SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 1, 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, MSFT, Yahoo In Talks To Buy Hulu: Report

  Hulu is apparently a popular dance partner at the moment. The Los Angeles Times is reporting that Google, Microsoft and Yahoo are all in “confidential” discussions about buying the popular video service. YouTube remains the dominant video site online, but it’s built around user-generated, amateur videos. Hulu, on the other hand, has agreements with major […]

• Search In Pics: Sergey Brin Skydiving, Google Marching In Gay Parade & Truck Pit Cafe

  In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Googlers Marching In New York Gay Parade: Google Kobi Günü: Google’s Founder, Sergey Brin, Skydiving: Google […]

• Google+ “Pages” Coming For Businesses

  Where are the Google+ company “Pages” for brands, something similar to Facebook’s “Fan Pages?” They’re coming apparently. Google’s head of Commerce and Local Jeff Huber confirmed what some people were hoping for: the imminent arrival of Google+ pages for entities. This was in a comment on Mike Blumenthal’s blog: And pre-emptively answering a question — […]

• Google Continues to Encourage Site Owners to Think Beyond PageRank

  The latest blog post from Google Webmaster Central remind site owners what many of us have been saying for years: The Google Toolbar PageRank number is a terrible SEO metric (I may be paraphrasing a bit). Webmaster Trends Analysis (and knitter extraordinaire) Susan Moskwa, who wrote the post, says: “I posit that none of us truly care […]

• Facebook To Announce “Awesome” New Feature At Press Event Next Week

  Earlier this week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that his company would be launching something “awesome” next week. Not just big talk, it seems. A press invite just went out. There are no details about what Facebook will be covering at the event next Wednesday. We’ll be there and live blogging it, when it starts […]

• Google Delists All CO.CC Domains From Index

  Search on Google for any domains that match [site:co.cc] and you will find no matches. That is right, Google has removed, deindexed, banned and penalized any site using a co.cc subdomain. Why? As I noted, Google’s Matt Cutts explained on Google + that Google reserves the right if they “see a very large fraction of […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• A preview of Gmail’s new look, Official Gmail Blog
• Chrome breaks 20 percent global browser market share — Online Collaboration, gigaom.com
• NBA Strips League Website of All Player Photos, Wired

Business Issues

• MySpace lays off more than half its staff, CNET News
• Yahoo spent $580,000 lobbying in 1Q, Forbes
• Facebook Goddess Sheryl Sandberg On Short List To Replace Tim Geithner As Treasury Secretary, Business Insider
• Google braces for fine over illegal drug ads, CNN Money
• Google hiring 12 lobbying firms as FTC readies antitrust probe, The Hill’s Hillicon Valley
• Judge Ware: Google Not Entitled to "Readily Accessible to the General Public" Defense in Street View Class Action, Eric Goldman

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Improved Google Search for BlackBerry 6.0 devices, Official Google Mobile Blog

Link Building

• Are You Afraid Of Building Links?, linkspiel.com
• Outsourcing SEO and link building, cornwallseo.com

Searching

• Ask.com Users are the Most Verbose Internet Searchers, Chitika Insights
• Improved On-Demand Indexing, Google Custom Search
• You asked for this: BOSS V2 Updates, Yahoo Search Blog

SEM Industry

• Google Forgets Their Canadian Neighbors on Canada Day, Search Engine Roundtable
• Video: Google Launches, Google Goes Black, PageRank Matters & New Analytics Reports, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Have Traffic, need Conversion!, Bruce Clay Australia
• 5 Simple Tips for Successful SEO Copywriting, Search Engine People
• Google As a Social Search Engine: Aardvark Answers & Circle Posts in Google Search Results?, SEO By The Sea
• Google Release New Spam Bot In Form Of Google Plus, David Naylor
• Google Shares Insights Into Reconsideration Requests, Search Engine Roundtable
• How to Use Product Reviews to Drive SEO, Search Engine People
• Misleading Keyword Research Pitfalls : An Advanced Tutorial, dailyseotip.com
• SEO & PPC: Finding Lucrative Niches, SEO Book
• SEO Interview Questions – Whiteboard Friday, SEOmoz
• Thinking of Creating a Business Profile on Google ? Better Wait., Stay N Alive

Social Media

• Delicious Add-on for Firefox 5.x, delicious blog
• Google code reveals intent to unleash Games and Questions to the social world, Engadget
• LinkedIn Groups API: Professional Engagement Anytime, Anywhere, The LinkedIn Blog
• 5 Ways I’m Using LinkedIn – to Drive Traffic, Build Community, Generate Sales and Build Influence, ProBlogger
• Did Google just sneak a foursquare competitor under our noses?, aboutfoursquare.com
• Facebook crashes advertising industry party, Reuters
• Facebook set for $1 billion in social-gaming revenue, Reuters
• Facebook Will Launch In-Browser Video Chat Next Week In Partnership With Skype, TechCrunch
• Google second security flaw discovered by BitDefender, THE DRUM
• Google could make Twitter the next Myspace, VentureBeat
• Google To Have Business Profile Pages, Mike Blumenthal

Video, Music & Image Search

• Google , A Bold Step Forward in the World of Social Photo Sharing, thomashawk.com
• Google Displaying Same YouTube Videos On Different Search Result Pages, Search Engine Roundtable
• Introducing YouTube.com/create, YouTube Blog

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

• Categorise Your Inbound Link Profile With Open Site Explorer Data – No 101-level content here. Richard Baxter shares a pretty high-level process for categorizing and analyzing the links in a website's inbound link profile. Bonus: He includes a downloadable Excel spreadsheet to help you get started.
• A Tale of 2 Google Places Algorithms – Organic vs Places Ranking Factors Revealed – Great piece from Linda Buquet that opens a series of articles looking at the different local ranking factors between the old 7-pack style results and the blended results that debuted last October.
• An Open Letter To Jeff Bezos On Terminating The Amazon Affiliate Program In California – Danny isn't happy that Amazon terminated all California affiliates over a sales tax issue.
• Should You Buy Facebook Fans? Maybe Not … – Do you want your business to appear successful or actually be successful?
• Bing & Google Require Social Spam for Businesses to Compete in Search – If you own or work for a small/new business, you should read this.