SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 20, 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:

• Yahoo Revenues Down YoY, Flat From Q2, Sees 19 Percent Decline In Search Revenues
  

  Yahoo just announced quarterly revenues of $1.575 million, which represents a 12 percent decline from the third quarter of 2008 and is basically flat vs last quarter. However the company saw a 19 percent decline in search ad revenue for the quarter. Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz characterized Q3 as “solid” in the press release and said [...]

• Twitter Not Giving Access To Private Tweets, Unless They Were Once Public
  

  Is Twitter allowing search engines access to protected tweets or not? Not, Twitter tells me, though the company probably needs to do a bit more to prevent this type of confusion in the future. The LA Times reported yesterday about a “Twitter hole” that it believed allowed Google special access to protected [...]

• Mobile Answer Engines Battle Search Engines
  

  A class of mobile “help” or “answer engines” has arisen as an alternative to traditional search engines. They hold out the promise more efficient, relevant or direct responses to queries than search engines can provide on the small screen. In several cases they involve the use of live human agents or a community of users [...]

• Google Analytics New Features: Intelligence Engine, Custom Alerts & More
  

  Google has just announced a number of new features for Google Analytics, including more powerful reporting capabilities, greater customization options and a new “intelligence engine” that Google says can help search marketers drive smarter data insights. Here’s a rundown of the new features, and why they’re important. Analytics intelligence Google Analytics new “intelligence engine” comes with default [...]

• How To Maintain Healthy Social Media Profiles
  

  In social news and social bookmarking sites, many users tend to get caught up in how many votes or bookmarks it will take for their submitted content to be promoted to the frontpage or “popular” sections of the site. What is often overlooked by users is the quality and naturalism of those votes that trigger [...]

• Link Building With Content: How To Attract Links And Leads
  

  A single highly-linkable article can attract tens – sometimes hundreds – of links from relevant and valuable sites. Make that article *sell* and you’ll drive a similar number of leads that come pre-qualified and ready to talk business.

• Preparing For International Link Building Success
  

  The majority of international link building projects or RFPs I see are based on existing successful projects—so why do so many fail when they expand internationally? The simple answer is that international link building requires a different type of preparation than national link building.

• Thoughts On Web Developers, SEO & Reputation Problems
  

  After last week’s “Does SEO = Spam” debate erupted, I had a number of follow-up emails where I explained privately more about why SEO has such a bad reputation in some quarters, as well as what SEO is and isn’t, from my perspective. I wanted to share some of that below. Bad Advice Sucks: From SEOs [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• New from USA.gov: Federal Government Blogs Now Organized by Subject, ResourceShelf

Business Issues

• Agency.com Helps Ask.com Find Deal-Seekers, MediaPost
• Google finds most of its best answers in Ireland, The Irish Times
• Q&A with CMO Elisa Steele, Yodel Anecdotal
• How Google does it, Canadian Business Online
• Wanna work for Yahoo! Search?, wonko.com
• Yahoo Brings Goodby Onboard for Current U.S. Brand Push, Ad Age
• Yahoo! apologises for lap dance at event in Taiwan, AFP

Local, Maps & Mobile

• A Tale Of Two MapQuest iPhone Apps, MapQuest Blog
• CrimeMapper: Interactive Map Lets Users Compare Crime Rates in England and Wales, ResourceShelf
• Online Satellite Imagery: An Interview with Dr. Walter Scott from DigitalGlobe, ResourceShelf

Link Building

• What Makes a Link Worthy Post – Part 1, SEOmoz

Paid Search & Contextual

• Spotlight on the Custom Search Element, Inside AdSense
• Warning! That Political Ad on Google Could Cost You a $250 Fine!, Marketing Pilgrim
• When Google Product AdWords Ads Go Wrong, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• About Voicemail and Privacy, Google Voice Blog
• Ask Is ‘Dancing on Air’: “Who Wants a Deal? We Do, We Do!”, Ask.com Blog
• Did You Mean the Competition?, Google Blogoscoped
• Google Now Indenting Two Results In Search Results, Search Engine Roundtable
• Singing a new tune: Google Search Appliance now includes automated tuning, better connectivity, Official Google Enterprise Blog

SEO & SEM

• Content Writing and Conversion Funnel Optimization in the SEO Newsletter, BruceClay.com
• A Nickels Worth Of Free Online Marketing Advice, Dream Systems Media
• An Open Letter to a Client in Search of an SEO Provider, Search Engine Guide
• Bing October 2009 Search Index Update, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Trust Rank Patent Granted, SEO By The Sea
• How Google Handles Parked Domain Placeholder Pages, Search Engine Roundtable
• How To Get Started With SEO, Small Business SEM
• Is social now a compulsory SEO skill? [SEO Writing], The SEO Scoop
• PPC Landing Page Optimization, Search Marketing Standard
• Use Multiple Keyword Research Services with KeywordSmash, Search Engine Journal
• Why We Don’t Do SEO For You, RustyBrick
• Will Google personalize results based on user IP location?, YouTube
• You Don’t Need To Rank No1 In Google – Put Prices In Page Titles, Hobo

Social Media

• FriendFeed Not Dead, Just In A State Of “Chrysalis,” Says Co-founder, TechCrunch
• Apple Gets A Little More Serious About Using Twitter, TechCrunch
• How To: Be A Damn Human, outspokenmedia.com
• Social Media Marketing Applications – 10 Proven Ideas, Online Marketing Blog
• The New Twitter Hole That Probably Isn’t, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• Finding the sweet spot between promotion and content creation, YouTube Biz Blog
• Official Launch: More than 10K Free Educational Videos and Slides from WatchKnow, ResourceShelf

Other Items

• Google’s Homepage, a Canvas for Google Doodles, Google Operating System