SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 25, 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:

• Yahoo Reports Lackluster $1.5B Revenues, But Display Up 17 Percent

  Yahoo reported Q4 2010 earnings this afternoon. Revenues were slightly up vs. the previous quarter but down compared to the same period a year ago. Gross revenues were $1.53 billion, down 12 percent from 2009. Search revenues were down; though in a surprise bright spot for Yahoo display ad revenue was up 17 percent and […]

• My Life With Google Voice Number Porting, Six Months In

  Finally, anyone can port their mobile phone number to Google Voice. I’ve been doing so for the past six months. Thinking about making the jump? Here’s my experience, which is largely good. Plus, some thoughts on how this gives Android an added boost ahead of Verizon’s iPhone launch. I moved my cell phone number to […]

• Google To Hire 6,000 Plus, While Yahoo Cuts Additional 1%

  Google announced they are hiring. Last year they hired about 4,500 new Googlers. This year they are expected to hire over 6,000 new employees, according to the Mercury News. Eric Schmidt, Google’s current CEO, said 1,000 will be hired in Europe. Google’s latest earnings report had Google’s headcount at 24,400 full-time employees as of December […]

• Google Promotes Boost To All Of U.S., Mobile Devices

  Google’s simpler AdWords program, Boost, is getting its national roll-out, after a three-month test period in certain cities and states, the company is set to announce. The search giant also said it will begin displaying Boost ads for searches done on iPhone and Android devices. Google spokesperson Jim Prosser wouldn’t say what kind of usage […]

• Google Acquires SayNow

  SayNow has announced Google has just acquired them. SayNow has a platform that allows voice messaging, one-on-one conversations, and group calls to be instantly integrated into Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Android, or iPhone applications. SayNow’s cofounders, Nikhyl & Ujjwal, said: We are thrilled to announce that we have been acquired by Google. Since 2005, we’ve explored […]

• Google Voice Number Porting Now Available

  We discussed it last week and today you can officially port your mobile number to Google voice. The blog post announcing Google Voice number porting says it takes 24 hours and costs $20. It probably will also count as a termination of your wireless account, triggering early termination fees if applicable. To make it work […]

• And The Academy Awards Oscar Nomination Goes To … Google & Bing!

  When I started seeing tweets about Oscar nominations, I realized the Academy Awards nominee list must be out. Good time to test how well the search engines are doing listing them! Would Google beat Bing? Bing best Google? And how about Blekko, for getting me to a list? It seemed a draw between Google and […]

• How To Use Twitter To Boost Your Google Rankings

  Following the confirmation from Matt Cutts in December that Google is now factoring social signals into its ranking decisions, as highlighted in Danny Sullivan’s article, What Social Signals Do Google & Bing Really Count? If social authority is a ranking factor, many people will be turning to Twitter in hope of a quick SEO boost. […]

• Yandex Keeps On Beating Google In Russia

  Google is a fearsome animal, hungry to eat up all search engine market share in its path. It’s global too, and with huge resources behind it. Imagine then, that you’re the leading search engine in your own domestic market and some nearby neighbors and Google arrives. You wouldn’t exactly be thrilled right? Then, after a […]

• Browsers To Offer Official Behavioral Targeting Blocking

  Yesterday, Google and Firefox announced new tools to block behavioral targeting across the web. Behavioral targeting are a form of ads that use your online behavior to target specific ads to you, as you browse the web. Google calls these interest based advertising but most of the web calls them behavioral targeting. Google released a […]

• Why Every SEO Needs A Little Black Book

  In the annals of man-dom, there is the story of the illustrious black book. The black book is the repository of female phone numbers, those accumulated from years going out to the bars, meeting new people, and overall, pursuing a mate of the opposite sex. Functionally the black book concept has died, because electronic storage […]

• Google Buys Twitter Sentiment Analyzer fflick To Support “Contextual Discovery”

  Google has acquired fflick, according to TechCrunch. The price is reportedly $10 million. Is it a talent acquisition, a tool acquisition or both? It’s both. Using Twitter, the fflick service analyzes and organizes comments about movies: overall, most recent, positive, what your friends have said and so on. This is a very interesting service and […]

• Google Places Now Takes User Photo Uploads

  Following in the footsteps of several other locally-oriented sites, Google Places is now accepting user photos of local businesses. When viewing a Place Page (like the Wild Ginger restaurant in Seattle), you’ll see a new “Upload a photo” link to the right of the Photos & Video content section. Google’s announcement says the user-uploaded images […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Yahoo Hopes to Share Google’s Good News, Wall Street Journal
• Eric Schmidt expects another 10 years at Google, Reuters
• Facebook Acquires Mobile Advertising Startup Rel8tion, AllThingsD
• Google Australia hires new MD, smh.com.au
• Yahoo Japan Profit Rises; Google Tie-Up Moves Ahead, Wall Street Journal
• Yahoo Lays Off One Percent of Staff in Front of Earnings, AllThingsD

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Apple Plans Service That Lets IPhone Users Pay for Purchases With Handsets, Bloomberg
• Eric Schmidt sees next decade as age of “augmented humanity”, VentureBeat
• I Want My Places Reviews Back – It’s Getting Personal, Mike Blumenthal

Link Building

• 5 Fast Tips to Improve Internal Links, ProBlogger
• Link Building 2011; what works and what doesn’t, searchnewscentral.com

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google AdSense Adds Interest Based Ads Performance Report, Search Engine Roundtable
• Discover v2010 – Campaign Targeting, AdWords API Blog
• Google AdWords Campaign Tab "Stuck" On Google TV Ads, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• An interesting essay on search neutrality, Matt Cutts
• Global: Historic Weather Conditions & Real Time Weather Conditions (Interactive Map), ResourceShelf

SEM Industry

• 483 Things We Hate & Love About Search Conference Speakers, AIM Clear Blog

SEO & SEM

• 3 SEO Myths Busted!, Search Engine Journal
• 5 Things Businesses Should Know About SEO Agencies, BruceClay.com
• Does your business own you?, SEO Copywriting
• How are site: results ranked?, YouTube
• How I Uncovered Criminal Activity During an SEO Audit, Search Engine People
• How to Build an Effective Footer, Michael Gray
• How to deal with planned site downtime, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• The Habits of Highly Effective SEOs Part 2, Conductor Blog
• Tips to Use Datafeeds For SEO, Affiliate Marketing and Revenue Generation, Search Engine People
• Why You Shouldn’t Rely On (Toolbar) PageRank, Search Engine Journal

Social Media

• Quick Way to Find Interesting & Influential Twitter Users, Small Business SEM
• Visualize your LinkedIn network with InMaps, The LinkedIn Blog
• Bret Taylor: Facebook Cut Spam By 95% Last Year, TechCrunch
• How To Attract 55 Million Eyes In Just 4 Hours [pictures], outspokenmedia.com
• QuoraTop Ranks the Most Followed Quora Accounts, blog.louisgray.com
• Resources: Social Media and Tonight’s State of the Union Address, ResourceShelf
• What Is Quora’s Biggest Challenge?, TechCrunch

Web Analytics

• 127 New Dimensions And Metrics Available In The API, Google Analytics Blog
• Using Page Level Google Analytics Custom Variables to report on SEO traffic by page type, BlogStorm

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

• A Quick Way to Find Interesting & Influential Twitter Users – Matt McGee describes how he identifies an industry's most influential twitter users. There are several sites and directories that claim to offer an easy way to find those users. But none of  those sites/tools alone is adequate to really find who you should find and connect with.
• Nifty Tools To Improve Your Online Marketing Campaign – This commented list of valuable tools for all kind of Internet marketing purposes by Joost de Valk is worth a bookmark. Most probably Yoast uses something pretty elegant and smart that you didn't stumble across, yet.
• 4 Link Building Phenomena Dissected by 3 Phenomenal Link Builders – 3 of the most prominent link builders in our industry ( Debra Mastaler, Julie Joyce, and Melanie Nathan) provide their opnions on the burning link questions you've had in the back of your mind but were afraid to ask.
• How I Uncovered Criminal Activity During an SEO Audit – Alan Bleiweiss reminds us that sometimes thorough examination of a website will uncover the darndest things.
• SEO for Corporate Blogs: Where to Use Keywords – Lee gives the lowdown on SEO for corporate blogs.
• Small Business Blogging Content Strategies – One of the challenges facing someone when they first decide to start a blog is figuring out what to write about, whom to write for, and how to incoporate blogging into their daily routine. This is true for businesses that to decide to add a blog to their website as well.
• Facebook Starts Selling Likes – Marketers can pay for these ads on a cost-per-action basis, meaning they pay for "likes" as some advertisers pay for clicks. Though clearly marked with the words "sponsored story," the like-ad — which will includes a user's name, just like the news feed — is not optional for Facebook users. These actions can appear in ads even if they take place off Facebook, on a marketer's own website. The product itself is broken into four possible buys for advertisers — page likes and check-ins, and actions Facebook is calling "application play" and "page posts."