SearchCap: The Day In Search, February 22, 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:

• Should Korean Search Engine Naver Worry About Local Competitors Or Google?

  For just about the last decade, Naver has been the dominant player in the south Korean search market holding a share of some 70%. However, this doesn’t mean that Naver is not worried about competition — including from global players such as Google. How many other industries do you know where the principal worry is […]
• How To Rank Nationally With Local Links

  When you think “Local SEO”, what generally comes to mind is the 7-pack, reviews, local dominated search results, distance from the centroid, and other miscellaneous terms that mean you can rank for “city keyword“. Because of this, the strategies between local and national SEO tend to segregate. Not as much as say, PPC and SEO, […]

• Little-Known Isohunt Case Attracts Google’s Interest

  Why does search giant Google care about Isohunt, a search engine that few have ever heard of? That’s the question raised in a Paid Content report. Turns out Google filed a friend-of-the-court brief in a civil case against Isohunt Web Technologies, a BitTorrent site, because it’s concerned the court will set a precedent it doesn’t […]

• How Niche Social Media Sites Are Shaping Online Communication

  Sure, everyone has heard of Facebook and Twitter, but what about Feed the Bull or Tweako? Yes, you can talk about sports on your old college roommate’s Facebook wall, but what about squaring off with strangers on a site like YardBarker? These types of niche social networking sites are what the social media industry has […]

• Russia: Egypt Uprising Fault Of Google

  Russia blames Google for stirring Egypt unrest: report from Reuters reports Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin’s deputy, Igor Sechin, as telling the Wall Street Journal: Look what they have done in Egypt, those highly-placed managers of Google, what manipulations of the energy of the people took place there. Of course it is a bit interesting […]

• Google On Designing Mobile Friendly Websites

  Pierre Far from Google wrote a blog post on how to design mobile friendly websites while considering Google’s webmaster guidelines and best practices. I’ve pulled out the key points from this post in bullet format: Google differentiates between traditional mobile phones and smartphones. Google has two bots: Googlebot and Googlebot-Mobile. Googlebot crawls desktop-browser type of […]

• SMX West San Jose in 2 Weeks; Register Now!

  Only two weeks until Search Marketing Expo – SMX West kicks off at the San Jose Convention Center, March 8-10. Here’s what’s in store: Exceptional content: Sixty sessions for search marketers of every skill level will be presented. Sessions will cover all of the search topics: paid search advertising (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), local/mobile […]

• Facebook Organizes Its Search Results

  Reflecting the growing number of content types on its platform, Facebook has changed its search results display — the drop-down that appears as soon as users begin typing in the Facebook search box. The new display is organized into different content types, replacing the old version which showed results in a straight list format with […]

• Google Queries Reveal Potential “Underground” Anti-Semitism In France

  French newspaper Le Monde issued a report using search query data to argue that the French are pre-occupied with whether their leaders (and would-be leaders) are Jewish. According to AFP, data from Google’s search suggest/auto-complete function indicates that French people are routinely searching on politicians’ names followed by the world “juif,” which means “Jewish” in […]

• 9 Ways To Start A New Local Business Using Facebook, Twitter, Groupon And Google*

  Ever dream of being your own boss? If you’ve got a good idea and are willing to take the plunge into starting your own business, it’s now easier (and cheaper) than ever to get a local business started. Put Up Your Website (<$100/yr) You’ll probably want your own domain, so you’ll have to shell out […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Got ideas? We’re listening., Google Custom Search
• Magazine Publishers in Tough Choice on e-Subscriptions, New York Times

Business Issues

• Cuban asks Obama, Google chief for free Internet, AFP
• Facebook Hires Google Latin America Executive, paidContent.org

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Israel and Google Street View: Some Israeli officials warn against Google Street View, latimes.com
• #EQNZ: The Web Mobilizes for New Zealand Earthquake, Read/Write Web
• Google Places Verification Bug Lingers On, Search Engine Roundtable
• Yahoo! Brings #1 Finance site to the iPad!, Yodel Anecdotal

Link Building

• Link Building Tools I Wish Someone Would Build, Search Engine Journal

SEM Industry

• Sphinnterview With David Wallace, seoroi.com

SEO & SEM

• Big Media: Need an SEO Source? I’ll Help, outspokenmedia.com
• Blaming SEO for Bad Search Results is like Blaming Mechanics for Bad Roads, SEOptimise
• Five lip biting SEO myths I still hear in 2011, econsultancy.com
• Google Preventing VPNs From Showing Geo-specific Search Results?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google updates Merchant Center, CPC Strategy
• SEO Factors and Trends: What happened in 2010 and what to expect in 2011, Bruce Clay Australia
• SEO Strategies for Google News, Distilled blog
• SEO: Host Files On Amazon S3 While On Your Domain, RustyBrick
• Waiting too long for Image Ad Approval on AdWords?, Certified Knowledge
• Why Do Most SEOs Prefer Country Code Top Level Domains For International Market?, Daily SEO Tip
• Why the SEO Industry Changes So Often, Search Engine Journal

Social Media

• The Power of Social Media Monitoring in Competitive SEO, Search Engine People

Video, Music & Image Search

• Speech technology at Google: teaching your phone to talk and listen, Official Google Blog

Web Analytics

• Mobile Analytics: Tracking Click-to-Call Mobile Ad Campaigns, Avinash Kaushik
• New Features For Google Analytics iOS/iPhone SDK, Google Mobile Ads Blog

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

• Ted Ulle aka Tedster On Information Architecture – The main navigation – the core Information Architecture – needs to be a fundamental beacon that the visitor can depend on to stay oriented. The job of the Information Architect is to create a consistent structure that most people will relate to easily.
• Navigating PPC Trademark Rules – Microsoft adCenter just updated their policies for bidding on trademarked keywords so it is a good time for a refresher.  Lucky for you there is one right here…
• 54% Wouldn’t Use Group Buying Again – An Internet2Go and Merchant Circle survey of over 8,000 Small and Medium Businesses (SMB) reveals interesting trends.
• 9 Ways To Start A New Local Business Using Facebook, Twitter, Groupon And Google – A nice list of affordable steps you can take to build a solid online presence for your local biz.
• Google to Circumvent Domain Names? – A couple days ago there was a blog post on TheDomains about "how stupid SEOs are" and "the amazing power of domaining" where they highlighted how awesome domaining was because a guy registered a domain name he saw in a comic and it sent a bunch of traffic.
• Squeeze Page Optimisation: How to Get 700+ Free Leads and a 64% Conversion Rate – A very smart post from Viperchill on how he created a high conversion landing page.
• Klout for Business: A Useful Metric –but an Incomplete View of Your Customer – Great article from Jeremiah Owyang that throws cold water on companies who put too much stock and trust in Klout influence scores. In a nutshell … it's not all that.
• 10 Tips to Inspire Your Audience to Take Action in Social Media – All the followers and fans in the world aren't worth a dime unless you can inspire them to take action — this is a good piece that talks about how to communicate with social media connections in a way that inspires them to DO SOMETHING.