SearchCap: The Day In Search, July 20, 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 Labs To Be Closed As Larry Page’s Product Streamlining Continues

  Is there any doubt that things at Google have changed under new CEO Larry Page? Today the company has announced the impending closure of Google Labs, its experimental playground where many popular Google products were born. In its announcement, Google says the decision to shut down Google Labs is part of its new focus on […]

• Google Reaches Out To Texas Businesses With Free Websites, Marketing Help

  Google’s latest effort to increase small business adoption of its products and services is a program called Texas Get Your Business Online that offers a free website, free hosting, domain name, a business listing on Google Places and additional marketing help. The effort is being accompanied by an aggressive promotion campaign, like the heavy and […]

• A B2B Community Manager’s Guide To Identifying True Twitter Friends

  The role of the online community manager (CM) was born out of the need for brands to connect with relevant people in a meaningful way. To establish authority and offer value to a relevant community by way of sharing awesome, complimentary content, to solve problems as they arise, to monitor and moderate topical conversations—that was […]

• Looking Up The Funnel: Web Conversion Strategies By Traffic Source

  Many marketers start their conversion optimization efforts by looking at the behavior of a visitor once they arrive on a website. Which buttons are effective in attracting clicks? What type of product images encourage cart additions? What messaging seems to work on a particular landing page? But a journey down the conversion funnel always starts […]

• After Weak Q2 Time May Be Running Out For Yahoo’s Bartz

  She was supposed to help turn around the company, but Yahoo’s CEO Carol Bartz may soon be the one in turnaround because of another mixed or mediocre quarter. The search alliance and revenue share with Microsoft was partly blamed for Q2 revenues being down compared the same period last year: Revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs […]

• How To Maximize SEM Efforts With Search Retargeting

  Last month, we discussed how display media has evolved to be more quantitative in Why Search Marketers Are The Future Media Planners, and ironically, how the skillset held by search marketers has become more relevant to display media than the skill set held by current media planners. Using the real-time environment of the media exchanges, ‘search […]

• Google Pea Logo For Gregor Mendel

  Today on Google you will find a special logo for the 189th birthday of Gregor Mendel. Gregor Mendel discovered the science of genetics while studying the inheritance of certain traits in pea plants. Because of this discovery, Google wanted people to remember who he is, what he did for science and medicine today and simply […]

• Final Nail In The Google Directory Coffin

  In 2008, Google removed directory links from Webmaster Tools and in December 2010, Google dropped the search box from the Google directory. Today, Google has completely removed the Google Directory as a Google service. Going to directory.google.com will show you a notice that reads the “Google Directory is no longer available.” Yesterday the directory was […]

• +1 For The In-House Search Engine Marketer

  After years of minimal change to the format of AdWords ads (some ad extensions are the only radical change), all paid search ads now have the +1 button right after the headline on their right side. How will this new social aspect impact paid search marketing? And what can in-house search marketers do now to […]

• Google Warns Of Malware Redirecting To Its Search Results

  Do a search on Google, and you might get an unexpected surprise. A big notice at the top of your results warning that your computer has been infected with malware. Here’s an example of how it looks: What malware? Produced by whom? Google’s not giving any details there yet, simply blogging: This particular malware causes […]

• Google Working On Opt-In Settlement Of Book Search Lawsuit

  A Google attorney told a federal judge today that the two sides involved in the long-running Google Book Search lawsuit settlement are negotiating an “opt-in settlement” in an attempt to finally put the case to rest. As The Laboratorium reports, Google’s attorney Michael Boni told Judge Dennis Chin that both sides “have been aiming for […]

• When A Welcome Tab Isn’t Enough: Use Custom Facebook Tabs To Give Fans More

  When it comes to custom landing tabs, all the big brands have them, all little businesses want them, but just how effective are they in engaging your Facebook Page’s following? Since landing tabs primarily target those who don’t already “Like” your Page, what’s in it for your fans, and are your fans even aware of […]

• Local Search: Mostly A Small City & Southern Activity, Report Says

  Do Internet users in the southern US do more local searches than the rest of the country? Are searchers in smaller cities more likely to conduct local searches than those in New York City, Chicago and the San Francisco area? The answer to those questions is “yes,” at least according to recent data compiled by […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Keep tabs on your email with read receipts, Official Google Enterprise Blog
• More wood behind fewer arrows, Official Google Blog
• This week in Docs and Sites: A spreadsheets shortcuts menu, PPTX support and more, Google Docs Blog
• Yahoo! Mobile Sign-In Just Got Much Easier, Yodel Anecdotal

Business Issues

• Google Spending Millions to Find the Next Google, New York Times
• Inside Yahoo’s Bid For Hulu, Business Insider
• Twitter’s new plan: Commerce?, Fortune Tech
• Yahoo Revenues Down Again in 2Q,With Weakness in Search and Display Ad, AllThingsD
• Chairman: Google should have gone social earlier, CNN.com
• Reports: Google interested in scooping up InterDigital, FierceWireless

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Control Your Bing Business Portal Photos with “Key Area” Feature, Small Business SEM
• Google is putting Detroit Zoo on the virtual map, dailytribune.com

Link Building

• From Zero to Something: Link Building for New Websites, Search Engine People
• How To Trick Black Hatters Into Building Links To Your Site, Search Engine Journal
• Should You Go After Old GeoCities Links?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Why Counting Links Is Not So Easy, SEOmoz

Searching

• Paper – Post-Ranking Query Suggestion by Diversifying Search Results, infodocket.com

SEO & SEM

• ‪Does selling the same product on three different domains look spammy?‬‏, YouTube
• Client Library Updates, AdWords API Blog
• Fixing 5 common SEO problems with HTML5… today!, distilled
• Google Soliciting AdWords Clients To Yellowbook, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• Google and Search Signals: Tinfoil Hat Edition, Christopher S. Penn
• Google Update: Membership May Pass 18 Million Mark Today, Post by Paul Allen
• New Research Paper from HP Labs – Event Detection in Twitter, infodocket.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Teaching computers to "see" an image, Inside Search

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

• Discussion: Are links less important today for ranking than they were 5 years ago? – Few would argue that the SEO landscape has changed at least a bit over the past five years. We're using new tactics and platforms for visibility, for starters. In our "Discussion of the Week," we want to know if the changing landscape has impacted the value of links and linkbuilding? Are links less important for ranking today than they were five years ago? Or are they more important, perhaps? The floor is open for your comments!
• An ex-Googler's inside view on Google+ vs. Facebook – Dhanji R. Prasanna is a Sydney-based software engineer. He recently left Google after a nearly three-year stint working on projects like Google Wave.
• Fixing 5 common SEO problems with HTML5 – Much of HTML5 is ready go right now and can be used to help with real SEO problems. This article outlines a few HTML5 features and how they can be used for SEO.
• 4 Ridiculous Digital Marketing Topics That Won’t Die – Says Adam Singer: "There are no shortage of absurd conversations that keep coming up in technology and marketing blogs. But there are a few especially ridiculous topics that simply won’t die."
• Google+ has a 'celebrity acquisition plan' – Following in Twitter’s footsteps, which quickly realized that brands and celebrities want a way to claim their identity on the service, Google plans to verify the identities of public figures on its social network, Google+, CNN reports.