SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 23, 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:

• Court Rules Google Not Liable For Bad Products Sold Through AdWords
  Feel like you got defrauded by someone who lured you to their site through an ad on Google? Don’t expect that you’ll be able to go after Google itself for running the ad. A US federal court ruled that Google wasn’t liable in a case involving ringtones, which would also seem applicable to any type of product or service. Court Clears Google In Ringtone Ad Suit from MediaPost covers the case. New Jersey resident Jenna Goddard claimed that she was billed for a ringtone subscription she didn’t want, after visiting a site she found through Google’s ads and leaving her number with the site.
• Hakia Debuts “Digital Newspaper” Start Page
  If you’re a general search engine that competes with Google (Yahoo & Microsoft), as you know, it’s very hard to make headway in that game. But if you recharacterize or reposition yourself as other than a “search engine” you might gain some adoption. To some degree that’s what Kosmix did by building out multi-media rich Wikipedia-like “topic pages” (a better version of the US version of Yahoo Glue Pages). Hakia faces this same conundrum. The company has been trying for some time to tell people that its “semantic search” delivers better results than Google. However people largely haven’t been listening. Now the company is introducing a customizable start page (much like iGoogle, Netvibes or MyYahoo) called MyHakia. The company is calling it a “digital newspaper,” which is a good marketing hook.

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• 5 little Gmail annoyances Google needs to fix, News.com
• Google, Salesforce.com Vs. Microsoft Headlines Cloud Computing Battle For 2009, eWeek

Business Issues

• Googlefreude: Google Hands Out ‘Dogfood’ as Christmas Bonus, Valleywag
• Europe: Culture vultures go beyond, way beyond Google, ResourceShelf
• Facebook Chief Privacy Officer Chris Kelly To Run For California Attorney General, TechCrunch
• Four Reasons For Yahoo’s Four-Year Slump (YHOO), Alley Insider
• Search Trends To Watch In 2009, MediaPost
• Yandex Considers Itself a Strategic Property for Russia and an IPO in the Future, Profy
• Year in review: Google’s grand ambitions, News.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Garmin Sees Weak December; Seems to Confirm Working on Google Phone Project, Barron’s Online

Link Building

• Poll: I Want A Link In The Top Paragraph Please, Search Engine Roundtable

Paid Search & Contextual

• Use Trademark and Registered Symbols in Your Ads to Increase Click-Through Rates, PPC Hero
• 8 Ways Clients Can Help Their PPC Agency Succeed, Search Engine Journal
• Google AdWords API Sandbox Database Refresh Postponed Two Weeks, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Small Business Guide to Choosing Keyword Phrases, Search Engine Watch

Searching

• Can Technorati Beat Google at Blog Search?, MediaShift

SEM Industry

• Search Engine Roundtable Is Five Years Old – December 2nd, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• 20 Press Release Ideas For Your Business, Vertical Measures Blog
• Google’s Malware Warnings Can Be Subdomain or Subfolder Specific, Search Engine Roundtable
• Importance of Content Quantity, Shimon Sandler
• Learn more about search and SEM from Google videos, Pandia
• Social Media and SEO — Friends with Benefits?, Search Engine Watch
• Spy on Your Competitor’s Google Ranking with Exactfactor, Marketing Pilgrim
• The Long Tail Theory Gets Challenged, Just Not in Search Query Demand, SEOmoz
• Video: Bruce Clay Revisits His Ranking Is Dead Statement at SES Chicago, WebProNews

Social Media

• Digg Has Dug Into Twitter, Twitter Blog
• I’m Sorry Robert, But It’s Time For A Friendfeed Intervention, TechCrunch
• Inviting anyone to your applications, Facebook Developers News
• Report Says Twitter Would Take 36 Years to Catch Facebook – If Facebook Stopped Growing Today, Read/Write Web
• State of the Twittersphere – Q4 2008 Report, HubSpot

Web Analytics

• Our 210th variation on the theme, "Thank you for using FeedBurner.", Burning Questions

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