SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 2, 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:

• Bartz Says Yahoo Would Consider Buyout

  Speaking today on CNBC, Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said that Yahoo would “absolutely” consider a buyout offer from “any company at the right price.” According to paidContent, Bartz later qualified her comments to indicate that she’s not actively looking for a buyer, and that if she were in charge of Yahoo when Microsoft made its original […]

• Liveblog: Steve Ballmer Keynote At SMX West

  Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer makes his first address to the search marketing community today at SMX West in Santa Clara. Danny Sullivan will sit down with Ballmer for a “fireside chat” that will also include time for Q&A from members of the audience. Speaking of the audience, many of the big names in traditional media will […]

• Google Extends “Click To Call” Ads To All Advertisers

  Google introduced “Click to Call” in January as a component of its location extensions offering in mobile. Advertisers were permitted to include a phone number associated with a physical location, which would then show on high-end smartphones as an additional line of text. When the user clicked the phone number and initiated a call the advertiser […]

• Scoring Social Media Use In The 2010 Winter Olympics

  This year’s Winter Olympics has been heavily influenced by social media and this week’s column takes a look at some of the most memorable events that happened with help from fans (and sometimes athletes) collaborating together. […]

• Massive Passive Inbound Links

  Reading Eric’s column last week reminded me of a successful passive marketing campaign I did several years ago which used almost no traditional link building methods. The client, who sold concrete from a simple ecommerce site, was hesitant to try my “passive” approach, he wanted an old fashioned link building campaign and was willing to spend […]

• Marketing With Social Media? Try Some Local European Networks

  For online marketers, optimizing for social media has become not just interesting, but a must. All major search engines have embraced social media. And with Google incorporating Facebook content into its real time results the integration of social media and search is a fact. But social media is not just a “stand alone” feature. Many search […]

• Has Google Just Patented Geo-Targeting?

  Google has been awarded a patent entitled “Determining and/or using location information in an ad system” that has very broad implications for PC and mobile advertising. While we all take geo-targeting today for granted, back when this Google patent application was filed in April, 2004 it wasn’t as common. Dare I say it: Google may […]

• Topeka Changes Its Name To Google, Kansas (Temporarily)

  What would you do to get Google to build a super high-speed broadband network in your hometown? If you’re the city of Topeka, Kansas, you’d change your name. To Google, Kansas. According to the Topeka Capital-Journal (err … the Google Capital-Journal?), mayor Bill Bunten issued a proclamation today that renames the city to “Google, Kansas — […]

• Happy Birthday, Yahoo: 15 Years Old Today

  Although its web site launched in 1994, Yahoo is celebrating its 15th birthday today — that’s in honor of the company being incorporated on March 1, 1995. The story of Yahoo’s founding is well known: Stanford graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo created a directory of web sites originally called “Jerry and David’s Guide […]

• Google To Increase Abuse Alerts To Webmasters

  Saying that web site hacking and other forms of abuse is on the rise, Google has announced plans to step up the notifications it sends to webmasters when the company finds these problems. Beginning this month, Google will use the Message Center area in Google Webmaster Tools to notify site owners about […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Chrome only browser to make gains in February, ZDNet
• Share your opinion more easily on Yahoo!, www.yprofileblog.com
• A polyglot Google Chrome beta, with new privacy features, chrome.blogspot.com
• An advanced search experience now on Answers, Yahoo Answers Blog
• Coming Soon To Chrome: Extensions That Can Alter Your Browsing History, TechCrunch

Business Issues

• Google is a dangerous monopoly — more than Microsoft ever was, www.betanews.com
• Science, Art and Scale, www.yadvertisingblog.com
• Carol Bartz brings steely resolve to Yahoo, San Francisco Chronicle
• Google says no timetable to leave China; lawmakers tell firms to stand up to censors, Washington Post
• Google Testifies Before U.S. Senate On Ways To Fight Global Censorship, TechCrunch
• Google, transparency and our not-so-secret formula, googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com
• Senate hearing on global Internet freedom, Google Public Policy Blog

Link Building

• How to Use Media for Creative Link Building, Search Engine People

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Q A: Yahoo’s David Katz Clears Up Yahoo’s Mobile Position, MediaPost
• AT&T removes Google search from Android in favor of Yahoo, androidandme.com
• Microsoft’s Translating Phone, www.techflash.com
• Mobclix Acquires iPhone App Sales Analytics Software Heartbeat, TechCrunch
• TomTom’s iPhone app to get real-time traffic alerts and Google local search, www.mobilecrunch.com

Other Items

• Earthquake Activity in Chile, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• Google’s St Davids Day Logo Insults Welsh, Search Engine Roundtable
• Interview With Google’s Norvig, Google Blogoscoped

Paid Search & Contextual

• Go Mobile! Series: Enhanced click-to-call phone numbers, Inside AdWords
• Google Explaining Why Some Sites Do Not Qualify For AdWords, Search Engine Roundtable
• Mining Subtle Query Intent For PPC Conversion, AIM Clear Blog

Searching

• Google’s Special Oscars Result, Google Blogoscoped
• How to Check If Google China Still Self-Censors, Google Blogoscoped
• Searching for gold during the Games, Official Google Blog
• This Taxi Driver in Pakistan Wants You to Google Him!, Digital Inspiration

SEM Industry

• SMX West 2010, Steve Ballmer Edition, www.bing.com

SEO & SEM

• Anatomy of a Hands-on SEO Audit – Part 2, Search Engine Journal
• Don’t be Afraid of Spiders: In Fact You Should Lure Them In, www.verticalmeasures.com
• How to Work with & Shop for a SEO Services Firm, Search Engine Journal
• Negative Content – What to Do Versus What Not to Do to Bury It, www.searchinfluence.com
• Pagination: Best Practices for SEO & User Experience, SEOmoz
• SEO without the SEO, Search Engine Journal
• Why You Should Never Ever Use Pop-Ups on Your Site, dailyseotip.com

Social Media

• Roadmap: Make Your Corporate Websites Relevant by Integrating Facebook, Google, MySpace, LinkedIn, or Twitter, www.web-strategist.com
• The Best Small Business (SMB) Marketing Blogs, www.wordstream.com
• Customer & Influencer Research in Social Media, Online Marketing Blog
• Marketing Budgets Spiral Toward Social, www.emarketer.com
• ShareThis Introduces The Share Stream, TechCrunch
• Survey: Twitter Less than 1% of Traffic to Newspapers and Magazines; Facebook 1%, www.adamsherk.com
• Swimming Upstream: ‘Salmon,’ Google’s Open Source Social Web Aggregator, MediaPost
• Twitter To Bring Big Changes To Its Geo-API – Tag Your Tweets With A Location, Not Coordinates, thenextweb.com

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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.