SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 24, 2007

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Microsoft May Buy $10 Billion Stake In Facebook
  Microsoft Is in Talks To Buy Facebook Stake from the Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft is in talks with Facebook to place a $10 billion stake in the company, giving Microsoft a 5% stake in Facebook. The Wall Street Journal said that Google “also expressed strong interest in a…
• Google Releases Conversion Optimizer To Aid AdWords CPA Bidding
  Google announced a new AdWords feature to help advertisers automate their bids on their CPA (cost-per-acquisition) ads. Conversion Optimizer is a tool that will look at your costs and conversion goals and automatically change your bid prices based on those metrics. All you need to do is define a maximum…
• Google Trends Now Updated Hourly
  The Google Blog announced today that Google Trends is now updated every hour. In the past, it was just updated monthly with the latest statistics on searches. If you want to track the latest hot trends by hour, you can subscribe to the hourly Hot Trends Atom Feed or add…
• Why I’m Excited About SMX Local & Mobile
  Next week we kick off our inaugural SMX Local & Mobile conference in Denver, and it promises to be a killer show. I’ve programmed dozens of search conferences over the years, and yet this one, which I co-organized with the able and expert help of Greg Sterling, is special. To…
• Google Trends: Yellow Pages Will Be Toast In Four Years
  Local marketing industry savants have long been predicting the demise of print Yellow Pages books, going the way of the buggy whip due to overwhelming competition from Internet alternatives. Further, the aggressive invasion of search engines into the local space during the past few years has inspired some analysts…
• Attention Shopping Sites! Generic Content Means Generic Links
  I had the pleasure of participating on a Link Building Clinic at the Shop.org conference in Las Vegas last week. This conference attracts a different crowd than the SEO/SEM related shows in that practically every attendee at a Shop.org show is running a web site that sells something. Now,…
• Blyk And MySpace: Will Ad-Subsized Mobile Services Fly?
  There is a belief, held by many, that there is a bright future for ad-supported or subsidized mobile services. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has also floated this idea. Now, the long-delayed Blyk in the U.K is live and MySpace in the U.S. has announced an ad-supported model (and a richer…
• Google Asks Judge To Deny Boarding To American Airlines Lawsuit
  Google seeks dismissal of American Airlines suit from Dallas Business Journal reports that Google has filed a motion to dismiss the American Airlines vs. Google trademark case. In that case, American Airlines sued Google for allowing advertisers to bid on their trademark names. Gary Price located the motion to dismiss…
• Google Endings Commission Payments In Europe, Middle East & Africa
  Back in September 2005, Google announced an end to commission payments to agencies in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, replaced by "Best Practice Funding." That was to me simply still paying commissions, only under a different name and a more standardized pan-European rate. Now even Best Practice Funding is…
• Google To Pressure Facebook To “Free” Social Data & Planning Google Earth World?
  Two things from the weekend suggest Google may be getting more serious about the social networking threat posed by Facebook. TechCrunch had news that Google is going to open up its social data information, while Google Operating System spotted a post that Google may have plans for a new social…
• The Open Directory’s Home Page Goes Missing In Google
  The Open Directory’s home page appears to have gone missing from Google’s search results. For example, a search on dmoz (the Open Directory’s nickname) does not return the home page in the search results. Here is a screen capture: Similarly, searches for open directory or open directory project also don’t…
• Google Files For Approval Of DoubleClick Acquisition In Europe
  Just as U.S. Congressional hearings on the intended acquisition of DoubleClick are about to begin, a parallel process is potentiality starting in Europe. Reuters reports that Google filed on Friday with the European Commission for approval of its intended $3.1 billion deal….

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• XSS in Google Search Appliance, Googlified
• Yahoo Pipes Developer Joins Google – Googlified, Googlified
• Google Spreadsheets Is Already Driving Me Bonkers, ResearchBuzz
• Google Web Accelerator: Please identify yourself, eKstreme.com
• New version of Gmail being tested, Googling Google
• Updates from Google Docs and Google Calendar, Official Gmail Blog

Business Issues

• Microsoft Executive To Testify At Google-DoubleClick Hearing, Smart Money
• Yahoo! for Yahoo?, Reflections of a Newsosaur
• Google forced to push image in China – vnunet.com, Vnunet.com
• No Slowdown: New Domains Name Registrations from Microsoft, ResourceShelf

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google 411 Taxi Ad, Googlified
• Google Denies Interest in U.K. Spectrum, eWeek
• Saving Search Results in Google Maps, Google Operating System
• Everything You Need to Know About FRO (Fake Review Optimization), Tropical SEO
• Street View and Privacy, Google LatLong

Link Building

• Do you link in or link out?, Muhammad Saleem

Paid Search & Contextual

• Clicks That Count – Forbes.com, Forbes
• Will Yahoo Deliver Something New With Its Ad Quality Filtering?, MediaPost
• ROI: why it matters and how to track it — part 2 of 3, Inside AdWords
• Utah Rewrites Search Law, but Trademark Registry Remains Utah Rewrites Search Law, But Trademark Registry Remains, ClickZ

Searching

• Beta Update Of Hakia, Hakia Blog
• Google being used to bypass anti-spam defenses, InfoWorld
• Google Book Search Results in Google.com Organic Results?, Search Engine Roundtable
• MySpace News Is Stealing Your Search Results, TechCrunch
• Google Suggests "Israel is a Terrorist State"?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Taking on Google: Is Semantic Technology the Answer?, Red Herring
• Upcoming workshop on European search technologies, Pandia
• Attendi Wants to Search Inside Your Head, TechCrunch
• FeedHub Launches – Individualized RSS Feeds, Read/Write Web

SEM Industry

• Are Search Engine Marketing Bloggers Held to a Higher Standard?, blog.cre8asite.net
• What Obligation Does An SEO Blogger Have?, The SEO Scoop
• SEO Roundtable Briefing – September 2007, E-Consultancy
• Sullivan:Why You Better Learn the PR Side of Search Engines, Ad Age

SEO & SEM

• Finally Dumping the PR in the Google Toolbar?, Scott Hendison
• IP Addresses, SEO and Your Site, McAnerin Muse
• Fresh Link Building Tips: New Search Filters = Easy Link Research, SEO Book
• The 301 Sword For Link Power, Vanessa Fox
• Why Google Hand Editing Seems Random, SEO Book
• Top 10 Bad SEO Ideas, Stone Temple
• Microsoft on Javascript Redirection Spam, SEO By The Sea
• Compete Search Analytics Now Live on Compete.com, biz.yahoo.com
• Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool has Returned, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Meaning of Search, the Universe, and Everything, ClickZ

Social Media

• How to Encourage Clients to Engage In Social Media, BruceClay.com
• Return of the King: Yahoo – Jerry Yang, www.fastcompany.com
• Your Private Facebook Info Isn’t So Private, BruceClay.com
• The 10 rules of Twitter (and how I break every one), Robert Scoble
• Is FeedHub the answer to information overload?, scobleizer.com
• New York attorney general subpoenaed Facebook over user safety, Reuters
• Pownce vs Digg: Who Will Kevin Rose Back?, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• Deleted YouTube Videos found in Universal Search, Andrew R H Girdwood
• TV Remote Moves Over for a Mouse, New York Times
• Thief posts his own picture to wrong Flickr account, Digg

Other Items

• ABC News: ‘Enough Money to Buy Google’: Arab States on a Buying Spree, ABC News
• If You Type Google into Google [You Can Break The Internet], Googlified
• Yahoo’s Democratic Debate Mashup Draws 1 Million Viewers Over 10 Days, Search Engine Journal
• Interview of Usability guru Jakob Nielsen, Stone Temple

Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Getting Bitch Slapped by The Guru – OUCH! That’s Gotta Hurt
• Bloggers! Write In Passion Or Die
• Making Money with Social Networking
• Advanced Link-Building Strategies through Viral Marketing
• Happy 42nd Birthday Danny Sullivan!
• 20 Sphinns To Go Hot = 4 Day Old Content On Home Page
• What Do Bloggers Secretly Fantasize About Late at Night?
• The Digg Police: Over 750 posts about the New Digg got Buried
• The Greater The Truth The Greater The Libel. Oops!
• Google Slaps Tim Nash | Paid Link Penalty?
• What Obligation Does An SEO Blogger Have?
• Going from Personal Company to Corporate Employee
• SEO & Public Relations : Optimizing the News Room
• The complete list of dosh plugins
• Lightbulb! Stumbleupon Algorithm Unearthed?
• If I see one more Sphinn post about BlogRush I think I’ll puke
• Three Hidden Treasures of Social Media – Thank You, Please and Congratulations
• The Enduring Power of Good Manners
• 5 Ways to Get a Blogger to Notice You
• Google Plans to Open Social Data November 5th
• Claim Your StumbleUpon Blog through Technorati
• SEO Can Be Automated!
• The Day “The Lisa” [Barone] Broke Up With Bloglines
• SES Interviews: Todd Malicoat on SEM Training, Linking and Industry Image
• The Power of Andy Beard & StumbleUpon
• SEO 101: Blogs, SEO and Link Building