SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 18, 2010
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
- Geo-Targeting For Local Placement: Just How Narrow Is OK?
Advertising exists to help merchants sell products and services to people who need those same products and services. Bringing the merchant together with the consumer is the objective. In the online sector how those two are brought together requires a combination of money, targeting, and compelling or persuasive ad copy. How are those elements joined? […]
- Organic Search & Paid Search: Are They Synergistic Or Cannibalistic?
One aspect to search marketing that I feel doesn’t get enough attention and indeed is misunderstood by the SEO practitioner is the interaction between organic search and paid search.
For years when teaching SEO workshops, I touted the synergistic effect of being at the top of both organic and paid results. I would encourage attendees to […] - Yahoo & Microsoft Receive Go Ahead To Implement Search Deal
Yahoo and Microsoft announced they have clearance to implement their proposed search deal where Microsoft will power Yahoo Search and search ads. Today they received “unrestricted” clearance from both the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission to proceed. And proceed they will.
Yahoo said the implementation will begin in the next “days.” […] - Is Google Referrer Spamming To Detect Spam?
Michael VanDeMar has documented possible evidence that Google is using fake referrers, possibly to detect forms of spam. Michael said the GoogleBot is being cloaked and is sending fake referrers for keywords the site is not related to and has no chance in ranking for.
Bing has been doing this for years, fixed the issue […] - Google Gets Patent For Variable Content Access By Geography
Google was grated a patent that discusses a system of determining content access privileges by country/geography. While it undoubtedly has multiple uses, Google book scanning and search appears to be the primary intended use case. ArsTechnia brings it to our attention.
Here’s the patent summary:
A system comprising: one or more devices to implement: means for receiving […] - Google Wants Mountain View To Change Zoning Laws
TechCrunch reports Google sent a letter to the zoning board in the City of Mountain View, trying to encourage the city to change the zoning laws near the Google headquarters. Currently, the areas around the Googleplex are zoned only for commercial use.
Google wants to enable their employees to be closer to the […] - Day One Of Paid Search: Know Your Goals
Sometimes the start of a project is the hardest part. You don’t know what you don’t know. There will be questions to ask for which you may not know the answer. If you’re a beginning at search engine marketing, you may even be staring at a blank Excel sheet right now.
The […] - Fortune 500 Still Clueless About SEO, Study Says
Despite spending millions of dollars on paid search, Fortune 500 companies continue to fail when it comes to natural search visibility. That’s the conclusion of “Natural Search Trends of the Fortune 500: Q4/2009,” the latest study released today by Conductor, a New York-based SEO services/technology firm.
Some key takeaways from Conductor’s survey of Fortune 500 search […]
Search News From Around The Web:
Applications & Portal Features
- A Sneak Peek At Google Calendar’s Upcoming Facelift, TechCrunch
- AOL Plans To Launch "Hundreds" More Patch Local News Sites In 2010, Business Insider
- Facebook Defeats Yahoo to Become America’s Second Most Popular Website, thenextweb.com
- Open-sourcing the Living Stories format, Google News Blog
- Coming soon to a Tab in Mail… Yahoo! Calendar, ymailblog.com
- YouTube Warning IE6 Users To Upgrade Browsers, Search Engine Roundtable
Business Issues
- On2 Finally Gets On With It: Shareholder Approve Sale To Google, paidContent.org
- reMail Acquired by Google, Gabor hits Send
- Bing Advertising On Intellitxt, Search Engine Roundtable
- Google Books Settlement Hearing Opens, Wall Street Journal
- Google Cleared to Buy Energy in Bulk, Wall Street Journal
- Google Creates New Post To Oversee Display Across YouTube And DoubleClick, paidContent.org
- How Google Is Becoming a Startup Incubator, Google Watch
- Wikipedia wins the Google lottery – but why?, The Guardian
- Yahoo!’s Nebraska Citizenship Official, Yodel Anecdotal
Local, Maps & Mobile
- Announcing the winner of our Map Maker global competition, Google LatLong
- Google chief extends olive branch to mobile phone groups, The Guardian
- Bing Maps Updates Hyperlocal Application, Data Mining: Text Mining, Visualization and Social Media
- Positioning Your Business For Success In Local Search, PPC Hero
Paid Search & Contextual
- Poll: 60% of Google AdSense Publishers Say Earnings Down, Search Engine Roundtable
- Typos may earn Google $500m a year, New Scientist
- AdWords system maintenance on January 20th, Inside AdWords
- New Round of AdWords Suspensions for Landing Page & Site Quality Guidelines, AdWords Help Experts
Searching
- Inside Google’s Hot Topics, a real-time heat map of news and chatter, Los Angeles Times
- Integrating translation into Google Goggles, Google Translate Blog
- Is Google Getting Too Personal?, SEOmoz
- Just Released Statistics: Internet Use in the United States: 2009, ResourceShelf
- Keeping you in the know for the Olympic Games, Bing Search Blog
SEM Industry
- Interview with Debra Mastaler, Link Building Expert, Sphinn
- A Networking Strategy for SMX West, SEO In-house Blog
- SearchFest 2010 Keynote Interview: Stefan Weitz, SEMpdx
SEO & SEM
- 10 Types of Landing Page Goals for PPC Campaigns, Search Engine Journal
- 3 SEO-Friendly WP Plugins to Display Featured Posts, Search Engine Journal
- Bing Indexing New Content & Sites Faster?, Search Engine Roundtable
- How can a site that focuses on video or images improve its rankings?, YouTube
- An Extremely Nifty Guide to Reviews and Local Search, Search Engine Journal
- Are You "Google Pagerank Certification"? I Hope Not, Search Engine Roundtable
- Peer Review: SEO Best Practices for HTTP Status Codes, SEOmoz
Social Media
- 10 Things to Avoid In Social Media, WebWorkerDaily
- 3 Examples of Real World Social Media Conversion (and ROI), 10e20
- Google Buzz bug exposes user geo location, The Register
- How Google Went Into "Code Red" And Saved Google Buzz, businessinsider.com
- Interesting! Study: Ages of Social Network Users, ResourceShelf
Video, Music & Image Search
- Is Google preparing to challenge iTunes in the cloud?, CNET News
- The Most Popular YouTube Videos and the Bloggers Who Embed Them, Read/Write Web
Web Analytics
- Spotlight on Google Analytics features: Custom variables, Conversion Room
Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:
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