SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 21, 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:

• Comparing Facebook Like vs. Google +1

  Google’s new +1 feature was one of SMX Advanced Seattle most engaging sessions and, as a speaker, I have received a wide variety of feedback and questions. It seems this feature has fomented a great deal of speculation and inquiry. Here is a bit more food for thought. Like vs. Google +1: What Are The […]

• Blekko Slashes More Spam With “Zorro” Update

  Blekko has found its mantra: the war on spam. The search startup, now six months old, is trying to challenge Bing and Google with a strategy that puts human curation and editorial judgment at the center of search and banishes spam altogether. CEO Rich Skrenta has been relentless in asserting that Google is filled with […]

• 3 Common Link Building Questions Answered By 4 Experts

  I’m a forum rat, I visit several on a daily basis as a way to keep up with what’s going on. If there’s an update, cool new tool or SEO controversy brewing, chances are I’ll read about it on one of the forums before anywhere else. Conversely, if I have a question or want to bounce a theory […]

• Why Google Panda Is More A Ranking Factor Than Algorithm Update

  With Google Panda Update 2.2 upon us, it’s worth revisiting what exactly Panda is and isn’t. Panda is a new ranking factor. Panda is not an entirely new overall ranking algorithm that’s employed by Google. The difference is important for anyone hit by Panda and hoping to recover from it. Google’s Ranking Algorithm & Updates […]

• Official: Google Panda Update 2.2 Is Live

  Google has given us confirmation that they have ran an update to the Panda filter recently. We have been expecting the Panda 2.2 update based on news coming out of the SMX Advanced conference. Matt Cutts told SMX attendees that Panda 2.2 has been approved, hasn’t been rolled out yet, but that should happen soon. […]

• Google’s 2011 Winter & Summer Solstice Logos

  Today is the first day of Summer season for those in the United States and many other countries, for others it is the first day of Winter. This is also known as the Summer Solstice and Winter Solstice. For the special day, Google has logos for both, depending on which Google portal you go to, […]

• Google Street View Runs Into Indian Roadblock

  Google has bumped into problems with Street View in yet another country. This time it’s India. According to website MediaNama, three weeks after it began driving the local police commissioner in Bangalore notified Google that it must stop photographing the city until a number of issues can be resolved. Google told the publication it had […]

• Report: Search Marketing Sees Slower Second Quarter Growth

  Researchers at Citibank talked to four large agencies doing a lot of SEM — Covario, Efficient Frontier, Marin Software and Position 2 — and what emerged was a picture of second quarter spending that looks weaker than once expected. And the full year, by most accounts, will be down from what most previously thought, if […]

• Foursquare Tops Ten Million Members

  Foursquare announced today that they reached the mark of 10,000,000 members. The popular location based check-in app has been growing quickly in both features and members. The release of Foursquare 3.0, enhanced analytics and improved specials have helped to make the free service popular with more than those just checking in. Since inception two years ago over […]

• Up Close With Twitter’s New Photo Sharing Feature

  Earlier this month, Twitter announced that it would be rolling out its own photo sharing service. I found this enabled for my own account last week and today got a formal message about it. So, I thought a close look at how it works might be useful. Use The Camera Icon For Photo Sharing Right […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google building Skype-alike software into Chrome, CNET News
• Google bypasses admin controls with latest Chrome IE, The Register
• Google Translate welcomes you to the Indic web, Official Google Blog
• Google’s New Currency Converter, Google Operating System

Business Issues

• Google’s Eric Schmidt meets President Abdullah Gül in Çankaya, todayszaman.com
• Training Secrets From Inside The Googleplex, Fast Company

Local, Maps & Mobile

• What You Need to Know About Facebook and Mobile, AllThingsD

Link Building

• 5 Sources of Links for Local Businesses, Search Engine Journal
• How to Generate Links Through Socializing, Daily SEO Tip

Searching

• Google Responds To Search Filter Bubble After DuckDuckGo, Search Engine Roundtable

SEM Industry

• The SEO Industry Needs Better Industry Associations, Search Engine Journal

SEO & SEM

• 6 Essential PPC Landing Page Optimizations, SEOmoz
• Finger Pointing Won’t Help You Rank Better In Google, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Webmaster Tools Top Query Report Not Downloading, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google’s Un-Personalized Search. Tools to Hack the Code., SEOmoz
• How To Enable & Use Adwords Ad Extensions, Search Engine People
• How to Kick-Start SEO Projects, distilled
• It Ain’t Easy Being SEO Copy, Search Engine People
• SEO: Book Content Not Seen As Duplicate Content, Search Engine Roundtable
• Why Google SERP CTR studies are a waste of time, SEO Scientist
• Will showing recent posts on my homepage cause a duplicate content issue?, YouTube

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

• HOW TO: Get a Google Places Label – Interesting discovery from Scott Dodge about using Google Mapmaker to add your business name to the actual map display in Google Maps.
• 5 Creative Facebook Pages – When landing on some Facebook pages I am often not quite sure what the objective is and what message they are communicating.
  The creative should not overwhelm the goals of the page which could be to increase likes, to engage or to grow sales.
• What NOT To Do On Local Business Websites – Some important reminders from Chris Silver Smith of things NOT to do if you want your local business site to perform well with search engines and consumers.
• Why Google SERP CTR studies are a waste of time – A detailed look at how the changing nature of search results, and the limited ability of search engines to accurately discern user intent has rendered CTR predictions based on SERP positions meaningless. From the article by Branko Rihtman – "It is important to remember that as search engines try to index and incorporate into SERPs more and more types of results, it will be harder to predict the CTR over locations. Even averaging out the figures over a large number of results will give us a number that is not at all useful for predicting the traffic volume received from each position."
• Google's Quality Score Patent: The Birth of Panda? – Bill Slawski's terrific patent post about the possible roots of pandalized SERPs.
• The Dangers of Limiting Ad Spend to Hit EOQ Goals – An interesting take on why it's not a good idea to limit ad spend just to hit media spend goals.