SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 11, 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:

• Google Chromebooks Out June 15, $349 For Consumers, $20-$28 Monthly For Educators/Business

  At long last, the Google Chrome OS operating system is going prime time against Windows and Mac computers. On June 15, consumers can by them for a flat rate. Those in education and business have intriguing monthly payment options. Google shared details at its Googe I/O conference today, as well as in a blog post […]

• Google Threatens To Pull Street View From Switzerland; Will Launch In Poland

  Google has appealed a recent Swiss court decision that requires the company to guarantee 100% anonymity of faces and license plates in its Street View imagery, and says it may cut the service altogether in Switzerland if the ruling isn’t changed. According to the Wall Street Journal, Google attorney Peter Fleischer told reporters, “We simply […]

• Bing Hits 14 Percent, Google And Yahoo Flat: comScore

  The comScore data for April were released by the financial analysts earlier today. Here’s the quick take on the newest search market-share figures: Google: 65.4 percent in April vs. 65.7 percent in March Yahoo: 15.9 percent vs. 15.7 percent in March Bing: 14.1 percent, up from 13.9 percent in March BingHoo: 30 percent, up slightly vs […]

• Better B2B SEO Through Jargon

  In many ways, business-to-business SEO can be trickier than consumer facing SEO. When you’re marketing to consumers, you’ll often be better-informed than they are after an hour or two of research. And in many cases, all you need is content that survives a cursory glance, not an in-depth reading. And as anyone who has written […]

• Google I/O 2011 Chrome Keynote: Chromebooks Come June 15, Angry Birds For Web & More

  It’s day two of the Google I/O developers conference. Call it “Chrome Day,” because yesterday was all about Android. What to expect? How about a Chrome computer for $20 per month? That’s what’s likely to be revealed during the keynote. Techmeme is buzzing with the headlines of details that have leaked out so far. The […]

• Google Overhauls AdWords Traffic Estimates

  Google has announced an update to the algorithm that powers traffic estimates in AdWords’ Traffic Estimator, Keyword Tool and on the Keywords tab. The intention is that advertisers will have access to better numbers on estimated clicks, cost and ad position. Traffic estimates help advertisers get a sense of whether potential keywords are appropriate for […]

• Who Made The Google Martha Graham Logo?

  Today on the Google home page is a special animated Google logo for the 117th birthday of the late Martha Graham. Martha Graham changed the art of dancing during her era and Google wanted to pay tribute to her 21 years after she passed. The logo is animated so here is a static picture of […]

• DOJ Investigating Google Ads; $500 Million Set Aside For Potential Settlement

  In a regulatory filing this afternoon, Google disclosed that it was taking a $500 million charge in the first quarter, apparently to potentially settle charges related to a Department of Justice investigation of the company. Google didn’t elaborate, saying only that the probe was “into the use of Google advertising by certain advertisers.” The Wall […]

• SearchWeek: May 9, 2011

  Search Week is an exclusive weekly newsletter for Search Engine Land premium members that recaps stories covered on Search Engine Land over the past week. Below are top stories organized by topic that happened over the past week. Each topic (or Search Engine Land column) is also a link, where you can click through and […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Developer Roadmap Update: Moving to OAuth 2.0 HTTPS, Facebook Developers
• 5 Great Ways to Get More from Google News RSS Feeds, Search Engine Journal
• Coming This Summer: Fully Offline Gmail, Google Calendar, And Google Docs, TechCrunch
• Delicious Firefox 4.0 Extension (Beta) is Ready!, blog.delicious.com
• Google and Ford Team Up to Make Your Next Car Smarter, newsgrange.com
• Google Lobbies Nevada To Allow Self-Driving Cars, New York Times
• Page Speed Online has a shiny new API, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

Business Issues

• comScore Releases April 2011 U.S. Search Engine Rankings, comScore
• Getting to Know a Few New Yahoos, ycorpblog.com
• Sergey Brin On New Role: Beyond Chauffeur, Nothing To Show Yet — Hopefully Next Year, TechCrunch
• Yahoo Discloses Alipay Stake Restructuring, Wall Street Journal

Link Building

• Competitor Analysis for Linkbuilding: A Guide for People who Hate Linkbuilding, SEOmoz
• 83 New Link Building Resources: the “Link Cops and Pandejos” Edition, citationlabs.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Groupon Now is live! Offers local deals at any time, wherever you are., thenextweb.com
• Google Asking For Feedback On Google My Maps, Search Engine Roundtable
• How Groupon Royally Screws European Businesses, gawker.com
• New ways to discover great apps on Android Market, Official Google Mobile Blog
• The sad state of foursquare on the iPad, aboutfoursquare.com

Paid Search & Contextual

• Getting ‘mobile-ready’ part 3: Experimenting with landing page design, googlemobileads.blogspot.com
• How Google’s 1 Affects PPC, Karl Ribas
• PPC Campaigns versus Ad Text Ranking vs CTR, Search Engine Journal

Searching

• 1st Interactive 3D Human Body Search Engine Debuts, Read/Write Web
• Taste Graph: Influential Brands = Great Recommendations, blog.hunch.com

SEO & SEM

• 4 Easy Image Optimization Tips for Google’s New Sort by Subject Option, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Create Content More Interactive Than a Game Show, www.blueglass.com
• Google bug for blocked URLs, SEO Home
• Google’s Paraphrase-Based Indexing, Part 1, SEO By The Sea
• Introducing the Google Webmaster Team, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Pay Per Click (PPC) for SMB Part 1 – Paid and Organic Search, adCenter Blog

Social Media

• Facebook Security Flaw Allowed Access Path to Accounts, Wall Street Journal
• EdgeRank: How Facebook Determines What Appears in the News Feed, www.getelastic.com
• Feature Launch: Photo tagging for Pages, www.facebook.com
• How to Build a Free Social Media Monitoring Dashboard, www.socialmediaexaminer.com
• Marketing Mobile Travel Services: Social Media, www.yadvertisingblog.com
• One Social Media Tactic Your Business Must Embrace, AIM Clear Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• Google Wins the War Against Bing Images, PC World
• TwitPic signs controversial deal with celebrity photo agency, www.bjp-online.com

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

• Discussion: Do you support the "outing" of SEO companies that violate search engine guidelines? – There's been a lot of attention in recent months on (mostly) large companies that violate search engine guidelines (mostly Google's), and it's getting mainstream media attention now, too. But "outing" has been going on for years via industry blogs and articles, forums, etc. In our new "Discussion of the Week," we want to know — do you support the outing of SEO companies/consultants that violate search engine guidelines? The floor is open for your comments!
• Getting big links from big media sites, the fundamentals – In this post, I detail some of the fundamental tactics and knowledge from Public Relations about how big news rooms work, so you can significantly increase your ability to get those strong links from news websites.
• Profit per Impression: A Better Metric for Ad Testing – An alternate way to split test in paid search described in depth.
• Google Explains Why They Trust the Mainstream Media (Aaron pwns Amit) – From the page: Google's Amit Singhal offered more "clarity" into Google's approach with the Panda update. However I am not convinced that any clarity was actually added, and I think a lot of the questions they ask are to a degree even a bit wrong-headed.