SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 10, 2010

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• Q&A: Google’s Sengupta On The Chrome OS Cr-48 Laptop

  Yesterday, after writing my review of the Google Chrome OS Cr-48 notebook, I had a chance to catch up with Google product management director Caesar Sengupta about the machine. Below, answers to question like dealing with external monitors to whether Google really believes this can replace current computers. Yes, it does. If you use the […]
• Search In Pictures: Google Whale Fail, Logos & Yahoo At Twitter

  In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. I am proud to bring this column back after having it on a hiatus for a […]

• The Google AdWords Ad Marketplace Is Not Rational, But You Should Be

  I recently had a conversation with a client where we were looking at an ad campaign in Google AdWords that was, for lack of a better word, struggling. Covering The PPC Basics We’d done all of the basic blocking and tackling: Focusing on phrases that had a higher probability of buying intent (somewhere in between […]

• Confirmed: Google Image Search Updating Index Faster

  Google has confirmed that they are now updating the Google Image Search index of images at a more rapid rate. Earlier this week, I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that webmasters noticing this at WebmasterWorld. Webmasters were saying that Google Image Search was including their new images within a “few days” as opposed to […]

• Google Lets You Dumb Down Your Search Results With “Reading Level” Filter

  Google has added a new advanced search filter named “reading level” to the advanced search page. I reported this at the Search Engine Roundtable after spotting a thread at the Google Web Search Help forum where a Google Web Search product manager somewhat announced this feature. The feature lets you filter or annotate the search […]

• Google Seeing Red Star Fade In China: Alibaba Passes It For Ad Share

  Google’s ambivalence about China seems to be taking its toll on the company’s market share and revenues. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that part-Yahoo-owned online marketplace Alibaba now occupies the number two position in the country in terms of advertising revenue share: In a breakdown of Chinese online advertising market share, Beijing research firm […]

• Decoding Searcher Intent: Is “MS” Microsoft Or Multiple Sclerosis?

  Consumers conduct about 90 million multiple sclerosis related searches each month. They spell out the words, but also use the acronym MS 508K times a month. MS is an ambiguous acronym, and has many meanings depending upon who is using it in a query. Currently there are over 200 definitions for MS in the marketplace, […]

• Yahoo Restaurant Quick Apps: A Dash Of Pandora, A Hint Of Google Squared

  Yahoo has rolled out a restaurant Quick App, part of a larger program of making more structured content and transactional capabilities available in SERPs. Examples of Quick Apps are reflected in the screenshot below: Netflix, OpenTable and Sketch-a-search. These “apps” allow users to do a number of things from within the search results. For example, […]

• Survey: Local Reviews Gaining In Importance

  UK based SEO firm BrightLocal recently conducted an online survey of just over 2,000 consumers in the US and UK to determine local search usage patterns and attitudes. There are no real surprises in the data but it validates other surveys about local search. Among other findings it reinforces the importance of reviews for online […]

• Google Markets HotPot In Portland & Breaks Its Own Rules On Local Reviews

  Google is launching a new campaign in Portland, Oregon, today that’s designed to promote HotPot, the company’s recently announced service that invites users to review local businesses and then feeds those reviews into Google Places. The marketing is clever and the benefits for local businesses seem obvious, but there’s a problem: Google is breaking its […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Now available with Google Apps: Google Custom Search, googlesmb.blogspot.com
• Tags return to the Bookmarklet, blog.delicious.com

Business Issues

• Dear Google, Now that Groupon is Out of the Picture Will You Please Get Serious About Local Ads?, Forbes
• Google Has 300 Telephone Reps in Mtn View, Greg Sterling
• Connecticut Seeks Wi-Fi Data From Google, Wall Street Journal
• Mozilla’s new CEO explains his love-hate relationship with Google, VentureBeat

Link Building

• Google’s Penalties For Link Schemes Aren’t Always So Obvious, Search Engine Roundtable

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Canonical Tag on Mobile Site?, www.brysonmeunier.com
• Google Places Isn’t Testing New Layouts … Get Used to Variety, Small Business SEM
• Guest post: Top 10 local UK business directories compared & rated, Mike Blumenthal

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google DoubleClick Caught Serving Malicious Ad, Wired

Searching

• Google eBookstore Selling Some Elsevier STM Titles, ResourceShelf
• Google Rolls Out Foreign Language Search Features Globally, Multilingual Search
• How to Target Hyper-Engaged Shoppers, www.yadvertisingblog.com
• Should You Google at Dinner?, New York Times
• The Secrets Behind Blekko’s Search Technology, Read/Write Web

SEM Industry

• Video: December Google SEO Update, Link Penalties, Sitelinks, AdWords & More, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Google Sitemaps Bug With Indexed URLs Reporting 0, Search Engine Roundtable
• Improving Content "Share-ability" – Whiteboard Friday, SEOmoz
• Rankings are dead… but don’t worry, SEO is alive and well., Search Engine People

Social Media

• 10 Common Business Blogging Questions Answered, blog.hubspot.com
• Creating & Using Your Free Social Media Command Center, outspokenmedia.com
• How To Spot A Great Social Media Marketing Program, thefuturebuzz.com
• World Map Of Social Networks Shows Facebook’s Ever-Increasing Dominance, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• Annotations Updates – Now It’s Easier to Get Interactive, YouTube Blog

Web Analytics

• The FTC Privacy Report – A Web Analytics Perspective, wam.typepad.com

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

• Google Let’s You Dumb Down Your Search Results With “Reading Level” Filter – The feature lets you filter or annotate the search results by reading level. The reading levels include basic, intermediate and advanced. For a searcher, this will allow them to find more tailored content for their research level. For example, if you are in an introductory course on biology, you may want to select basic or intermediate results for your specific query. But if you are a professor in biology, you may want to select advanced results.
  For a webmaster, it might be fun to see how advanced or basic your site is.
• Top Trend of 2010: Privacy on the Web – From Facebook to WikiLeaks, Google Street View to an app called I Can Stalk U, 2010 has been a tumultuous year in online data privacy. Let's look back at some of the major privacy stories of the year.
• Google's Penalties For Link Schemes Aren't Always So Obvious – Barry reports an official statement on Google's webmaster forum: Even when Google does take action, it might not be that they completely drop the site form the index. However, Google did say the action they do take is "pretty strong" in order to "preserve the quality of our [Google] results."
• More consumers let their smartphones do the shopping – Nearly 60% of people anticipate mobile sites will run as smoothly as or better than sites they visit on their computers, the Gomez study showed. Meeting the challenge has been difficult. Consumers ranked the performance of mobile sites of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend's 15 largest retailers as "tolerable," compared with the retail websites overall.
• A PPC Marketer’s Code Of Conduct – Great post by Josh Dreller – If you're not already following these ' unwritten rules ' , you're setting yourself up for disaster.