SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 16, 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:

• The Power Of Facebook-Only Content And Contests

  Not only is it important to make sure your tabs are interactive, but you need to give users reasons to keep going back for more. Facebook-only content and contests help drive users back to your tabs time and time again. What’s even better, these techniques can also help drive new users to your Page. The […]
• Official: Google Sitelinks Expands To 12 Pack

  Over the past few weeks, Google has been testing really large expanded Sitelinks in the search results for some queries for the past few weeks. After much testing, Google finally posted official confirmation that these new large sitelinks are here to stay. Google Expands Sitelinks: Google said the Sitelinks will now be “full-size links with a […]

• How To Create Your Digital Footprint With Links

  At the SMX Advanced Conference in Seattle last June, Google announced it was supporting the HTML5 “rel” attribute in anchor tags for the “author” and “me” variables. To me, this was very interesting news. I have been in the business of content development for a long time (stretching back deep into the 1990s), and Google’s […]

• New: “Google Related” Toolbar Shows Google Content As You Surf

  Google has just released a new info discovery tool named Google Related that allows users to find and access content that’s similar to what they’re viewing in their web browser. Before the brief overview below, we need to point out that we’re writing this post without having had an opportunity to actually use Google Related. […]

• Identifying In-Site Duplicate Content Using Chained Search Operators

  Whether you are taking over a new multinational account as an agency, or maintaining your company’s global Web presence as an in-house SEO, being able to quickly identify internal duplicate content is a vital skill. Duplicate content is a big problem for SEO for a number of reasons. If you’ve been following this multinational series, […]

• Updated: Google Reinvents Its Catalog Search As iPad App

  Google has partnered with a variety of catalog merchants to launch its next-generation catalog search as an iPad application (with an Android version “coming soon”). The app launches with products from Anthropologie, L.L. Bean, Land’s End, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Pottery Barn, Sephora, Tea Collection, Urban Outfitters and Williams-Sonoma, among others. This isn’t Google’s first crack […]

• Google & Motorola Mobility: The What’s It All Mean Edition

  What a way to start the week. The company that once said it would never build its own mobile phones, Google, wants to buy mobile phone maker Motorola Mobility. The technosphere has gone into 5G coverage over the news. Here’s what I’ve been finding interesting and some thoughts. Patent Protection A big part of this […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Messages for Japan at Tanabata in Sendai, Official Google Blog

Business Issues

• Baidu Under Fire Over Ads, Wall Street Journal
• Google still trying to remove damning email from court case, Computerworld
• Google urged to tighten privacy after Street View WiFi scandal, Telegraph
• Motorola Deal Makes Hulu Even Harder For Google, allthingsd.com
• UK says Google needs further privacy improvements, Computerworld
• Why ICANN’s New Domain-Name System Could Benefit Brands, Ad Age

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google To Grab 29% of US Androids with Motorola Acquisition, Localytics
• Clarification re: Clarification re: closed listings on Google Places, Mike Blumenthal
• Google-Motorola Deal Means More Video Streaming to Android Devices?, reelseo.com
• Is Google Turning Into a Mobile Phone Company? No, It Says, New York Times

Link Building

• The 4 Types Of Inline Links (& How Not To Be A Douche With Them), Search Engine People

Searching

• New Google Movies OneBox, Google Operating System
• Guide to Google’s New Tablet Search, distilled.net

SEM Industry

• SEJ’s Future: Change Can Be Very Good, Search Engine Journal

SEO & SEM

• Upgrade Today: Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Version 8 is Now Available, adCenter API Blog for Developers
• How to Choose a CMS Provider for SEO, SEOptimise
• How to Get Search Volume Data Straight into Excel [Mozcon Debrief], SEOmoz
• Site Down Can Hurt Your Google Rankings, Search Engine Roundtable
• Underscores vs. dashes in URLs, YouTube

Social Media

• A Photo Upload API, Twitter Developers
• Digital Storytelling: 30+ Social Tools to Create Sharable, Memorable Stories, Social Media Today
• Google Plus May Be Mainstream, But Entertainers Haven’t Flocked To It, Read/Write Web
• LinkedIn Redesigns Android, iPhone Apps With Groups And More; Debuts HTML5 Mobile Site, TechCrunch
• Why Google+ is great news even if you don’t use it, Royal Pingdom
• Yahoo, Facebook test “six degrees of separation” idea, ZDNet

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

• PPC and SEO Work Better Together – Razorfish looked at the analytics from a year's worth of client data and determined that when someone asks if it's important to buy keywords if you already show up in Organic Search, even Position 1…that the answer, for the most part, is YES!
• The ultimate guide to the Facebook Edgerank algorithm – Great analysis of the Facebook Edgerank algorithm on how they decide what stories to feature on users walls.
• What Does Google Think Your Site Is About? – An interesting bit of speculation on how Google goes about categorizing site (via algorithms) and how that may impact SEO.
• Throw Away Your Form Letters (or Five Principles to Better Outreach Link Building) – Michael King writes  about successfully implementing a custom outreach link building campaign.
• What PPC Practitioners Should Know About Robots.txt Files – Brad Geddes details some of the technical aspects that search engine robot encounter that can affect a pay per click campaign's performance.
• A Guide To Geocoding Images For Local SEO – A virtual mother load of information pertaining to local search optimization via image coding. A long and technical read but well worth the time and effort.