SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 21, 2010

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Why Google Can’t Count Results Properly It’s a long-standing complaint of mine with Google. You can do a search, then repeat the same search and “subtract” a word from your original […]

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

From Search Engine Land:

  • Why Google Can’t Count Results Properly

    It’s a long-standing complaint of mine with Google. You can do a search, then repeat the same search and “subtract” a word from your original set, and Google will return more matches — not less. It shouldn’t happen. But does, and here’s why.
    Subtracting Gives You More?
    Consider a search for cars, which reports that there are […]

  • Move Over PageRank, Meet Webmaster Happiness Rank

    Move over PageRank and meet Webmaster Happiness Rank. That’s another metric that Google maintains, it turns out.
    Speaking at SES Chicago today, Senior Developer Programs Engineer, Google, Maile Ohye said Google has a metric to measure webmaster happiness.
    Every week, Google’s webmaster trends analysts team gets together to talk about how the webmaster’s are reacting […]

  • Does Being Listed In Multiple Cities Help A Truly Local Business?

    If a business doesn’t have a storefront, is mobile, or provides a service to a large geographical area, it is logical that the business owner would want to be listed online in multiple cities. Service providers such as locksmiths, lawyers, accountants, and chains often get their business optimized for the many areas they service. As […]

  • OneRiot Passes Its Real-Time Search Partners To Topsy

    Last week’s news that OneRiot had shuttered its search engine left something of a void in the real-time search space. Numerous developers and companies that had come to rely on OneRiot’s API were suddenly out in the cold.
    Today, Topsy has announced that it’s taking on OneRiot’s former real-time search partners via the Topsy API, which […]

  • Google Goes From C- To A- Rating At BBB In 10 Days

    About 10 days ago, we reported Google had a C- rating on the Better Business Bureau web site. In fact, for years, Google held a D rating on the BBB web site.
    But a couple hours ago, Mike noticed Google’s BBB rating jumped to a B+. So I checked just now, 8:15am EST […]

  • Dizzy Gillespie Google Logo

    Today on all Google home pages you should be able to see the Dizzy Gillespie Google logo. It is a special Google Doodle for Dizzy Gillespie, a world famous Jazz trumpet player.
    Today is his 93rd birthday and for that, Google has posted the following logo:

    Dizzy Gillespie passed away in 1993.

  • An Introduction To Google’s Placement Targeting

    This column has primarily focused on paid search, but for the last few weeks, we’ve discussed contextual targeting using the engines. Today we’re going to dive into another non-search triggered product that Google offers, display targeting.
    Placement targeting, like content targeting allows you to access the largest ad network on the web, the Google display […]

  • Life With Google TV: My First Day Review & Impressions

    Google TV has finally arrived, not just for pre-order but as an actual device you can get in a retail store. And so I did, hitting Best Buy yesterday and walking out with a Sony Blu-ray player that is Google TV-capable. Here are my impressions, after my first day — well, first evening — with […]

  • How To Gain Control Over Your Broad Matched Keywords

    Last spring, Google AdWords introduced Broad Match Modifier, an innovation that shows Google has been listening to its customers. For many years paid search experts have complained that broad match is too broad and phrase match is too narrow so I for one was pumped to hear about the modifier a few months back […]

  • SES Chicago 2010: The Full Recap

    SES Chicago 2010 is now over and I wanted to share the live blog coverage I found from the event. Here is the full three days linked to below.

    Avinash Kaushik Delivers SEM Advice, WebProNews
    Avinash, Analytics & Making Love To Keywords That Matter, AIM Clear Blog
    Live from SES Chicago: "Search: Where to Next?", Search Marketing […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

Business Issues

Local, Maps & Mobile

Link Building

Paid Search & Contextual

Searching

SEO & SEM

Social Media

Video, Music & Image Search

Web Analytics

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

  • 10 Things I Learned as a Link Building Intern – Jessica Porter, a link building intern at Vertical Measures shares her experience on the job. A worhty read for anyone considering a carree in SEO.
  • Wikipedia's 2010 Fundraising Appeal – Form Usability and CRO Case Study – Miles Carter provides an interesting look into the usability of Wikipedia's latest appeal for donations. Split test activity and some quite forceful calls to action in use – a usability nightmare?
  • How To Measure Blog Conversion – Feel overwhelmed by analysis and conversion? Read this straightforward and simple step-by-step guide to establish a blog conversion strategy, and measure it by setting Google Analytics Goals.
  • Modified Broad Match – How To Increase AdWords CTR and Lower CPCs – Analysis of the Google AdWords modified broad match. Using test data from 3 Google AdWords accounts over the last 2 months, the analysis finds that modified broad match can deliver significantly higher CTRs and significantly lower CPCs. The article then goes on explore modified broad match for keywords containing different numbers of words, and finds again that modified broad match leads to significantly higher CTRs and lower CPCs.
  • The Great Misconception of Long-Tail Keywords and SEO – Jill Whalen explains why "socks with cats on them" is a long tail search phrase you simply catch with comprehensive content, whilst "red wool socks" is a keyword gem you identify in your keyword research and properly optimize for.
  • 5 Trends Uncovered at BlogWorld – After attending BlogWorld this week, Anita Campbell shares her observations and opinions on five hot blogging trends.
  • When Does A SERP Not Answer The Query? When You Use Google. – If you searched on the seven word phrase "Is Google A Search Engine Based in Mountain View CA" wouldn't you expect "Google" to be #1 in the search results?  Sebastian does but as you'll see, the results don't always match the query.
  • Don't overdo internal 301s – Shaun Anderson explains how he has rescued lost rankings by removing more or less useless internal 301-redirects. As always, the best redirect is an avoided redirect.

About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

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