SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 2, 2008

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• Private: AOL 2008 Year in Review: The Hottest Search Trends
  The presidential election reigned supreme in the land of America (Online), as politically charged queries ranged across more than 40 categories in AOL’s annual lists of top Web, mobile and video searches. Celebrity news, captivating headlines and pop culture continued to captivate the online audience; mobile devices bumped activity for social apps like MySpace, AIM, MocoSpace and Facebook, as well as sharing videos downloaded via apps for the iPhone.The political landscape, and most notably, president-elect Barack Obama top the newsmakers lists, and politicians infiltrated 7 of the Top 10 slots in this category.Top names in the news in 2008 Barack Obama Sarah …
• Search Biz: Yahoo Soap Opera Update; Google’s Mobile Plans; Ask.com’s Creepy Commercials & More
  The Yahoo-Microsoft-AOL soap opera continues. (You expected otherwise?) At AllThingsD, Kara Swisher was pretty adamant Monday that Yahoo and Microsoft are not in secret talks right now about a new search partnership, and she called the weekend report from The Times (UK) “inaccurate.” Part of that UK story had Ross Levinson and Jon Miller taking over the new company, but Levinson told AllThingsD the story was “total fiction.”Then, of course, a big soap-operatic (is that a word?) twist today, as Barry Schwartz recapped a Wall Street Journal report saying Jon Miller is trying to raise money to buy Yahoo. Join us tomorrow (or maybe Thursday, but probably no later than Friday) for another installment of As The Search Engines Turn.
• Private: Ask.com: Top Search Trends of 2008
  “Maverick” earns bragging rights as the word of the year; Disney’s Tweeny-boppers take over the Top 10 list of celebrity-based searches; shopping for the best deals on travel and entertainment were top of mind in a tightening economy, and queries in the form of a question still reign supreme at Ask.com.
• Link Building In A Global Economy
  Global link building sounds very glamourous, like something you’d do wearing Chanel and drinking seriously good wine that I wouldn’t know anything about, not being the glamourous sort. However, it’s something that makes you roll up your French-cuffed sleeves and do some major dirty work. While the basics remain the same (get quality links, write good content, do your usual on-page SEO), there are a few extras to consider that should enable you to live in the middle of nowhere and successfully help clients all over the world.Let me first clarify what I mean by global link building. I am speaking about working with clients in a variety of countries and/or in languages other than your native one(s). My agency works with clients in the US, Canada, Australia, Spain, the UK, and Germany currently, and about 50% of our leads come from clients outside of the US, where we’re based. As we’ve seen with the recent financial crises both domestic and abroad, it’s obvious that our economy truly is quite global, and many people are quickly realizing that their marketing help does not have to come from less than five miles away.With that in mind, there are many ways that you can successfully conduct quality link building campaigns for clients in any part of the world. Here are a few to get you started…
• Report: Former AOL CEO, Miller, Raising Funds To Buy Yahoo
  Former AOL Chief Seeks Funds for Yahoo Deal from the Wall Street Journal reports Jonathan Miller, ex-AOL CEO, is trying to put together enough money to buy Yahoo.Miller is reportedly looking to raise raising about $28 billion to $30 billion, equivalent to $20 to $22 per share, to buy all of Yahoo. The Wall Street Journal said that their sources are skeptical that Miller will be successful in raising the necessary capital to make this purchase. In addition, many lenders are not only not lending, but they also find Yahoo to be a risky bet, according to the report.
• Santa Tracker 2008: Google & NORAD Team Up Again
  My favorite Christmas activity is tracking Santa’s route around the world. Once again, NORAD and Google are making it easy. The NORAD Tracks Santa 2008 site is now up, and a countdown for your iGoogle home page can now be downloaded. Google just blogged the news today. Below, what to expect.
• Private: Search Engines Release Most Popular Search Trends of 2008
  What’s Hot, Where & Why Google Yahoo Ask AOL
• Search Pictures With Pictures At Live Search
  Live Search announced you can now use images to find similar images in Live Image Search. To use this feature, you go to Live Image Search, search for an image, hover over an image, and click on “show similar images.”
• SEMPO Rings NASDAQ’s Bell
  As expected, SEMPO, has rung the bell at the NASDAQ yesterday morning. You can see the full release and several pictures at the NASDAQ release. Dana Todd, Chairperson of the Board of Directors for SEMPO, presided over the Opening Bell at NASDAQ yesterday morning. Congrats to SEMPO and congrats to the search marketing industry!
• The Impact Of Call Tracking For Smart Marketers & Agencies
  “Death of Detroit would wallop ad world” …”… nightmares of a blue Christmas” Shocking! Tell us something we don’t already know!  Turning a few more pages I see, “As site traffic slows, online marketers tighten their holiday budgets.” And that’s when I calmly fold-up my recent copy of Advertising Age and call my dentist to schedule that long avoided Novocain-free root canal!  I mean really, all this doom and gloom is probably enough to send some folks home early for the holidays to hang out with the relatives they have successfully avoided all year long.  But I’m an opportunist, so the timing couldn’t be better! There has to be an opportunity here, right?  We’ve heard a lot of noise in the trades about the fall of online display advertising in favor of performance-based advertising.  The good news is that lower budgets and fewer advertisers can actually mean less competition.  For smart local advertisers and their agencies, that is something to cheer about!  Literally it means more business leads for less money and a higher return on investment, if campaigns are executed properly.

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Calendar now supports Apple iCal, Official Google Mac Blog
• Google’s New Open Stack Expanding – Sans Facebook, Microsoft, Read/Write Web

Business Issues

• MySpace CEO cautiously optimistic on 2009, Reuters
• Dogpile.com Users Raise First $100,000 for ASPCA, MarketWatch
• Twing: Accoona’s Final Disgrace, TechCrunch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Does advertising iPhone apps on iPhone apps work?, E-Consultancy
• Google Maps Forgets How To Spell Budapest, Capital of Hungry, Search Engine Roundtable
• iPhone soars to 16.6% of smartphone market, Electronista
• Thematic Mapping and Heat Maps with Virtual Earth, Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog

Link Building

• Video: Rand Fishkin’s Take on Buying and Selling Links, WebProNews
• Best of the Web & Aviva Holiday Directory Discounts!, Search Engine Journal
• Link Building Strategies: 69 Solid Tactics For 2009, Wiep.net

Paid Search & Contextual

• New Ads Quality videos, Inside AdWords
• What Are Your Biggest Google AdSense Requests?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Why Does Google Allow Ads for AdSense Ready Websites?, Digital Inspiration

Searching

• Holiday Shopping Made Easy Through Search, BruceClay.com
• Memeorandum runs rings around Google News, The Guardian
• Quintura Kids Gets New Look, Quintura blog

SEM Industry

• Charity SEO, SEO Book
• Coming Soon: 2009 SEMMY Awards, Small Business SEM
• Gyutae Park: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop
• Knowing Your SEO Certification Options, Search Engine Guide
• Top 50 Marketing Blogs To Watch In 2009, Evan Carmichael

SEO & SEM

• 5 Tactics to Meld PPC, Social Media & SEO, AIM Clear Blog
• Making Geotargeted Content Findable For the Right Searchers, Nine By Blue
• Stop Paying Google! SEO vs PPC, Shimon Sandler
• Capturing the Gorilla: New Ways to Quantify the Value of Search, Jonathan Mendez’s Blog
• Domain Collapsing, Indented Pages, and Search Results, SEO By The Sea
• Google Fixes Google Product Search Data Feed Issues, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Fixes Spam Algorithm Classifier For IFrames, Search Engine Roundtable
• Keyword Research: How Can Words Be Related?, Search Engine Journal
• Singing In The Rain, Michael Gray
• Site Downtime & Worried About Google? Return 503 Status Code, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• How Do You Get More Followers On Twitter?, Search Engine Guide
• Facebook rolls out site browser, BBC NEWS
• heck Out the New Developer Application Settings Editor, Facebook Developers News
• Two Legal Seminars as Compared to Blogs and Forums, Techipedia

Video, Music & Image Search

• A YouTube for All of Us, YouTube Blog

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

• What the #!%$? Let Me Do What I Want!
• How To FUBAR At Social Media
• Link Building Strategies: 69 Solid Tactics For 2009
• Maybe It’s Push Back Time for the Internet
• The Evolutionary Role of Social Media
• How to Build Strong Relationships on Twitter
• Twitter Rockstar Revisited: ATwitterverse Experiment
• Conversion Immersion – Making the Most of Existing Traffic
• Could you Buy or Sell Social Media Profiles like Business Assets?
• 5 Critical PPC Budgeting Problems
• The End of Fake Avatars?
• 30 Tips on How to Get, Convince, Keep and Deal With Clients, Be it in Web Design, Writing or SEO