SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 27, 2007

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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 Introduces New Live Search Index, Adds Features In Effort To Close ‘Relevancy Gap’ And Improve User Experience
  Compete and Nielsen show Microsoft gaining search share over the summer, while comScore and Hitwise show the company losing share. Regardless of these numbers, however, Microsoft is confident that the search engine it’s reintroducing tonight in conjunction with its Searchification event will be a substantial improvement of the current version…
• Live Blogging: Microsoft Searchification Day 2007
  I’m sitting at the Microsoft conference center for Searchification Day. We’re within walking distance from the Googleplex, where I was for Google Searchology Day just a few short months ago. Searchology was all about Google’s unveiling of universal search, and interestingly, today could be seen as Live’s answer to that….
• Google Birthday Logo: Nine Years Old
  The Google home page is sporting the special logo above, celebrating the company’s ninth birthday, with one of the Gs turned into a nine. But wait? Didn’t Google just turn 10? Google Is 10 Years Old? Finding The Real Google Birthday that I posted earlier this month covers how…
• Listen To The Google-DoubleClick Hearings Live
  If you have curiosity, a vested interest or just have a lot of time on your hands, you can listen live to the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee hearings today considering the implications of the intended acquisition of DoubleClick by Google (courtesy of Gary Price, who has instructions on a couple…
• Should a Small Business Blog?
  More and more small businesses are starting blogs on the Web, and it’s a positive development, if done correctly. One of the benefits is the chance for business owners to hold a conversation with potential clients, and with people who may be interested the services, or goods that the…
• Marchex Relaunches OpenList As Broad Local Search Destination
  Marchex has been making lots of moves in local lately. It recently acquired VoiceStar to add PPCall and call tracking functionality to its advertising capabilities. It launched 100,000 local content sites featuring search and browse functionality, making an otherwise static domain portfolio into a much more compelling local and vertical…
• Yahoo Podcasts To Close; The Sorry State Of Podcast Search
  Sigh. As someone who produces a podcast — and who has enjoyed searching for podcasts when going on roadtrips — I don’t get why podcast search isn’t more supported by the major search engines. Yahoo Podcasts, rolled out with promise back in October 2005, now sports a message at the…
• Avoiding Clueless-Is As Clueless-Does SEO
  Sometimes I think SEOs have lost the plot. Not all SEOs, mind you, but many, especially the newbies. It’s like they don’t understand the reason for doing the SEO things that they know they need to do. I think many walk around with a checklist of SEO-type duties and…
• Search People In Video From Reuters
  Greg recently mentioned that Reuters have launched a new video/people search engine powered by Viewdle, and I’ve been playing around with it. While it has some drawbacks (currently it’s only possible to search through 612 hours of footage held by Reuters), it has a lot of features that I like….
• Google Maps Causes US Navy To Change Its Swastika Building
  You have to feel a bit sorry for the US Navy. They have a building in California that looks like a swastika from the air. But who looks at buildings from the air? Until Google Maps popularized easy access to aerial views, only the occasional bored air traveler. But…
• Search Marketing Expo – SMX Coming to Stockholm & London – Register Now & Save
  Join the Search Engine Land editorial team and their guests for SMX Stockholm (Oct. 31-Nov. 1) or for SMX London (Nov. 15-16). Register today and you’ll save 20% off the on-site registration rate – but do it now because this offer ends soon! Driving traffic is critical to internet business…
• Google To Keynote At SMX Local & Mobile
  I’m delighted to announce that Michael T. Jones, Chief Technologist, Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google Local Search, will be delivering the keynote address on Monday at our inaugural SMX Local & Mobile Conference in Denver. Michael will be offering an inside look at Google’s various local and mapping…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

Business Issues

• Finding focus in Hollywood, Official Yahoo Blog
• Yahoo Leadership Meeting Tomorrow; Premium Music Services to be De-emphasized, TechCrunch
• Yahoo Changes: All Santa Monica VPs Summoned To Slicon Valley Tomorrow, paidContent.org
• Search Fulfillment: Yahoo! is best of breed, Compete Blog
• Facebook CEO visits Seattle. Microsoft schemes, CNN Money
• Google picks ex-IBMer to lead expansion in Europe, InfoWorld
• Deals: How a cop almost kiboshed the Google-YouTube deal, Valleywag
• YouTube and Checkout for the non-profit world, Official Google Blog

Conferences

• SMX Social Media Charity Party = Networking to the Next Level, 10e20
• Graphing Social Patterns Conference Discount, Chris Pirillo
• Searching for more search industry event names, News.com
• Speaking in Seattle: You’re Invited, Small Business SEM
• Pubcon Spring & Pubcon Lites Coming In 2008, www.pubcon.com

Link Building

• Do you use the nofollow tag?, ShoeMoney

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Superpages finds pay-per-call betters its local listings, DM News
• Google Calendar & Google Reader for the iPhone, Search Engine Journal
• Optimizing for Local Search, Jupiter Research
• Ten Easy Steps to Learn About a Place with Google Earth, Google Earth Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• MSN adCenter Bulk Management Upgrade, Dexterity Media
• Traffiq Opens Online Ad Exchange to All Buyers, Sellers, ClickZ
• The word farms of the web, The Guardian
• Google participates in Stanford AdFraud 2007 workshop, Inside AdWords

Searching

• New ways to dig into Book Search, Inside Google Book Search
• An Expansion of Importance Scores for Web Page Rankings?, SEO By The Sea
• Sub-optimal Google News Headline, Google Blogoscoped
• Google News Results In UK SERPs – Why Bother?, Tamar Search Blog
• The 34 funniest search queries so far, BlogStorm
• The Search For DMOZ, Open Directory Blog
• Microsoft Research Beyond Search Grants, Geeking with Greg
• Smplr Web Search, Lifehacker
• Searching For Music and Personalizing Those Results, ResourceShelf

SEM Industry

• The Relevance Delta: Madison Avenue and Google, Jonathan Mendez’s Blog
• Sphinnaanites Unite! Welcome to the Sphinn Revolution, SEO Brien
• Five Tips For Assessing The Value Of Natural Search, MediaPost
• Jason Calacanis: The Internet’s Environmental Crisis, Chris Pirillo
• Search Engine Land is One of Jakob Nielsen Favorite Blogs, Barry Schwartz

SEO & SEM

• 5 Differences Between Google.com & International Google Search Results, SEO Book
• Best Practices for Targeting Generic & Specific Terms & Phrases, SEOmoz
• Copyright Law: What Search Marketers Should Know, Search Engine Watch
• Yahoo Buzzlog: The Most Underrated Keyword Tool, Small Business SEM
• Can SEO E.R. Shock Paddles Rescue Dead-on-Arrival Websites?, Fathom SEO
• Drupal and Search Engine Optimization, Stone Temple
• Ask.com Not Liable for Search Results or Indexing Decisions–Murawski v. Pataki, Eric Goldman

Social Media

• A Photo is Worth a Thousand Words, LinkedIn Blog
• 7 reasons why I thumbed you down on Stumbleupon, Muhammad Saleem
• CSS Support for Feeds, Bloglines Blog
• How Digg Castrated My Friends, Wolf Howl
• Stumbling since July 2004, John Andrews
• Turn Gmail (or any E-mail Account) Into a Social Network Hub, Micro Persuasion

Web Analytics

• Quantcast Offers New Site Measurement Tools, ClickZ
• Google Analytics Fails for SEO Purposes, Search Engine Journal

Other Items

• Brazil Slaughters Sweden In Google Uptime Game, GigaOM
• Google Launches ‘The Google’ For Older Adults [Humor], The Onion

Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Andy Beard on the Front Page of a National Newspaper
• 25 Reasons You Get Thumbs Up
• SEOBook: Major Yahoo! Ranking Changes Today
• The 10-Minute Daily Guide to Building Your Social Media Profile
• Become a Power User of Sphinn in 5 Steps
• Shit happens, your redirects hit the fan!
• 12 Reasons Why People Want to Keep Your Business Card
• Google Webmaster Tools: A Comprehensive Guide
• 10 Outsourcing Tips That Actually Work
• Facebook Notification Feeds: Not So Private From Blog Search, After All
• Blogs: Making Your Pitch – What Not To Do from Search Marketing Gurus
• Where Digg Fails, Reddit Succeeds