SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 2, 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:

• Bing, Google Offering Dueling “Health Maps”

  Microsoft and Google both have ambitious electronic health records initiatives. But today both introduced “health maps” that enable data visualization on a mapping interface.
  Bing was first with its announcement:
  Today along with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Institute of Medicine, the Bing Health team is participating in the Community Health Data Initiative […]

• Google Home Page: Now Featuring Your Pictures

  Bing’s received plenty of praise for its home page that shows a different picture each day. How long until Google would copy it, some have wondered. Today, almost exactly a year since Bing launched, Google has rolled out its own feature that lets you put a picture on the Google home page.
  In a blog post […]

• Turbocharging Your Google AdWords Campaigns

  Google has long touted how easy it is to create and manage AdWords campaigns. “All that’s needed is five minutes and a credit card,” says Google’s business overview. And if you’ve actually run your own Google advertising program, you know these claims are true.
  But there’s more to creating a successful search ad campaign than working […]

• B2B Search Marketing Success Is A 2-Part Equation

  >”I’m investing a lot of money in search marketing, but don’t see the results I expected.”… “I brought search
  in-house to save money but the return is still not acceptable.”… These are
  common complaints made by B2B marketers. Often times it’s because these firms are focused on only
  half of the success equation. SEO programs and PPC campaigns improve visibility and drive traffic to your website. But it takes more
  than traffic to achieve an acceptable ROI

• Report: Google Buys Invite Media, Optimization And Media Buying Platform For Ad Exchanges

  Adding to its display media assets, Google has reportedly acquired Invite Media for an undisclosed sum. The purchase price estimate is $70 million. Invite Media’s platform “Bid Manager” enables agencies and media buyers to buy across ad exchanges more efficiently.
  First there were ad networks, then ad exchanges to make buying across networks more efficient. And now there […]

• YouTube Still Owns Video Share; Vevo Gaining Viewers

  YouTube continues to dominate the video search landscape, but Vevo is off to a good start according to the comScore numbers for April 2010.
  YouTube’s 43% market share remains light years ahead of everyone else in the space, with Hulu and Microsoft in second and third, respectively. ComScore estimates that YouTube served more than 13 billion […]

• Steve Jobs At D8: The Search Engine Edition

  Steve Jobs’ interview at the D8 conference last night was widely covered and live-blogged. He covered lots of ground, from competing with Android, to rejecting Flash, Apple TV and AT&T’s network. Below I discuss selected (mostly search-related) parts of the lengthy interview.
  Putting to rest a very persistent rumor, Jobs said that notwithstanding Android and competition […]

• Google Chrome OS Launching Fourth Quarter Of 2010

  Daniel Crawrey reported that Google said their operating system, Chrome OS, will be launching officially in the fourth quarter of this year.
  Google’s VP of product management, Sundar Pichai, made this announcement at the COMPUTEX technology forums event yesterday.
  In light of yesterday’s story on Google banning Windows OS this makes this announcement a bit […]

• Paid Search: Why Data Insights Matter

  Cookie cutters are a great idea… for making cookies. But when it comes to marketing, a cookie cutter approach can do more damage than good. Unfortunately, many search marketers do exactly that when they treat their keywords, ad copy, landing pages and customers all the same.
  Following a cookie cutter approach with paid search is risky. […]

• Copy Vs. Design: Which Is Most Important To Conversion?

  Two very different sites: one “dated, awkward, wordy;” the other “newer, looks better, better organized.” So why was the “dated, awkward, wordy” winning the conversion game so handily?

• Attorney In Google Maps Lawsuit: It Was Dark; She Thought Google Was Leading Her To Sidewalk

  I’ve spoken to the lead attorney in the case involving the woman who blames Google, in part, for directing her onto a highway where she was struck by a vehicle. Expressing amazement at the “firestorm” of attention the case has garnered, he explained some of the reasoning putting some of the blame on Google.
  Our prior […]

• Delicious Founder Schachter Departs Google

  Delicious founder and angel investor Joshua Schachter announced he was leaving Google after a year and several months as an engineer there. Schachter and his team sold social bookmarking service Delicious to Yahoo! (then del.icio.us) in 2005 and he remained at Yahoo until mid-2008. He left, apparently, due to dissatisfaction with the direction Yahoo was […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Announcing Snowflake, The Twitter Engineering Blog
• Folder and tag renaming, Official Google Reader Blog
• Windows and Security: Setting the Record Straight, The Windows Blog
• Freeze frame!, Official Google Blog

Business Issues

• A Belated Happy First Birthday to Bing; Microsoft’s Search Engine Celebrates One Year, ResourceShelf
• Google Sued For Click Fraud For First Time In Five Years, MediaPost

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Maps for BlackBerry Gets Biking Directions, Sharing, and New Search Results, Official Google Mobile Blog
• Google Maps New Direction Icons, Search Engine Roundtable

Link Building

• There’s No Such Thing As Advanced Link Building, The Link Spiel
• Can You Handle On Page Links?, The Link Spiel

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdSense Facts & Fiction Part I: Placement targeting, Inside AdSense
• Why You May Have To Use Google AdWords Even With Top Organic Rankings, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• Free download: 10 terabytes of patents and trademarks, Google Public Policy Blog
• How To Use Google Alerts For Quick and Easy Domain Alerts, SEOmoz
• Make Google SSL Search Your Default Search Engine in Chrome, Search Engine Roundtable
• USPTO Teams with Google to Provide Bulk Patent and Trademark Data to the Public, uspto.gov
• Visitation to Travel Sites in India Surges 50 Percent in Past Year, comScore

SEO & SEM

• Aid Your SEO Efforts by Carefully Selecting the Hosting Provider, Search Engine Journal
• 5 Most Important Rules of Search Engine Optimization, dailyseotip.com
• Google & Site performance: The compilation answer album, Maile Ohye
• Google Webmaster Tools "Not Found" Errors Won’t Hurt Your Rankings, Search Engine Roundtable
• Video Optimisation, Bruceclay.com.au
• What signals are used in ranking other than PageRank?, YouTube

Social Media

• 52 Questions To Ask When Hiring A Social Media Company, outspokenmedia.com
• Twitter Ad Changes: Who’s Affected, Who’s Not, Read/Write Web

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

• The reasonable surfer; makes for unreasonable thinkers
• The Google MayDay Algo Update – A View From The Other Side
• Why Local SEO is Harder Than SEOs Think

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on SEM topics.