SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 3, 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:

• Direct Google’s Crawl To Your New and Updated Pages

  Today, Google launched a new way for site owners to request that specific web pages be crawled. How is this different from the other ways available to let Google know about your pages and when should you use this feature vs. the others? Read on for more. This new method for submitting URLs to Google […]
• Overcoming Common Obstacles To Bringing PPC In-House

  Before I begin, I do want to say I respect a lot of people who do outsource aspects of their business to other companies, and there are some great companies that will do a great job. I’m writing from my personal experience, and what has worked for my business. I am a big advocate of bringing […]

• Behind The Numbers Of Google+’s Monumental Rise To 25 Million Visitors

  This week comScore released findings on Google+’s monumental surge to 25 million unique global visitors. Launched just over a month ago, Google+ has become the fastest social networking service to reach 25 million unique visitors. This quick ascent outpaced MySpace, Twitter and Facebook: The comScore findings also separate the U.S. unique visitor stats from Global […]

• Google Promoting “Free” Nexus S On Homepage

  Hurry, supplies are limited. If you’ve been to Google.com today (from a US IP address) then you’ve already seen the Nexus S “free today only” offer. Users can obtain the phone from US retailer Best Buy and must sign up for a two-year contract. Three out of the four major US carriers offer the phone: […]

• Google Displaying Listing Numbers In Results Snippets

  @fabioricotta noticed Google testing a new search snippet that places the number of listings found on a page or set of results. Here is a picture, notice where it shows “listing 1 – 9 of 11296.” Google is frequently testing variations to the search description or snippet. They’ve tried showing recent stories, recent tweets, jump […]

• Unconventional Opportunities For Conversion Rate Optimization

  In my last article, I talked about three low hanging opportunities for conversion rate optimization. The easiest elements on your site to help increase conversion rate are headline, social proof and call-to-action buttons. There are, however, numerous other ignored opportunities that marketers seldom look at with an eye to increase overall sales and conversions. In […]

• 8 Steps To Overcome The Most Hated B2B Phrase Using Mirrored Campaigns

  This past Christmas, the phrase “doing more with less” achieved new meaning as I watched my nephew gleefully resuscitate his stubby, short crayons with Crayola’s Crayon Maker into fresh, new, color-packed crayons. Kids with crayons to employees with goals, the “doing more with less” saying has certainly achieved epidemic proportions. No department has able to […]

• Foursquare Launches ‘Self-Serve’ Pages For Businesses

  Business pages on Foursquare have been around for about a year and a half, but today the announcement was made that business pages are becoming self-serve. No longer will businesses have to work with the Foursquare team to create a presence, instead brands and companies will be able to create their own Foursquare page. Foursquare […]

• Ready Or Not, New Twitter Lands For All Users This Week

  Nearly a year after its launch, the “new” Twitter interface will roll out to all users this week — whether they want it or not. The company tweeted this afternoon with a warning to those who’re still using the old Twitter interface: If you’re currently using Old Twitter, we want to let you know that […]

• EU Antitrust Complaints Against Google Grow To Nine

  Anonymous complainants have thrown more fuel on the antitrust fire. Additional complaints have reportedly been filed against Google with European regulators. According to Reuters, the total number of complaints now comes to nine. Previously there were four formal complaints before the European Commission: Ciao (owned by Microsoft) Ejustice.fr (which has also filed a civil suit) […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google’s Background For Logo Not Pure White, Search Engine Roundtable
• Yahoo Mail suffers outage; users react, CNET News

Business Issues

• Seravia: 328 Googlers Facebook Should Poach, www.seravia.com
• Google Hires Federal Trade Commission Intellectual Property Expert Michel, Bloomberg

Local, Maps & Mobile

• CitySearch Testing New Business Profile Page, Small Business SEM
• Google Places Listing Not Showing In Search Results For Some?, Search Engine Roundtable

Link Building

• Let’s Skin This Social Media Link Building Cat, SageRock

Paid Search & Contextual

• View domain level performance data easily with the sites report, Inside AdSense

SEO & SEM

• 10 tips for beating Google Panda, Pocket-lint
• 5 Step Online Marketing Strategy, Search Engine People
• 6 Ways PR Pros Can Avoid Failing at SEO, Online Marketing Blog
• Blocking A Sitelink Subdomain Might Not Be So Simple Says D&B, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Panda and User Experience, Vertical Measures
• Product Price as a PPC Bidding Signal, Rimm Kaufman
• Q&A: With Online Marketing, Should I Start with SEO or PPC?, Search Engine Guide
• Whoa… Can Query Volume Directly Influence Rankings?, SEOmoz
• Diagnosing a Problem Account – PPC Advertising, PPC Hero

Social Media

• Engaging News Hungry Audiences Tweet by Tweet: An audience analysis of prominent mainstream media news accounts on Twitter, blog.socialflow.com
• Google+ usability shows promise, but still has a few hitches, VentureBeat
• Without Klout, Google+ is dead to me, www.zdnet.com
• Google Plus embedding social status updates, Search News Central

Web Analytics

• Dilemma of Google Analytics in China, www.clickz.asia

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

• Discussion: What Have We Learned From Google's Panda Algorithm? – It's been about six months since the Panda (nee Farmer) algorithm first rolled out. There was a lot of speculation early on about how to avoid getting lumped in with the websites and web pages that Panda targets. Now that it's been six months, we've had more time to analyze what Google's doing. So, our "Discussion of the Week" asks — what have we learned about Panda? What's working now or not working now? What are you doing differently, or what are you doing more of? The floor is open!
• 6 Advanced Ways to Improve Your Search Engine Rankings – Neil Patel some SEO tips that are off the beaten path. It's definitely worth a read if you're into reading stuff that's not just regurgitation of the same SEO "best practices" that have been going around for the last decade or so.
• 10 Tips For Beating Google Panda: How We Came Back From The Wilderness – Thankfully though, after 2 months of redesigning and tweaking, Panda 2.2 arrived, and our traffic is back. In fact, thanks to the changes we've implemented in the meantime, it’s even higher than it was before the original algorithm hit. We also believe we have a better site for it.  Here's what we did…
• Strategy: Five Ways Google+ Can Become Mainstream – A solid read from an old Forrester analyst on how ways Google+ can become mainstream.
• A Theory About Google: Authenticity and Passion as Ranking Signals – Over the past 6-9 months, I've been getting the sense that there's something new in Google's algorithm – a metric or set of metrics that looks for some form of authenticity in a site and passion in the content created on a page.  These aren't things a machine or algorithmic system has been traditionally able to measure, but (can I say this without sounding crazy?) I can feel it.
• 17 Digital Marketing Experts Share Their Top Tips, Tricks, and Tools – With the breadth and depth of social media services out there, it’s no wonder that we often find ourselves lost in the vast array of services. I took the opportunity to contact some of my esteemed friends and colleagues who are experts in their field and asked for their advice on their favorite little known social media secret and social media tools, including their own if they had them.
• Metricless PPC Management – Where I explain how to manage a PPC campaign that lacks solid metrics.