SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 25, 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 Instant Provides A Hint For Local & Mobile Optimization

  Undoubtedly, you may have seen Google’s Instant Preview interface which provides glimpses for webpages listed in SERPs. What you may not be aware of is that they’ve added sophisticated code to make it unique on mobile devices. These Instant Previews provide compelling evidence that mobile optimization continues to be important. Google rolled out Instant Previews in November 2010, […]
• Hot At Sphinn: Inspiring SEO Clients, Content Farmhand Confessions & More

  The “inspiring” in the headline isn’t about SEO clients that are inspirational; it’s about how to inspire SEO clients to take/continue action. That was the subject of the “Discussion of the Week” last on our sister site, Sphinn. It may have only generated a handful of comments, but there were plenty of quality ideas in […]

• Should Your Paid Search Account Care About Bounce Rates?

  Most companies measure paid search based upon revenue targets, ROI goals, and conversion rates. Metrics such as bounce rates are generally left for the web design team to figure out, or the paid search term to obsess about without any clear strategy. In this column, we will examine bounce rates and put them in the […]

• 3 Types Of Mobile Website Functions

  As the other Mobile Mondays columnists have established, since mobile devices have become more popular, mobile sites are becoming an option for many organisations. Maybe this is because the decision makers are sporting iPads and smartphones in the board room, but there are also significant business reasons to create a mobile version of your website. Since […]

• 5 New Tactics For SEO Post-Panda

  I hear this question, in various forms, quite often these days: “What’s up with Google now, post-Panda/Farmer/whaddayacallit? What am I supposed to be doing for SEO?” (Usually accompanied with a deep sigh, aggressive hand gestures, and/or grimacing.) It All Started With Caffeine “Caffeine lets us index web pages on an enormous scale.” – Carrie Grimes, […]

• Search Marketing Expo – SMX West 2012 Dates Announced

  Mark your calendars! Dates for sixth annual Search Marketing Expo – SMX West show have been announced. Returning to the San Jose Convention Center, conference sessions will run Tuesday, February 28 thru Thursday, March 1, and the SMX Expo Hall will be open February 28-29. The SMX West program will also feature several in-depth workshops […]

• Slashtag.it: This Is What Google, Bing & Yahoo Should’ve Done To Speed Up Search

  There are lots of different ways to speed up searching. Google, Bing and Yahoo all offer browser toolbars — no need to visit their home pages, just search wherever you are. Google and Yahoo both have their own versions of “instant search,” where search results appear as you type. Google’s Chrome web browser lets you […]

• Austria Ends Ban On Google Street View; Google Unmoved

  Austrian officials have lifted an almost year-long ban on Google Street View, but Google says it has no current plans to offer the service there, anyway. According to the Austrian Independent, Austria’s Data Protection Commission (DSK) announced on Thursday that it was ending the ban that started in May 2010; that’s when Google admitted that […]

• Apple, Google In Privacy Hot Water Over “Locationgate”

  Apple and Google are helping intensify an already intense digital privacy debate with last week’s revelations that both companies’ mobile software track your movements in detail without your affirmative consent. This morning the Wall Street Journal reported that the iPhone stores user location data even when location-services are entirely turned off: Apple Inc.’s iPhone is […]

• Priceline.com Founder Sues Google Over Offers Service

  Although Google Offers hasn’t formally launched yet, the service is already facing its first lawsuit. Walker Digital, a private R&D lab that created and launched Priceline.com in the late 1990s, is suing Google for allegedly violating four of the company’s patents. The lawsuit, which asks the court for a jury trial, seeks unspecified damages and […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Foursquare Seeks New Fund Raising, Wall Street Journal
• The Tweets of San Francisco, Twitter Blog
• Yahoo Scenarios Abound About Its Future, AllThingsD
• Google exec focuses on Egypt, MSNBC
• Apple, Google Privacy Meeting Sought By Illinois Attorney General Madigan, Bloomberg
• Google Not Serious About Online Gaming? This Job Offer Suggests Otherwise, TechCrunch
• Microsoft puts European comparison shopping business up for sale, source says, www.mergermarket.com
• Travel Channel Invests $7.5 Million in Oyster.com, New York Times

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Fifteen Years Behind Us…and an Open Road Ahead, MapQuest Blog
• Google Earth Builder: A potential solution to the map censorship conundrum in China, India, ogleearth.com
• Google Maps: The Yorks are Yucked Once Again, Mike Blumenthal
• Google, Already Dominant in Mobile Search, Isn’t Resting, New York Times

Paid Search & Contextual

• Got 2 minutes? Watch our new AdSense demo videos, Inside AdSense
• Heroview – Analyzing Ad Strategy With Tom Demers, PPC Hero
• What’s All This About Google’s Quality Score?, BruceClay.com

Searching

• Google Search Results Leading To Page Not Founds For Some, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM Industry

• Most SEOs Want SEO Standards, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Overstock.com Released From Google Penalty Box, www.prnewswire.com
• SEO Posers! 9 Stark Signals Your SEO Tool Is Futile, AIM Clear Blog
• Why Content Farms Are Here to Stay, SEO Book
• Will Google improve its crawling of AJAX?, YouTube

Social Media

• Facebook Climbs Toward 700 Million Users Worldwide, With Steady Growth in the US, Inside Facebook
• 2011 B2B Social Media Marketing – 5 Reports on Trends, Strategy, Online Marketing Blog
• 5 Ways to Repurpose Content for Social Media, smallbiztrends.com
• 7 NEW Tips for Running a Twitter Giveaway, SEOmoz
• Microsoft, Yahoo Vet Starts Clipboard: “Social Media With A Purpose”, TechCrunch
• Obama’s Facebook Town Hall Meeting, weblogs.hitwise.com
• Paid Social Media Self Promotion… The Right Way, www.blueglass.com
• Please Stop Saying Blogs *And* Social Media, thefuturebuzz.com
• Social Media Adoption and The Stages of Grief, www.brasstackthinking.com
• Social Media Fact and Fiction, www.singlegrain.com
• What’s the REAL business value of blog comments?, mackcollier.com
• Why Brands Can Ignore ROI in Online and Social Media for Now, socialmediatoday.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• An update on Google Video – Finding an easier way to migrate Google Video content to YouTube, YouTube Blog
• The Case for Rebranding YouTube, Ad Age

Web Analytics

• Our Guide To Google Analytics IQ Testing: C is for Cookie, PPC Hero

Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• You’re not a social media expert, you’re just another schmuck with a Twitter account. – There’s no denying that the web is full of snake oil salesmen, and with the explosion of social media, there is no shortage of charlatans looking to make a quick buck, this article helps you separate the wheat from the chaff.
• Enterprise Link Building SEO – A/B Testing for Link Building Outreach Emails – Excellent advice from Hugo Guzman on how to use A/B and multivariate testing in order to improve the effectiveness of your link building outreach emails.
• Why Content Farms Are Here to Stay – Patrick McKenzie argues that content farms won't be destroyed since they remain profitable even after the Panda update.
• Do you really need comments on your blog? – Amy Africa challenges one of the main pre-conceived notions about blogging: "I think blog comments are VERY overrated.  “Social media experts” act like they are the be-all-end-all but personally I think they are insignificant for many (not all, but the majority of) companies." Your thoughts?
• 89 Great Link Building Resources – Looking for some link building inspiration?  This post has 89 resources to inspire you!
• Google Testing Instant Previews On Ads (Here’s What It Looks Like) – Google is testing a new feature that marries its Instant Previews with AdWords. The test gives searchers a chance to see the ad’s landing page without clicking on the ad.