SearchCap: The Day In Search, June 27, 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:

• New: Google Now Showing Local +1 Counts

  Last week we confirmed Google was showing raw +1 counts in the search results and now today, Google seems to be testing showing location based +1 counts. @tomcritchlow shared a screen shot with us showing Google only displaying the people in New York who +1′ed a page. Here is that screen shot: As you can […]

• Twitter Launches ‘Twitter For Newsrooms’ (#TfN) As A Resource For The Press

  Twitter launched Twitter For Newsrooms, a detailed resource to help professionals in news, TV, sports and entertainment use Twitter effectively.   The guide is geared toward the novice to intermediate user and helps to standardize the use of Twitter. Specific sections include: #Report #Engage #Publish #Extra The guide contains advice including: ways to properly brand yourself, recommended tools, […]

• Oyster.com Adds Hotel Search By Image Feature

  Today, Oyster.com, a hotel review site and booking engine rolled out “Oyster Shots”, a new search by hotel photos feature, following a similar trend of expanded image search capabilities by Google. All images are editorially tagged and categorized, and include underlying geocoded data signals, such as GPS camera data. In the challenging travel vertical, Oyster […]

• FTC’s Google Probe Will Probably Come Away Empty Handed

  On Friday Google confirmed that the FTC had launched a broad — really broad — investigation into its search and ads businesses seeking to determine whether the company was doing anything anti-competitive in the market. The news was immediately welcomed by some Google critics and competitors who believe the company is systematically abusing its power […]

• Hot At Sphinn: Teaching Kids About Online Marketing, Google Click-Thru Studies & More

  Search industry parents had their say last week on our sister site, Sphinn, as a discussion about teaching kids SEO, social media and online marketing was the most popular conversation piece. Our “Discussion of the Week” asked, How Much Do You Teach Your Kids About SEO/Social Media?, and we had a range of comments covering […]

• Google Goes Black With Black Navigation Bar Test

  Google is now heavily testing a new top bar color, that color is black. Google began testing this back about a month ago, as reported by Google Operating System but now Google seemed to have stepped up those tests. So much so, users are complaining that their custom Google home page designs look bad because […]

• Pagination Strategies In The Real World

  One of the hot topics at SMX Advanced in Seattle this June was the best way to handle paginated sites. It seemed like the topic that would not go away, as it came up in panel after panel. The reason this happened is that it is a complicated topic. There are two major scenarios that […]

• Minimum Investment, Maximum Return – Register Now for SMX East, Save Up to $500

  Run your own business? Work for a large agency or an enterprise brand marketer? Manage an e-commerce website? If you are responsible for attracting new customers and driving conversions, then you can’t afford to miss the actionable tactics and best practices shared at Search Marketing Expo – SMX East, September 13-15 in New York City. […]

• Top 3 Takeaways From Google’s Inside Search Event

  For those of you expecting me to make good on a promise from my last column to continue the theme of how mobile is changing SEO with regard to link building, look for that next month. Since Google’s Inside Search event had a mobile theme, I think it’s more important to address the implications of […]

• adCenter’s Transparent Quality Scores – Will Google Respond?

  There’s an old adage that goes “It’s not just what you say, it’s how you say it that counts.” Having been married for 31 years next month, I can attest to the simple, powerful truth of that statement. I feel the same way about the differences between Google and Microsoft’s approaches to quality score. For […]

• How The Food Network Suddenly Spiked In Popularity & Why comScore Isn’t Buying It

  In May 2011, the mantle of the most-trafficked food site according to comScore passed to Food Network from AllRecipes, who had held the position for over two years. What was its secret recipe? Buying an audience through the AdOn network – a recipe that apparently didn’t ultimately taste right to comScore. They determined the surge […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Inspired By Wikipedia, Quora Aims For Relevancy With Topic Groups And Reorganized Topic Pages, TechCrunch
• Facebook overtakes Microsoft in UK: UKOM/Nielsen, Reuters

Business Issues

• Google’s SOE (Strategy of Everything), Monday Note
• Answers.com Gets Gutted By Its New Owner: Massive Layoffs, CEO And CTO Out, TechCrunch
• Google NFC Partner ViVOtech Raises $24M From Motorola, DFJ, Citigroup And Others, TechCrunch
• Google’s refusal puts Kohl on spot, seattlepi.com
• GSV Capital Buys Facebook Shares, Wall Street Journal
• Updated and more detailed Transparency Report, Official Google Blog

Local, Maps & Mobile

• GOOGLE OFFERS: Here Are The Secret Details About Google’s Groupon-Killer, Business Insider
• @JHuber – Head Of Local at Google, Needs Tweeting Ideas, Mike Blumenthal
• Bing Bing Maps Unveils Exclusive High Res Imagery with Global Ortho Project, Bing Search Blog
• City names in Google Earth, now in your preferred language, Google LatLong
• Google Tweaks Android Market Ratings System, Read/Write Web
• Google’s first Ice Cream Sandwich phone to be manufactured by Samsung, possibly dubbed ‘Nexus Prime’, bgr.com

Paid Search & Contextual

• Orkut Dissected: Social Networking in India & Brazil, AIM Clear Blog

SEM Industry

• Is Adobe’s SEO company planting links in blogs?, 9to5mac.com

SEO & SEM

• Dealing With Getting Ripped Off By SEO Clients, Search Engine Guide
• Burnt by AdWords PPC?, Vertical Leap Blog
• Google AdsBot Support Canonical Tag? Nope, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google’s War on Nonsense, New York Times
• June/July 2011 Google PageRank Update, Search Engine Roundtable
• Little Bit SEO…, Search Engine Journal
• Missing Unique Product Identifiers Effects on google shopping, SEO Home
• Optimize & Socialize: Social Media SEO Tips For Large Organizations, Online Marketing Blog
• RSS for SEO, Bruce Clay Australia
• The Essential Guide to Setting Geographic Target in Google Webmaster Tools, Search Engine Journal

Social Media

• Planning for the future of foursquare, Foursquare Blog
• Tweet away, IOC tells London athletes, Reuters

Video, Music & Image Search

• Find Similar Images from a Site, Google Operating System
• The J. Paul Getty Museum collection comes alive with Google Goggles, Official Google Blog

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

• Why I Intend to Stop Adding Junk to the Web – A reformed affiliate offers some smart insight into the world of spammy SEO, churn and burn websites, and why most affiliates shouldn't quit their day job in pursuit of the 4 Hour Workweek.
• The 5-Minute Facebook Page Makeover – Over time, a Facebook Page can get stuck in the past and need some revamping to reflect the newest upgrades to Facebook’s layout. Many changes are quietly rolled out and go unnoticed by page admins. Few people keep up with Facebook’s constant evolution in addition to managing the day-to-day activity on the Page.
• Groupon May Expire Sooner Than Expected – RD Gupta explains how when looking at the Groupon hyper-growth and plans for greatness, he sees a number of parallels to dot com busts of the past.
• Crutchfiled: An Attribution Nightmare – Interesting and thought provoking attribution scenario that commonly plays out for ecommerce websites with many points of contact.
• The Science of Social Timing Part 2: Timing & Email Marketing – Are certain times better than others for sending your email campaigns? In the second part of this series we’re going to investigate how timing can impact your email marketing. Data suggests that there are distinct windows in which to send emails if you want to achieve the highest open rate and maximize your readership.