SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 29, 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:

• Will Your Inhouse Social Program Win Awards?

  Recently I decided to delve deeper into social media than I ever have. Trying to wrap my head around the actual value behind social, in its many forms, I began actively posting on Twitter – like a madman. My goal was simple: get more followers. No clue what I’d do with them, but getting them […]
• How To Use Google Instant As A Powerful Link Building X-Ray

  Google instant caused a near freak out within the SEO world, but oddly there has not been a peep about Google instant and link building. Have a look at the below Google search results as of 9/28/2010. […]

• 58% Of Americans Research Products Online: Pew Study

  U.S. adults are going online more frequently to search for information about products and services. According to a new report from the Pew Research Center, 58% of Americans conduct such research online “at least occasionally.” That’s up from 49% who said the same thing in 2004.
  When applied strictly to the Internet-using population in the U.S., […]

• IAC Boss Barry Diller Disses Ask, Says It Has “No Value”

  Like a father disowning his own child IAC’s Barry Diller seems to have all but written off the search engine he paid almost two billion dollars for a few short years ago. According to TechCrunch, Diller told a conference audience (partial paraphrase) that today Ask had “no value.” I don’t think Ask.com is going to gain […]

• Bug Alert: Some Can’t Get Past First Page Of Google Search Results

  This morning I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable that there were several reports from searchers that they can’t go beyond page one of the Google search results. For example, if you searched for [shoe], you would get ten results and if you wanted the 11th result, normally you would click on the […]

• 5 Ways To Get Free Conversion Rate Advice

  We all love free right? From free beer to free downloads, there’s something about free that makes my mouse-finger click happy and likely yours too. So I’m going to discuss some ways you can get some free conversion rate optimization advice for your site. […]

• WATCH: Google Street View Changes Pepsi Truck Into Coke

  Gizmodo reports if you view the Google Street Views of 3800 ontario est,montreal and then move forward one step on the street view image, the Pepsi truck turns into a Coke truck. […]

• Twitter To Launch Promoted Accounts

  If you’re looking to grow your Twitter following, it might help to have your name and avatar show up when Twitter shows logged in users “Who to follow” on Twitter.com. And sometime soon, you’ll be able to pay for that exposure. It’s the latest offering in Twitter’s ongoing efforts to help users find new accounts […]

• Google Introduces “Hyper-Local” Search Ads For Mobile

  Adding to its growing portfolio of mobile search ads exploiting location, Google is introducing a “hyper-local” ad capability that shows users the precise distance to the advertiser’s business or location — right now. The ad units are denoted by a blue pushpin and feature click-to-call and an expandable map. This new announcement comes on the […]

• Coming Tomorrow: The Flintstones Google Logo, Yabba-Dabba Do!

  Today/Tomorrow is the 50th anniversary of the popular animated TV show, The Flintstones. To celebrate, Google’s running a special logo in the shows honor. Those in the US will begin seeing it tomorrow. But where it’s September 30 elsewhere in the world, such as Google Australia, you can see the logo now. The Flintstones first […]

• Microsoft’s CEO, Ballmer: Google Is “Copying” Us

  The Seattle Times Newspaper published an interview with Microsoft’s CEO, Steve Ballmer. The interview covered many topics but I wanted to highlight the search specific topics. Ballmer in the interview said, “They’re [Google] starting to look at the stuff we’re doing and copying it back. What is it? Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.” […]

• Google Translate Conversation Mode

  The Google Operating System blog posted a demonstration by Google of a new Google Translate feature. The feature will be available on Android phones in the next few months and it is named Google Translate Conversations. The video demo below shows how one person is talking English to another person, who responds in German. […]

• What Do Pamela Anderson, New Pornographers, & Women Rapping Have In Common? Google Blacklist Knows

  Pamela Anderson is a well-known actress. The New Pornographers are an indie rock band. Women rapping are … well, presumably just females making music. All three are also part of a growing list of known “naughty” phrases that trip up Google Instant. Danny Sullivan has already written about this topic here on Search Engine Land (see […]

• Google Refreshes Its SEO Starter Guide

  Back in November 2008, Google published a 22-page PDF guide to SEO. The company has just updated that to provide some new features and content. You can download the new 32-page PDF guide over here. In particular, Google added a glossary of definitions and terms, additional example images to support the content in the […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Turn off Gmail’s conversation view, Official Gmail Blog

Business Issues

• For Google and Apple, an Easing of Tensions?, Wall Street Journal
• McClure to Google: Buy Twitter, New York Times
• Microsoft’s Yusuf Mehdi Pooh-poohs Google Instant, PC World
• The GOP vs. Google and Microsoft in a Leaked Memo on Privacy Law Reform, Forbes

Other Items

• Shweeb Pedal Pod Gets $1 Million From Google Competition, Gas 2.0

Paid Search & Contextual

• Discover v201008: ExperimentService, AdWords API Blog
• What does the future of display advertising look like?, Official Google Blog
• Feature Comparison Series: Search Distribution Controls in Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft Advertising adCenter, adCenter Blog
• YSM/adCenter Feature Comparison, www.yadvertisingblog.com

Searching

• Advanced Delicious Search Operators, @modernjourno

SEM Industry

• Everything Has Changed Except For Our Way Of Thinking, hyder.me

SEO & SEM

• 8 Signs of an SEO Snake Oil Salesman, www.yadvertisingblog.com
• A Short Synopsis of Advanced SEO in Late 2010, Search Engine Watch
• BingBot Arrives: Microsoft’s New Crawler, Search Engine Roundtable
• Does Google see automatically generated content as a bad thing?, YouTube
• How is Google Indexing More Search Results?, outspokenmedia.com
• Should Google Stop Showing Enhanced Snippets?, Search Engine Roundtable
• So You Call Yourself an Analyst? Part 2: Analysis Redefined, SEOmoz
• Working With Bizrate for Trusted Seller Reviews and Ratings, Google Merchant Blog

Social Media

• The Short Lifespan of a Tweet: Retweets Only Happen Within the First Hour, Read/Write Web
• Tweets in your media, media in your Tweets, Twitter Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• Exclusive: Facebook and Skype Readying Deep Integration Partnership, AllThingsD

Web Analytics

• Back To Basics: The Power of Exclusion (Part 2), Google Analytics Blog

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

• The Short Lifespan of A Tweet – Some really good charts & info here about tweeting.  From the page: After analyzing over 1.2 billion tweets, the Sysomos team found that only 29% of tweets actually produce a reaction – that is, a reply or a retweet.
• How is Google Indexing More Search Results? – Nice in depth look at Google's display of more single-domain results in the SERPs from Rhea Drysdale at Outspoken Media – and the factors that may contribute to how and what type of results are shown.
• White Hats: You Can't Win, So Go Black Hat – While I think Search Engine Watch knew this was link-baitish in running it, writer Gary-Adam Shannon seems pretty serious that it's all over for white hats and black hat is the way to go. OK, what do you all think. Is he right?
• Advanced Delicious.com Search Operators – This is a really great list/explanation of how to get the most out of delicious.com's search engine. I think you'll want to bookmark it for future reference.
• Social Networking Users are Creating Less Content – A new study from Forrester Research has found a decline in the number of content creators across social networking sites, even while general use and participation on these sites has risen. The group of users classified as "Creators" – those who record videos, post blog entries, write reviews and post comments to articles online – are less active this year than they were in 2009, with shrinking percentages of users in the majority of markets studied. In the U.S., for example ,the Creators category dropped from 24% to 23%.
• Why and How to Hide a WordPress Blog's Affiliate Links from Search Engines – Google will always say they won't penalize you for affiliate links per se, but for thin content around it. I can make this into a long story, but let's make it short: there's very good reasons for me and several other highly respected SEO's and affiliates around the world to think otherwise. Let me show you how to hide them.
• A scalable approach to track mentions at Twitter – This article titled "BBC – Research and Development: What makes Zeitgeist tick" describes how the BBC tracks mentions at Twitter. It's a pretty technical in-depth description of a scalable system architecture, that could be used for way more analytics than just counting links to pages on BBC servers.
• Link-Dealer: My Interview With Jay Young – One of the most vocal advocates of "paid links" from the beginning offers his perspective on the state of link acquisition today.
• So You Call Yourself an Analyst? Part 2: Analysis Redefined – Joanna Lord offers some advanced Google Analytics tips and she focuses not just on the tools but the perception needed to see statistical anomalies and act upon them.
• Ad Sense, The Book From 1901 – Barry found a book named "Ad sense: devoted to the interests of buyers of advertising". The book was published in 1901 and it was digitized by the New York Public Library in January of this year.
• Advertiser Confusion Led to Shutdown of Facebook Conversion Tracking Tool – When FB closed a private beta of a conversion tracking tool earlier this month that would have allowed advertisers to see whether users actually visited their website or made purchases later on, it raised questions about the effectiveness of FB's ads.
• Link Brokers Can Rule the Internet – Food for thoughts: How can SEO Agencies scale? Seemingly, the act is impossible – you have one of two plights that mean your eventual downfall when broaching a certain point of growth. Until the SEO agencies overtake link broking.
• How To Trigger Geotargeted Ads in the Google Ad Preview Tool When Using a Custom Shape – Google’s Ad Preview Tool has a hard time understanding when to show your ads when you utilize custom shapes (when you use the default state and city options in the Ad Preview Tool). Subsequently, search marketers (or clients) might think that their ads simply aren’t showing. But they actually are…