SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 28, 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:

• Hot At Sphinn: DIY Link Building, ‘Sexier’ Google Analytics & More

  Is it possible — and smart — for anyone outside of link building consultants/agencies to successfully scale a link building campaign? Should a “regular Joe” follow the timeworn advice to mine competitors’ links, contact link targets and ask for links? Is that the best use of marketing time and resources? Our “Discussion of the Week” […]

• Sina Corp, Large Chinese Portal, Drops Google As Search Provider

  Sina Replaces Google Search Engine On Portal from the Wall Street Journal reports Google has just lost a major search syndication deal with one of Chinese largest portals. In 2007, Sina Corp partnered with Google, where Google would power the news, ads and search results for the huge Chinese portal. That deal has ended and […]

• Google Instant Now For Google Places

  Google has launched Google Instant Search for Google Place search results. To see this yourself, conduct a search on Google and then click on “Places” in the left-hand panel. Then type in the search box and Google Instant will predict and auto fill your searches. Here is an example query for pizza: Google continues to […]

• Why Quality Is The Only Sustainable SEO Strategy

  One of the most important takeaways after the Panda Update / Farmer fallout is to make your sites as high-quality and useful as possible. The next year should be interesting, as some sites invest in quality, while others try to game signals seeking shortcuts to the hard work. Both are valid, as long as you’re […]

• 3 Simple Strategies For Organizing Your Match Types

  When you have two or more keywords that can be triggered in your AdWords account from a search query, Google tries to show the most restrictive option. The constraints go beyond just match type to include geography, time of day, etc. However, Google does not always show exact match over phrase match and phrase match […]

• For Local SEO, Lack Of Call Tracking Solution Spawns Cloaking

  Referrals via phone calls have historically been challenging for marketers to assess by promotion channel, although special tracking phone numbers set up to count calls have arisen to satisfy the need. Unfortunately, using different numbers per channel can impair local SEO, and lack of an alternative option is causing some to use a potentially risky […]

• Lowest Rates for SMX Advanced Seattle Expire this Week

  Super early bird rates for Search Marketing Expo – SMX Advanced Seattle expire at the end of day Saturday, April 2nd. Get the lowest rates offered for the only conference designed for search marketing experts. Register today! Join us June 7-8 at Seattle’s Bell Harbor International Conference Center for an engaging and intimate conference. SMX […]

• Google Joins Forces With MasterCard On NFC To Test The Future Of Digital Marketing, Analytics

  Google’s Gingerbread (Android 2.3) offers near field communication (NFC) support, which can be used for both “contactless payments” and marketing purposes. People tend to think about and discuss NFC in the context of “mobile wallets” and payments exclusively but there’s a great deal more it can do. For example, Google has been testing NFC-based marketing […]

• Last Call To Speak At SMX Advanced London

  We’re finalizing the speaker lineup for SMX Advanced London, and there are still a few openings. We’re particularly interested in hearing from you if you can speak knowledgeably on the following topics: Essential Paid Search Power Tools Legal Update: ASA Compliance, Click Fraud, Privacy & More Refriending Google: Dealing With Penalties & Suspensions Remarketing For […]

• Zuckerberg In Zion: Speaks To Senator Hatch, Students At BYU

  You might wonder what in the world could bring the Harvard dropout and under-30 founder of Facebook together with the 77-year-old conservative Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) to talk to students and attendees at Brigham Young University earlier today. I’m still trying to figure that out myself, despite having attended the event. Overall, it was fairly […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Google Realtime Search Manager Leaves to Build Foursquare as Platform, Read/Write Web
• Google: Acquisition Binge To Continue, Business Insider
• High-tech industry on hiring binge in California; Google, Facebook and Zynga lead the pack, Los Angeles Times
• Facebook May Hire Robert Gibbs, Former Obama Aide, New York Times
• Groupon Hit With Two Lanham Act Lawsuits, and One Takes Google Along for the Ride, Eric Goldman
• Java founder James Gosling joins Google, CNET News
• Yahoo Executive Talks Acquisitions, Slams YouTube Buy, Wall Street Journal

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Mapping Google Arabia, thenextweb.com
• Google Maps: Geo Data Quality & Time to Fix, Mike Blumenthal
• LG to produce Nexus tablet for Google, suggests rumor, BGR
• Will the Web have a place in a world full of apps?, Slate Magazine

Link Building

• Thousands of Sites that Ban you from Linking to them., explicitly.me

Paid Search & Contextual

• Bid simulator results have moved to the DataService, AdWords API Blog

SEM Industry

• Danny Sullivan – 140 Best Twitter Feeds, TIME

SEO & SEM

• Google’s Robotic Recipe Search Favors SEO Over Good Food, TechCrunch
• 4 SEO Presentations w/ Tips, Graphics Data You Can Use, SEOmoz
• Improve Your Organic Rankings With Google Places, Part 2, Search Engine Watch
• Old Black Hat SEO Tricks Still Work, Search Engine Watch
• Does Google do a "holiday change"?, YouTube
• Google Acquires Virtual Post-it Notes Patents, SEO By The Sea
• Google Panda/Farmer Update: What’s The Status, Search Engine Roundtable
• How to Bring The Best Kind of Traffic to Your Online Store, Search Engine People
• Information Architecture, Faceted Navigation & Duplicate Content (Oh My!), SEOmoz
• Panda Update: Ecommerce sites at risk & an Analytics report to show how it’s hitting your US traffic today, BlogStorm
• Poll: How Much SEO Do You Give Away For Free Before Being Hired?, Search Engine Roundtable
• SEO Training: The Cornerstone of Successful Enterprise SEO Campaigns, Search Engine Watch

Social Media

• Majority Of America Is Now On Facebook: Report, huffingtonpost.com
• A Better Way to Measure Twitter Influence, New York Times
• Can It Get Worse for MySpace? Apparently Yes, Marketing Pilgrim
• MTV’s ‘Diary Of Facebook’ Takes You Inside The Social Phenomenon, MTV

Web Analytics

• Accessing More Than 10,000 Rows of Data Using The API, Google Analytics Blog

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

• Build Your Social Media Embassies – Love this from Dr. Pete Meyers: "Being on a social media site is like travelling in someone else's country. If you never plan on coming back, you can play the obnoxious tourist all you want. If you want to set up a home away from home, though, you need to respect the locals."
• How to use social media to create and enhance your brand’s narrative – Before you think social media is what you need, take a deep breath and review these 5 tips for using it cautiously and effectively.
• 109 Ways to Make Your Business Irresistible to the Media – "The publicity is there for the taking." Great piece by Patrick Garmoe about marketing your business via press attention. Lots of online resources and ideas included. "The bottom line is: reach out, be helpful, and get busy."
• Marc Jacobs Hires Intern To Manage Twitter. Fail Ensues. – Kristy Bolsinger brings some tweets to our attention which are certainly doing the Marc Jacobs company any favors!
• SEO Is Dead…Love Live SEO! – Lisa Barone, covering the "Is SEO dead?" session at SES, concludes: SEO is dead as a term, as opposed to something you actually have to do.
• Groupon accused of 'bait and switch' advertising on Google.com in lawsuit – "Groupon is being accused of running "false and misleading business and advertising acts" and running "bait and switch" ads on Google.com, according to a lawsuit filed by a bus tour company in San Francisco."

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.