SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 2, 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:

• SMX Social Media Conference Preview: Wikipedia Clinic
  Continuing on with yesterday’s preview of SMX Social Media — Search Engine Land’s first Search Marketing Expo show focused on social media marketing — I wanted to talk briefly about a special session we’re doing for the first time: Wikipedia Clinic. The idea behind the session is simple. Many people…
• Search Month: September 2007 Search News, In Review
  Search Month is a monthly newsletter that recaps stories covered on Search Engine Land over the past month. It’s also available by feed here. Below, news about Search Engine Land itself, then our 10 most popular stories from September 2007, then a major story for various search topics along with…
• Search Illustrated: Geo Targeted Keyword Strategies
  Last week’s Search Illustrated depicted high-level strategies for geotargeting search campaigns. Today’s Search Illustrated drills down on this subject, showing how to target specific geographic areas with a search marketing campaign that will reach only qualified prospects within a specific area or region:…
• Optimizing A Paid Search Campaign
  Pay-per-click (PPC) remains a leading online marketing strategy despite ever-increasing competition and rising click costs. Why? Paid search works extremely well when you’ve established an accurate estimate of your cost per acquisition (CPA) and return on investment (ROI). However, not everyone is properly measuring their CPA and maximizing their…
• How to Identify & Target The Right Niche Social Media Sites
  Digg and Reddit get all the props in the social news world because they are big, flashy and can give you huge traffic. But the big boys might not always be right for your business or a particular piece of content that you want exposure for. That’s why its…
• Flickr Testing Ad Placements?
  I spotted an image that Herr Herrner from Germany uploaded, that shows Flickr is testing ad placements on their site. Here is an ad he spotted directly under the search box. I personally do not see any ads on Flickr at the moment….
• Paid Search Grows 44 Percent In Britain
  Online advertising spend surges 41 pct in Britain from Reuters reports that paid-search ads have grown by 44-percent year to year in Britain. Display ads grew 33-percent, while total online ad growth rose 41-percent. The Internet Advertising Bureau with PricewaterhouseCoopers and the World Advertising Research Centre estimated that total online…
• German Data Protection Commissioner Opposes Google-DoubleClick Deal
  German official says ‘nein’ to Google-DoubleClick deal from News.com reports that German’s data protection commissioner has come out against the Google / DoubleClick acquisition. Thilo Weichert, the German official, said the deal would “lead to a massive violation of data privacy rights.” He wrote a letter to the European Commissioner…
• Microsoft Picks Up Jellyfish, Shopping Search Engine
  Microsoft has announced the acquisition of a comparison shopping engine named Jellyfish.com. Microsoft believes that Jellyfish.com’s “technology has some interesting potential applications” that they can “continue to invest heavily in shopping and commerce as a key component of Live Search.” Jellyfish.com takes a bit more of a social approach to…
• Yahoo Upgrades Search Experience, Launches ‘Search Assist’ & Multimedia Content In Results
  Most of the pieces have been sneaking out over the past month or so. But today Yahoo is formally announcing a range of search upgrades, more Shortcuts, integration of video and photos directly in search results, and Search Assist. Search Assist, which Danny previously wrote about at length, is the…
• Meet The Local Search Engines
  A report from today’s opening panel at SMX Local & Mobile, Denver, Colorado. Huge market, huge confusion, huge challenges—that could summarize discussion on the Meet the Local Search Engines panel, consisting of some of the major players in local search—including major search engines’ local search properties, an exclusively local…
• Want That Top Ad Position On Live Search?
  The adCenter blog announced that they have released a new ad ranking formula with the release of their new index and organic algorithms from last week. Microsoft has changed their formula for determining which ads are able to to achieve a top ad placement, i.e. the ad above the organic…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Bloglines Beta Roll-Out Continues: Open-ID Support, More Personalization, and New Mobile Beta Version, ResourceShelf
• Microsoft powers up for change, Telegraph
• Today’s Trifecta! – OpenID Support, Mobile and New Personalization Preferences, Bloglines News
• Yahoo Japan Prepares HDTV Portal, WebProNews

Business Issues

• The Stock Sales Race: Google CEO gaining on Oracle CEO, Mercury News

Conferences

• Australian Blogging Conference, SiteMost

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Did Nokia Pwn Google With its $8 Billion Navteq Buy?, Wired
• Mobile Search Marketing for Social Networking Sites, Search Engine Journal
• New Google Earth Imagery Update – October 2nd, Google Earth Blog
• YellowPages.com Adds Video, Screenwerk

Paid Search & Contextual

• German Startup Takes on Google’s AdSense, Red Herring
• Google Referral Ads Now Displaying for Some Users?, Search Engine Roundtable
• ROI: why it matters and how to track it — part 3 of 3, Inside AdWords
• Google sees ad industry thriving online, reportonbusiness.com
• Taking the Offline Business Online, Search Engine Watch
• Keyword Research for PPC, Search Engine Guide
• Needed: A Detailed Picture of Click Quality, Traffick
• Online Sales Up this Holiday Season, Marketing Pilgrim
• Unhappy MSN AdCenter Customer, The SEO Scoop
• Why I Don’t Use AdSense on ProBlogger Anymore, www.problogger.net

Searching

• Smaller Screens Means Smarter Image Processing by Search Engines, SEO By The Sea
• Finding Answers Without Clicking on Search Results, Google Operating System
• Firefox Version of the hakia ScoopBar is now Available!, Hakia Blog

SEM Industry

• 2008 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide, Online Marketing Blog
• If there was an SEO Genie my one wish would be, SiteVisibility
• Optimize Yourself for Search Marketing Employment and Recruiting, Search Engine Journal

SEO & SEM

• Brute force attack yields keys to Google’s kingdom, The Register
• SEO and Web Hosting, V7N Blog
• Don’t Just Manage Your Reputation, Respond to Your Competitor’s, Search Engine Guide
• Exploiting Passion for Profit, SEO Book
• Google’s Index Page Counts Like a "Rollercoaster"?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Top 10 Reasons You Must Do SEO, Search Engine Watch
• Five Reasons Why It’s Better to be Big & Popular than Small & Niche, SEOmoz
• Search Budgets to See Double-Digit Growth, Search Engine Watch
• SEO 101 : Importance of Directories, Domains and Keyword Effectiveness, Search Engine Journal
• Should your site be more like Thomas the Tank Engine?, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Best Damn On-Page Optimization Process Checklist, Period, Search Engine Guide
• Two nice bookmarklets, Joost de Valk
• Webmasters Report October 2007 Google SERP Changes, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• 6 Things That Work Right Now on Reddit, 10e20
• How Conde Nast is Using Reddit, Pronet Advertising
• So Much Social Media, So Little Time – Help!, SEOdisco
• Is Favorit a Digg killer?, TechCrunch
• Ballmer: Facebook risks being ‘a fad’, Times Online
• Getting Buried at Digg: Why does traffic still flow?, Performancing.com
• Social Search – The Potential Impact on the Search Marketing Industry, Online Marketing Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• Hello Public, Joost – Blog
• How Yahoo!’s Flickr helps, and hurts, photographers’ rights, BloggingStocks
• Google’s "Claim Your Content" taking much longer than expected, Googling Google
• iheard.com Launches New Search Engine for Internet Radio Stations, URLwire

Other Items

• Google Dominating Hollywood as Well as the Search Demographic, SEOmoz
• CBSNews.com Chief to Lead a News and Blogs Site, New York Times
• The Greening of Google, IEEE Spectrum
• America’s techiest cities: Silicon Valley No. 1, but who’s No. 2?, ResourceShelf

Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• SEO Humor: The 7 Secrets of SEO Success
• Mobile Search Marketing for Social Networking Sites
• How do you become a StumbleUpon power user? Ask a 16 year old.
• Search Optimization Guide for The New Yahoo! Search
• Yahoo Search Launches Google Killer : Search Assist, Videos, Flickr Integration
• So Much Social Media, So Little Time… What Are We To Do?
• Lessons Learned From A Google-Slapped Niche Blog
• Buy Old Trusted DMOZ Listed Domains & Sites for $8
• Sphinn Profile Updates: who, what, when, where, how?
• The Link Spiel: Help! I’m New, I Need Links, What Can I Do?
• How to Rent a Half Million Links & Stay Below Google’s Radar
• SES Interviews: Pepperjam’s Kris Jones on Search Arbitrage
• Ignore the Social Media Scoreboard