SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 5, 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:

• “When Do The Olympics Opening Ceremonies Start?” Whatever You Do, Don’t Ask Yahoo
  Who knew a simple question would be so hard to answer? Yesterday I searched across all three engines to find out more about the Olympic opening ceremonies and when they start. I quickly discovered that the official website of NBC, which is broadcasting the games in the U.S., had nothing about the ceremonies or when […]
• Telenav Thinks Scout Can Take On Google Maps
  Last week Telenav acquired Skobbler for roughly $24 million in cash and stock. Skobbler is based in Berlin, Germany and is to OpenStreetMap (OSM) what Red Hat is to Linux according to Ryan Peterson of Telenav. For those not aware, OSM is the Wikipedia of digital mapping. It relies on a global force of over 1.5 […]
• Bing Launches New Winter Olympics Search Features & Counter To Track Gold Medals
  With opening ceremonies just two days away, Bing is upping its search game for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Now when Bing users search on specific sports and athletes the search engine will include Olympic-related schedules and content in its search results. The site has also launched a “Winter Olympic Medal Tally” to […]
• Microsoft’s $15 Million Check-in: Will Redmond Buy Foursquare?
  Microsoft has invested $15 million in Foursquare and said it will license the former’s location data according to news released yesterday. Foursquare aspires to be “the location layer for the internet.” With real-time feedback about local data accuracy, based on user movements and check-ins, Foursquare is becoming a stronger and stronger source of local information. However […]
• SEMPO Search Survey: Nearly 70% Of Agencies Say Client SEO Budgets To Increase In 2014
  SEMPO and Econsultancy have released the ninth annual State of Search Survey results. According to the findings, there was a noticeable difference between how agency and company marketers answered SEO budget questions. While nearly 70 percent of agency respondents predicted client SEO budgets would increase this year, only 47 percent of respondents from within a […]
• 5 Tips To Kill The Competition In Local Search
  If your business has a local presence — anywhere — you must take advantage of Google+ Local. Creating and optimizing Google+ Local profiles is a critical marketing practice for local small businesses, multi-location enterprises, national franchises and companies with a single physical location. It will help you reach the 97% of consumers who search for local […]
• Google’s Latest Manual Action Penalty: Spammy Structured Markup
  Google recently began sending a new manual action spam notification to webmasters for “spammy structured markup” also known as rich snippet spam. This comes after Google dropped 15% of the rich snippets, setting the bar higher for what sites are able to display rich snippets in the search results. The new manual action message […]
• It’s Done: Google Settles Search Antitrust Case In Europe
  Roughly a year after Google settled an antitrust investigation with the US Federal Trade Commission, Bloomberg is reporting that Google and the European Commission have reached a final settlement that would end the regulator’s antitrust search investigation against the company. According to the report, “Google will escape fines or any finding by regulators that it […]
• Google Showing Large Video Embeds In Some Search Results
  Now, if you search Google for video related content, Google may return a large, playable, video directly at the top of the search results. For example, searching for [sing it loud come around] shows a large YouTube video that you can play directly in the search results. Searching for [neil young cinnamon girl] also shows […]

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

• Twitter Beats With $243 Million Revs, Mobile 75 Percent Of Ads
• Google’s AdWords Boss Susan Wojcicki Becomes YouTube CEO
• Amazon Revs Its Advertising Power: Launches Video Ads Powered By FreeWheel
• TV Ads Go Better With Hashtags? Twitter Says So
• Au Contraire, Ad Contrarian: In Defense Of Digital Advertising
• 20 Tools To Stop The Social Media Timesuck
• Smartphone Market: Apple, Samsung And The Benchwarmers

Search News From Around The Web:

Industry

• Google’s Schmidt gets second $100 million stock award, Reuters

Local & Maps

• Will Facebook Build a Stand-Alone Local Search App?, Screenwerk
• How to Create, Customize, and Embed a Google Map, Add3.com

Link Building

• Getting Link Removals Wrong, Moz
• Google+ Profile Links Now NoFollowed, Search Engine Roundtable
• Today launches a New Look and Feel Majestic website, Majestic SEO Blog
• Top 5 Backlink Analysis Tools And When To Use Them, Koozai

Searching

• The new, faster and simpler Yahoo Answers has gone Global, Yahoo Answers

SEO

• 5 Reasons Why SEO Is Far From Dead, Webpresence
• Social Media Gurus and the Foolhardy Trend to Bash SEO, Sword and the Script

SEM / Paid Search

• Bing Ads January Release Summary, advertise.bingads.microsoft.com

Search Marketing

• 4 Easy Ways Paid Tools Help with Google Analytics Not Provided, stateofdigital.com

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.