SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 3, 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:

• How To Use Google Analytics Motion Charts To Maximize Results
  

  Last year Google Analytics released a few new features, among them the Motion Charts. The feature is based on software developed by Gapminder, acquired by Google in 2007. According to the Google Analytics blog, “Motion Charts provide a multi-dimensional, over-time analysis of the data in your report.” This feature provides a powerful way to [...]

• Giving Credit To Keywords Where Credit Is Due Follow-Up
  

  In an earlier post on Search Engine Land called Giving Credit to Keywords Where Credit is due, I mentioned we’d be following up on this topic with some future analysis. The analysis we’ve done is in the form of a case study, below. Most companies have difficulty justifying the purchase of general top-of-the-funnel keywords such as [...]

• Google Offers News “Magazine” Of Sorts With “Spotlight”
  

  If Google News is analogous to the print daily newspapers then the new “spotlight” feature is more like a weekly news magazine. Spotlight is an outgrowth of a test of “interesting reads” that a select group of users were exposed to. Here’s what Google says about Spotlight’s function and role: The Spotlight section of Google News [...]

• Yahoo Search Update : September 2009
  

  The Yahoo Search blog just announced a “weather report” confirming earlier reports of a Yahoo update taking place. Yahoo said they are “rolling out a web index update over the next few days. During this process, you may see some ranking changes and page shuffling in the index.” So be on the look out for any major [...]

• Varian Shares AdWords Secrets – Will He Bring Transparency To Google?
  

  I’m a big fan of Google’s Chief Economist, Hal Varian. When Dr. Varian speaks we gain authoritative and important new information about how the Google AdWords auction really works. Information that we had no way of gaining on our own but that significantly improves our ability to manage our accounts and campaigns. I also like him [...]

• Bing Tests Sharing Search Results With Twitter, Facebook, Email & Other
  

  The Bing Search blog announced a new test they are running which allows you to share your search results with your friends via Twitter, Facebook, email or other methods. The only way to see this test is to become a fan of the Bing Facebook page and then, if you are lucky, Bing might [...]

• Google Product Search Adds Search Suggestions
  

  Google Product Search is the next Google search property to get its own flavor of search suggestions. Although there is no official post from Google on this feature, yet, we assume it uses a flavor of the search suggestion technology and adds Google’s product search query data. Here is an example of a [...]

• CrowdEye Twitter Search Upgrades With Google-Like Features
  

  CrowdEye, one of the new Twitter-based real-time search engines that has launched this year, has just upgraded its service with several new features that will remind you of … Google? It’s true. The service now includes a PageRank-like measurement system, a customizable home page (sorta like iGoogle), and the ability to perform site: searches like [...]

• How To Choose Content Management Systems For SEO
  

  Nowadays, a great many websites are powered by a content management system (CMS) along with a back-end database. And for good reason. It’s too unwieldy to code HTML on a page-by-page basis, as you expand your content offerings to the thousands or tens of thousands of pages (and beyond). Content managements systems to the rescue! [...]

• Google Cash Scams Targeted By “White Knight” SEOs
  

  A group of search engine optimizers have their sights set on Google Cash. No, they’re not trying to make money off that keyword or the product it represents; they’re trying to influence the natural search results to tell the public that it’s a scam. Google Cash — also known as Google Treasure Chest and Google Money [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Milestones: Wikimedia Commons Breaks 5,000,000 Files, ResourceShelf
• New in Calendar: Sports schedules and contacts’ birthdays, Official Gmail Blog
• Google Wave, Bruceclay.com.au
• New Features in Forms, Official Google Docs Blog

Business Issues

• FeedBurner Is Google’s Biggest Screw-Up To Date, Business Insider
• Yahoo chief accounting officer leaving company, MarketWatch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Get "Special Price" to Appear in Google Maps, now!, Search Cowboys
• Google Earth Pro and Google Maps API Premier increase imagery coverage, Official Google Enterprise Blog
• Google Maps Business Reviews Gone Missing?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Why Yelp Is Awesome For Small Businesses, outspokenmedia.com

Link Building

• Recent Changes to NOFOLLOW on External Links, Digg the Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google AdSense Testing New Colors For Scrolling Ad Arrows?, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Advanced Image Search on the Web, New York Times
• NetBase Thinks You Can Get Rid Of Jews With Alcohol And Salt, TechCrunch
• Computers Decipher Ancient Texts for a Google-Like Database, Wired
• How is DMOZ Data Used?, DMOZ Blog
• The Onion Beats Investigative Journalism On Google News, TechCrunch

SEM Industry

• Your New Community Site Is Here, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• Apax and banks move to split Incisive Media, FT.com

SEO & SEM

• New Policies for Marketplaces & Aggregators on Google Product Search, Google Base Blog
• What You (Probably) Don’t Know About Redirects, McAnerin
• 7 Ways to Customize Your Google Search Results Page, Search Engine Journal
• Bing’s More Info Box "WARNING 2: session_destroy" Error, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Crawls Robots.txt Files Daily, Search Engine Roundtable
• The 3 Secret Steps for Creating Viral Content That the Expert Copywriters Won’t Tell You, Search Engine People
• What Do SEOs Know?, SEO Book
• What should I watch out for if I redirect mobile visitors?, YouTube

Social Media

• Administration wants help archiving its Facebook, Twitter content, Federal Computer Week
• Three Screen Report: Media Consumption and Multi-tasking Continue to Increase Across TV, Internet, and Mobile, Nielsen Wire
• USocial Will Sell You Twitter Followers, Facebook Friends, Ad Age
• Facebook Mobile: Now Connecting 65 Million People, Facebook
• Social Media Webinar, Vertical Measures
• The Big List of Social Aggregators, Search Engine People

Web Analytics

• Track SEO rankings and Sitelinks with Google Analytics II, yoast.com
• Focusing on the Customer with Analytics 2.0, BruceClay.com