SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 17, 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:

• Powerset Teams Up With Live Search
  Powerset, the semantic search engine that Microsoft purchased in July, has been collaborating with Microsoft’s Live Search team on several projects designed to be released within 30 days. Microsoft is currently being testing them on a small, randomly selected audience. The projects include:…
• Are Your B2B Paid Search Campaigns Trying To Serve Two Masters?
  One of the best pieces of advice I ever got from a seasoned Google AdWords mentor was to "not try and serve two masters within a single campaign." If your campaigns are like most, they have a fixed budget and are ROI driven. In this situation, we are constantly…
• Enhance In-House Search Thru Offline Media
  The good news: eMarketer projects 17.4 percent growth in US internet ad spending this year compared to last year. The bad news: the amount estimated to be spent this year was downgraded by a billion dollars ($24.9B vs. $25.9B). Should we be worried? Not really, because internet ad spending…
• Google Ugrades My Location, Mobilizes StreetView
  Google has upgraded Google Maps for Mobile with more precise location awareness (My Location) and now brought StreetView into mobile. The new version of Google Maps (for BlackBerry and most Java phones) provides an option to see the StreetView image of the selected address or business. It also offers walking…
• Google Acquisitions Real & Rumored: Korean Blogging Platform, PC Games Producer Valve
  Last week Google confirmed that it had made its first Korean acquisition, a popular blogging platform called TNC, which has approximately 400,000 users, including a majority of Korea’s top bloggers (per VentureBeat). The site’s founder and CEO Chang-Won Kim said that he thought Google bought the company to boost its…
• Live Search Is Updating, Expect Ranking Changes
  Live Search September 2008 Update Underway from the Search Engine Roundtable reports discussion at WebmasterWorld that Live Search is undergoing a major index and ranking update. The Live Search results seem to have changed, and webmasters and SEOs are taking notice. I personally noticed referral increases and drops from Live…
• Yahoo’s Exodus Continues: Director Communications & Search Monkey PM
  We have covered many but far from all of the Yahoo employees who have left the company over the course of the years. I wanted to add two more to the list of those who joined the "Yahoo Exodus." TechCrunch has news on two people leaving Yahoo. The first is…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google’s 12 Hour (and counting) Custom Search Outage, TechCrunch
• Google opening Lively to game developers, Games Industry
• Palin comes under fire for using Yahoo e-mail for state biz, Ars Technica

Business Issues

• Google plans trial of call-to-action TV ads to drive UK search revenues, NMA
• Lessons from a Harvard MBA grad who said no to Google, News.com
• Valve: Rumors of Google Buy-Out Are "Complete Fabrication", MTV Multiplayer

Link Building

• The Value Of Linking Out: $56m Per Year, SEO Book
• Link Building Etiquette : The Value of the Connection, Search Engine Journal
• The Old & Crusty Method To Building Links, Performancing.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• The Importance of Google’s Business Listings, BruceClay.com
• Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog : Virtual Earth and Microsoft Commerce Server, blogs.msdn.com

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google Adwords Allows Abortion Ads, BlogStorm
• How To Ensure That Your Google Quality Score is 10/10, Search Engine Roundtable
• Inside AdWords: Conversion tracking Site Stats logo is now optional, Inside AdWords
• Is Your Business Built on Pay Per Click PPC Quicksand?, Bill Hartzer
• Matching Your Keywords to Searches, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog
• Using the Same Landing Page In Google and Yahoo May Be Hindering Your Campaign, PPC Hero

Searching

• Beefed-up developer guide, Google Custom Search
• Google Disable the "Hidden" Site Search Feature?, Search Engine Roundtable
• We Are What We Google, Forbes

SEM Industry

• Top 21 Signs You Need a Break From SEO (2008 version), Small Business SEM

SEO & SEM

• How To Craft Kick-Ass Title Tags, SEO Book
• Webmaster Tools made easier in French, Italian, German and Spanish, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Google Webmaster Tools Generating False HTTP Errors, Search Engine Roundtable
• Handle Your Site Footer Wisely, Search Engine Journal
• How to Hire a SEO Firm - According to Google, Online Marketing Blog
• Landing Page Optimization — Insource or Outsource? Part 2, Search Engine Watch
• Only Bad SEOs Work In-house?, Cornwall SEO
• Updating Google’s Historical Data Patent, Part 2 - Changing Content, SEO By The Sea

Social Media

• Twitter is Growing Like Crazy: Up 422% in 12 Months, Mashable

Video, Music & Image Search

• Find Pictures on other Photo Sharing and Blogging Sites via Google Images, Digital Inspiration
• Understanding the Potential of Online Video Advertising, Ad Age

Web Analytics

• FeedBurner Allows Access Again To feedproxy.google.com Via Robots.txt File, Search Engine Roundtable

Other Items

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

• Search engine rankings are NOT useless
• To NoFollow or To NoIndex - That is the Question
• Interview with Aaron Wall on Mobile Search
• 41 Internet Marketing Tactics - Take the Poll
• Top 21 Signs You Need a Break From SEO (2008 version)
• 9 Ways Search Engines Can Personalize Your Search Results
• The SEO Rapper Interview - Chuck Lewis
• Digg Traffic Worst Compared to 3 Other Social Sites
• Social Networks More Popular Than Dating & Porn
• How Social Media Can Help Your PR Efforts
• How Does the Algorithm View Your Website?
• Information Architecture Is Crucial To Good SEO
• Dave Snyder’s View of Internet Marketing Through Goodfellas Quotes