SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 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: German Court OKs Google Street View Imagery In “Landmark Decision” German publication Deutsche Welle is reporting that a Berlin court has vindicated Google Street View operation in Germany. In late 2010 […]

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

From Search Engine Land:

  • German Court OKs Google Street View Imagery In “Landmark Decision”

    German publication Deutsche Welle is reporting that a Berlin court has vindicated Google Street View operation in Germany. In late 2010 Street View went live in Oberstaufen, a small town in Bavaria. Subsequently it was rolled out in 20 major cities throughout Germany. Around the same time a German woman sued Google claiming that Street […]

  • Google Plays More Involved Matchmaker Between Advertisers And Agencies

    Google has implemented changes to Google Partner Search — the index where advertisers can find certified agencies to manage their AdWords campaigns — to make it easier for the two parties to get in contact. The company has now added the ability for advertisers to fill out a form on the agencies’ profile page on […]

  • Report: Google Still Web’s Dominant Traffic Driver, But Some Niches See Facebook Gaining

    A wide-ranging report out today paints a rosy picture for the future of search and search ads, and more specifically for Google to continue its dominance of the search landscape. But there are small niches where Google’s position as a dominant traffic driver might be taking a hit. Citi analyst Mark Mahaney released a 30-page […]

  • Twitter Celebrates 5th Birthday With Conan Show Appearance, New Video & More

    Twitter’s 5th birthday celebration is underway — the company is sharing a new video, new website, blog posts, and has a national TV appearance on tap, too. Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is scheduled to appear on tonight’s Conan show on cable network TBS. That’ll be the cap on what’s already been a celebrity-filled birthday. Twitter […]

  • Hot At Sphinn: Overrated SEO Tactics, E-Commerce Product SEO & More

    SEO was the dominant theme on Sphinn again last week, thanks to a couple popular discussions and several SEO-related stories that resonated with Twitter users. Two weeks ago, we asked about underrated SEO tactics. So, last week’s “Discussion of the Week” flipped the coin and asked about Overrated SEO Tactics? And there were plenty mentioned: […]

  • 5 Paid Search Marketing Myths Explained In Simple Terms

    The industry is laden with silly and many times nonsensical paid search marketing myths. Some myths are insidious and can cost advertisers a fortune without them realizing it. In this article, I will highlight a handful of the more prevalent PPC myths (by no means all of them!), expose flawed logic and explain how things […]

  • The Mobile Content Dilemma: Brevity Vs. Optimization

    Search engine optimization is a neverending quest for better content – and the more, the better. When approaching a site build, there’s often a tug of war between SEOs and site designers over what the page should say. Designers favor a “don’t make me think” approach, giving their users visuals and navigation but holding back […]

  • 3 Ways The iPad Pits Consumer Privacy Against Advertising Measurability

    Apple’s iOS platform, which powers the iPad, iTouch and iPhone, is currently used by 130 million consumers. The latest iOS device, the iPad (now into second generation sales of the iPad2), has already sold over 15 million units since its April 2010 launch. As iOS-based devices become more popular, advertisers should be asking critical questions […]

  • Report: Google Still Top Desired Place To Work

    An annual study by Universum ranks Google the top place for young working professionals to work at. Google Is No. 1 on List Of Desired Employers from the Wall Street Journal reports the study claimed about one in four of new job applicants would prefer to work at Google over any other company. About 25% […]

  • Google Fined 100,000 Euros By French Privacy Regulator

    According to wire service AFP, France’s data privacy regulator has imposed a EUR 100,000 ($142,000) fine to punish Google for collecting private WiFi data via Street View in France. This is the first fine/penalty any country has levied against Google over the WiFi data collection. When it first occurred, Google acknowledged the data collection but […]

  • 7 Local Web Marketing Infographics To Overload Your Brain

    The infographic is the art form of choice for illustrating complex data in a way that often makes the case that yes, the data is in fact complex. As we all know, the world of local online marketing is uber-complex. With that in mind, I offer you the best of the local search infographics to […]

  • AT&T-Mobile Makes Google-ITA Antitrust Issue Look Trivial

    The big tech news of yesterday was the announced $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA by AT&T. In less than 24 hours almost every potential angle has already been covered at length. Both AT&T’s and Deutsche Telekom’s boards have already approved the deal. So now it’s on to the regulatory drama. If approved by US […]

  • SMX Advanced: Register by April 2 for Best Rates, Stay for Deep-Dive Workshops

    Get the hottest ticket in search at the lowest rate possible by registering for Search Marketing Expo – SMX Advanced Seattle, the only marketing conference designed exclusively for experienced search marketers. SMX Advanced tickets sold out nearly a month before last year’s conference, so register by April 2 and secure your spot! As a bonus […]

  • Chinese Hacking Google Again To Stop “Jasmine Revolution”

    As popular unrest has spread throughout the Middle East and led to the overthrow or ouster of governments in Tunisia, Egypt and potentially elsewhere (stay tuned), pro-democracy activists in China have also called for protests and a “Jasmine Revolution,” which is a reference to the Tunisian revolt. Ever vigilant against reforms the Chinese government has […]

  • Big Mobile Data Dive From SMX West

    I moderated the three mobile sessions on mobile at SMX West earlier this month: Mobile Search Ads, Location Services: The New Local Search? and Mobile Apps. A ton of great advice, stats and data came out of these sessions; you had to be fast to get it all. For those who weren’t fast enough or […]

  • Virgin Mary, Baby Jesus “Seen” On Google Maps

    From company logos to swastikas, marriage proposals and other messages, you can find some very unique images in Google Maps. And now, according to some construction workers in England, you can also find a vision of the Virgin Mary holding baby Jesus. That’s a close-up of what Google Maps shows at a construction site along […]

  • 25 Things I Hate About Google, Revisited 5 Years Later

    Five years ago, I wrote a story called “25 Things I Hate About Google.” It went viral, to my surprise. I thought it was worth revisiting that story on its five year anniversary, to see how many of those “hates” have been fixed. So let’s dive in! It’s actually been five years and a week […]

  • Yahoo’s AllTheWeb To Redirect To Yahoo Search April 4th

    AllTheWeb one of the search engines Yahoo acquired in 2003 to help build Yahoo Search, will be sunsetting on April 4, 2011. After April 4th, when you try to access AllTheWeb, you will be redirected to Yahoo Search’s home page. A message posted on the AllTheWeb.com reads: Yahoo! will be closing AlltheWeb on April 4, […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

Business Issues

Local, Maps & Mobile

Link Building

Searching

SEO & SEM

Social Media

Video, Music & Image Search

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

  • 25 Things I Hate About Google, Revisited 5 Years Later – What does Danny hate and love about Google? Here he revisits his post from 5 years ago and with the latest updates.
  • How to Write Product Descriptions that Sell, Boost SEO Efforts – Writing unique compleling copy that satifies the search engines and speaks to your consumers in a with language and voice they understand and relate too is a key aspect overlooked by many online merchants.
  • Budget Conscious PPC Campaign Structure – A good foundation for your AdWords and adCenter accounts starts with your campaign structure.  There are many theories on the best PPC campaign structure, resulting in thousands of articles about this one step in setting up your PPC account.
  • 7 Essential Google Intelligence Custom Alerts That Keep Me Sane – As a data analyst tracking more than 300 websites, the numbers are simply stacked against me. It's hard to give each and every site meaningful attention. Thankfully, the vast majority of these sites don't require active analysis, but I still needed to devise some kind of system that would let me know when something was afoot
  • 15 Most Engaged Pages On Facebook – These rankings show that simply having a large number of fans doesn’t translate into having a high engagement rate. That seems to correspond with many brands’ focusing on the number of likes rather than addressing how to get repeat visits that also involve more time per session.
  • Discussion: Keyword Targeting Strategy – I have been wondering about how to go about selecting keywords and how this is affected by Broad Match, Phrase Match and Exact Match…When choosing keywords are we supposed to select these based on their exact match? If this is the case would it be best practice to select, for example, ' Mountain Bike' and 'Mountain Bikes', OR would it be correct to select just the plural version because it contains 'mountain bikes' in the string anyway. Furthermore, would it be better to optimise for 'Cheap Mountain Bikes' as this contans three keywords? So in essence this would be targeting all three in one key phrase.Also, when optimising pages what is the best practice with regards to keywords and Link Building. Would you focus on exact keywords or Broad Keywords? If anyone could answer this question that would be fantastic. I have been looking for an answer to this for sometime but to no avail.

About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is 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 can be followed on Twitter here.

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