SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 10, 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:

• Search Market Share Static, 2.2 Billion Local Queries On Google

  ComScore released its May 2011 search market share rankings this afternoon. The data essentially show no change from last month in terms of percentage distribution. Google gains a fraction of a point at Ask’s expense, while everyone else stays put. While share was largely unchanged query volumes were up roughly 5 percent across the board in May. […]
• Searching The Sarah Palin Emails

  More than 24,199 pages of emails from the first 21 months of Sarah Palin’s term as Governor of Alaska were released today after an unsuccessful fight by the state to prevent their disclosure. About 30 news organizations paid to receive the 5 boxes of printed documents, and most are planning to scan the messages and […]

• How To Use Personas & Scenarios In SEO

  Keyword research tools are great, but they do not provide enough context for understanding searcher behaviors. Usability test scenarios can help SEO professionals better understand their target audience.

• Search In Pics: Yahoo Big Rig, Google Tour de Cure & Google Toilet

  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. A Yahoo Big Rig: Google Chrome Notebook Giveaway: Yahoo Swatch Watch: Google Toilet: Tour de Cure […]

• Definitive Answers On Quality Score: Q&A With ClickEquations’ Craig Danuloff

  At one time, quality score (QS) was the new kid on the block—the game changer of paid search marketing. Before Quality Score, the golden rule was in effect: he with the most gold, rules. Those of us with massive budgets during that time were able to achieve top positions with a simple bid increase. In […]

• Mobile Phone Forecast Sees Windows Beating iOS By 2015

  Practically every day some research firm somewhere in North America or Europe releases a forecast about how many widgets will be sold next year, or how large a given market is going to be in five years. And every day the overwhelming majority of those forecasts are poised to turn out wrong. In most cases […]

• Survey: Facebook Is The Most Popular Site To Market On For Local Business Owners

  The results of a MerchantCircle survey targeting small business owners showed the prominence of social media in the local marketing mix, especially marketing on Facebook. When asked which marketing channels the businesses leveraged, the most popular answer was “the creation of a profile on a social network” with 40.9% of the vote. The creation of […]

• Report: Google Acquires Ad Optimization Firm Admeld for $400 MM

  In an apparent move to bolster its own ad sales efforts and provide services to large publishers, Google has reportedly made a $400 million purchase of Admeld, a company that builds technology to help ad sellers maximize the value of their inventory. Admeld has relationships with the Weather Channel, IDG TechNetwork, and large newspaper companies […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google may have developed Android rival to BBM, iMessage, Electronista

Business Issues

• Facebook acquires Dutch software house Sofa, thenextweb.com
• Google Is Using Ancient Obsolete Technology, Says Engineer Who Just Quit, businessinsider.com

Link Building

• Link Building Techniques, Shimon Sandler

Paid Search & Contextual

• Clarifying our ad implementation policies, Inside AdSense
• Google Ad Exec Predicts Engagement Rates For Display Ads Will Increase 50 Percent By 2015, TechCrunch
• New client library launch: AdWords API JavaScript library, AdWords API Blog

SEM Industry

• Video: Google Panda 2.2 Update, Bing Webmaster Tools, Uncle Sam Search & More, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Good SEO Starts with Smart Purchasing Decisions, Search Engine Guide
• Google Images May Use Anchor Tags As Image Reference, Search Engine Roundtable
• How Can SEO-Friendly Podcast Interviews Blast Off Your Blog Visibility, Search Engine People
• SMX Advanced: Andy Atkins-Kruger Talks International SEO and Yandex – Whiteboard Friday, SEOmoz

Social Media

• Great news: Promoted Trends on Twitter now cost only $120,000 per day!, www.zdnet.com
• Twitter Will Automate Ad-Buying by the End of the Year, Mashable
• Facebook begins testing new real-time, thenextweb.com
• Study: Justin Bieber, Manchester United Fans Most Engaged, Wired
• Twitter’s Awareness vs. Usage Problem, eMarketer
• What Our Facebook Fans and Twitter Followers Told Us, The White House

Video, Music & Image Search

• The next step in embedded videos: HD preview images and a logoless option, youtube-global.blogspot.com

Other Items

• Chromebooks Go On Sale – Finally!, chromeossite.com
• Leading the charge toward an electric vehicle fleet, Official Google Blog

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

• How to Use Custom Variables in Google Analytics – A few tips on how to use custom variables in order to further segment visitor data in Google Analytics.
• Updates to Bing Webmaster Tools, data and content. – Bing has been investing in building its Webmaster Tools for a while now, and today we’re announcing some of the most recent updates. We spent a lot of time earlier this year meeting with people at search conferences to understand what new features they wanted to see from us, and what current features we could support further. We also gathered feedback on what helpful content should exist within our webmaster space. Through the Honey Badger update, as we’re calling it, you’ll see noticeable investments in both areas as we launch a revised webmaster experience here at Bing. In fact, you can count on more monthly content being added in the near future as we work through a list of topics we’ll be covering. Below you will see some of the investments on the feature side and on the content side.
• Kicking off a Linkbuilding Campaign with Questions – Claire Carlile tells us how to get started with a new link building initiative by asking a set of questions designed to frontload the link learning experience for both the link builder and the client.