CEO calls Google a precocious 3-year-old, AP

Conferences

• SMX Social Media, Day 2, BruceClay.com
• SMX Social Media, NYC 2007: Liana "Li" Evans of KeyRelevance, WebProNews
• SMX Social Media, NYC 2007: Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts, WebProNews
• Why I Volunteer to "Live Blog" Search Marketing Conferences, Cre8PC

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Better KML Support in Maps API (Dynamic Streaming Markers, Oh my!), Google Maps API Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdWords system maintenance on October 20th, Inside AdWords
• 2 Ways Account History Can Affect Your Quality Score, PPC Hero
• Beginner’s Guide to Google Adwords Settings, Search Engine Guide
• Example of a PPC Strategy Document, Shimon Sandler
• Google AdSense Allows Other Contextual Ads on Same Page, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google AdWord Accreditation: How to pass the test in Record Time, SiteVisibility
• How To Do Well in The OTHER Engines, Reviewlicious

Searching

• Revamping Voting and We Need Your Feedback!, Askville Blog
• Helpful suggestions around the globe, Official Google Blog

SEM Industry

• Danny Sullivan Interview, HighRankings

SEO & SEM

• Google bowling and negative SEO: All fair in love and war?, News.com
• Google Webmaster Tools Review, Online Marketing Blog
• How to make money from SEO without selling SEO services, SiteMost
• Top Rankings, Secrets, and Lies - Part 2, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• Digg This Headline, For Google’s Sake, Forbes
• Gomobo uses Twitter for new ‘food buddy’ feature, Webware
• MySpace makes move on Facebook, Reuters
• 11 Guidelines to Social Media Success, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Facebook: Confusing Slowdown with Seasonality, Bill Tancer

Video, Music & Image Search

• 50 Photos in your orkut album!, Orkut Blog
• YouTube opens Chinese language Web site, www.webwereld.nl
• YouTube Opens Taiwan Site, The Associated Press

Web Analytics

• How a Hacky Sack Site Got 74,000 RSS Subscribers, mashable.com
• Want fries with that feed bundle?, Assetbar

Other Items

• First Google Billboard now gone, Mike Blumenthal
• Google, Apple and the future of personal computing, Rough Type: Nicholas Carr’s Blog
• University of Virginia opens exhibit on Google Book Search, Inside Google Book Search
• What Google Might Do in Health, InformationWeek
• What Happened to Yahoo! Next?, Search Engine Journal

Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Google Adds Sitelinks Control To Webmaster Tools & Much More
• Example of a PPC Strategy Document
• Top bloggers Reveal How to Build Traffic Off-blog Without Spending a Dime
• BOTW Charity Party - Oh, What a Night!! | Shana’s First Time!!
• Digg This Headline, For Google’s Sake
• SMX Social Media NYC Recap
• Big SEO: Automate Or Die Trying
• Build your online reputation with consistent posting
• SMX New York Round up from someone 3,000 miles away
• The Big SMX Social Media NY ‘07 Roundup
• The Sopranos Lessons on Blogging
• Sex, Nazi, burrito and Viagra: Who Googles what?
• How to Use Facebook to Get Your Next SEO Job
• How to SEO in Arabic (and other languages)
• BUZZER: They’re Conditioning Us Like Pavlov’s Dogs @SMX
• Strengthening Online Relationships Offline: a Deeper Look Into SMX Social Media New York