SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 30, 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:

• Tools of the SEO Trade
  In SEO, success is as much about your toolkit as it is about your skillset. Without great tools at your disposal, your ability to get the job done is really hampered. At SMX East this month I presented some of my favorite tools on the “Tools, Glorious Tools” panel. (Download my Powerpoint.) What I came to realize from gauging the audience’s reaction to my presentation was that many of the tools I presented were new to much of the audience. That surprised me. This stuff isn’t exactly a government secret. There are blog posts about them, and many are free or inexpensive.
• What Does Search Activity Say About The Election?
  With less than a week to go until U.S. voters choose a new president, Yahoo is sharing what it knows about White House-related search activity. Here are some highlights from Yahoo’s blog post today, which taps into data from Yahoo Buzz:
• Google Local Business Hijacking: Microsoft Acquires Yahoo, Becomes Escort Service
  Mike Blumenthal has been diligently covering how local listings can be hijacked by other businesses in Google Maps. He’s also been frustrated that Google doesn’t seem to be fixing the local hijacking problem. So to illustrate the problem, he’s posted how he took over Microsoft’s business listing — turning it into Microsoft Escort Service — and how those from Apple, IBM, Coca-Cola, GM among others were also vulnerable.
• What’s Ahead For Search Marketing In 2009
  It’s an understatement to say that we live in uncertain times, and that any data that can help us strategize, plan or even to some extent predict what’s ahead is worth its weight in… well, let’s just say this kind of information is invaluable. That makes the Marketing Sherpa 2009 Search Marketing Benchmark Guide very timely for just about everyone involved in our industry. The Guide is packed with data, analysis, charts, graphs and all manner of other useful info. This is the fifth annual Search Marketing Benchmark Guide that Marketing Sherpa has produced, but its unlike any of the others I’ve seen. It’s far more comprehensive and detailed, pulling together stats compiled by Marketing Sherpa as well as “best of” research from more than 50 respected research partners. The result is nearly 300 pages of no-fluff data, with 215 charts, tables and eyetracking heatmaps covering just about all aspects of search marketing. The Guide has five major coverage areas:
• Google’s New Metric For YouTube Ads: Brain Waves
  The news came across the wire recently that Google has ventured into new territory to sell the value of their ad space and ad targeting on YouTube. Rather than the standard metrics of clicks and conversions Google is selling a new kind of metric—brain waves. YouTube has recently been pushing overlay ads which appear in the lower portion of the window while the video is playing. Since these ads are often used for branding purpose looking at click thru measurements would not give a true picture of their impact upon the advertisers brand messaging.
• Local Search Marketing Tips for B2B Marketers
  B2B marketers establish conversions - or desired actions - throughout their customers’ buying process. These actions may take place online, on the phone, or live at a specific location. Regardless, many occur at the local level. Local search enables marketers to capitalize on these interactions and differentiate your firm based upon one very important factor - geographic proximity. Below are four tips to help B2B marketers reach prospects at the local level.
• New iPhone Report From comScore: Everything You Wanted To Know And Then Some
  To use a variation on a familar phrase, the iPhone changes everything. Indeed it has; and everything you ever wanted to know about iPhone adoption and usage is contained in a new report from comScore (”All about the iPhone”). The headline on the press release is about lower-income groups adopting the device for a broad range of activities (music, games, video and internet). Based on behavioral data from a sample of roughly 100,000 iPhone users in the US and Western Europe, the report goes into a great deal more than that. Below I do a quick “dive” into a couple of the search-related findings.
• Presentations & Q&A Sessions From Google’s Third Chat Session
  Google hosted their third webmaster chat event last Wednesday. The event had three presentations from Googlers and plenty of question and answer time between webmasters and Google employees. The Google Webmaster Central blog has announced they have posted a recap of the live chat session. Below you will find the presentations from John, Jonathan and Maile of Google. You can also read the comprehensive Q&A session over here.

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Facebook Worm drives by Google Reader and Picasa (updated), fortiguardcenter.com
• "New" AOL.com Homepage Goes Live With Lifestreaming, New Themes, And More, paidContent.org
• What we learned from 1 million businesses in the cloud, Official Google Blog

Business Issues

• Alibaba cancels advertising at Baidu, The China Perspective
• On the Google Book Search agreement, Lessig Blog
• Peter Suber, Open Access News, www.earlham.edu

Local, Maps & Mobile

• How US has voted since 1980, Google LatLong
• Google Street View Italy Live, Too, Google Blogoscoped
• La Dolce Vista - Street View comes to Italy, Google LatLong
• Voting tools for volunteers on the go, Official Google Blog
• WorldWide Telescope - New Release!, Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog
• Getting around Montreal, past and present, Google LatLong

Link Building

• Handling Tracking URLs & Keeping Your Link Popularity, Search Engine Roundtable
• Headsmacking Tip #9 - Vertical Content Can Earn You Links, SEOmoz
• Use Humor for Link Marketing, Search Engine Watch

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google AdWords Hacked Ads In The Raw Search Results, Search Engine Roundtable
• You’re invited to the new AdSense Help Forum, Inside AdSense

Searching

• "I don’t need ten blue links - just give me the answer!", Live Search
• Google Knol Opens In French, German and Italian, TechCrunch
• Google’s "Accessible View" Experiment, Google Blogoscoped
• The Mystery Of The ChaCha Eiffel Tower Fail Pic, TechCrunch

SEM Industry

• Kate Morris: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop

SEO & SEM

• Look at the Usability, SEO, Web Design and Cool Stuff I Saved Up For You, Cre8PC
• 50 Must Read Web Design for ROI, Usability and SEO Articles, SEOptimise
• Comprehensive Guide to Keyword Research, Selection & Organization, Part X, Search Engine Guide
• Deeper vs Broader: Exposure vs Engagement, SEO Book
• Google Webmaster Tools Breakdown?, Search Engine Roundtable
• SEO Basics: Top 3 Tactics To Improve Search Engine Rankings, Online Marketing Blog
• The SEO’s 10 Commandments, BruceClay.com
• Why Are Old News Results Showing Up in My Google Searches?, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• Social Media Can Be Cheap, But Its Not Free, Search Engine Guide

Video, Music & Image Search

• Begun Offers New Way To Monetize Photo Sharing Sites, Quintura blog
• Link To The Best Parts In Your Videos, YouTube Blog

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

• Search Featured: Craig Newmark, owner and founder of craigslist
• Are Google Now Penalising “Free Gift” Blog Reviews?
• My Mother’s Values Help me to Succeed at Social Media
• Evolution of Social Media & Viral Marketing
• The SEO's 10 Commandments
• SEO Company, SEO and Search Engine Optimization Google Results Are a Disgrace
• Google Opens Up Bidding on Beer and Champagne
• 9 Lessons from 12 Years Online Marketing & E-commerce
• 4X & Your Out Google AdSense
• How to add simple jobs board functionality to Wordpress - without a plugin
• Facebook Connect: Why and how to use it on your website
• Internal Links - Only The First Link Counts in Google?
• Get the Inside Scoop on We Build Pages' QualityGal
• Is Yahoo’s Buzz A Buzz-Kill?