SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 14, 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:

• Bing 2.0 “Visual Search” Launches, Allows Search By Pictures
  

  Microsoft has unveiled Bing 2.0 at TechCrunch50 today, also known as Bing Visual Search, which allows people to “search by picture.” After much speculation following Microsoft’s annual meeting last week in Seattle, many had expected to see an update to Bing Maps, integrating Silverlight technology to display images of local businesses and locations within map [...]

• A Look Back At The Old Search Engines
  

  The Six Revisions blog complied an excellent list of the classic search engines, some dating back to the 1990s. His list includes screen shots of both the old and current (if available) versions of HotBot, Excite, WebCrawler, Ask Jeeves, Ask.com, Yahoo, Google, Dogpile, AltaVista, Lycos, MSN Search, Bing, AOL Search, Infoseek, Go.com, Netscape, MetaCrawler, [...]

• Hidden Google Feature: Find What’s New In The Last Minute Or Second
  

  Google provides options for anyone to easily narrow searches to find material added in the week or day. But now — if you know the right commands to enter — you can find content added to Google in the last few minutes or even seconds. The Omgili Blog discovered this hidden feature. Here’s an example of [...]

• The 6/90 Rule: 6 Reports Contain 90% Of Actionable AdWords Insights
  

  Google offers numerous AdWords reports that allow you to view more data than most people have time to analyze. One of the tricks to working with PPC is to determine what data you need to look at every day or week, and then determine what data is useful to analyze when improving your AdWords account. There [...]

• Yahoo’s New Advertiser Campaign: Bigger Is Better
  

  With a penis joke, AllThingsD previews a major new ad offensive from Yahoo, which will have distinct but related messages for advertisers and consumers. On the advertiser side of the campaign, Yahoo will reportedly stress its reach and scale in an IAB event keynote next week, coinciding with Advertising Week in New York: The main message [...]

• Brave New World For Yellow Pages: Google Nabs Marketshare, Strangles Local Directories
  

  Earlier, this Spring, a number of local search marketers noticed that Google began displaying their 10-pack of local business listings based on searchers’ geolocation when search queries didn’t include a local search term. Matt McGee suggested that this would likely alter user behavior and reduce referral traffic to online directories. Stats show it may have happened. Read on about this “Brave New World” faced by internet yellow pages.

• Links Vs. Web References As Relevance Signals
  

  For a long time, links have been the largest factor in search rankings. While (in my opinion) this is still true today, other signals are gradually growing in importance. One of the most interesting of these is “web references” or “citations”. A web reference refers to a mention of a brand, product [...]

• What’s Yahoo’s “Plan B” For Search?
  

  The Microsoft-Yahoo search deal isn’t a forgone conclusion. In fact, news out yesterday suggests the companies may face serious regulatory hurdles. Potentially, it won’t be allowed. That leaves me wondering. What’s Yahoo’s Plan B? Does it even have a backup plan, especially when CEO Carol Bartz has suggested Yahoo can [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Groups Trojan, Symantec Connect
• Support for versions 6.0 – 7.5 ends September 30th, Yahoo! Messenger Blog
• Update to Checkout content policies, Official Google Checkout Blog

Business Issues

• Danny Sullivan: Carol Bartz Is The Sarah Palin Of Search, Business Insider
• Google ordered to ID authors of emails to York University, nationalpost.com
• The People’s Republic of Google, I, Cringely
• Why the DOJ wants more on Yahoo search deal, CNET News
• Google and newspapers: the false choice of opting out, cdixon.org
• Ask.com Powers Breast Cancer Cause-Search Campaign, Read/Write Web
• Yahoo Seeks To Sell Up To US$150M Alibaba.com Shrs-Term Sheet, Wall Street Journal

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Amnesty International Targets Shell — on Google Maps, Google Blogoscoped
• Study: Mobile (And Particularly iPhone) Users Not Keen On Clicking Ads, TechCrunch
• iPhone usage on Flickr falls dramatically – What’s happening?, The Next Web Blog
• Bug: Google Maps Local Business Center Requires Selecting Pre-Defined Category?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Does Google Maps Discriminate Against Women When Merging Businesses?, Mike Blumenthal
• Mobile Marketing: So You’ve Got a Mobile App — Now What?, Ad Age
• More 3D Cities Appearing in Google Earth, Google Earth Blog

Link Building

• A link building rule to cut out and keep, SEOmoz
• Despite Rumors: Yahoo Directory Still Accepting Submissions, Search Engine Roundtable
• How to Get the Anchor Text You Want Without Even Asking, Site Visibility
• The Reciprocity Link Building Method, Search Engine People
• Wordpress SEO: How to Maximize Your Internal Link Strategy, Michael Gray

Paid Search & Contextual

• Get Ready for Gifting, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
• Praise and Caution for the AdWords Opportunities Tab, PPC Hero

Searching

• Locking Google SafeSearch, Google Operating System
• Google Economist Sees Positive Signs in Search Term Trends, Washington Post
• 3 Ways to Search Without SERPs, Search Engine Journal
• Four Letter Word Makes it to the Front Page of Google News, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Dominates Internet Landscape in India and Brazil, comScore

SEM Industry

• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: September 11, 2009, Search Engine Roundtable
• Ruud Questions: Matt McGee, Search Engine People
• SEO Show Offs: Poll Results, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• The merciless malignancy of malware Part 1 (SEM 101), Bing Webmaster Blog
• Authority and Trustrank, SEO 2.0
• Is the BBC paying for its Google rankings?, Search Cowboys
• Is Your PR Agency Social Media & SEO Savvy? 10 Questions to Ask, Online Marketing Blog
• Supporting Facebook Share and RDFa for videos, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Will Google notify webmasters of violations of the webmaster guidelines?, YouTube

Social Media

• A Nice Big FriendFeed Bug: Impersonate Anyone!, TechCrunch
• Exclaim Track: Track Twitter Search Terms Over IM In Near Real Time, TechCrunch
• Twitter branches out as London’s ‘ecosystem’ flies, FT.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Galleries: Unleash your inner curator, Flickr Blog

Web Analytics

• Using Google Analytics To Identify High-Performing Keywords, Google Analytics Blog