SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 4, 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:

• Google Blog Search: Now With Full-Text Post Indexing
  It’s been about two months since Google Blog Search was relaunched with a new front page that summarizes stories. I talked with Google more about some of the inner workings at the end of October and finally am getting around to posting this, spurred by one of the planned changes becoming official. Google Blog Search now uses the full-text of posts (in most cases), rather than using whatever was in a blog’s feed (which could often be only part of a post).
• 2008 Video Search Year In Review
  2008 has had a number of notable milestones in the arena of video search. Here are six landmark events that that have particularly stood out, demonstrating that video search has finally “arrived” as a crucial area for search marketers:
• Search Biz: Yahoo Wants A New CEO, And Fast; Qi Lu To MSFT; DOJ Was This Close To Suing Google
  Will Yahoo have a new CEO by the end of the month? That’s the word from sources talking to AllThingsD today. The report says Yahoo has put together an informal search committee to help executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles find a new CEO. There’s reportedly a list of six criteria the new Yahoo CEO should meet. And throwing more confusion into the mix is the ongoing talks about a merger/sale with AOL, and the internal uncertainty whether that’s the right way forward for Yahoo. As AllThingsD points out, this might be too much to sort out within the next four weeks.
• Why Usability and SEO Go Hand-in-hand
  Many years ago, when Danny Sullivan was still part of Search Engine Watch and the Search Engine strategies conferences, a few of us approached him on having a session on usability. Surprisingly, he dismissed the suggestion saying that while usability was a great topic, it wasn’t really a search marketing issue.Thankfully, Danny did eventually see the connection between SEO and usability as evidenced by SMX East and West sessions covering the topic. There have been numerous articles by Shari Thurow, Kim Krause Berg and others here at Search Engine Land that provide lots of usability details. I’m not well-versed in all aspects of usability like Shari and Kim are, but I have understood how much it is intertwined with organic SEO for a long time. I’ve believed in the connection so strongly that I’ve been providing our SEO clients with Kim’s usability reports since 2004. They always add value as well as corroborate the SEO recommendations we make.
• “You Could Go To Google,” Says Yahoo — But Why Not Stay Here?
  Yahoo has changed the way they handle a query for a competing search engine. Now, if you search at Yahoo for google, live or ask.com, Yahoo will tell you, “You could go to [Search Engine Name Goes Here]. Or you could stay here and get straight to your answers.”
• Has Microsoft Live Search Detected Malware On Your Site?
  Recently, Microsoft Live Search added malware warnings to their search results. If a searcher clicks a result that Microsoft has detected contains malware, a popup warns then not to proceed to the site. As Matt noted yesterday, Google and Yahoo! also provide malware warnings to searchers. How can you find out if Microsoft has flagged your site for malware and how can you let them know you’ve fixed the problem? As part of this update, Microsoft Live Search also launched an update to their Webmaster Center that added alerts about malware. You can generate a report of all pages on your site that have malware on them, see if you link to any external pages that contain malware, and submit a review request once you’ve fixed any issues.
• Register For SMX West Today And Save
  The pre-agenda rate for Search Marketing Expo – SMX West ends at the close of business Friday, December 5. You save as much as $600 on an All Access ticket by registering now!SMX West will be held February 10-12, 2009 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara California.
• Small Businesses, Get Into the Spirit of Giving!
  “‘Tis better to give than to receive.”  It’s a favorite refrain this time of year.  Cynics might call it a clever advertising ploy cooked up by retailers to encourage consumer spending, but in general it holds true that making someone else happy makes us feel good.When it comes to the World Wide Web, generosity can mean real benefits for your business–even better than higher levels of dopamine! The spirit of giving can lead to: links to your website higher search engine rankings positive associations for your company and most importantly, more business!
• Google Adds Search Box To YouTube Videos & Adds HD Embed
  A week ago, YouTube changed the format of their videos to wide screen and HD format. My main issue back then was that the embed options did not give people a way to embed the wide screen format, easily. That has changed. YouTube now allows you to embed a wide screen format and they also added a search box at the top of those embedded videos. In addition, Google added a search box to the top of the search frame of an image search. Let me explain this below.

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• DNS Problems Hit Yahoo, GigaOM
• Spreading holiday cheer…Google Docs style, Official Google Docs Blog
• Amazon Launches Public Data Sets To Ease Research, TechCrunch
• Does Google Have a Secret OS?, InternetNews
• Google Apps SLA loophole allows for major downtime without consequences, Royal Pingdom
• Google Friend Connect: now available, Official Google Blog

Business Issues

• Diller Paring Back IAC Content Division, Ad Age
• ChaCha Gets Some Love (and Cobranding) From AT&T, TechCrunch
• Medical Ads on YouTube Attract Fire, Wall Street Journal
• Google opens office in Wisconsin, Mercury News
• Response to phone companies’ "Google bandwidth" report, Google Public Policy Blog

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Earth Plugin Available Now For Mac OS X, Google Earth Blog
• Will the MTA get on board with Google Transit? Maybe, officials say, Los Angeles Times
• Google Mobile Maps Asking English Users to Accept Swedish TOS, Search Engine Roundtable
• Mobile broadband to hit 42Mb/sec in 2009, PC Pro
• KML in Research contest extended!, Google LatLong
• Where is Google’s SMS feature?, Googling Google

Paid Search & Contextual

• Credit Crunch Survival and Opportunity for Finance Advertisers, adCenter Blog for Advertisers
• Technorati Ad Network for Blogs is Live, Digital Inspiration
• Make your ad cents (and dollars) count, Inside AdSense

Searching

• Google.com/mac now available in 10 languages, Official Google Mac Blog
• Helping healthcare providers become more efficient, Official Google Enterprise Blog
• Poll: Average Search Is Not Ready For Google’s SearchWiki, Search Engine Roundtable
• Scalability of Semantic Search on the Web, Hakia Blog
• Miiget: just another celebrity search engine?, AltSearchEngines

SEM Industry

• Glenn Gabe: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop
• Media Literacy for SEOs (or, Why SEO Outing is Bad), SEO Book
• An Interview with SMM Guru: Brian Chappell, Marketing Pilgrim
• Yahoo! Search Blog Offline for Site Maintenance, Yahoo Search Blog

SEO & SEM

• Google Profile Information and Partner Content Providers: Should there be Disclosure?, SEO By The Sea
• Google’s Faster Crawl Rate: No Thanks, SEOmoz
• Online Marketing Tips Video: Engaging Your Audience, Search Marketing Gurus
• Changing Titles Daily to Increase Click-Through and Pageviews, Search Engine Journal
• Does The Alt Tag Improve Search Engine Rankings?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Hide Text From Search Engines by Converting it to an Image, Digital Inspiration
• Keyword Typo Suggestion Tools and Generators, Search Engine Journal
• Search Consultant: Traffic More Important Than Rankings, MediaPost
• Webmasters Report December 2008 Google SERP Changes, Search Engine Roundtable
• A Rant On Grammar, Spelling and SEO, We Build Pages

Social Media

• Fundamentals of Social Media Marketing Strategy, Online Marketing Blog
• Google Makes a Hard Push With Friend Connect, Social Times
• Social Network Netlog To Kick Off Integrated Multiplayer Games, TechCrunch
• Video: Todd Malicoat and Brent Csutoras on Building a Social Media Profile from PubCon 2008, WebProNews

Video, Music & Image Search

• Flickr Revamps Mobile Site, Adds Video Streaming Support, TechCrunch

Other Items

• GoDaddy Uses Standard Tactics To Warehouse Domains, TechCrunch
• GoDaddy Back With Ad in Super Bowl XLIII, Ad Age

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