SearchCap: The Day In Search, December 9, 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 Book Search Puts Magazines Online
  First Google digitized books, then newspapers, then historic Time-Life photos and now — magazines. Today through Google Book Search, people can search the full-text of millions of articles from more than 10 magazine with hundreds more to come, the company has announced. Eventually, content from the magazines will be available to those doing Google News Archive searches or show up in “regular” Google searches via Universal Search. For now, however, the content lives only within Google Book Search. How do you access the magazines? Ideally, Google wants you to find them in response to a search for anything at Google Book Search. For example, a search for hank aaron catching babe ruth should bring up a listing tagged as “Magazine” that leads to a 1973 Ebony magazine article about Aaron nearing Ruth’s home run record (note, search functionality doesn’t seem to be live yet but should be enabled shortly).
• Yahoo Board Mulls CEO Pick, Layoffs Loom
  According to a report in the Wall Street Journal Yahoo’s board is considering offering the CEO job to Arun Sarin, the newly retired CEO of EU mobile carrier Vodafone. It’s merely speculation at this point but Sarin is attractive for several reasons:
• SEOMoz’s New Toolbar & Linkscape Doubles In Size
  SEOMoz has announced they have released a new SEO toolbar and they have doubled the size of Linkscape.
• Microsoft Will Cut Data Storage Time If Google & Yahoo Do, Too
  Responding to European demands that the major search engines cut the length of time they store records of web searches, Microsoft said on Monday it would only store that data for six months as long as Google and Yahoo follow suit. The New York Times reports, however, that neither Google nor Yahoo are ready to go along with the request. Microsoft attorney John Vassallo says the company won’t change its policy alone. “We support the commissioners’ recommendations but are asking them to ensure these are uniformly observed,” Vassallo tells the Times. “Otherwise, to do so unilaterally would put us at a disadvantage.”
• Google Ads For Hard Alcohol & Liqueurs Now Allowed
  The Google AdWords blog just announced they are now allowing search ads for hard alcohol and liqueurs. Just a couple months ago, they allowed beer ads and now they have expanded this to hard liqueurs in the US. Why did they change this? They said based on “advertiser feedback we’ve received over the years.” But if you ask me, it is more about generating more revenue from their search ads, especially these hard times. The company has done a string of rollouts related to showing more ads, as our Drill, Baby, Drill: Google Finance Gets Ads; Google News Testing Them covers.

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Adding a Google Translation Shortcut to Firefox, Google Blogoscoped
• Google chat afflicted by spotty service, News.com
• Native Client: A Technology for Running Native Code on the Web, Google Code Blog
• New in Labs: Tasks, Official Gmail Blog
• Google Gears Patent Application: Bringing Online Applications Offline, SEO By The Sea

Business Issues

• Industry Moves: Google Adds Indie VC To M&A Division, paidContent.org
• Why it doesn’t pay to play nice with Google, Inquisitr
• Yahoo: "Let Us Eat and Drink, for Tomorrow Your Jobs Die", AllThingsD

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Local Business Referrals is Shutting Down, Small Business SEM
• Double the coverage, double the fun, Google LatLong
• Street View: A year in review, and what’s new, Official Google Blog
• The Year in Google Maps, Google Maps Mania
• Yell’s New Homepage and "Personal" Search, Screenwerk
• Yellow pages struggle with Google threat, Reuters
• Yelp Updates iPhone App, Screenwerk

Link Building

• 3 Tips to Get Around the Link Bait RoadBlock, Search Engine Journal
• Bite2Eat Launches Restaurant Directory with On-Line Menus, URLwire

Paid Search & Contextual

• Microsoft Advertising: Insights Podcast – Fall ’08 Microsoft adCenter Release Overview, adCenter Blog for Advertisers
• Start a Google AdWords My Client Center in 2 Easy Steps, Search Engine Journal
• What You Need to Know About Google’s Decision to End Preferred Cost Bidding, PPC Hero
• Yahoo Is Stealing Your Money, MarketingDon.com
• YPN (Yahoo Publisher Network), Where Did You Go?, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Why People May Be Turning To Dr. Google Instead of An MD, SEO Igloo Blog
• Yet Another Google SERP UI Test, SEOdisco
• Ask.com Search Is Effectively Nothing More Than An Ad Engine, TechCrunch
• Google Unveils China’s 2008 Most Popular Search Terms, PC World
• Kosmix – searching for optimism, BBC NEWS
• Roost Snags Cash For Real Estate Search Engine, Inquisitr

SEM Industry

• Integrate Your Online and Offline Marketing Channels, BruceClay.com
• Lead a Horse To Water: The State of Integration, AIM Clear Blog
• Leveraging Blogs and Feeds for SEO, Search Engine Guide
• Preliminary Day 1 blog coverage of SES Chicago!, Search Engine Strategies
• Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008: The Convergence Combo: Advertisers, Agencies, Automation – Oh My! , David Dalka
• Search Engine Strategies Chicago 2008: Universal & Blended Search Engine Conversation, David Dalka
• Advertisers, Agencies & Automation Oh My!, AIM Clear Blog
• Call The Question: Is There Life Beyond Google?, AIM Clear Blog
• Day 1: My Daily Takeaways From SES Chicago, AIM Clear Blog
• Why a Google Monopoly is Bad for Search Marketers, SEOmoz

SEO & SEM

• Rankings Are Cool and All, But How Do You Turn Them Into Traffic?, Search Engine Guide
• A Site without Linkability is a Site Destined for Failure, We Build Pages
• Google Fixes Meta Tag Verification For Webmaster Tools, Search Engine Roundtable
• How To Quickly Evaluate Your SERP Competition, Search Engine Journal
• Is it Too Late for Holiday Search Traffic?, Search Engine Watch
• More On Header Status Codes & SEO, Search Engine Journal
• Online Marketing Tips to Give Santa a Merry Christmas!, SEOptimise
• PPC & SEO — Two Great Tastes that Taste Great Together, Search Engine Watch
• Stars fight search engines – who owns the SERPS?, Locally Type*
• Yahoo Search Still Not Listening to 301 Redirects, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• The Twitter Gold Mine , O’Reilly
• MySpace to launch MySpace Toolbar on Wednesday, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• Flickr Ban Raises Question of What’s Commerce, What’s Not, ClickZ
• YouTube Attracts 100 Million U.S. Online Video Viewers in October 2008, comScore

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

• What happens when you optimize 50+ pages in one go – the results
• Creating Subliminal Connections Between Your Site and Hot Trends
• Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
• Google and Our Economic Recession
• New Media & Old Media Are Not So Different After All
• PPC Budget Awesomization: How to Optimize ROI with Graduated Campaign Budgets
• Funny Spoof Music Video –
• Best Robots.txt Tools: Generators and Analyzers
• Ruud Hein's Take on SearchWiki