SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 9, 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:

• Google Says Domain Registrations Don’t Affect SEO, Or Do They?
  

  Over at Search Engine Roundtable today, Barry Schwartz writes about the latest comments from Google about domain registration and its impact on SEO/search rankings. In this case, it’s Google employee John Mueller suggesting in a Google Webmaster Help forum thread that Google doesn’t look at the length of a domain registration: A bunch of TLDs do [...]

• Yahoo Wins In Lawsuit Over Search Descriptions
  

  Eric Goldman updated us on a case where Yahoo was sued for showing spam and porn pages for a search on a person’s name. Beverly Stayart was upset that when you searched for her name on Yahoo, Yahoo returned some results that were not to her liking. So she sued Yahoo but the [...]

• Google’s 09/09/09 At 09:09:09 Doodle
  

  If you visit the Google home page after 09:09:09 today, on September 9, 2009 (09/09/09), you will see a special Google logo up for the event. The logo does not link anywhere, i.e. a search result, but it is currently live for me, ever about an hour and a half after it being 9:09 [...]

• Tackling In-house Search Marketing Challenges: The In-house SMX East Dream Agenda
  

  I thought writing the ultimate SMX East agenda for in-house search marketers would be easy. Not! The agenda is packed with sessions on any topic you need to know about, including two days specifically tailored to in-house challenges (October 7th & 8th). Follow my “dream agenda” below and you will leave SMX with the things you [...]

• Google AdWords Expands Opportunities Tab Beta
  

  The Google AdWords Blog announced they are expanding the limited opportunities tab beta to more advertisers in the US, UK and Australia. And in the next “few days,” Google will make this new tab available to all “English-language accounts.” If you see the new tab and are a bit confused about where the [...]

• 5 Tips To Achieve Alignment Between SEO Keyword Strategy & Content
  

  When optimizing a website for search, it is critical to target the right keywords as they play an important role in its overall success. Given that, it’s not surprising that when a page on a website has a subpar performance in search, many marketers jump to change its keywords. But doing so could be a [...]

• Under Pressure To Adopt A Bid Management Solution? Just Say No.
  

  In a large organization there is always pressure to automate certain functions. Can people spend less time on mundane tasks or remove them from human hands all together? Often, organizations take for granted that automation is always better in terms of accuracy and efficiency. There’s plenty of room for automation in search engine marketing, but [...]

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• 11th-Hour Filings Oppose Google’s Book Settlement, New York Times
• Yahoo’s Search Results Snippets Aren’t False Endorsement–Stayart v. Yahoo, Eric Goldman
• One More Googler Gone: DoubleClick AdExchange Boss Michael Rubenstein, AllThingsD

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Earth 5.1: Think fast, Google LatLong
• Google Voice Finally Marries SMS And Email, TechCrunch
• New Facebook iPhone App Brings New Privacy Bugs With It, TechCrunch

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdWords Downtime: September 12th, 10am-2pm PDT, AdWords API Blog
• Google AdWords VistaPrint Coupon Codes Invalid, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google new Adwords Campaign to small businesses via data obtained from the Local Business Center, Mike Blumenthal
• Site maintenance on Saturday, September 12, Inside AdSense

Searching

• College Is Hard. Wolfram|Alpha Makes It Easier., Wolfram|Alpha Blog

SEO & SEM

• PPC Hero Landing Page Critique Podcast – Business Plan Pro, PPC Hero
• 5 Tips on Passing the Google Adwords Qualified Professional Exam, PPC Hero
• A Developer’s Adventure Into the World of SEO, SEOmoz
• Bing Not Honoring Robots.txt Directives?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Does Googlebot use inference when crawling?, YouTube
• Evaluating search engines, Science for SEO
• Google Caffeine, Bruceclay.com.au
• Google Webmaster Tools Keywords Report Showing Blank Lines?, Search Engine Roundtable
• How To: Create/Edit Keyword Destination URLs, Search Marketing Sage
• Starting an SEO Company? Business Considerations for Your Firm, SEO Book
• Stop Spiders From Crawling Your Site on Shabbat, Including GoogleBot, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• Packaging the News as Tweets, Washington Post
• Twitter to Generate Revenue as Site Grows Like ‘Gangbusters’, Bloomberg
• What Is Social Media?, outspokenmedia.com