SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 11, 2009

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Furor Over Google CEO’s Comments On Privacy

  One of the big themes of the week is privacy. Facebook just did a major overhaul of its privacy settings to promote more public dissemination of user information and updates. There was an immediate outcry from some quarters as the site was a bit aggressive in setting users’ defaults to “everyone.”
  In addition, Yahoo got called out […]
• Google Adds Universal Results To Suggest & Quick Scroll In Chrome

  Google announced they added universal search results directly in Google Suggest and a “quick scroll” feature as a Chrome extension. Here is a picture of weather results, a form on Universal Search, directly in the Google Search box:[…]

• How To Target Your SEO Landing Page’s Demographic Profile

  Historically, in the SEM industry, one has mentioned landing pages in conjunction with Paid Advertising and other forms of controlled click traffic. SEO has always been a more nebulous and mysterious practice; and one page, optimized for a few keywords, could show for literally hundreds of different long-tail queries. The plan was to make this […]

• Pre-Xmas Sale On Wolfram iPhone App

  The previous $50 price tag was probably a serious miscalculation (pun intended) by the folks at Wolfram Alpha, when they launched their iPhone app. Pricing is an art, not a science. However, for a limited time only (the remainder of the year) they have decided to put it on sale for $19.99.

• Yahoo Readying For Bing Integration By “Identifying” Engineers Who Will Become Part Of Microsoft

  According to a report on Wednesday, Yahoo is in the process of identifying as many as 400 engineers who may be headed to Microsoft after US government regulators do their anti-trust review and clear the companies’ search deal. The formal agreement between the two companies closed at the end of last week. The 400 engineer transfer […]

• Can You Trust Google’s New Site Performance Reports? Google Says, Maybe Not.

  Over at the Search Engine Roundtable I reported that Google said they will be adding a “trustworthy” indicator to the new site performance report in Google Webmaster Tools. The reason behind adding this is because of the complaints and questions coming in from webmasters on the accuracy of such reports.

• Exposing CTRs Of The Major Engines: Bing Beats Google, But AOL King Of Clicks

  According to ad network Chitika, Bing users are demonstrating a willingness to click on ads more often than Google users. This is consistent with similar data the company released in July of this year that showed Bing outperforming Google with click-through rates (CTR). The data come from a sample of well over 100 million impressions […]

• Analyzing AdWords Positions In Google Analytics

  The Holy Grail for any self-respecting AdWords campaign manager must be confirmation that the ad positions they are targeting with their AdWords campaigns provide the best possible return on ad spend (RoAS). Having an answer (based on concrete data) when a client/boss/sales manager/curious business partner inevitably questions your carefully crafted position/bid strategy, is surely gold-dust […]

• Mozilla Folks Attack Google On Privacy; Will Bing Finally Be Admitted Into The Firefox Club?

  Wow. Asa Dotzler, community coordinator for Firefox marketing projects, is urging the world to add Bing to Firefox and dump Google, over comments Google CEO Eric Schmidt made about privacy. Does this mean Bing will finally be allowed into Firefox as a default choice for users?[…]

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Apple, Google Vie for Start-Ups, Wall Street Journal
• LeWeb: ‘Google to buy Twitter’ rumour re-surfaces, Telegraph
• Foodzie Lands The Man Who Invented Google Gadgets As Its VP Engineering, TechCrunch
• Kaufman ups Yahoo to buy from hold, MarketWatch

Link Building

• The Psychology Behind Link Giving, Search Engine Journal

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Augmented Reality Is Overhyped and Abused, Ad Age
• Mars in Google Earth imagery update, Google LatLong
• Google Maps and Reviews – A reader’s perspective, Mike Blumenthal
• Google needs your help to improve Google Voice transcriptions, www.androidcentral.com
• NZ Florist Facing 7 Years for Hijacking Local Listings of Competitors in GMaps, Mike Blumenthal
• Online Couponing To Climb Beyond Downturn, MediaPost

Other Items

• Chanukah 2009 Logos from Bing & SERoundtable, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google backs world’s fastest internet cable, The Guardian

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google AdWords My Client Center (MCC) Phishing, Search Engine Roundtable
• Job Applicants, Google AdSense Can’t Be Used As a Job Reference, Search Engine Roundtable
• Tips for more online conversions from AdWords during the festive season, Conversion Room

Searching

• Google Changes Korea Home Page, Wall Street Journal
• Wolfram|Alpha App: On Sale for the Holidays, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• Don’t Search Google for 123456, Search Engine Roundtable
• Is Google Moving In The Wrong Direction?, outspokenmedia.com
• Yahoo! Is Not Yet Down For The Count, Search Marketing Standard

SEM Industry

• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: December 11, 2009, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Make Your Results Look Better on Google.com, Google Merchant Blog
• Long Tail Terms for the Holiday Shopping Season, PPC Hero
• Search Engine Optimization Services: Top 5 Reasons, Online Marketing Blog
• Whiteboard Friday – Dealing with Duplicate Content, SEOmoz

Social Media

• Facebook Is Totally Down, TechCrunch
• How to sift through Twitter’s noise? MyTweetSense, FriendBinder give it a go, VentureBeat
• Either Mark Zuckerberg got a whole lot less private or Facebook’s CEO doesn’t understand the company’s new privacy settings, True/Slant
• Now, Facebook Lets Users Hide Friends From People Who Are Not Logged In, Inside Facebook