SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 20, 2012

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• Wikipedia Appears On Google’s Page One Only 46% Of Time, Study Shows

  Wikipedia doesn’t pwn Google nearly as much as the SEO industry thinks it does. In fact, according to a new Conductor study, Wikipedia showed up on the first page of Google’s search results only 46 percent of the time in a study using 2,000 unique keywords. Conductor used one thousand informational keywords (like “lyrics” and […]

• AdCenter Best Practices for Agencies – Webcast on Thursday

  Search Marketing Now will host a webcast this Thursday, March 22 at 1 PM EDT. “AdCenter Best Practices for Agencies” will feature Allan Chuate, Regional Manager Search Strategy, Yahoo!, who will discuss the essentials of improving the efficiency of your clients’ ppc campaigns in AdCenter. He’ll share tips and tricks for AdCenter best practices. The […]

• Comparison Engine FindTheBest Debuts Local Classifieds

  Structured data comparison engine FindTheBest has evolved impressively since its launch in August 2010. The site has become progressively richer and more usable. It has expanded into more categories. And, as of today, that includes local classified listings in jobs, cars and rental housing. FindTheBest is a kind of “anti-search engine” and the brainchild of […]

• How Microsoft Removes “Junk” From Bing Search Results

  Dr. Richard Qian from Bing’s core search team wrote a blog post on the Bing Search blog named Bing Search Quality Insights: Reducing Junk. This is part of Bing’s ongoing effort to provide search quality insights on how Bing works. Bing here explains how they handle removing bad links from the Bing search results, and […]

• 5 Ways To Get The Best Links For New Websites

  Confession: I almost slapped Ryan Jones the other week at SMX West. “I don’t have to build links,” he said. “We put out a new product or announcement, and bam: There’s 10,000 links.” Unfortunately, he’s right — even if the slap would have been justified. If you do SEO for a big brand, like Ryan, […]

• Is Apple Is About To Launch A New Global Search Engine?

  Did the headline catch your eye? I really wanted a teaser headline for this post which would entice people to read and discover the details of a new global search engine — but for that message, a teaser alone just wasn’t credible. But when I added the word “Apple” to the headline, it completely changed […]

• Google’s First Day Of Spring Logo

  Today is the first day of Spring in many parts of the world and to celebrate, Google has a special Spring Equinox logo. This logo’s design was by Marimekko a Finnish company. It obviously resembles the Google logo but has various flowers, birds, animals and insects to symbolize the Spring season. Bing and Dogpile also […]

• The Social Search Revolution: 8 Social SEO Strategies To Start Using Right Now

  Google’s searchbots have long relied on humans to endorse relevant and useful links. Recently, however, Google upped the human ante by introducing Google Social Search. Google recognizes that one personal endorsement from someone we know easily outranks endorsements from 10,000 strangers. The same applies for a trusted authority: a blogging link shared by Darren Rowse […]

Recent Headlines From MarTech, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

• AdCenter Best Practices for Agencies – Webcast on Thursday
• Twitter Advertisers Can Now Target Promoted Tweet Campaigns To Mobile Users
• Your Desert Island Metric
• Google Analytics Launches New Social Reports To Measure Social ROI
• Privacy & Google: French Want 69 Answers, EPIC Wants NSA Relationship Details
• Avoiding Three Common SEO Gremlins
• Google, Dell Prepare Tablet Counterattack As Apple Announces Three-Million iPad Weekend

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Learn why a message ended up in your spam folder, Official Gmail Blog
• Google typo may show just how the company felt about Wave, CNET News
• Spring Clean with a new Yahoo! Mail account, ymailblog.com

Business Issues

• Google Defends Hotfile (and Megaupload) in Court, torrentfreak.com
• Last hurdle for Google’s $12.5B Motorola deal: China, GeekWire
• The Real Reason Google Bought Kevin Rose And Milk: It Needs Designers, Business Insider

Local, Maps & Mobile

• A New Home for Google Maps API Developers, Google Geo Developers Blog
• Introducing more detailed 3D landmarks on Google Maps, Google LatLong
• Many Sites Chart a New Course as Google Expands Fees, New York Times
• Start a love affair with Google Map Maker; now available in France and Monaco, Google LatLong

Searching

• Google gives us some insight on the inner workings of Google Translate, Engadget
• Google Image Search Not Working Properly For All, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• 9 PPC Tasks for a 10% Boost in 10 Minutes, PPC Hero
• Awesome Examples of How to Use SeoTools for Excel, distilled
• Die Hard SEO: Search Marketing for Underdogs, Search Engine People
• Five common SEO mistakes (and six good ideas!), Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Gamification for Improved Search Ranking for YouTube Topics, Official Google Research Blog
• How to Prepare for Google’s Search Makeover, Marketing Pilgrim
• How to Prioritize Your PPC Analysis for Awesome Results, Search Engine Watch
• How will Google treat new TLDs?, YouTube
• If Content is King,Tthen it’s a Disrespected, Commoditized Crown, internetmarketingninjas.com
• Long Tail Content Strategy for People Who Don’t Understand the Long Tail, SEO Theory
• Project Management Software Recommendations for Managing PPC Accounts, Certified Knowledge
• The First Rule of the SEOpocalypse, The Google Cache
• Zombie Robots Are Eating My Site, netmeg.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Assessing the opportunity of YouTube marketing, Smart Insights

Web Analytics

• Upcoming changes in Google’s HTTP Referrer, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog