SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 16, 2009

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Q& A With Andrew Silverman, Product Manager For AdWords Conversion Optimizer
  One of the power-packed tools inside AdWords is the Conversion Optimizer, which will help you reach Cost Per Action (CPA) goals using Google Conversion Tracking on your account. One of the best features of Conversion Optimizer is how easy it is to engage and manage. To start, go to your campaign settings and choose “Change Bidding Strategy”. From there, you get three options: manual bidding, Conversion Optimizer, or Budget Optimizer. Manual bidding is your normal “you set the bids” account and the Budget Optimizer is usually for newer users who turn over their budgets for …
• Why Don’t Google & Yahoo Offer Twitter Search?
  Yesterday, we got a new news search engine which taps into Twitter that Yahoo’s excited about, as it uses their BOSS system. That kind of annoyed me. Why didn’t Yahoo just build the service themselves? Or a regular Twitter search service, for that matter? And where’s Twitter search from Google? BOSS is Yahoo’s Build Your Own Search Service product, which lets anyone take Yahoo’s data and create their own search engine. It’s grown into part of Yahoo’s “open strategy” where it hopes to make gains on the web by supposedly pulling …
• Search Week: January 5, 2008
  Below are top stories in search organized by topic, which happened over the past week. Each topic (or Search Engine Land column) is also a link, where you can click through and drill into the Search Engine Land members library to find other stories in that area. Because some stories are listed in more than one category, you may see them repeated.
• Search In Pictures: Googlers Dancing, Yahoo’s New CEO & Dinner Impossible At Yahoo
• Microsoft’s Early Mistakes & Missed Opportunities With Paid Search
  Microsoft Bid to Beat Google Builds on a History of Misses from the Wall Street Journal has a very detailed look at some of the mistakes Microsoft made early on in the paid search space. The piece goes through the failure of Microsoft’s original keyword ad platform, named bCentral Keywords, which was discontinued in early 2000. It then discusses the fact that they did not purchase Overture, which Yahoo acquired in 2003. Followed by the failed attempts at buying Yahoo this past year. Yes, we all know Microsoft has made many mistakes in the past …
• Kogan ‘Indefinitely’ Delays Android Phone Launch
  Austrialian electronics maker Kogan Technologies has said it is “indefinitely” delaying what was an imminent launch of the second Android phone in Australia, because of technology compatibility issues. According to the Kogan Blog:
  The Agora did reach a very late stage of development. Manufacturing had commenced and it was a matter of days from being shipped to you. However, it now seems certain the Agora in it’s current form will limit its compatibility and interoperability in the near future. One of the potential issues is the screen size and resolution. It seems developers will be creating applications that are a …
• Google Names Marchex First ‘Google AdWords Authorized Reseller Technology Platform’
  As we’ve seen several times recently, there’s a chasm between consumer usage of search and SEM by small business advertisers (SMBs). Google developed its authorized reseller program to address this issue in part and create a network of third party relationships that could help it gain more traditional small business (SMB) advertisers, which it had difficulty doing through traditional AdWords self-service. These third parties were and are largely established media companies (i.e., yellow pages publishers, newspaper publishers) and selected others who sell directly to small businesses (e.g., Yodle, ReachLocal). The traditional media companies need the traffic and Google …
• Social Media Gold: Ratings & Reviews
  I’m an introvert by nature, so this whole social media thing has left me feeling like an outsider looking in. While everyone Facebooks and Twitters each other to death, I’m asking “What’s the point?” It’s a genuine item of curiosity to me. I can’t really relate to wanting to relate to everyone. I have a hard enough time keeping up with my real friends who live 15 minutes away. But as an advertising professional, I’m also always judging any new trend or platform for its potential to impact the business world. I watched the rise of Facebook and …
• SMX West Keynotes: Battelle, Cerf & Sullivan
  Search Engine Land’s next Search Marketing Expo conference, SMX West, comes to Santa Clara, California this Feb. 10-12. I’m happy to announce that we’ve completed our keynote lineup. Google’s Vint Cerf, “The Search” author John Battelle and myself will all be kicking off each day. I’m going to start the show with a keynote after our initial welcoming, the morning of Feb. 10. One of my favorite things is to look back over a year and try to puzzle out what happened and what we might expect going forward, both as search marketers …
• TweetNews: Yahoo Programmer Melds News Search & Twitter
  TweetNews is a new search engine that uses hot Twitter topics to bring more relevance and freshness to news search. It’s a pet project developed by Vik Singh, a member of Yahoo’s BOSS team. As Vik describes it on his personal blog, fresh news often doesn’t have enough links to rank well in a traditional algorithm. But TweetNews replaces links with Twitter conversations as a signal; news stories that are being talked about the most on Twitter will rise to the top of a TweetNews search. It’s an interesting mashup because it plays to …

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Making your personalized homepage even more personal, Official Google Blog
• MySpace Building Stealth Webmail Product, TechCrunch
• Share Personal Information with Your Gmail Contacts, Google Operating System
• Yahoo Becomes More FriendFeed-like, Adds Updates From 20 Outside Sites, TechCrunch

Business Issues

• comScore Releases December 2008 U.S. Search Engine Rankings, comScore
• Microsoft
  Statement on European Commission Statement of Objections: Statement of Objections
  expresses Commission’s preliminary view on the inclusion of Internet Explorer
  in Windows., www.microsoft.com
• Sorry Google, You Missed the Real-Time Web!, Read/Write Web
• Yahoo’s
  New Chief Makes a Decisive First Appearance, New York Times

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Live Search Maps Netherlands…Geboren, Virtual Earth, An Evangelist’s Blog
• Aussie Google phone launch aborted, TheAge
• Google Maps features launched in the last 6 months of 2008, Mike Blumenthal

Other Items

• Building engineers, Official Google Blog
• German Government Wants to Start ISP-Based Censoring, Google Blogoscoped

Paid Search & Contextual

• adCenter
  Display URL Optional?, PPC Discussions
• Adwords
  Trademark Policy Also Applies to Google Grant Advertisers, SEM Geek
• Crash
  Course in PPC Advertising, Search Marketing Sage
• Google Now Consistently
  Showing Ads on Image Search?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Publishers Feeling
  Screwed By Google AdSense Competitive Ad Filter, Search Engine Roundtable
• The End of Yahoo
  Publisher Network Nearing?, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM Industry

• 2009 SEMMY Awards launching next week, Small Business SEM
• Dan Perry: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop
• The Scientists of Search Engine Optimization, SEO Theory
• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: January 16, 2009, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Google Sitelinks Disappear? Should You Worry?, Search Engine Roundtable
• SEO for Video Content, SEOmoz
• The benefits of ‘nofollow’ as an SEO best practice, Econsultancy
• What Happens When Google Does Not Catch a Site Hack?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Would You Give A Search Engine a 3D Model of Your Body?, SEO By The Sea

Social Media

• The Zen of Twitter Support, Twitter Blog
• Twitter Launches Suggestions Tool, mashable.com
• Another Facebook Hole?, loose wire blog
• Twitter May Have Found Its Business Model, Read/Write Web

Video, Music & Image Search

• MSNBC
  Makes Videos Easier to Search, Clip, Wall Street Journal
• Inauguration
  Resources #3: Inaugural Speeches (Videos), ResourceShelf

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

• 11 Reasons You Can’t Ignore Social Media in 2009
• WeBuildPages announces….. We Build Widgets
• How to track Universal Search traffic with Google Analytics
• Natural Links Are Best For Google SEO – Bollocks
• What’s The Biggest SEO Myth?
• The Golden Rules of Paid Search
• The Scientists of Search Engine Optimization