SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 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:

• 
  Google Officially Releases Plus Box Feature Again
  The Google Blog finally announced the Google Plus Box feature that we have been reporting on since last year. In fact, this is not the first time we had confirmation from Google on the plus box. Matt Cutts of Google wrote about it on December 9, 2006 after several of…
• 
  Google Launches Pay Per Action Ads
  Google announced a limited U.S. only beta for a new service they are calling Pay Per Action ads. Google Pay Per Action will allow advertisers to create ads that cost only when a desired action is triggered. The advertiser sets the price per action; for example, an advertiser can decide…
• 
  SMX Advanced 2007 Seattle: Agenda Now Posted
  I’ve now finished the agenda for our first Search Marketing Expo conference, SMX Advanced, happening in Seattle this June 4 and 5. The show is aimed at the intermediate to advanced search marketer. I’ve posted to the SMX blog about it now, but I’ll share what I said here as…
• 
  Toilet Humor From Google AdWords CAPTCHA
  We descend now into Beavis and Butthead territory, but a reader sent this in, and it gave me a chuckle for the same reason it did him. When signing up for AdWords, he was presented with a CAPTCHA code — an image of letters that you enter to prove…
• 
  Eric Schmidt Interviewed On Entrepreneurship, Management & More
  Iinnovate has an excellent interview with Google’s CEO, Eric Schmidt. He discusses many topics around the theme of entrepreneurship and management but also touches on other topics during the 20-minute interview. One point Danny and I found interesting from the interview was how he replied to the question on “what…
• 
  Search Arbitrage: Web Blight Or Brilliant Marketing Strategy?
  Few words in the online marketing world raise more diverse opinions than the single word “arbitrage.” Be warned before you say it in mixed company. The reactions will range from vehement cursing to shrugged shoulders to sly smiles. Everyone has an opinion; some are based on facts; others on…
• 
  Google Offers ‘Themes’ For Personalized Homepage
  There’s a flurry of activity in the newly invigorated personalized homepage category. Within the past two weeks all the major competitors have made announcements. First, AOL launched MyNetscape, followed by the release of “universal video widgets” on Pageflakes. Then the new MyYahoo launched. Yesterday Netvibes unveiled “Coriander,” its next product…
• 
  Yahoo Pushes oneSearch To Most Mobile Phones
  Yahoo’s oneSearch for mobile phones, previously only available on a select few devices, is now available for more than 85% of all web-enabled mobile phones. “We’re really redefining what search is for the mobile phone,” said Lee Ott, director of Mobile Web for Yahoo. Yahoo oneSearch for Mobile 2.0 is…
• 
  President Jimmy Carter To Welcome Google Atlanta At Open House
  Google Atlanta is holding an open house for their new office on Thursday, March 22nd. President Jimmy Carter is scheduled to be giving the welcoming remarks. In addition, those invited will be given a tour of the office and meet with Google engineers and sales executives….

Search News Headlines From Elsewhere

Applications & Portal Features

• Google patented a anti-spam system with Steve Kirsch, Dirson
• Coriander launch: second step, Netvibes
• Watch live TV on your Google homepage, Download Squad
• Googles Home Page Gets Skinned..and One Change of Note for SEOs, Out of my Gord
• Gmail Accidently Blocks Yahoo! Group Emails, Search Engine Roundtable

Business Issues

• Industry Moves: Coppel Promoted To Yahoo CSO, PaidContent.org
• Eric Schmidt on Entrepeneurs, Censorship and More, Google Blogoscoped
• Wink Pulls Half An Odeo, Partially Liquidates, TechCrunch
• Lycos re-brands itself for a crack at the US Web 2.0 market, Big Mouth Media
• Big Four Portals Grab Bulk Of Ad Dollars, MediaPost
• Google India appoints Shailesh Rao as MD – Sales & Operations, Hindu News

Local, Mobile & Maps

• SMB-Aimed Local Search Space Tightens with Innovectra Offering, ClickZ

Paid Search & Contextual

• Channels & Domains Reporting in YPN Buggy?, Search Engine Roundtable
• AdWords Optimization Tips: Part 3 – Account Structure, Google AdWords Blog
• Baidu’s click-fraud problem, and more on Fraudwall, VentureBeat
• Get Help Uploading Your Campaigns into Microsoft adCenter with QuickLaunch, adCenter Blog
• AdWords and AdSense: a perfect pair, Inside AdSense Blog
• Buying Branded Keywords: A Case Study on Traffic, Conversion and RPV, Jonathan Mendez’s Blog

Privacy & Legal

• Spyware Puts Ads on Google.com, InformationWeek
• Pornography Crops Up On Yahoo Korea, donga.com
• Google’s on a lobbyist hunt in Europe, News.com
• Person v. Google Dismissed (with leave to amend), Eric Goldman

SEM Industry

• ICrossing Acquires Analytics Firm, ClickZ
• Website Pros Acquires Submitawebsite, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Breaking Up with Bad Clients: It’s Not You…It’s Me., Stuntdubl
• Respect the A-list, Kill the boys club, Bruce Clay Blog
• PPC Earthquake, Chinwag Live

SEO & SEM

• SEO Spam Case Study: ShopFactory’s Backlinks Injection, Google Blogoscoped
• Servicing Search: A Better Ad Model?, ClickZ
• Google Delists Sites With Parasitic Spammy Subdomains, Search Engine Roundtable
• Top Ten In Serps Within Days, V7N
• Yahoo Research Looks at Templates and Search Engine Indexing, SEO By The Sea
• Crawl Test – SEO Tool, SEOmoz
• Is Microsoft’s Live Search Ever Going to Add Sitemaps Support?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Creating Content that Appeals to a Link-Savvy Audience, SEOmoz

Social Media

• MySpace Restrictions Upset Some Users, Business Week
• Mapping What People Do, Google Blogoscoped
• MegaBuzz Launches – Vote on Everything and Anything, Mashable
• Social Search Growth, Speaking at OMMA Hollywood, Hitwise

Other Vertical Search

• Google Finance Tips, Google Blogoscoped
• Kevin Federline Search Engine, Online Marketing Help
• LoC & NEH Releasing Over 226,000 Digitized Newspaper Pages, ResourceShelf

Other Stuff

• Using AJAX Search to integrate search results into your site, Google AJAX Blog
• Murderer caught by Google, PC Advisor
• Nothing goes down better than a Google rumour, Guardian Unlimited
• Is Google’s Privacy Move A PR Maneuver?, Search Insider
• Viva la User Revolution, YPN Blog
• Suggested: The New Google Toy, InsideGoogle
• How To Spy On Google, Forbes.com
• comScore Announces New “Visits” Metric For Measuring User Engagement, comScore

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.