SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 7, 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:

• Search Biz: Yahoo-MSFT Update; Google’s 20% Time Changing & Google Router Coming Soon?
  The latest twist in the Yahoo-Microsoft saga comes from TechCrunch, which reports that a new group is trying to takeover Yahoo … with Microsoft’s money. The group is made up of investment bankers and Silicon Valley big-wigs, and Microsoft would loan the group the money to make it happen. If it sounds a bit complicated, it probably is; TechCrunch says the current economic situation demands creative financing on big merger deals like this. If the report is accurate, and if it happens, the new group would sell Yahoo’s search and search marketing business to Microsoft. TechCrunch says the proposal …
• Microsoft Wins Verizon Mobile Search Derby
  Reuters is reporting that Verizon has chosen Microsoft to be its mobile search partner. The rumor, based on an initial Wall Street Journal report in November, had been that Google and Microsoft were in tight competition for the relationship. Microsoft provided the following statement about the Reuters report: “We can confirm the Microsoft, Verizon Wireless mobile search and advertising relationship, but have no further details to disclose at this time.  Please stay tuned for more information.” This is a significant deal for Microsoft. Verizon is the largest US wireless carrier, with approximately 78 million subscribers, having acquired second tier carrier Alltel …
• Bush: Fix Your “Miserable Failure” Googlebomb Legacy Before Obama Takes Office
  Few realize that outgoing US president George W. Bush has left behind a unique legacy for future presidents, including Barack Obama — that they are all condemned to rank tops for a search on “miserable failure” in major search engines. It’s my hope that Bush will correct this before leaving office, or that Obama will fix it soon after he’s inaugurated. Below, more about the situation and how it could be solved.
• Google Maps For Mobile Simplifies Directions
  According to the Google Mobile Blog, Google Maps has simplified getting directions on your BlackBerry, Nokia, G1 or iPhone — if you have the Maps client downloaded. Previously if users entered a business name on the Maps client as a directions end point, Google might not recognize it. According to the post: Until today, if you tried to get directions and entered a business name, “starbucks” for example, as the end or start point, Google Maps for mobile did not understand that you meant Starbucks the business. Rather, Google Maps for mobile would search for an address with “starbucks” in …
• Report: Sitemaps Increase Crawler Response Time
  An SEOMoz post has documented statistics on how submitting a Sitemap to Google and Yahoo impacts the rate of crawling that web site. The results show that submitting a Sitemap to Google and Yahoo decreased the time it took Google and Yahoo to crawl the page. It is important to note that the test was done “on 12 different posts, 6 with Sitemaps being submitted, and 6 with the Sitemaps not being submitted.” The results were that when a “Sitemap was submitted, the average time it took for the bot to visit the new post was 14 minutes for Google and 245 minutes for Yahoo.” In contrast, when “no Sitemap was submitted and the bot had to crawl to the post, it took 1375 minutes for Google and 1773 for Yahoo.” That is a huge difference in crawl time. It is true that many sites see their content indexed within minutes, with or without a sitemap file. But in some cases, it takes longer.
• Bruce Clay Releases Two New Tools
  The folks at Bruce Clay have announced the release of two new SEO tools. One tool is named the Search Engine Optimization/KSP tool and the other is a toolbar named SEMToolBar.
• Baidu Sued As Search Monopoly In China
  Leading Chinese search engine Baidu has been sued by Chinese medical B2B marketplace Qmyy.com to prevent its site from being blocked or dropped by the engine. According to a factually lean report in China Daily: Qmyy.com required Baidu to stop blocking its web pages from appearing on its search results and pay 1.106 million yuan ($161,460) for the losses that such acts have incurred. Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court accepted the case on Dec 26. According to Li Changqing, a lawyer representing Qmyy.com, the company made the decision to file a lawsuit after it failed to reach an out-of-court settlement …
• Considering In-House SEO? How To Ease Into In-House SEO Smoothly
  In-house SEO can be more cost efficient, but it can also be very costly because in-house SEO has many unique challenges. If you are planning to bring SEO in-house in the coming year, be smart. Most companies can’t actually be 100% in-house because there aren’t enough SEO Michael Jordans out there willing to go in-house. Even if you find one, they may not have the political savviness to pull it off. What are companies doing to bring SEO in-house successfully? Many are doing 80%-90% in-house, and use an agency for the remaining 10%-20%. We’re seeing a lot of companies hire a …

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• GrandCentral in Spain?, Google Operating System
• Tabbed Browsing in Google Chrome, Chromium Blog
• Correction: Checkout Icon Makes Ads 10% More Clickable to Checkout Users, Google Says, Google Blogoscoped
• Mahalo Answers Widget, Jason Calacanis
• What’s New (or Improved) in Health Sites, Wall Street Journal
• Report: Cloud-Based Email Cheapest Option for Most Companies, Read/Write Web

Business Issues

• Online Profiling – The good, the bad and the plain evil, Tim Nash UK SEO Blog
• AOL Exec Kevin Conroy Out After Product Empire Dismantled, TechCrunch
• Baidu May Be Set for Costly Changes, Wall Street Journal
• Baidu sued for alleged monopoly, China Daily
• [email protected] Lands ClickSquared Exec, MediaPost
• Search Ad Industry Won’t Go On Hiatus, MediaPost
• Yelp user faces lawsuit over negative review, News.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Maps API Library for GWT, Google Geo Developers Blog
• Geotagging blog posts, Google LatLong
• Google Street View helps find kidnapped Mass. child, Google LatLong
• Mobile Marketing Moves From Ads to Apps, Ad Age
• Nokia.mobi enriches the mobile internet with Here & Now , Nokia
• Why the Google Local Business Center Fails, Mike Blumenthal

Paid Search & Contextual

• Microsoft Advertising: Insights Podcast – 15 Minutes With David Szetela, adCenter Blog for Advertisers
• New Year New User – Getting Credit Crunch Fit For 2009, adCenter Analytics Blog
• AdWords Using Google Moderator For Feature Request Voting, Search Engine Roundtable
• Quality Score fact of the day, AdWords Agency Blog
• Using AdSense on your blog to spot exploits, JenSense
• Our Inside AdSense resolution, Inside AdSense
• Retail Search Spend Soars 33% Ahead of Holiday Season, SearchIgnite (PDF)

Searching

• Google-powered Laiba’s Comments Warning, Google Blogoscoped
• Use Otalo To Search For Vacation Rentals, TechCrunch
• Guest post – Search Videos with Taboola, AltSearchEngines

SEM Industry

• 2009 SEMMYS: 200 authors nominated; January 19 launch, SEMMYS.org
• David Wallace: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop
• Internet Marketing’s Words That Sound too Good to be True, SEO Book
• Is Your SEM Agency Working for You – or Working You Over?, Closed Loop Marketing Blog
• And the Winner of the Google Docs Easter Egg Hunt Is …, Google Blogoscoped
• Check Out Our Collection of PPC Hero Images!, PPC Hero
• SEM is Like Running Through A Forest, Karl Ribas

SEO & SEM

• Ranking in Google Search For Plurarls Vs. Singulars, Search Engine Roundtable
• Request Reinclusion If Site is Ranking Well in Google?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Tips on How to Get Indexed Faster by Google, Yahoo, & Live Search, Search Engine Roundtable
• Using Link Structures to Classify Web Spam, All Things SEM
• Why Does The Site Command Show More Indexed Pages Then Google’s Sitemap Report?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Are you creating compelling online video content? Why not?, We Build Pages
• Big Project/Small Budget: Where to Begin Your SEO Campaign, Search Engine Guide
• ExactFactor: Track and Compare Your Search Engine Rankings with Ease, Search Engine Journal
• Search for SEO eBooks and PDF Tutorials, Search Engine Journal

Social Media

• A Great Start to 2009, The Facebook Blog
• Power.com And Facebook Are Friends Again (Almost), TechCrunch
• Weak Password Brings ‘Happiness’ to Twitter Hacker, Wired

Web Analytics

• Additions and Attractions for Our Feeds-by-Email Service, AdSense for Feeds

Other Items

• Why is GoDaddy Hawking Domains that are Unavailable?, John Andrews

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

• Official launch of Searchcowboys!
• How to Tweet your Google Reader Starred items
• 5 Link Building Tactics You Probably Don’t Use But Should
• 5 Common AdWords Myths Absolutely Destroyed
• Track SEO rankings with Google Analytics
• 10 UK Search Marketing people you should be following on Twitter
• My 5 favourite YouTube search engine videos
• 10 Essential SEO Tools That You Can Not Live Without
• Who's Getting Link Love on Twitter? An Analysis of 2 Million Links
• Stop Building Invisible Links – 3 Ways to Find Them
• The Big List of 2009 Marketing Predictions
• Why I’ve Never Been More Embarrassed for Yahoo
• 6 Totally Free Social Search Engines to Start 2009
• Affiliate Hackers Hijack Obama’s Twitter

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.