SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 5, 2009

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 Search’s “Vince” Change: Google Says, Not Brand Push

  About a week ago, SEOs and Webmasters began noticing a significant change in how Google returned results for a certain set of keywords. Many webmasters felt Google was giving “big brands” a push in the search results. However, Matt Cutts of Google created a video that answered many questions about this “brand push.” […]

• Google Health Makes It Easier To Share Medical Records

  Google Health has taken a step forward in utility with the launch today of two new tools to help users share their medical information with trusted friends, family members, or medical providers.
  First, “Share This Profile” is an email-based tool that lets you give someone else online access to a Google Health profile. Privacy and security […]

• Google Testing (Annoying) Expandable Ads

  In a dual-barrel announcement, Google is introducing “expandable ads” to its AdSense and AdWords programs. Expandable ads are those annoying banners/graphics that expand and cover up the actual page content, as shown in this Google example:

  To Google’s credit, these ads will score somewhat lower on the annoyance meter than similar ads from other systems because […]

• Why Do Lawyers From Utah Hate Search Ads?

  Eric Goldman reports that Utah, for the third time, is trying to regulate keyword advertising by proposing new law. The first two times they failed, but they are hoping the third time will be a charm.
  This revised law proposal, HB 450, is trying to prevent registered marks as triggers for keyword advertising but specifically […]

• Inquisitor Debuts On iPhone

  The Yahoo Search Blog announced that my favorite search browser plugin, Inquisitor has made its way to the iPhone. You can get it right now on your iPhone in the iTunes Store for free by clicking here.
  The features include:

  Yahoo Search Assist search suggestions
  View search results in one click, within the application
  Site summaries load before […]

• Search As Television’s Savior?

  Nielsen Research came out with interesting statistics on overall video consumption last week indicating that total TV consumption reached record levels when considering traditional broadcast video, time shifted video, web video and mobile video. This seems to fly in the face of the predictions that online video is cannibalizing the traditional business model. […]

• Having A Crawlable Site Architecture Still Matters

  Over the past few years, all of the search engines have made tremendous strides in trying to discover different parts of the web, find deep content and understand complex URL structures better. The first big stride came when each of the search engines adopted the XML Sitemap protocol. Website owners now had the ability to […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Yahoo! Mail More than One Third of Yahoo! Traffic, Hitwise
• Zoho Writer Gets A Makeover And Some New Features, TechCrunch

Business Issues

• Yahoo’s Bartz Offers Early Progress Report, MediaPost
• Will Google Buy Twitter in 3 Weeks?, Fool
• EXCLUSIVE: Google Takes a Stand for Location Privacy, Along with Loopt, Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Google letting cash pile up-CEO, Reuters
• Google’s Schmidt: I Didn’t Diss Twitter (GOOG), Business Insider
• Google: Clean Energy Goes ‘Straight to the Bottom Line’, Wall Street Journal
• Yahoo! to appeal Belgian fine, MSNBC
• Yahoo, Vodafone Said to Be in Talks About European Search Deal, Bloomberg

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Cleaning up Australia, one map at a time, Google LatLong

Link Building

• Linkbuilding Offline, Brisbane SEO Blog
• Position Your Site as Your Industry Resource : Build Links & Trust, Daily SEO Tip

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google AdSense Updates Home Page While Stats Lag, Search Engine Roundtable
• Advertisers: Are You Noticing Less Searchers?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Keyword Suggestions, Just for You, Yahoo! Search Marketing Blog

Searching

• Cough, Cough. Is There a Doctor in the Mouse?, Wall Street Journal
• AOL One Clicks Now Featuring Pro Athletes, AOL Search Blog
• For This Vanity Search, Google is Way More Real Time, John Battelle’s Searchblog
• From the Mailbag: Blending books when you want them, Inside Google Book Search
• Google Disrupts–Again, Forbes
• Interpreting Hitwise Statistics on Longer Queries, Ask.com Blog
• Twitter destined to replace Google Search, Twitip.com

SEM Industry

• Dear Matt Cutts, What We Have is a Failure to Communicate, Michael Gray
• SEMJ.org and eBay’s Better Affiliate Model – SEM Synergy Extras, BruceClay.com
• SEO Linguistics: Updates, Changes, Glitches, Semantics, & NOISE, SEO Book

SEO & SEM

• TinyURL Conversion on Twitter – Stop URI Conversions, SEO Consultants
• Using stats from site: and Sitemap details, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Comparing Blackhat SEO and Lie to Me, SEO.com
• Google Won’t Remove that Page You Don’t Like, But You (or Your SEO) Can, SEOmoz
• Latent Semantic Indexing SEO Spam, SageRock
• The Big, Bad List of Pre-SEO Campaign Questions You Need to Answer, Part II, Search Engine Guide
• Twitter – The New Parasite Host on the Block, seoblackhat.com

Social Media

• Twitter Is More Than Connecting, Marketing Pilgrim
• 10 ways to measure social media success, Econsultancy
• Twimailer Enhances Twitter Follow Notifications, Read/Write Web
• Twitter Brand Directory Debuts, AdWeek

Video, Music & Image Search

• Google and Universal Music Discuss Music-Video Partnership, Wall Street Journal
• YouTube Surpasses 100 Million U.S. Viewers for the First Time, comScore
• How to Integrate Web Videos into your Marketing Plan, Viral Conversations

Web Analytics

• 10 Must Track Google Analytics Goals, Web Analytics World Blog
• Omniture Integrates with Twitter, Web Analytics World Blog

Other Items

• Tipping points, Official Google Blog

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

• The Changing Face of Search: Is Google Losing its Grip?
• A New Definition for SEO: SEO = RESULTS!
• Psychologist Links Social Networking Sites to Poor Health
• SearchEngineLand.com – The Land of Ultimate Resources for Search Marketing Professionals
• Why pay more
• Linking at the Speed of Light
• Dear Matt Cutts, What We Have is a Failure to Communicate
• What's A Craphat & Why You Shouldn't Be One
• TinyURL Conversion on Twitter – Stop URI Conversions
• My Social Networking Mistake, admits Brian Carter
• A Search Geeks Guide to Google Brand Bias
• Language in International PPC : Rose By Any Other Spelling May Smell Sweeter
• Local Search: Safe Haven Against Google’s New Brand Algorithm?
• the inside scoop from facebook advertising – the day I spent inside
• SEO Tips for Large Ecommerce Sites
• Is the Pay-for-Performance SEO Model Still Viable?