SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 10, 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:

• European Commission Wants 7-Year Limit On Google’s Digitization

  At a hearing Monday in Brussels, the European Commission issued a report calling for a 7-year limit on exclusivity deals that Google and other companies are signing with libraries and other cultural institution to digitize their material. At the end of seven years, other groups would be able to use the digitized works for commercial […]

• Google Goggles Has Mad Sudoku Skillz

  Google Goggles will be the death of Sudoku. Really, what’s the point in staring intently over a grid of lines and numbers and trying to figure out which missing numbers belong in which empty boxes when you can just fire up Google Goggles and solve the whole puzzle in a matter of seconds? Like this: […]

• Survey: 77% Of Americans Oppose Search Engine Regulation

  Seventy-seven percent of American adults oppose government regulation of search engine results, and frequent Internet users oppose it most strongly. That’s according to Rasmussen Reports’ analysis of a new telephone survey conducted this week. The response is consistent with other results that show that 54% of voters oppose regulation of the internet by the US […]

• Hot At Sphinn: Google Search Quality Declining, Scaling Local Marketing & More

  Activity is picking back up after the holidays on our sister site, the Internet marketing hub Sphinn. Last week, as most of us settled back into a regular work week, the hot topics on Sphinn centered on whether Google’s search quality is declining and how to scale local marketing. In our “Discussion of the Week,” […]

• Why You’re Still Waiting For Hulu Plus On Google TV

  Nearly three months after Google TV hit the stores, Hulu Plus has yet to come to the service. Is the technical development really taking that much time? No. It seems more like Google and Hulu are still working out a partnership deal. Hulu Works For Samsung TVs Last week’s Consumer Electronics Show got me thinking […]

• 5 Tips To Get Your Local Business Online In 2011

  For large companies, websites have long been a staple of the marketing mix, but even today, many small businesses struggle to establish a web presence. Lack of resources or knowledge about web development can often keep a small business offline. But for small, local businesses, a website can serve as digital storefront, providing a platform […]

• My Search Marketing New Year’s Resolutions, 2011 Edition

  Looking through some old material the other night, I came across a column I wrote in 2009 about my Search Marketing New Year’s Resolutions. Not surprisingly, like many New Year’s resolutions, some of them didn’t get accomplished. But enough of the world has changed since I inked that column two years ago that I thought […]

• Google Maps’ John Hanke Becomes Head Of New “Entrepreneurial Lab”

  Last year at a conference in London I was told by someone that Google Maps’ John Hanke was changing roles and that Marissa Mayer had taken over Local. The latter was obviously proven out by very public announcements. An article in Forbes now confirms Hanke’s role as the head of a new Google “entrepreneurial lab” […]

• Google Partner Brings Big Data To Product Search

  Google has famously undertaken a high-profile initiative to show users where they can buy products offline in local stores. It has also launched a very non-traditional (for Google) shopping site, Boutiques.com. There have been additional improvements in the Google Product Search destination site, including more product-browse capabilities. Then there are product listing ads, which expanded […]

• The Big List: 168 Marketing Trends, Predictions & Resolutions For 2011

  You’ve had a week to put 2010 in the past and start unpacking 2011. If you’re the type to do so, you’ve probably already made your own marketing resolutions for the new year, or thought about the trends and predictions that might make a difference as the year goes along. You have? Good. So has […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Disney Considers Making Content Available on Yahoo TV Sets, Wall Street Journal

Business Issues

• AOL’s Goal: Grow Homepage Traffic…A LOT, Forbes
• Facebook, Google, Microsoft – comparable?, dondodge.typepad.com
• Google leases more space at Bakery Square, www.post-gazette.com
• Interview With Twitter CEO Dick Costolo, mediamemo.allthingsd.com
• Google to Announce Fourth Quarter 2010 Financial Results, Google
• Facebook Wins Relatively Few Friends in Japan, New York Times
• Groupon Bids on Traditional TV, Buys Super Bowl Pregame, Ad Age
• MySpace China CEO resigns, 2/3 of staff laid off., thenextweb.com
• Myspace Plans to Lay Off 550 to 600 Employees Tomorrow, AllThingsD
• Taking Klout to the Next Level, klout.com
• Twitter Tries to Hire Away Top Googler Sundar Pichai to Lead Product Team, networkeffect.allthingsd.com
• Groupon Raises, Like, A Billion Dollars, TechCrunch
• Monster Cable Issues Yet Another Bogus DMCA Notice To A Search Engine, TechDirt
• Yahoo Hires Rosen To Oversee Its Media Properties, paidContent.org

Link Building

• Link Exchange Request Emails, SEO Book
• Quit Obsessing On Anchor Text Already, Search Engine Watch
• The Five Best Link Building Blogs, www.searchenginepeople.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• 2010 mobile browser stats, www.quirksmode.org
• Examiner.com brings their insider tips to foursquare, aboutfoursquare.com
• Google Places Dashboard: How to Make % Complete = 100%, Mike Blumenthal
• Loci 2010 – Greg Sterling, Mike Blumenthal
• Google Local Search Ranking Keys: Relevance, Prominence & Distance, SEM Clubhouse
• Local Listing; National Google Maps Search Result, searchmarketingcommunications.com

Other Items

• Google Bangladesh Site “OwN3D by TiGER-M@TE”, TechCrunch
• Steve’s story- Googler 13, googler13.blogspot.com
• Google billionaire buys Kiwi’s superyacht, www.nzherald.co.nz
• Why Internet Services Aren’t Achieving Ma Bell’s Reliability, New York Times

Paid Search & Contextual

• 7 Simple Steps to Set Up Demographic Targeting in Microsoft Advertising adCenter, community.microsoftadvertising.com
• Facebook Lead Generation for Local Businesses, ppcblog.com
• PPC: You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, blog.traffick.com

Searching

• Drive To The Arctic Circle With Google Street View, jalopnik.com
• Why Google and Demand Media Are Headed For a Showdown, GigaOM
• Can Google Get Its Mojo Back?, TechCrunch
• Web Search: What do we know from a single search query?, jimjansen.blogspot.com
• Beating the Content Farms: Google Can Automate the Like Button, designpete.com
• Custom Search integrated into Go Daddy websites, Official Google Blog
• Google Real Time Results, Link Operator, explicitly.me
• The Search for a Clearer Voice, www.technologyreview.com
• Bing: The Decision Engine, Rimm Kaufman
• Google Product Search Ecommerce Play, SEO Book

SEM Industry

• And We’re Back!, SEO Book
• I’m Joining Google, ekstreme.com
• MP Interview: Mike Blumenthal, Local Internet Marketing Pro, Marketing Pilgrim
• SEMMY Awards Status Report, Small Business SEM
• Facebook Marketing Workshop Joins SMX West Conference Program, news.yahoo.com
• Sphinconn 2011 Jerusalem – Great Success!, www.hyperactivesam.com
• Google Hires More SEOs To Webmaster Trends Team, Search Engine Roundtable
• SphinnCon Israel 2011 Recap, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• 10 Tips to Improve Your Social Graph for Google, www.seoptimise.com
• 3 skills every SEO copywriter must have, www.seocopywriting.com
• The Growth of SEO Factors through the Years, Search Engine Journal
• The Problem With Being An SEO Consultant – It’s Always Your Fault, SEOmoz
• The Three R’s of Creating Great Content: Reduce, Release and Repurpose, www.blueglass.com
• Treat SEO Like an Investment, Online Marketing Blog

Social Media

• Facebook News Feed Settings: Random or Not, Biggest Secrets Revealed, www2.thedailybeast.com
• Twitter isn’t the new Cronkite – it needs the new Cronkite(s), thenextweb.com
• 5 Creative Facebook Places Marketing Campaigns, Mashable
• Facebook Competitions – 5 Things You Should Know Before You Start One, Search Engine Journal
• How Can I Spam Quora?, www.cornwallseo.com
• Social Media Analytics: 6 Steps to Measuring What You Care About, smallbiztrends.com
• The New Profile Is Here, blog.facebook.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• 6 Awesome Alternatives to YouTube, thenextweb.com
• Drag and Drop Uploading for YouTube Videos, Google Operating System

Web Analytics

• 11 Types of Analytics for 2011, www.getelastic.com
• I Wish I’d Known That. [Digital Analytics Edition.], Avinash Kaushik

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

• Second (and final) Call for Sphinn Editor Volunteers – As promised, we've put out another call as we look to add new volunteers to our Sphinn editorial staff. Please read the blog post for details on what the position entails and how to let us know you'd like to be considered. Thanks!
• Why You Cannot Reverse Engineer Google’s Algorithm – Michael Martinez does a thorough analysis of why attempting to determine ranking factors used in Google's algorithm is a futile exercise; but also discusses what we can learn from such surveys and data. From the article – "…the other missing piece of the puzzle: Analytics Latency. As the search engines figure out new ways to mix up their algorithms at more frequent paces, our analyses of those algorithms fall farther and farther behind. The scale of analysis calls for weeks or months (even if you can cull the results of 20,000 queries tonight) of planning, coding, and testing."
• The Problem With Being An SEO Consultant – It's Always Your Fault – An excellent post about SEO accountability that debunks the notion that it is someone else's fault when your work doesn't get implemented.
• How Human Factors May Affect Information Indexing And Retrieval – When we’re information seeking via the Internet, we are seeking knowledge. There’s an unspoken agreement between a search engine and a searcher that says, “I want the best information on my topic that you can find.” Search engine algorithms try their best to deliver exactly that, but we’ve all experienced pages of results that miss the boat.
• Survey Results: 46 Percent Say Free Shipping Increases Profits – Some interesting stats from Practical Ecommerce, and interesting quotes/comments in the story itself. It seems like a lot of online retails aren't sure there's any benefit to offering free shipping — while others swear by it as a tool to raise profits.
• How to write the most effective PPC Ad copy – A simple guide for business owners and internet marketers on how to write the most effective PPC Ad Copy for best results.
• Why the Numbers, Rankings and Followers Do Not Mean Squat! – Melissa Fach's great article on maintaining perspective about the numbers game in social media is a must-read wakeup call for those still chasing followers everywhere.

About The Author

Matt McGee

Matt McGee joined Third Door Media as a writer/reporter/editor in September 2008. He served as Editor-In-Chief from January 2013 until his departure in July 2017. He can be found on Twitter at @MattMcGee.