December 2007: Search Engine Land’s Most Popular Stories

Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from December 2007: Below are Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular stories from December 2007: 1) Instructions On Tracking Santa With NORAD & Google: The 2007 Edition – I’m a serious Santa Claus tracker. When I was a kid, I used to get Santa updates from […]

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Below are
Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular
stories from December 2007:

Below are
Search Engine Land’s 10 most popular
stories from December 2007:

1) Instructions On
Tracking Santa With NORAD & Google: The 2007 Edition
– I’m a serious
Santa Claus tracker. When I was a kid, I used to get Santa updates from NORAD
(the US missile tracking people) via the radio. As an adult, I’ve long used the
NORAD Tracks Santa web site to keep up with St. Nick, Father Christmas, or
whatever your local name is for the jolly red suited man. This year, Google
officially partnered with NORAD, bringing the NORAD Santa tracking site some of
its most substantial changes in years. Some of the changes I like, and some make
me think I wish Google had stayed out of it. Here’s how to use the site, what’s
different, and what’s cool.

===================

2) Google
Knol – Google’s Play To Aggregate Knowledge Pages
– Move over Wikipedia,
Yahoo Answers, Mahalo, and Squidoo. Maybe. That’s because Google’s testing its
own service to let people build a repository of knowledge. In fact, knowledge
forms the core of the service’s name: Google Knol. Screenshot of Google Knol
page (feel free to use this and those below, just link to this story, please)
Google Knol is designed to allow anyone to create a page on any topic, which
others can comment on, rate, and contribute to if the primary author allows. The
service is in a private test beta.

===================

3) Keeping It
Private On Google Reader
– Almost two weeks ago, I wrote my Google
Reader Gets Social With Friends Shared Items post detailing how disturbing it
was that Google Reader was now sharing items with people it considered my
friends, on an opt-out basis. Privacy concerns over this finally exploded this
week, with Google Reader itself now reacting mainly to highlight how friend
sharing can be enabled or disabled. Lost in the outcry seems to be the point
that it’s always been the case that sharing any item would share it with the
ENTIRE WORLD, and that hasn’t changed. But the change was significant in making
more public a list of items that generally was hidden. Below, a revisit on
sharing for the privacy concerned.

===================

4) Tracking Santa:
NORAD & Google Team Up For Christmas
– Every year, I enjoy helping my
kids track the approach of Santa Claus through the NORAD site, as I’ve written
about before. This year, Google’s getting in on the action. You’ll be able to
track Santa in Google Earth on Christmas Eve with the help of a special file.
You can also download a countdown for your iGoogle home page that Google offers
here.

===================

5) Deconstructing
Google: Chapter 4, After The Google Breakup
– Previous chapters have
covered how the growth of Google and fears of how it was reshaping the
communication landscape led to the application of existing anti-trust laws along
with new ones to force a Google breakup in 2010. This chapter looks at the
immediate aftermath: the "Baby Googles" or "Googlets" that were formed in the
name of greater competition and consumer choice.

===================

6) Sub Domains To
Be Treated As Folders By Google
– Matt Cutts of Google said at PubCon
that Google will be treating sub domains similar to how they treat folders on a
site.

===================

7) Ask.com
Launches AskEraser Giving Searches Ability To Search Anonymously

Ask.com has launched AskEraser, giving searchers the ability to search
anonymously. Ask.com told us about this tool back in July, and six months later,
it’s now live for all searchers to use. When a searcher activates AskEraser, Ask
will stop recording the searcher’s search queries and cookie information. This
information includes IP address, User ID, Session ID, and the complete query
text. AskEraser is available across many of Ask.com’s properties, including Web
search, image search, AskCity, news search, blog search, video search, and Maps
& Directions.

===================

8) How Changes To
The Way Google Handles Subdomains Impact SEO
– At Pubcon last week, Matt
Cutts mentioned a change in the way Google handles subdomains. To better
understand this change and what this means for search marketers, let’s revisit
common site structure choices, how they’re handled by Google, and how that
impacts SEO.

===================

9) Searcharazzi
Saturday Spectacular: The Larry Page Wedding Details
– Now that the “who
attended which conference this week" gossip chatter is over, we have a bigger
question: Who is attending Larry Page’s wedding today? As previously reported,
Larry is getting married today, and Searcharazzi is reporting to you live from
an undisclosed location at the island location, if only in our minds. In any
case, Searcharazzi has spent the better half of the month gathering the details
of Larry’s and Lucy Southworth’s pending nuptials, to be hosted by Richard
Branson on Necker Island.

===================

10) Google Launches
New iPhone Interface
– I went to Google on my iPhone, and I saw a new
interface. I then did some searches and saw that TechCrunch has a piece on it
named Google Pre-Launches New iPhone Interface. Here are some pictures of the
new interface from my iPhone.

To see all of our most popular stories over time, visit our
Most
Popular Stories
page.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Danny Sullivan
Contributor
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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