SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 16, 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:

• Visualizing Google’s Dominance Of Mobile Advertising

  A report on mobile apps report released today by security firm Lookout is being used to discuss the relative sizes and growth of Apple and Google’s apps marketplaces. Called the “App Genome Report,” the much more striking thing it reveals is just how dominant Google is already in-app display advertising. Take a look at these […]
• Visualize Your Own Information With Google Public Data Explorer

  In April 2008, Google launched its Public Data Explorer, a fantastic tool that allows you to visually explore and analyze very large data sets. Since then, it has curated 27 datasets including more than 300 data metrics. The Public Data Explorer now enables people to visualize everything from labor productivity (OECD) to gender balance in […]

• The JCPenney Situation Is A Symptom Of A Bigger Disease

  Assuming you haven’t been living under a rock for the past week, you’ve certainly heard about this JCPenney SEO debacle. But I think it’s worth mentioning that while this issue revealed itself through some sketchy SEO, the issue here really isn’t about SEO at all, and it’s not limited to JCP at all. The links […]

• Google On Toolbar: We Don’t Use Bing’s Searches

  Yes, Google uses data from its Google Toolbar to improve its search results. But no, Google reasserts, it doesn’t use its toolbar to mine search behavior on other search engines in the way that Bing does. Bing Toolbar & Google’s Results Questions about Google’s toolbar came up in the wake of Google’s accusations that Microsoft’s […]

• Are Manual Solutions The Answer To Content Farms?

  It was interesting to see some of the recent reactions when upstart Blekko decided to toss some sites out of their index. For the uninitiated it was a bit of a seeming PR play against Google whom have been getting smacked about for thin quality of late. If you hadn’t guessed by now, we’re talking […]

• 3 Dangers Of A Website Redesign For B2B SEO

  Thrilled. That’s how Steve felt the day the new website redesign went live. The B2B site had been in development for months now, and he knew his boss would love it. But his excitement was short-lived. Almost overnight, the company’s search rankings tanked. Unfortunately, the search engines couldn’t crawl big chunks of the new site. […]

• Google One Pass: Publisher Payment System

  The Google Blog announced a new tool to help news publishers earn money online with their content. The system is called Google One Pass and it enables publishers to use Google to charge for content and subscriptions to their content. Google said, “publishers can maintain direct relationships with their customers and give readers access to […]

• Official: Google On How & When Ranking Penalties Are Removed

  Google’s Matt Cutts posted a video describing how and when Google will remove a search ranking penalty for a site. I will embed the video below for you all to watch. Matt explains there are two groupings of penalties a site can receive in Google. (1) Manual Penalties, such as reports submitted to Google for […]

• Texas Officials, Public Interest Lawyers Push For More Disclosures From Google

  The effort to get Google to disclose more information about how it ranks sites and the details of its algorithm is nothing new. However that information, among other things, is now being sought by the Texas Attorney General’s office in conjunction with a broad antitrust investigation against Mountain View. According to Bloomberg: Texas Attorney General […]

• Mapquest Takes On Google Navigation With Free Android App

  Following the success of its iPhone app, Mapquest has released a free, voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation app for Android handsets. The new app differs in a couple ways from its older iPhone sibling. Most significantly it takes advantage of Android’s speech capabilities and includes OpenStreetMap data, which allows the app to be used outside the US […]

• Google Asks: Can Search Trends Predict The Oscars?

  Search activity on Bing didn’t help predict the Grammy winners this year; Lady Gaga was the subject of about a zillion more searches than Album of the Year winner, The Arcade Fire. Klout scores also couldn’t predict the Grammy Award winners. In fact, social media as a whole failed to tell us who the winners […]

• Bing & Yahoo Align With Google’s Trademark Rules For Search Ads

  Bring on the trademarked keywords in the U.S. and Canada, says Microsoft AdCenter. A policy change, which takes effect March 3, means ads appearing on Bing and Yahoo will soon able to be triggered by trademarked keywords, though only authorized users can include trademarks in the text of their ads. The shift brings Microsoft AdCenter […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Facebook Hires Microsoft’s Global Ad Sales Head Carolyn Everson, AllThingsD
• Twitter’s Biz Stone: “We Are Not Valued At $10 Billion”, TechCrunch
• U.S. Government Shuts Down 84,000 Websites, ‘By Mistake’, torrentfreak.com
• Yahoo Marketing VP Shane Steele Joins Twitter, AllThingsD

Local, Maps & Mobile

• A New Angle On The Places P.O. Box Dilemma, SEO Igloo Blog
• Google Place/Tags Support Calls Me Back, Mike Blumenthal
• Laying on sidewalk, manhole image – Google Street View photography wins journalism accolades (photos), CNET News
• Yellow Pages battles Google in local search, USATODAY.com

Link Building

• Gain More from Your Link Building, Search Engine Journal

Paid Search & Contextual

• Automated rules now available to all advertisers, Inside AdWords
• New Interface Wednesdays: Compare and search performance across multiple date ranges, Inside AdSense

Searching

• Google Chases Computer Criminals to Search-Engine Competitors, BusinessWeek
• Greplin’s Social Search Opens Its Doors To All, TechCrunch

SEM Industry

• Don’t Lie To Google In A Google Help Forum, Search Engine Roundtable
• Local University Returns To Spokane … With a New Look, Small Business SEM
• Wrap up of Search Marketing Summit, Bangalore, India, searchenginedetails.com

SEO & SEM

• When would someone use "noindex, follow" in a robots meta tag?, YouTube
• 4 Reasons We Procrastinate – And What You Can Do About It, Search Engine People
• A Tweet’s Effect On Rankings – An Unexpected Case Study, SEOmoz
• Can You Operate Your SEO Company In Low Cost Countries Successfully?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google: Forbes Busted For Selling Links, Search Engine Roundtable
• How Well Groomed Is Your Website For SEO, SEO.com
• The New Web Design Trend That Is Awful For SEO: Single Scrolling Page Sites, Search Engine Roundtable
• Why The Web Needs Content Farms, adgooroo.com

Social Media

• Facebook Rolls Out New Brand Page Design, Wildfire Social Media Marketing Blog

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

• DOTW: How to Hire an SEO/SEM Consultant? – This "Discussion of the Week" is inspired by personal experience: Over the past 2-3 weeks, my IN box has been bombarded by small business owners realizing they need SEO/SEM help but not knowing where to start and, more specifically, how to find the right consultant/company to help with online marketing. So, what ONE TIP or piece of advice would you share with someone asking you "how do I find a good SEO/SEM consultant"? (Feel free to share more than one tip if you want, of course!)
• The Next Generation of Ranking Signals – Rand Fishkin does some theorizing about the next chain in the evolution of search algorithm ranking signals.
• Don’t Break The Cardinal Rule Of LinkBait – Debra's linkbait failed? How could that happen? Read her dissection of what went wrong in this interesting post at The Link Spiel.
• JCPenney Responds to the New York Times and Google – Alan Bleiweiss shares an email response that he got from JCPenney's PR department. Hilarity ensues.