SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 19, 2011

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 Removes Author: Search From Google News

  You can no longer search for articles from specific authors in Google News. As Barry Schwartz reported this morning on Search Engine Roundtable, using the author: firstname lastname command at Google News brings up no results now, and Google has disabled it on purpose. If you think it has something to do with the rel=author […]
• Top 50 Citation Sources For UK & US Local Businesses

  Here is a little Christmas gift for all local Citation builders: a carefully curated list of the top 50 Citation Sources for businesses in the US & UK.* Over 1 Million Local Citation Sources Found Between March-May 2011, the research team at BrightLocal conducted a huge Citation Analysis project. Over 480,000 Google Places listings were […]

• If It Looks Like Google Sitelinks Have Expanded, It’s Just Your Imagination

  Despite what you may see in Google’s search results these days, the search engine tells us that, no, there’s been no expansion of Sitelinks recently. We’ve received emails here at Search Engine Land HQ and seen tweets asking about the appearance of Sitelinks on sub-pages that previously didn’t have them. We’ve also seen them show […]

• How Would You Create The Perfect Search Engine?

  At the most recent Search Insider Summit, Aaron Goldman moderated a terrific panel titled “The Perfect Search Engine” (video here). Panelists evaluated how the perfect search engine (“PSE”) might take information (voice, text, other signals), how it should display that information, and what factors should carry the most weight in ranking results. Overall, the discussion was […]

• 5 SEO Tips To Get Mobile Apps Ranked In SERPs

  Retail brands with popular mobile apps are benefiting tremendously this holiday season from prominent mobile app visibility in Google’s organic search results. Search for Groupon, eBay, Amazon, Target, QVC or numerous others. Alongside the brand website listing, local listings, and social profiles, searchers are starting to see links to these brands’ iPhone, iPad, and Android […]

• From The Experts: Enterprise-Level PPC Campaign Management

  Last month, I wrote about a conference session I moderated on Building and Training In-house SEO Teams. And while that get-together was a blast, I didn’t really get my geek on until I was presenting on a panel on Enterprise Level Bid Management. The title was a bit of a misnomer, as we covered topics well […]

• Are You A Search Geek? Test Your Mettle with this Contest – and Win Two Tickets to SMX West!

  Looking for some relief from the craziness of the holiday season? Why not test your search marketing intelligence, by taking the 4th Annual SMX Biggest Search Geek Contest sponsored by Marin Software. You could just win a trip for two to SMX West in San Jose, Feb. 28- March 1, plus an Apple iPad2! The […]

• Google Releases Ten Videos On Rich Snippets

  Google has released ten different videos for webmasters on how rich snippets work. Google’s rich snippets are special markups used by webmasters to enhance the Google search results. They often take a while to show up in the search results, and often lead to webmaster confusion on if there are issues with the markup used […]

• Google’s Let It Snow Easter Egg

  Google has a new easter egg for the winter holiday season – search for [let it snow] and Google will turn the search results page into a powdery snow covered set of search results. The search results will become so hard to see that you will instinctively want to wipe the screen clean with your […]

Recent Headlines From MarTech, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

• Quora Boards: Q&A Site Adds Curation Tool That Marketers Should Know About
• Google’s Top Mobile Takeaways From 2011
• New Google+ Updates Include Multiple Page Managers, Volume Control For Streams & Page Notifications
• The Future Of Display: What’s Ahead For 2012
• Will Your Company’s Online Community Fail?
• U.S. Judge: Lawsuit Against Facebook’s ‘Sponsored Stories’ Can Proceed
• Klout Launches New Guide To Explain What The Heck It Is

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Google registers ‘Value of the Web’, fusible.com
• British Telecom sues Google over six U.S. patents allegedly infringed by Android and various Google services, FOSS Patents

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google’s Android Update Alliance Is Already Dead, PC Magazine
• Schmidt Teases Possible Nexus Tablet in The Next 6 Months, thenextweb.com

Link Building

• Creating Win-Win Link Building Scenarios, Search Engine Watch
• A peek into how I do link building in a boring industry, SEER Interactive

Paid Search & Contextual

• Customize your AdSense personal contact information, Inside AdSense
• Google AdSense Testing Blue Arrows In Ads? iPad Only?, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Google’s Hanukkah Jewish Star Banner, Search Engine Roundtable
• How Bing Is Rethinking The Way We Search: Part 1 w/ Stefan Weitz, Stone Temple
• Santa Search it!, Google Inside Search

SEM Industry

• Aaron Wall and I Debate the Open Discussion of Webspam, SEOmoz
• Google Gives Employees Free Galaxy Nexus Phones for Xmas, thenextweb.com

SEO & SEM

• 10 Most Important SEO Patents, Part 5 – Phrase Based Indexing, SEO By The Sea
• Don’t Scale Back On SEO In 2012, Search Marketing Standard
• How Negative Emotion Could Hurt Your Rankings, SEOmoz
• New Google Webmaster Tools Message: "Detected New Page", Search Engine Roundtable
• SEO or PPC: 3 Marketing Goals to help you Make the Appropriate Choice, Search Marketing Sage
• SEO Tools for Best Performance in SEO Campaigns, Brisbane SEO Blog
• The Difference Between Content Management and Content Writing, Search Engine People
• What is the ideal keyword density of a page?, YouTube

Social Media

• Facebook updates its iPhone app; delivers Timeline, Friend Lists and more, thenextweb.com
• Facebook Lawsuit Against Ads ‘Liked’ by Friends Can Proceed, Judge Rules, Bloomberg
• Google+: A few big improvements before the New Year, Official Google Blog
• Saudi Prince Buys $300 Million Stake in Twitter, Wall Street Journal

Video, Music & Image Search

• Flickr: Year in Photos 2011, Yodel Anecdotal

Web Analytics

• Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools Make Helpful Insights, Search Engine People