SearchCap: The Day In Search, January 7, 2010

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

From Search Engine Land:

• French Wants To Tax Google & Others

  France to explore “Google tax” to pay creative work from Reuters reports the French government wants to find a way to tax Google and other companies like them. The President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, said:
  For the time being, these companies are taxed in the country in which they are headquartered even though they make […]

• Earthquake: Real-Time Results On Google Make Up For Lack Of Other Content

  There was a small earthquake this morning near San Jose, California. According to the USGS, which now shows “real-time” information, the quake was relatively small: magnitude 4.1.
  Last year Google launched an Earthquake OneBox; however that OneBox didn’t catch this quake. Google is saved by integration of Twitter results (see below), which did report it:

• Yahoo & American Airlines Settle Search Ad Suit

  MediaPost reports Yahoo has settled a search ad keyword lawsuit with American Airlines. The suit dates back to October 2008 in a federal court and both were expecting a judgement on the case sometime this year. The two companies reached a settlement prior to judgement, although the terms of the settlement were not […]

• Armstrong: Google Gets “First Dibs” At AOL Search Deal

  AOL’s CEO: Google To Get 1st Shot At New Search Deal from the Wall Street Journal reports AOL’s CEO, Tim Armstrong saying that Google will get “first dibs” at a search deal.
  Armstrong said this at Citi’s annual entertainment, media and telecommunications conference today. This was prompted by a question about possibly using Microsoft Bing […]

• Why You Should Attend SMX West 2010: A Personal Preview, From Danny Sullivan

  In less than two months, Search Engine Land’s SMX West search marketing conference will happen from March 2-4 in California. Anyone who is even remotely connected to gaining visitors, customers and driving sales should be attending. Experienced search marketer? Newbie? Web developer? Designer? Involved in public relations? Traditional marketer? There’s good stuff for all these […]

• CES: Microsoft Expands Scope Of HP Search Relationship To 42 Countries

  Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer gave the opening keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last night. It was a review of Microsoft accomplishments and product launches during 2009 (e.g., Windows 7, Bing) as well as a preview of some products coming to market (e.g., Project Natal for Xbox) in the future.
  Ballmer spent some […]

• Bad Directions: Google Maps Sends Local Listing Reports To Wrong Business Owners

  Starting last night, Google began sending out the monthly (or so) Google Local Business Center updates. The updates go out via email and contain analytical information about how many times a listing was viewed, clicked on, and other miscellaneous analytics. The analytics are a summary of what they would see in their Google […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Facebook is Building a New Payment Operations Team, Inside Facebook

Business Issues

• IAC’s Diller: Bing’s Rivalry With Google Will Boost Ask.com, Wall Street Journal
• ‘Google Energy’ subsidiary considers clean power, CNET News
• Google and On2 Agree to Amend Merger Agreement, Google
• Google Award to Honor Freedom of Expression, Google Blogoscoped
• Happy birthday to me! I’m joining Google, FactoryCity
• Yahoo!(R) Brings the Internet to More Living Rooms Around the World, Yahoo Press Releases

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Ford In Talks To Add Google Features To Its Cars, Wall Street Journal
• Google Back Tracks a Bit on Dropping SEOs & Webmasters from Local Results, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Maps To Allow Businesses To Request Replacement Decals, Search Engine Roundtable

Link Building

• High Quality Link Building Using Google Directory, Daily SEO Tip
• Three Lessons Bob Villa Taught Me About Link Building, Search Engine People Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• Site maintenance on Saturday, January 9, Inside AdSense
• Welcome to our "Go Mobile!" Series, Inside AdWords

Searching

• 10 Search Engines Powered by Twitter, Search Engine Guide
• Ask Me, Ask Me: Tumblr Adds a New Query Feature, mashable.com

SEM Industry

• A Look at SEO From 2000-2009 – A Decade of 21st Century SEO, HighRankings
• SEO Geeks Picks 09; Search on Video, huomah.com

SEO & SEM

• How to cleverly integrate your own URI shortener, sebastians-pamphlets.com
• New ways to optimize Content Network campaigns, Inside AdWords
• Google Caffeine Results Now Going Live?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Local PPC Warning: Google AdWords GeoAttribution Is Inaccurate, Search Engine Journal

Social Media

• How to Quickly Check Tweets Related to Any Web Page, Search Engine Journal
• How To Torment People: 10 Steps To An ORM Crisis, outspokenmedia.com

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's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.