SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 21, 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:

• What Is Search Engine Spam? The Video Edition

  Search engines tell marketers not to spam them. Many search marketers also advise newcomers not to spam. Spamming issues get debated online. But what is search engine spam? What’s it look like? How’s it smell? And why do search engines (not to mention users) hate it? At our recent SMX East search marketing conference, representatives [...]

• Google Getting More Political: CEO Endorses Obama

  Google is getting more political these days. Yesterday I wrote about the company’s lobbying efforts on behalf of its paid-search deal with Yahoo, which isn’t necessarily “political” but arguably a political necessary. Also yesterday Google CEO Eric Schmidt decided to endorse (and later campaign with) Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama. The company issued a statement [...]

• When You Turn A Link On, Does It Return The Favor?

  Last week during SMX East, the Link Building Boot Camp was a 75-minute overview of everything you ever wanted to know about link building and then some. This session was offered to anyone who wanted to learn the basics, get a solid understanding of links and prepare for the rest of the linking panels throughout the [...]

• 7 Search Tools You May Not Know … But Should

  Google UK recently shared a list of 52 Things to Do on a variety of Google properties (found via Phil Bradley). It’s a collection of tools and tips about using Google products and services for some everyday functions. If you’re a search power user, you probably know most of them already. But Google’s message seems [...]

• Yahoo Adds ZIP Code Ad Targeting

  Yahoo Sponsored Search advertisers can now target ads down to individual ZIP codes, according to an announcement today on the Yahoo Search Marketing blog. Yahoo joins Ask.com as the only major search engine to offer specific ZIP code-based targeting to advertisers. While Google AdWords doesn’t offer exact ZIP code targeting, it does allow advertisers to [...]

• Bill Tancer Keynote: Desperately Seeking Hot Photos Of Sarah Palin & Other Search Trends

  It was a real pleasure to have Bill Tancer, author of the new book “Click: What Search Activity Tells Us About Society,” give a keynote presentation at our SMX East search marketing conference earlier this month. His keynote is now available online here and can be watched above. Best part: when Bill explains how he [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Bloglines Returns to Challenge Google Reader – Thank Goodness, Read/Write Web

Business Issues

• Let’s Be Serious: Online Display Ads Will Fall Sharply In 2009, www.alleyinsider.com
• Akamai Acquires Acerno and Gets Into Behavioral Targeting, Ad Age
• Google Being More Careful Amid Slump, Schmidt Says, Bloomberg
• Google, Yahoo! likely to drop venture, www.thedeal.com

Conferences

• eMetrics & Google Analytics a Key Relevance Review of Day 1, www.semclubhouse.com
• Update: SES Chicago Speakers and Sessions, Search Engine Strategies

Local, Maps & Mobile

• By Popular Demand… An Optimal iPhone Browsing Experience , blog.mapquest.com
• Google Open-Sources Android on Eve of G1 Launch, www.eweek.com

Other Items

• Google AdWords Reminds Us To Vote on November 4th, Search Engine Journal

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdWords API Version 13 Now Available, AdWords API Blog
• Have Google Adwords Shot Themselves In The Foot?, www.distilled.co.uk
• Will Search Advertisers Make MyAds TheirAds?, MediaPost

SEM Industry

• DMOZ Time Machine, blog.dmoz.org
• SEOmoz’s Linkscape: Why the Backlash is Overblown, SEO Book
• The Disconnect in PPC vs. SEO Spending, SEOmoz

SEO & SEM

• Are Political Consultants Better at Marketing than Most Marketers? , www.grokdotcom.com
• Implementation is the Name of the Game, Search Engine Watch
• It’s Holiday Time: Optimize Your Google AdWords Campaign, Search Engine Roundtable
• Learn the Basics for Building a Killer Keyword List, PPC Hero
• Measuring a Text Ad’s Effectiveness, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004, Wired

Web Analytics

• Advanced analytics – cross-campaign, channel and media tracking, SEOmoz

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

• 14 Free Tools That Reveal Why People Abandon Your Website
• When You Turn A Link On, Does It Return The Favor?
• How to Find the Top Sites in a Niche
• SEOmoz's Linkscape: Why the Backlash is Overblown
• Why Being Likeable is a Profitable Business Strategy
• MillerCoors ends production of Zima
• Caution: Don't Put SEOMOZ into your Meta Tags
• Crawling vs. Indexing
• How To Add 7 Billion Pages To Your Index Overnight