SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 4, 2007

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

From Search Engine Land:

• 
  Google AdSense To Drop “Advertise on this Site” Feature
  Google just sent me an email that they are “retiring” the “Onsite Advertiser Sign-up” AdSense feature. This feature, which is commonly referred to as the AdSense advertise on this site” feature, allows AdWords advertisers to click on a link from an AdSense ad and specify they want their ads to…
• 
  Microsoft Reports Issues With Their Live Search Cloaking Detection System Have Been Fixed
  Today, Microsoft has posted to the Live Search Webmaster Center blog that the cloaking detection system they have been running for the past few months has, for some sites, skewed site statistics and ads reporting, as well as caused a high traffic load, and they have made some adjustments to…
• 
  UK Yellow Pages Publisher Yell Adds “Web 2.0” Look And Features
  Yell, which owns the yellow pages brand in the UK, has been fairly experimental with its site and product features, adding shopping search, classifieds and mobile ahead of others and its American counterparts. It has also done several redesigns over the course of the past year in an effort to…
• 
  Search Industry Nostalgia a Reminder of How Far We’ve Come
  If I was writing the local County Cross Country Ski Club newsletter, a retrospective might cover two or three minor changes in the field, and a watershed moment or two. Primitive skis were used by Vikings as much as 5,000 years ago. In about 1460, someone in Scandinavia discovered…
• 
  Eurekster Emerges From Beta A Different Product Than When It Started
  Eurekster started life in 2004 as a “personalized search engine” for consumers. How ahead of its time the company was. The idea was to provide a layer of “social search” results on top of the general results. In late 2004 the company announced a partnership with Friendster, then the hot…
• 
  Google Adds Color To Gmail Labels
  The Google Blog announced that Gmail has added colors to labels. Labels in Gmail are basically virtual folders. Assigning labels by actions can really streamline how you use email. Google has decided to add colors to labels in order to make the labels you defined more visual. If you want…
• 
  Google AdWords Template Center Now Live
  The Google AdWords Blog announced the AdWords Template Center for My Client Center (MCC) accounts is now live. We first reported Google testing this feature last month. It should now be live for all MCC AdWords companies….
• 
  Google Partners With Florida To Make Govt. Data More Accessible
  According to the South Florida Business Journal, Florida will be working with Google “to create new search engine features for those looking for government services online.” Google will be indexing Florida state databases that are currently not discoverable via the Internet. Other states with similar programs include California, Arizona, Michigan,…
• 
  Jennifer Lopez Tops Ask.com’s Pregnant Stars Of 2007 List
  Ask.com is next to release their top ten search list for 2007. Ask.com actually has a category for “Top Celebrity Searches of Pregnant Stars in 2007,” where Jennifer Lopez is the most searched for pregnant star in 2007 at Ask.com. Below are the remaining categories for the lists:…
• 
  Google Scores Poorly In International “Accountability” Report
  The UK-based One World Trust issued a report ranking government organizations, civil groups and private corporations in terms of their public “accountability” and “transparency.” The report’s findings are covered in The Register and Financial Times. The best performer in the report, the United Nations Development Programme, scored an 88 out…
• 
  Digg Adds Images Tab, New Taxonomy, & More
  The Digg Blog announced several additions and changes that went live on Digg last night. The first is the addition of an image tab to the top of Digg’s main categories….
• 
  “iPhone” Fastest Growing Query On Google In 2007
  TechCrunch was watching NBC’s Today show yesterday where Google User Experience VP Marissa Mayer revealed the “fastest growing” search queries from 2007. Below is the list, as well as news about a webcast Google’s having on top terms of the year….
• 
  Live Search Conference Coverage 2007: SES Chicago Day One
  Today kicks off the first day of SES Chicago, while tomorrow will be the first day of PubCon Vegas. Here is a recap of the coverage I found for the sessions at SES Chicago. Tomorrow we will post both SES Chicago and PubCon Vegas recaps in one post….
• 
  Google Launches AdWords Local Plus Box
  Google announced the launch of the AdWords Local Plus box. When you conduct some local searches, the sponsored listings may contain a plus sign, which you can click and expand into a map. We have reported tests of this feature months ago, but now it is live. Here are screen…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Colored Labels Coming to Gmail?, Google Blogoscoped
• Yahoo! Groups suffers outage, INQUIRER.net
• Gmail chat AIM = crazy delicious, Official Gmail Blog

Business Issues

• Yahoo Shuffles Yet More Executives, New York Times
• Google looking to ad partners beyond DoubleClick, Reuters
• Google’s Infrastructure is its Strategic Advantage, gigaom.com
• Google: Offline Media a ‘Real Test’, AdWeek

Conferences

• Blogging Pubcon Las Vegas 2007, Online Marketing Blog
• SES Chicago, Day 1 Coverage, Search Engine Strategies
• SES Chicago: Soaring Through Universal Search, WebProNews
• We’re off to PubCon, WebProNews

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Briefs: Mapmaking for the masses; More Government Data and Don’t Forget About USA.gov;, ResourceShelf
• Google Looking at Detection Technology?, Marketing Pilgrim
• Wi-Fi Location Finder Loki Launches Closed Beta: My Loki Meets Facebook, ResourceShelf
• iPhone browsing marketshare closes in on .1%, Computerworld Blogs
• New Article: Creating a User-Contributed Map App, Google Maps API Blog
• Know your home’s future, CNN Money
• Verizon Embraces Google’s Android, BusinessWeek

Link Building

• A Solution to the Paid Links Debate – Sponsored Editorials, SEOmoz

Paid Search & Contextual

• Adwords Impression Share Exact Match: Fact or Fiction?, SEM Geek
• Is Amazon Getting Ready to Launch More Advertising Programs?, ResourceShelf
• Save your top queries, Inside AdSense
• Top 5 Tests to Raise Landing Page Conversions, Stepforth
• AdSense "Reporting Enhancements" Due Soon, www.problogger.net
• Analysis of AdSense Earnings – Post Click Zone Changes, ProBlogger
• Facebook and The Myth Of Contextual Advertising, Read/Write Web
• Target me with your ads, please, News.com

Searching

• Search: Has Mahalo morphed into a game-cheat site?, Valleywag
• Is Result Diversity Enough? Search Offers a Reflection of What?, SEO Book
• Yahoo! working to be at the forefront of the search for the subjective, TheAge
• Charity Search Engines, Pandia
• No Searching for the Swicki: It’s Here, eWeek
• NoFoodHere Search Uses UI Tweaks , Search Engine Journal

SEM Industry

• My first Visit to the Google-plex, Marketing Shift
• SEO Guru Dinner in Vegas, Scott Hendison
• 6 Reasons to Read Matt McGee’s Small Business SEM Blog, SEOish
• PayPerPost Fights Back Against Google’s PageRank Changes, Wired
• Webinar, Podcast & Speaking on Personalization, Targeting and Testing, Jonathan Mendez’s Blog

SEO & SEM

• Froogle Remnants & Google Product Search/Directory Duplicate Content Issues, www.ecommerceoptimization.com
• Making an SEO Sale — How to Identify Closing Questions or How to Tell When It’s Time to Shut Up and Sell Something, Bob Massa
• Google is Indexing & Ranking Google AdSense Ads, Search Engine Roundtable
• Matt Cutts of Google on Mission to Remove PageRank from Toolbar, Search Engine Roundtable
• How to Choose the Best Domains for Search Engine Visibility, Search Engine Watch
• Answering more popular picks: meta tags and web search, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Back to Basics: 10 On-Site SEO Tips, SiteMost
• Google on the Crawling of Web Sites, SEO By The Sea
• Keyword Research Strategies for Maintaining SEM Efforts, Search Engine Journal
• SEO 101: How to Treat Your Clients, Cshel

Social Media

• Vint Cerf: "Twitter Is The Future!", Twitter Blog
• Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia, The Register
• Keeping your content private, Orkut Blog
• MySpace Launches Transmissions – No, It’s Not an Auto Repar Social Network, CenterNetworks
• Where the hell is Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook?, Scobleizer

Video, Music & Image Search

• Tune into Picasa Web Albums on Tivo, Google Photos Blog
• Software changing how photos can be cataloged, The Business Journal of Phoenix
• High Definition Video Coming to Hulu, Samples Available, TechCrunch

Web Analytics

• Google’s Marissa Mayer To Announce Fastest-Rising Search Terms For 2007 And Host Google Trends Tutorial, Google
• What you can do with Compete Search Analytics, BlogStorm

Other Items

• 12 Product Page Conversion Strategies That Shant Be Ignored, Search Engine Guide
• Google 2007 in 12 Pictures, Google Operating System
• Stepping Outside Your Niche: How to Reach New Readers and Potential Customers, www.doshdosh.com
• Yahoo Japan, eBay to link up auction services, Reuters

Last 20 Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• Google PageRank, Revisited
• Sphinn: Sporting a New Save Feature
• First Online Reputation Rating Community Launched – Web of Trust
• Seobook.com Banned at Mixx?
• The Murky Origins of Facebook
• The Google of Oz: Is big G’s algo a facade?
• Google Declares War on Paid Links: But Why Now?
• 3 Ways to Commit SEO Suicide
• Don’t Be A Leech, Be A Social Media Apprentice
• A Phone Call Works Better Than Waiting For Google To Take Action
• GrayWolf Vs. Matt Cutts : Selling links that pass PageRank
• 10 Reasons Why You Might Be a Sissy Blogger
• Google Watching Paid Review Blogs that Pass PageRank
• Viral Marketing Hall of Fame 2007: Top 10 Efforts & Results Data to Inspire You
• Danny Sullivan & Rand Fishkin Interview Pt II
• Digitalpoint Banned From Adsense?

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.