SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 19, 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:

• Google Knol Still Alive & Fixed, But Questions Linger About Its Future

  Google has fixed a bug that temporarily made Knol look like a ghost town this week. And, without exactly providing a ringing endorsement of its article writing service, Google says it is still supporting Knol. The Google Operating System blog suggested yesterday that Google had “abandoned” Knol and questioned if Google should or would shut […]
• Enterprise SEO: 5 Tips To Create A Governance System

  The SEO landscape is competitive enough for B2B organizations. The last thing they need is internal competition from other business units. But many marketers face this hurdle when implementing an effective enterprise search solution. But to be successful, enterprise level SEO needs to be supported by a governance system based on effective communication. Why Governance […]

• Search & The 2011 Sundance Film Festival

  The annual Sundance Film Festival is about to converge here in Utah January 20-30, 2011, with Bing.com and YouTube as Leadership Sponsors. Bing is the official search engine of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival website, and YouTube has two special channels for the event, the main Sundance Film Fest channel, and the YouTube Screening Room, […]

• Reflecting On What I Have Learned As An InHouse SEM, Time To Move On

  Back in 2001 when I started my professional career in online marketing, SEO was still pretty new. Paid search had literally just materialized in the form of goto.com (anyone remember penny bids?!). Everything was still soft and new. Negotiating ad buys was as simple as cutting the seller’s price in half. Paid search could be […]

• Google’s Paul Cézanne Logo

  Today is Paul Cézanne’s 172nd birthday and Google is remembering his work with a special Google logo. Paul Cézanne was a painter and artist born in 1839 and died in 1906. Here is a picture of the Google logo: Google tweeted this morning that the logo you see on the home page was first created […]

• Google Opens Up Downloads To Iran But Blocks Iranian Government

  Google announced that after years of not allowing those in Iran to download their software, Google has opened up downloads of their Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome applications. Now if you are in Iran you will be able to download Google Earth, Picasa and Chrome to your computer. Google explained that the U.S. export controls […]

• Deconstructing “Search Neutrality”

  The concept of “search neutrality” that has recently emerged is an attractive idea to many, appealing to notions of even-handedness and fair play. However it completely breaks down when one seriously considers its implications in practice. We’ve written a great deal about the challenges and problems lurking behind “search neutrality.” Now in an academic article, […]

• Google’s Fourth Doodle 4 Google Competition Announced

  Google has announced the fourth “Doodle 4 Google” competition, this one is named “What I’d like to do someday…” These competitions are targeted at children who design logos around a theme each year. Like I said, this year’s theme is “What I’d like to do someday…”. Google runs the competition worldwide, but this one is […]

• Google Makes Modest Comeback In China

  Google is making a slow comeback in China — in more ways that one. Earlier this month Google CFO Patrick Pichette was quoted in The Times of London suggesting that Google would “return” to China in a more forceful way in the not-too-distant future. The company stopped censoring its results last year and started redirecting […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Docs to Add Preview Pane, Music Player, Collections, Google Operating System
• Google TV coming to a pocket near you, Android and Me
• Google TV On Campus, The Official Google TV Blog

Business Issues

• Google Approaches Its Breaking Point, SEO Book
• Google Challenges Five Privacy Orders by Regulator at Spanish Appeal Court, Bloomberg
• The Rise And Fall Of Yahoo: The Infographic, TechCrunch
• Yandex Reports 43 Percent Revenue Increase, WebProNews

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Alternative Methods For Verifying Google Places Bulk Upload Requests, Search Marketing Communications
• Groupon in the Clustered Results of Google Place Search (Local Search), The Impact on Local Businesses, www.hmtweb.com
• Let Your Hotpot Friends Help You Search on Google Maps, Google LatLong
• The Open Rollout Continues!, MapQuest Blog

Link Building

• Are You A Link Loud Mouth?, The Link Spiel

Searching

• 100 Google Search Tricks for the Savviest of Students, www.onlinecollegecourses.com
• Google’s Niels Provos battles malware on the Web | InSecurity Complex, CNET News

SEM Industry

• SEOs as Simpsons, tagseoblog.com
• New AdSenseAdvisor Joins WebmasterWorld, Search Engine Roundtable
• Outspoken Media Turns Two, Outspoken Media
• SearchFest 2011 Mini-Interview: Matt Mcgee, SEMpdx

SEO & SEM

• How to improve your site indexation – XML Sitemaps Case Study, Bruce Clay Australia
• 32 SEO Tactics to Avoid in 2011, SEOmoz
• Blank HTML Pages Can Be Considered Duplicate Content, Search Engine Roundtable
• Can’t Afford SEO? Can’t Afford NOT to SEO!, Search Engine Guide
• Further Implications for Search Marketing of Webpage Loading Speeds, Vertical Leap Blog
• Google Sucks All the Way to the Bank!, HighRankings Forums
• How can an out-of-town company compete with local competition?, YouTube
• Response to Rand Fishkin’s Thoughts on Mobile SEO, www.brysonmeunier.com
• The SEO Wish List – Part 6 Ecommerce or Database driven sites, Vertical Leap Blog

Social Media

• Twitter Now Available In Seventh Language: Korean, Read/Write Web
• What’s All the Fuss About Quora?, Marketing Pilgrim
• A Review of Quora Social Network, Wall Street Journal
• Quora content quality quelled by its own constituents, ZDNet

Web Analytics

• Using Google Analytics To Identify Problems & Opportunities On Your Website, David Naylor

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

• DOTW: Does Google favor its own properties in the SERPs? – Google is under attack from many sides about perceived favoritism in its search results. The complaints say that Google promotes its own properties/sites in the search results at the expense of other sites. The EU has even launched an investigation looking into this. What say you? Our "Discussion of the Week" wants your opinion: Does Google favor its own sites in the search results?
• SEO Cloaking Techniques to Avoid in 2011 – Cloaking is the technique used to present different content, layout, functionality or headers (a completely different page or partial components of the page, known as Mosaic cloaking) to a search engine spider than to a user's Web browser.This article outlines some of the common on-site functionality that may be (mis)interpreted as cloaking-spam.
• Why competitive link analysis wastes your time – "You can take your competitive link analysis and put it where the PageRank don’t flow — that’s all its worth anyway," says Michael Martinez, most probably starting a heated discussion, and elaborates: "Beginners who don’t understand how to obtain links can learn something by following in people’s footsteps, but if you’ve been doing this for more than six months you should have moved on to obtaining more effective links that your competitors don’t yet have."
• More Landing Page Teardowns for Landing Page Design Inspiration – Whenever we start a new Landing Page Optimization project we like to start-out by seeing what else is out there.
  In this new section we’ll run through high-traffic landing pages that we like, and highlight the good and bad.
  To see our comments, just rollover the images.
• Video converts and here is the proof: 46% increase in conversion rate – Considering how big Universal Search and the verticals are these days, I tought this was an interesting case study – enjoy
• Eliminate Black Magic SEO – Alan Bleiweiss rants about the kind of pseudo-valuable “SEO insight”, presented in a “scientific testing package”, that qickly gets adopted  as "best SEO practice". Those actually result in decreased rankings, because folks are busy sailing around minor Google barriers, losing their focus on important things that desperately need optimization.  He says that nonsense like PageRank sculpting or breaking an imaginary first-link-counts rule should not be allowed to work its way through the maze of our industry. Responsible industry sites must put huge bright bold and blinking disclaimers above and below such magic carpet rides into worthless time-suck, he continues.
• Using Google Analytics To Identify Problems & Opportunities On Your Website – A really excellent example of digging deep into analytics to find trends & actionable items.
• The Dawn of Paid Search Without Keywords – Adam Cohen discusses Universal Paid Search, and how the myriad of Adwords changes in 2010 are notable for the dramatic departures in every step of how you advertise on Google now and in the future.
• SEO Mistakes That Just Make You Look Dumb – Lisa Barone's funny reminder of the "dumbest SEO mistakes ever" stands out of the usual SEO checklists. Learn why "like a husband who just sits on the couch all day, bad URLs hold you back and are a complete turn off " and what happens when you befriend the wrong keywords.
• How to Build a Marketing Consulting Business – Pam writes about how she made a successful PPC consulting business in a bad economy, and how not to sabotage your chances at success.
• What Industry Experts Look for On Twitter… – If you'd like to get retweets, attention, engagement, or whatever from industry experts on Twitter, maybe you should read Melissa Fach's interviews with those who told her what they're looking for in your timeline.
• On Facebook Microsoft tricks users into making Bing their default search engine? – According to RWW's research by Marshall Kirkpatrick and Google's Matt Cutts, who discovered the scam, there's no proof (yet) that Microsoft actually pays the suspected scammers (Facebook's third largest advertiser Make-my-baby.com) for new searchers, but they certainly do profit from their FB ads, not only in terms of market share.
• Magazines Pursue Tablets, but iPad Limits Subscriptions – The frustration that the country’s magazine and newspaper publishers feel toward Apple can sound a lot like a variation on the old relationship gripe, “can’t live with ’em, may get left behind without ’em.” The New York Times reports that Apple may offer new opportunities with its devices, but it exacts a heavy toll. The NWT cites a user's comment: “Sheer highway robbery, I’ll keep with my paper subscription." and predicts change coming shortly “with all the new developments and all the new Android devices". [Free subscription]