SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 12, 2014

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’s Matt Cutts On Being A Spam Fighter: Looking For Patterns & Always New Spam Efforts
  Google’s head of search spam Matt Cutts posted a longer video today answering what it is like to fight webspam at Google. The questions posed by Brian Harnish of Westminster, California were: What is a day in the life of a search spam team member like? What is the evolution of decisions in terms of […]
• Calling All Young Scientists: Google Accepting Submissions For Annual Science Fair
  Google announced its annual Science Fair today, calling for project submissions from students worldwide, age 13 to 18. This year’s Google Science Fair grand prize winner will get a trip to Spaceport America in New Mexico to meet the Virgin Galactic team as they prepare for a space flight. Another big prize includes a 10-day […]
• How 3 B2B Companies Integrate SEO In Their Online Marketing Strategies
  Even though B2B marketing goals and objectives remain relatively consistent year to year, what’s changing are buyer expectations of marketing programs and communication. In late 2012, Simon McEvoy of Tangent Snowball wrote about the influence consumerism was having on the B2B buyer. After all, B2B buyers are people, too. The exposure of dynamic communication and marketing campaigns […]
• Microsoft: We Don’t Censor Search Outside China
  Bing censors search results in China in accordance with Chinese law. But does it do so in the US and elsewhere around the world for Chinese users? That disturbing proposition was raised yesterday in an article appearing in The Guardian. The article asserted that Bing search results for Chinese language speakers in the US were […]
• 5 Times Google Penalized Itself For Breaking Its Own SEO Rules
  Make no mistake. Plenty of sites — big brands included — willingly do things in an attempt to rank better on Google that go past SEO tactics that Google itself considers acceptable. However, there’s also no better poster child for how complicated and confusing Google’s rules can be than the fact that Google has had […]
• Yelp Supersizes Its Local Profiles, Makes Them Less Busy
  Yelp has redesigned parts of its web UI to make them more visual and to surface more information. In particular business profile pages have been changed to emphasize images, featured user reviews and key pieces of local content, all of which are now more prominent. The changes are not yet live for me, which is […]

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

• Facebook Cuts HasOffers & Kontagent Out Of Mobile Marketing Partner Program
• Survey: Only 6 Percent Of SMBs Have Mobile Sites, 45 Percent Don’t Have Any Site At All
• AddThis Launches Pro Version To Help Webmasters Boost Content Engagment
• Mozilla’s Firefox To Show Sponsored Content “Tiles” To New Users
• Email Is The New Email
• 10 Big Brands That Were Penalized By Google, From Rap Genius To The BBC
• Content Marketing: How To Measure Content Performance Holistically
• Report: Mobile Drove More Than $200 Billion In 2013 Retail Sales
• At The Summit: The SEO Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Search News From Around The Web:

Industry

• Yahoo’s Expanded Research Labs Seek Personal Touch in Web Giant’s Sprawling Products, MIT Technology Review
• Setting the Record Straight, Bing Search Blog

Local & Maps

• At Sochi Olympics, Crowdsourced OpenStreetMap Trounces Google Maps, Wired
• Continuing Local Efforts, Yahoo More Deeply Integrates OpenTable Reservations Into Search, Re/code
• Forget Cupid, all you need is Google Maps this Valentine’s Day, Google LatLong
• Google Local: Hummingbird Diarrhea Persists 6 Months On, Mike Blumenthal

Link Building

• 100 Tips On Link Building And Cleaning, koozai.com
• Content Marketing Vs Link Building – What To Focus On, Search Engine People
• Link Auditing: Removing A Penalty From an Old Domain, seogadget.com
• Link Building Done Right: The Link Builders’ Lullaby by Mike King, searchdecoder.com
• Where to Start Link Building, SEER Interactive

Searching

• Google Asking Searchers If The Longer Answers Are Useful Or Not, Search Engine Roundtable
• Bing on Valentine’s Day, Bing Search Blog
• Historical Stats for Basketball and Baseball, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• The ‘unGoogleable’ band name is dead, Econsultancy
• Voicebombing: Surprising Google voice search results, blog.arhg.net

SEO

• 5 Examples of How Recrawling Site Changes Can Nip SEO Problems in the Bud, Search Engine Watch
• An “SEO Expert” Describes How Google Crippled SEO Companies, Search Engine Roundtable
• Faceted navigation best (and 5 of the worst) practices, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• How-to Guide: 5 Ways to Use Google Webmaster Tools to Maximize Your SEO Campaign, Search Engine Journal
• Never Run Out of Content Creation Ideas with These 8 Research Tools, Vertical Measures
• What Marketers Have To Do To Mitigate The Impact Of Google Updates, Search Engine People
• Why Your Search Rankings Are Dropping (and 7 Ways to Fix It), quicksprout.com
• The Real Truth About Google and Guest Blogging, KISS Metrics

SEM / Paid Search

• Ad Copy: The Forgotten Ingredient of PPC Success, PPC Hero
• Branded vs. Non-Branded Keywords – Worth It To Budget for Both?, PPC Hero
• Five Reasons why you Might not Need a PPC Agency, PerformanceIN
• PPC for Small Business: Dealing with the Budget Cap Crisis, Clix Marketing PPC Blog

Search Marketing

• A Wakeup Call: Are You Prepared for the Day Your Rankings Vanish?, Moz
• We Love Google, We Love Google Not: 6 SEO-Inspired Valentine’s Day Quotes, Search Engine Watch