SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 18, 2007

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

From Search Engine Land:

• 
  Telecom Pundit Predicts FTC Blockage of Google-DoubleClick Deal
  Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive was recently approved by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Yahoo completed its acquisition of ad exchange Right Media after a green light from the FTC. That just leaves Google-DoubleClick as the last major acquisition on the regulatory table. Now a telecom consultant, Scott Cleland,…
• 
  Tell Matt About Your Google Web Search Bugs
  Notice a bug in the Google web search results? If so, Matt Cutts wants you to report them to him on his blog. There is one big rule, Matt said: I only want to see specific queries that seem to show bugs, and the more concisely you can explain something,…
• 
  Google Makes Ad Preview Tool Easier To Use
  The Inside AdWords blog announced that they have improved the Google AdWords Preview Tool. Google launched the preview tool in September 2006. Back then, you had to manually add location attributes and values to the URL of the preview tool to see ads within that location. Now Google is offering…
• 
  Google To Offer Enterprise Edition Of YouTube
  Apps vs. Office: Google Ups the Ante from BusinessWeek reports that Google is planning a corporate version of YouTube to host training and employee communications videos. It also looks at Google’s move to generate revenue by offering applications for the corporate market. Garett Rogers of Googling Google picked up on…
• 
  Protect Your Employees, Online
  Have you ever checked out what people are saying about your brand on blogs and on photo-sharing sites such as Yahoo’s Flickr or Google’s Picasa? Have you also taken the time to monitor what people are saying about your employees? You owe it to your employees to look out…
• 
  Google Offering Print Ads To More Advertisers & Papers
  Google announced that they have expanded their Print Ads program both on the advertiser and publisher side. They have expanded their newspaper base from 50 papers now to 225 newspapers representing 32 of the top 35 DMAs and a combined circulation of almost 30 million, according to Google. Plus, Google…
• 
  Organic Landing Pages: A Case Study
  Much is written about engineering landing pages for PPC campaigns, but all too often little thought goes into creating the right landing pages for SEO, even less so for B2B SEO. Obviously, for any given query you can’t dictate to the search engines the exact page to which a…
• 
  Ask.com Adds Sitemaps Autodiscovery Support
  It appears that Ask.com is now implementing support for the Sitemaps protocol that they got behind back in April. One of our readers commented here notifying us that Ask.com added a pinging service for autodiscovery. Checking further, I found the details on how to ping Ask.com is its Webmaster Help…
• 
  Yahoo Sees Revenue Growth, But Income Down
  Yahoo released its Q2 earnings a little while ago. What they show is low double-digit growth in certain revenue categories, but also decreases in selected areas (e.g., operating income, free cash flow). Revenue and operating cash flow described as consistent with the “midpoint of guidance.” Here’s the earnings release (PDF…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Feed
  Discovery API and AJAX Search on the iPhone, Google AJAX Search API
  Blog

• Google Patent Application on
  Converting Spreadsheets to Web Applications, SEO By The Sea

• Google
  Security Flaw Allows Sites to Auto-Subscribe New RSS Readers,
  Blogstrom
• New
  people directory PeekYou claims 50 million profiles, 901am

Business Issues

• New
  Zealand Government Web Site Now Using Viv­simo Tech, ResourceShelf

• Focused
  from the inside out, Yodel Anecdotal

• Washingtonpost.Newsweek
  Interactive and Google Renew Multi-Year Advertising Agreement, Google
  Press
• Yahoo
  buys stake in Indian online ad company, InfoWorld

• Why the FTC Will Likely Block
  the Google-DoubleClick Merger, Precursor Blog

• Dow
  Jones Board Approves Sale, Wall Street Journal

Conferences

• Getting a Head
  Count for SES San Jose, Search Engine Roundtable

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Eye
  On You: Google Streetview Camera Car Fleet Set to Invade America,
  Gizmodo
• 3D
  Campus Winners Now in 3D Buildings Layer, Google Earth Blog

• New
  Layers Update – Earth at Night NASA Layer, Google Earth Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• A
  Little AdWords Quality Score Sluething, PPC Hero
• Yahoo!
  to Rival Adsense with Tyroo Ads, Jajah Comes to India, Digital
  Inspiration
• Advice
  on Landing Pages from the Experts, More Details on the SEOmoz Contest
  & Our First Landing Page Submission, SEOmoz
• Seven
  Steps to a Better Landing Page, Search Engine Guide
• Maximizing
  Google Pay Per Action Referrals, Search Engine Roundtable
• Analyzing
  Data to Lower Your CPA, Search Engine Watch
• Microsoft
  Losing Millions on Google UK?, SEOptimise
• What’s
  new in the world of invalid clicks, Inside AdWords

Searching

• Finding
  Related Web Pages, Google Operating System
• New Business Search
  Engine Knuru.com Announces Release of Knuru BlogWatch, URLwire
• Google
  Finally Accept “Optimisation”, ViperChill
• Competing
  With Google Search, Read/Write Web
• Lifetime Trust Between Your Search
  Engine and Your Information, Hakia
• FoodieView
  Is Recipe Search Engine, Restaurant Review, Search Engine Watch Blog

SEM Industry

• Michael
  Yack, Link Farmer, Makes it Big with FabulousSavings.com in the Toronto
  Star, SEOmoz
• Housebreaking
  the Search, Search Engine Watch
• 10
  Questions With Lisa Barone, SEO Honolulu

SEO & SEM

• New site that shows your
  search engine rank, Ogletree
• 15 Things About How
  Google Handles Duplicate Content, Stone Temple
• How
  Search Optimization Works, Karl Ribas
• Do
  Images Help You Rank Higher in Search Results?, Search Engine
  Roundtable
• Data Feed Optimization
  Basics, SEO Beginning Podcast
• Link Building
  Tips and Tricks, Search Engine Roundtable
• The
  first rule of indexing: make sure you’re letting the site be
  indexed,  Fox Vanessa
• Why
  Small Businesses Need SEO to be Successful, Search Engine Journal
• Search
  Engine Optimization: Do It Yourself or Farm It Out?, Bruce Clay
• Google Offers
  Advice on Flash Web Sites & SEO, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• Marketers
  Can Buy Blog “Buzz” Nielsen Reports, ResourceShelf
• Social
  Media Versus Traditional Media: Brand Impact Analysis, Pronet
  Advertising

Video, Music & Image Search

• Google
  Leads the Way in Online Video, Read/Write Web
• YouTube’s
  web dominance revealed in US News, PC Advisor
• Pattern
  Matching in Google, Google Blogoscoped

Other Items

• How
  offline businesses can improve their web sites, at least according to
  me, Vanessa Fox
• File
  registration and uploading temporarily unavailable, Google Base Blog
• The Benefits of
  Using Google’s Custom Search Engine, SEO Book.com
• Home
  Design Vertical Search, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Video:
  What You Need to Know About the New Google Analytics, Marketing
  Pilgrim

Hot Items From Sphinn:

• Xinu: More Stats For Any site
• “Sphinn.com is basically a popularity contest.”
• Web Analytics and the Obsession for More Detail
• SEO Impact of Googleís unavailable_after META Tag
• Being a Link Builder – Managing Internal Links
• LOLCats SEO Edition
• comScore Also Reports Microsoft Search Share Rise
• Finally, A Way to Submit to Ask.com
• Good SEOs Have Always Been Marketers
• A Complete Guide to Using Flickr for Traffic Building