SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 1, 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:

• Organizing Your PPC Account For Maximum Success
  

  Account organization is the first and most important step in the optimization process – it’s the foundation for success.

• Google News Gets Search Suggestions
  

  The Google News Blog announced search suggestions have been added to the Google News search box as you type. Google added search suggestions as the default to Google.com just a bit over a year ago today. Now, it is the default on Google News. Here is a picture:

  The suggestions are actually tailored to news-like [...]

• Preview Your Google Rich Snippets With Google Webmaster Tool
  

  On May 12th, Google began supporting rich snippets in the search results. That meant Webmasters could mark up their HTML with richer data using microformats and RDFa and Google could then, if they deemed it to be appropriate, display the richer snippets in their search results. One of the issues on the webmaster front with [...]

• Yahoo Board Member Icahn Trims Stake, Bartz Wants Wants To Stop “Navel Gazing”
  

  Investor and Yahoo board member Carl Icahn has reportedly reduced his holdings in Yahoo by roughly 12 million shares, according to a recent regulatory filing with the US SEC. Icahn became a board member last year after a prolonged and very public episode that involved heavy criticism of then Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and an attempt [...]

• Should You Alter Your Current Backlinks?
  

  What should you do, as a polite and plucky link builder, if some of your inbound links just aren’t up to snuff? Do you risk alienating a well-meaning webmaster by pointing out that he’s linked to an old page that no longer exists? That he’s spelled your company’s name incorrectly, or, even worse, your URL? [...]

• Surchur: Beyond Real-Time Search To Real-Time Discovery
  

  Surchur has been around for more than a year, but its recent facelift aims to take real-time search toward a new idea: real-time discovery. It may sound like splitting hairs to some, but the point is valid: Real-time search isn’t of much value if you don’t know what to type into the search box. This is [...]

• When UGC Means Users Give-Away Control
  

  Last month, Google was forced by a New York judge to hand over the personal details of a user of its Blogger service to someone who wished to sue the blogger in question for defamation. In a series of posts, fashion model Liskula Cohen was described by fashion student Rosemary Port as a “psychotic, lying, whoring [...]

• Of Living URLs, Newspaper Rankings & California Fires
  

  As Google has grappled with newspapers firing rip-off accusations at them, one of the key responses has been from Google’s Marissa Mayer. A move to “living URLs” would drive them more traffic, she’s said, talking about it twice this past month. But such a system won’t work unless Google News fundamentally [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Bing’s Home Page Picture Changer Missing For Some, Search Engine Roundtable
• Chrome Market Share: One Year Later, Matt Cutts
• Gmail Hitting Some Turbulence, TechCrunch
• Gmailers More Engaged than Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail Users, Seeking Alpha
• Today’s Gmail problems, Official Gmail Blog
• Waving hello to Google Apps, Official Google Enterprise Blog
• Webcast: The Wikipedia Revolution, ResourceShelf

Business Issues

• Google’s Chrome Nabs Sony, Wall Street Journal
• A new chapter, Skype Blogs
• An author’s guide to the Google Books flap, CNET News
• EBay Is Said to Have a Deal to Sell Skype, New York Times
• German court orders Google to change TOS – a little late, ZDNet

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Bing Maps Imagery Release, August 2009, Bing Maps Blog
• Top Developer Reveals Android Market’s Meager Sales, TechCrunch
• A sneak peek at the new Android Market, CNET Blogs
• Did Google Street View spot rapist/kidnapper Garrido?, Boing Boing
• Google Maps Street View Driving Begins in South Africa, Official Google Africa Blog
• Google Penalizing Category Spamming – What are the Standards?, Mike Blumenthal
• Microsoft to Deliver New Generation of Windows Phones on Oct. 6, Microsoft

Paid Search & Contextual

• Not Just Back to School, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
• Geographic Impact of PPC Part 2: Retail Chains, Rimm Kaufman
• Google AdSense Ads Hit With PSAs Again, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google TV Ads announces the TV for All contest, Google Traditional Media Blog

Searching

• Online Database: California Salary Database for 134,000 Public Employees, ResourceShelf

SEM Industry

• SEO Companies FAIL, Hobo
• Some Popular SEO Experts Don’t Know Much About SEO, SEO Book

SEO & SEM

• SEO Hierarchy of Needs, BruceClay.com
• Are different types of sites treated differently in Google?, YouTube
• Discover More Related Content with Headup, Search Engine Journal
• Does Google Like It When You’re Fresh?, SEOmoz
• Google News To Fix RSS Title Trimming Issue, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google’s "NoTranslate" Tag To Prevent Translation in Search, Search Engine Roundtable
• How to manage your ads effectively across the web, Conversion Room
• How to Plugin SEO to Wordpress : 9 Great Plugins, Search Engine Journal
• Q&A Should You Bid on Your Competitor’s Name or use Their Name in Ad Copy?, Brad Geddes
• Rankings Change. (Here’s How to) Deal With It! Part III, Search Engine Guide
• Tips for News Search, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

Social Media

• Are You Measuring Your Social Media ROI?, outspokenmedia.com
• Facebook Testing New Direct Response Home Page Ad Unit, Inside Facebook
• Friends Checker Tracks Who’s Removing You From Their Facebook Friends List, Inside Facebook
• Social Networking Sites Account for More than 20 Percent of All U.S. Online Display Ad Impressions, According to comScore Ad Metrix, comScore
• Twitter overtakes MySpace in the UK, TechCrunch

Other Items

• Talking about Google work from home scams on Good Morning America, JasonMorrison.net