SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 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:

• IAC Revises And Re-Ups Its Deal With Google

  IAC, the parent of Ask.com, the Daily Beast and Citysearch, today announced it has amended and extended its distribution agreement with Google through March 31, 2016. The deal, which involves the distribution of AdWords ads and other search-related services to IAC sites, was originally scheduled to expire at the end of 2012. Though IAC didn’t […]
• Google Rolls Out Its Panda Update Internationally And Begins Incorporating Searcher Blocking Data

  Late February, Google launched a substantial algorithm change (known as “Farmer” or “Panda”) aimed at identifying low-quality pages and sites. These are pages (often seen on so-called “content farms”) with text that is relevant for a query, but may not provide the best user experience. (Google calls it a “high quality sites algorithm.) Today, Google has […]

• Hot At Sphinn: SEO/SEM Standards & Certification, Black Hat Vs. White Hat & More

  The opinions were flying last week on our sister site, Sphinn, mostly in two discussions about a couple hot topics across the SEO/SEM industry: black hat vs. white hat labels and industry standards/certification. Sphinn member David Zimmerman kicked it off by starting a discussion about getting rid of the terms “black hat” and “white hat” […]

• In Challenge To Google Places, Microsoft Launches “Bing Business Portal” For SMBs

  This morning Microsoft is launching the “Bing Business Portal” (BBP). It replaces the the Bing Local Listing Center, and all listings already there have already been migrated over. The BBP allows local business owners or their agents or designated representatives to claim and enhance listings with additional content including deals. Business owners can also add […]

• PPC Tactics For Large Enterprises: Search Network Targeting

  At SMX West last month, I spoke at length about what it means to manage PPC programs at large companies. One of the topics I covered at some depth was using the various search engines’ targeting options to break keywords down into smaller bits of data to optimize them individually. This type of tactic can […]

• Less Than 175 Tickets Available For SMX Advanced Seattle – Register Today!

  You should register now if you plan on attending SMX Advanced Seattle. Here’s why: 1) Tickets for SMX Advanced are selling faster than ever. There are less than 175 left. When they’re gone…they’re gone. 2) The Early Bird rate for SMX Advanced Seattle ends Saturday, April 30th. You save $300 on your All Access ticket! […]

• 6 Reasons Why Local Data Will Rule In 2011

  Whether you are a mom and pop outfit, Main Street USA type of SMB, or you’re more on the medium end of the small to medium-sized business scale (100-1000 employees), or even if you’re a multi-national Fortune 500, there is local business information about you on the Web. As the use of mobile and social […]

• Google Images Now Showing Fresh Images Within Hours

  Google Images is now showing fresher images for search results that are trending and/or news related. For example, if you search for [schwartzel masters] in Google Images, you will find tons of images from the golf tournament yesterday. They are all fresh images, mostly pulled from news sources, mostly time stamped with phrases such as […]

• How To Navigate The Mobile Matrix Of Search, Social & SMS

  “I know why you’re here Neo… It will find you if you want it to.” -Trinity Last time I made the case that you’re not mobile-friendly unless you’re friendly to searchers too. I argued that since the marginal cost of achieving basic SEO is lowered by addressing alongside development of mobile friendly content, consumer brands […]

• Marchex Acquires 800-Free-411 Owner Jingle Networks

  Marchex announced this morning that it was buying Jingle Networks, operator of free directory assistance service 800-Free-411, for $62 million in cash and stock. Founded in 2004, Jingle Networks also has a pay-per-call mobile ad network. Jingle’s 800-Free-411 competed with GOOG-411, which was closed down last year, and Microsoft’s Bing-411, which is still operating. However […]

• 9 Tips For Using Product Listing Ads

  At SMX West last month, I participated in a panel discussion on Google’s new ad formats. Today, I want to share some findings, tips and tricks for getting the most out of Product Listing Ads. What Are Product Listing Ads? Google learned that folding images, videos, maps etc into organic search results — a.k.a. Universal […]

• Study: Year-Over-Year, Search Spend Rose 17% In Q1

  U.S. search spending was up 17% in the first quarter of 2011 as compared to the same period in 2010, according to analysis of client activity by search marketing agency Efficient Frontier. The agency attributes the growth primarily to a strong quarter in the retail and finance sectors. Click volume and impressions were up year-over-year, […]

• First Look: Hotel Price Ads In Google.com Search Results

  For more than a year, Google has been testing a program called Hotel Price Ads that shows ads for hotel searches inside of Google Maps. It looks like those ads are headed to Google’s main search results soon. A Search Engine Land reader has tipped us to three new types of hotel price ads, all […]

• Google Has Stopped Street View Photography In Germany

  In most locations, Google sends its Street View cars out on a repeated basis “to make sure the information is accurate and kept up to date,” as the Street View website explains. But that’s not happening in Germany. Despite the recent German court ruling that declared photography from streets legal in Germany, Google has stopped […]

• Google’s Travel Opponents Hoping Bigger Antitrust Case Will Soon Follow

  One area that the Justice Department’s Google-ITA settlement didn’t cover was so-called “search neutrality.” In a nutshell, this is the misguided notion that Google shouldn’t be permitted to send traffic to its own properties. In the extreme it argues that the government should regulate Google’s algorithm as well. While the term “search neutrality” carries a […]

• Google Hotpot Going Away, But In Name Only

  You won’t hear us (or Google) talking about Google Hotpot anymore. The company has announced that the Hotpot name is a thing of the past, and the ratings and review experience is being formally added into Google Places. While you can still access Hotpot right now at www.google.com/hotpot, that URL will eventually redirect to Google […]

• Google’s Executive Reorg: Does It Matter?

  As we and others reported yesterday, Google CEO Larry Page is shuffling the deck with his executive team, with a reassertion of engineering across the board it appears. Here’s the Google roster of top executives as it still reads on the site: Larry Page, CEO Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman Sergey Brin, Co-Founder Nikesh Arora, Senior […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google News founder Krishna Bharat: For news consumers, "the whole experience is what counts", Nieman Journalism Lab
• Improved printing in Spreadsheets, Google Docs Blog

Business Issues

• Larry Page’s first blunder, Computerworld
• Joining Google!, Peter Beverloo
• 5 reasons to hate Google, iMediaConnection.com
• Experian Hitwise reports Bing-powered share of searches reaches 30 percent in March 2011, Experian Hitwise
• Facebook has not signed China deal: source, Reuters
• Facebook Strikes China Deal With Baidu, Business Insider
• Google Buys PushLife For $25 Million: A Piece In Its Mobile Music Strategy?, paidContent.org
• Google Gives CFO Patrick Pichette Control of BizOps and HR, AllThingsD
• Google product doesn’t really have security credential, Justice Department says, Los Angeles Times
• Google’s Eric Schmidt to give MacTaggart lecture, BBC News
• Google’s misleading security claims to the government raise serious questions, TechNet Blogs
• Investing in the world’s largest solar power tower plant, Official Google Blog
• Life As Google’s CIO, InformationWeek
• Winklevoss twins must live with Facebook deal, Reuters

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Augmented-Reality App Layar Updated, AllThingsD
• Bing Announces New Business Portal Beta, Marketing Pilgrim

Link Building

Paid Search & Contextual

• 9 Tips for Managing PLAs, Rimm Kaufman
• Experiment with ads in v201101, AdWords API Blog
• How Changes to Ad Units Impact AdSense Earnings, Digital Inspiration

Searching

• Filtericious, The Open Source Search Engine by Filtericious, Kickstarter
• A trivia game where using Google is allowed, Official Google Blog

SEM Industry

• A photo of the pre-Plex, Xooglers
• Why doesn’t Google provide SEO certification?, Pedro Dias

SEO & SEM

• Mercury News interview: Matt Cutts, Google engineer, Mercury News
• White Hat SEO: It F@$#ing works, SEOmoz
• Do URL shorteners pass anchor text?, YouTube
• Google Responding To Reconsideration Requests With No Penalty Notifications, Search Engine Roundtable
• SEOmoz Feature Preview: The SERP Analysis Report (Please Share Your Feedback!), SEOmoz
• The 3 Biggest SEO Mistakes You Can Easily Avoid, Search Engine People

Social Media

• The prove that 1 Google Button is Stolen as well Copied concept., hybridcities.blogspot.com
• Google’s social strategy, cdixon.org
• When is the best time to tweet?, Christopher S. Penn

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

• 3 White Hat Ideas To Optimize Google Suggest Results – Novel ideas that, if implemented properly, could influence Google Suggest.
• 4 Powerful Strategies for Managing Your Online Reputation – The internet is filled with stories of companies and individuals whose reputations have been in ruins overnight. Honest businesses fall prey to manipulating competitors out to ruin them and steal market share in return. Many businesses have experienced, through no fault of their own, scheming competitors bad mouthing and spreading false rumors about them through social media. These days, the means to spread rumors about a business are many and as a result, it is imperative for businesses to proactively manage their online reputation.
• White Hat SEO: It Fishkin Works – SEOmoz's Rand Fishkin responds to Kris Roadruck's earlier blog post, "White Hat SEO is a Joke."  Naturally, Rand offers up a strong defense of white hat SEO.
• Steal These 5 High-Converting Website Tricks – Nice post with real web ecommerce conversion and usability examples.
• If Users Treat Local Search Results Differently, Why Wont Google? – An Enterprise-level Corporate SEO dissects the failings of Google Maps and offers suggestions on improvement.
• WordPress Plugins Security Flaw – A Blackhats Dream – WordPress is a used every day in this industry. This information is important to review if you are suggesting WP or building WP sites for clients. "…then I thought of scaling it. The result? Well using a simple flaw in WordPress Plugins, and some clever strategy, I could sit back and game 100,000’s of relevant links to my sites, and control them all from one place."
• Concerns About adCenter’s Editorial Review Process Are Legitimate – We understand that editorial review exists to ensure users receive high quality and relevant ads, however, the adCenter implementation is an overly cumbersome hurdle in the keyword/ad creation and modification process.