SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 10, 2011

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Bing Results Get Localized & Personalized

  The idea of “normal” search results died a little more today, as Bing has begun delivering personalized listings depending on a searcher’s location or past search history. Google has already been doing the same for several years. Local Results Until today, everyone searching at Bing within the United States generally saw the same results. Now, […]
• Foursquare Sets Super Record During Big Game

  Twitter wasn’t the only social media platform that recorded super levels of activity associated with the big game last weekend. Local check-in player Foursquare says it saw 200,000 check-ins, making this year’s Super Bowl the most checked-into venue ever for the company. Green Bay Packers fans showed greater check-in activity than their rival Steelers supporters […]

• Live Blogging Google’s ThinkMobile Event

  Google has been planning its ThinkMobile event for three months. Google’s Jason Spero (former AdMob VP) is on stage first and says he’s been anticipating an “event like this” for “about four years.” He says it reflects the fact that mobile is ready. Google’s Dennis Woodside reports that Google has seen a “400 percent increase […]

• Search Marketing Is A Game Of Resources

  A lesson I learned many years ago (the hard way), is that the “free traffic” from organic rankings (SEO) is anything but free. Even something as basic as rewriting your vendor’s product descriptions to create unique content takes time – or you have to pay someone to do it. And if you’re getting traffic, you […]

• Mapquest Introduces Transit, Walking Directions

  Mapquest has introduced public transit and walking directions. It has had walking directions on mobile for awhile. The transit directions are limited right now to rail (including subway) and in only a few cities: Rail Transit Directions are now available in six major metro areas (NYC, Chicago, D.C., San Fran, Boston and Philly) all of […]

• Google Operators In Instant, Profiles In Navigation & AdWords URL On Description Line

  Google is often changing and experimenting with their web search interfaces. Most recently, Google switched back from the purple AdWords background color the the yellow color. There are at least three new changes Google has implemented or is testing on their search results interface. (1) Google Instant Works For Search Operators: As reported at Google […]

• How Much Will Google Pay for Twitter?

  There are three companies that we know are interested in or “hungry” for Twitter: Microsoft, Google and Facebook. In an article on bubbly valuations, the Wall Street Journal says that Twitter is again in “low-level” acquisition talks: Executives at both Facebook Inc. and Google Inc., among other companies, have held low-level talks with those at […]

• How To Improve Organic Search Results With A Simple Site Audit

  Having a search engine friendly website, a site with no barriers to the search engines is critical to success within “organic” search engine results. Here are some relatively simple SEO Site Review/Audit steps that should help you flush out the most important site wide issues within a small to mid size website. A SEO site […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Advanced sign-in security for your Google account, Official Google Blog
• Boutiques.com reveals the fashion trends on everyone’s mind, Official Google Blog
• Can cable block the Google TV revolution?, Ars Technica
• Google Translate Tests New Layout, Search Engine Roundtable
• Livestand from Yahoo! – Your Digital Newsstand, Yodel Anecdotal

Business Issues

• Google, antitrust, and the ‘Copygate’ hypocrisy, The Register
• Meet Microsoft’s new Server and Tools boss: Satya Nadella, ZDNet
• Facebook Contemplates a $1 Billion Tender Offer for Employee Shares, AllThingsD
• Google Sets Sights on Next New Networks, Wall Street Journal

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Exclusive Video Of INQ’s Facebook Phone, TechCrunch
• Twitter for Android gets a slick new design and contact search [Video], thenextweb.com
• Where Is A Business Address That is Hidden Not Really Hidden? Google Places, Mike Blumenthal
• Why Wait in Line? Make Reservations with Yelp Mobile and Opentable!, Yelp Official Blog

Link Building

• Directory Link Building, Bruce Clay Australia
• Link Building Techniques: Online PR, Distilled blog
• Where’s The Love, DMOZ?, SEOmoz

Paid Search & Contextual

• Some Google Ads Promote AdSense Scams, Digital Inspiration

Searching

• Search for Low Air Fares Gets More Competitive, New York Times
• Someone Else’s Google Search History? Android Related?, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• How to Search for a Search Consultant, Ad Age
• 6 Tactics That May Put You At Risk Of Being Banned From AdWords, Certified Knowledge
• Getting Executives to Invest in SEO, Search Engine People
• Why Does Google Police Links While Ignoring Garbage Content?, SEO Book
• Why Google, SEOs & Users Must ‘Blekko Up’, outspokenmedia.com

Social Media

• Twitter as Tech Bubble Barometer, Wall Street Journal
• An Upgrade for Pages, facebook.com
• Facebook Moves to Disallow Apps From Running Google Ads, AllThingsD
• Quora Gaining Momentum, weblogs.hitwise.com
• Twitter for Android – new and improved, Twitter Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• HTTPS Support for YouTube Embeds, YouTube Blog

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

• RDFa: The Inside Story from Best Buy – An interesting and insightful interview about the implementation of RDFa on Best Buy's website with Jay Myers, Lead Development Engineer.
• A Case Study in ORM: How Taco Bell Used Humor & Social Media to Dig Itself Out of Beef Scandal – Taco Bell took a bold approach to the early February reputation management crisis by addressing a beef scandal head on.  There are still brands today that follow a different course of action when faced with controversy with a see-no-evil/hear-no-evil/speak-no-evil approach — diverting consumers to a customer service line and countersuing their accusers.  Here is how Taco Bell avoided that pitfall and came out on top.
• How Split-Testing Our Opt-In Form Increased Our Conversion Rate by 102.2% – An interesting post on split-testing email opt-in forms for newsletter subscribers. – I’ll admit it… when I design opt-in forms, I’m confident that my form converts well.  It’s simple really. Make a compelling offer, demonstrate social proof, and ask for action, and bam! Instant subscribers.  Well, the other day, I discovered that my system was flawed.
• Excuse Me While I Have A Ranking Report Rant – Sadly, this is still incredibly relevant, since so many companies (and their agencies) still rely on rankings and ranking reports as the primary success metric for an SEO program.
• The n00b Guide to Online Marketing – with a giant Infographic – A 6-month course containing 50 marketing activities designed to take a new business from zero to hero.
• Intelligent Site Structure for better SEO – When developing a new site, or restructuring an existing one, it helps to draw out your site's structure in something like Visio, or even putting it in Excel. What you'll want to do is put all the pages and sections in there as a tree…Once you're satisfied with your site structure, have a look at the names you've come up with for your sections. If you have enough content about a subject for it to be able to have its own section, you can bet people are searching for it as well. That's why it's very wise to make sure your section names use the keywords people are searching for!
• A Beginner's Guide To AB Testing: An Introduction – Kiss Metrics offers a fantastic beginner's guide to AB Testing.