SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 20, 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:

• 
  This July: Try Google-Free Fridays!
  Back in 2002, I called Google the "Marcia Brady" of search. Fans of the Brady Bunch know that Marcia was one of six children, and middle daughter Jan felt Marcia got all the attention. "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia," she’d often complain, just as today, it often seems to be "Google, Google,…
• 
  eBay Security Removes Google Checkout Reps From eBay Conference?
  Philipp Lenssen reports that two Google Checkout representatives were removed by eBay security from the eBay conference. Either Google or eBay have not confirmed these reports, but they come from a person who was said to be attending the conference. This comes after eBay Pulls Google AdWords Ads To Protest…
• 
  Dating Tips For B2B Marketers
  Just what do search marketing and dating have in common? According to Seth Godin, the keynote speaker at last week’s Search Engine Strategies Conference in Toronto… plenty! When it comes to finding an appropriate partner and building a long-term relationship, there are some interesting analogies….
• 
  Microsoft To Change Desktop Search In Vista Over Google Antitrust Claim
  Microsoft to change Vista after Google complaint from Reuters reports that Microsoft has agreed to make changes to their Vista desktop search application to make it easier for people to change the default search provider. Microsoft preempted action by the Justice Department from a Google antitrust complaint. In short, Google…
• 
  Yahoo May Buy MySpace For 25% Stock Swap
  News Corp explores swap of MySpace site for Yahoo! stake from TimesOnline reports that News Corp is interested in handing over MySpace to Yahoo in exchange for 25% of Yahoo’s stock. Such a deal would value MySpace, the very popular social networking and video site, at about $12 billion. But…
• 
  Google Acquires Zenter, Online Presentation Software Company
  Google has announced that they have acquired Zenter, an online presentation software company. The acquisition will enable them to add presentation software to their Google Docs & Spreadsheets offering. In mid-April, Google purchased Marratech, a video conferencing company and purchased Tonic, a company that built software for presentation creation and…
• 
  How To Structure An In-House SEO Team
  Why are businesses so persistent about handling search in-house? There are many good reasons for centralizing both natural and paid search in a large organization. We’ll be talking about natural search in this article. Web site optimization for natural search visibility, commonly referred to as SEO, touches every aspect…
• 
  AOL’s Truveo Builds Video Search Network With 40 Million Users
  Video search engine Truveo, acquired by AOL in late 2005, announced that it now has a user base of almost 40 million monthly uniques (per comScore). This is not at Truveo.com but across a diverse network of partner sites, which it powers. The company also said that since late last…
• 
  Yahoo Go Comes Out Of Beta With Big Global Push
  Yahoo Go 2.0 and related mobile oneSearch offerings are coming out of beta this Friday and going into “general availability” in the U.S. While consumers pay no attention to these distinctions — alpha, beta, gamma and so on — it signals Yahoo’s confidence in the product. Simultaneously, nation-specific versions of…

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere

Applications & Portal Features

• Getting
  Google and AJAX to Play Nice, Caydel
• Google
  Press Release Analyzer, Google Blogoscoped

• Base
  diving with Google Gears, Google Code Blog

Business Issues

• Five
  steps to a Yahoo turnaround, News.com

• Ask.com
  Asks a Ninja for Ad Help, Search Engine Watch Blog

Conferences

• Search
  Engine Strategies Toronto Was … Different, Search Engine Watch
• Afterthoughts
  on SES Latino, Jon Mendez

• Search Engine
  Strategies Latino ’07 Wrapup, Search Engine Roundtable

• SES Latino
  Coverage, Search Engine Watch Blog

Local, Maps & Mobile

• The
  Next Net: Yahoo Local Steps Up Its Game, Business 2.0
• Databases:
  Melissa DATA Lookup Databases Now Available on Mobile Site,
  ResourceShelf

• Google
  Earth Helping Amazon Indians, Google Earth Blog

• Google
  Local PPC Ads: Box Out Your “OneBox” Competitors, SEOmoz
• Tour
  de France 2007 in Google Earth, Google Earth Blog

• Yahoo!
  Shortcuts: Illumination @ the Point of Inspiration, Yahoo Search Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• Adsense
  Publishers Report Massive Dip in Earnings and CTR at Digital Inspiration
  Technology Guide, Digital Inspiration
• Google
  AdWords Quality Score : Affiliates Worst Nightmare?, Search Engine
  Journal
• Publishers
  Switching Back to Yahoo! Publisher Network, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM Industry

• How
  Wendy Piersall, Barry Schwartz & Jeremy Schoemaker Got Started,
  Viper Chill
• Overheard
  at SMX and SES Toronto: Superset Edition, SEOmoz

SEO & SEM

• Google Scraping &
  Spamming, Threadwatch.org
• Yahoo selling entire sub
  domains to affiliate sites, Threadwatch.org
• Mmmm!
  Tasty Search Goulash: Weighing in on Universal Search, Search Engine
  Guide
• Are
  IT Buyers and Marketers Search-Aligned?, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Hot
  New Way To Gain Authority Links, Search Marketing Standard
• Matt
  this is not an Update Cutts, Wolf Howl
• The
  Impact of User Registration on Generating Real Estate Leads, Search
  Engine Watch
• More Fake
  German Google Penalty Emails Go Out, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• Seven
  Deadly Sins of Social Media, Search Engine Guide
• Analysts
  say Yahoo lags in social media, USATODAY.com

Video & Image Search

• Just
  An Online Minute… More Legal Woes For YouTube With Global
  Expansion?, MediaPost Publications

Other Items

• New
  Research Project from Yahoo: Squeeze Every Drop of Meaning from Data,
  ResourceShelf
• Google
  Adds Two New Disallow Entries to their Robots.txt File, ResourceShelf
• How to
  Set Up Your Shopzilla.com Account, PPC Hero
• Carbon
  neutrality by end of 2007, Google Blog
• Asia-Pacific
  Open House June 28th, Google Blog
• 2008
  Presidential Candidate Search Marketing Face-off, 10e20 Blog
• Podcast:
  Google Arbitrage/MFA, Devcon, & Tips For Startup Sites – Net Income
  6-19-2007, ShoeMoney
• Xerox:
  The Enterprise Search Company?; Review of Selected Xerox Search
  Patents, ResourceShelf

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.