SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 18, 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:

• Search In Pics: LinkedIn Bike, Chrome Watch & Facebook @ Google

  In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. LinkedIn Bike Parked At Google: Source: Google+ Google Chrome Watch: Source: Google+ Facebook Engineers At Google: […]

• Dylan Hoffman’s Pirate Times Doodle 4 Google Wins Pirate Booty

  Google announced the winner of the Doodle 4 Google competition and today that winner’s logo is on Google home pages around the world. The Winner is Dylan Hoffman of Caledonia, Wisconsin for his Doodle named “Pirate Times.” The Doodle won him a $30,000 college scholarship, a Chromebook computer and a $50,000 technology grant for his […]

• adCenter Updates Microsoft Advertiser Intelligence With Templates & Mobile Data

  Microsoft adCenter recently launched an improved version of Microsoft Advertising Intelligence (MAI). MAI is a keyword research tool that helps Advertisers find related keywords and their historical and projected traffic and performance data from the available adCenter traffic. As an Excel add-in, it offers powerful API-based access to data, right in the familiar Excel environment. […]

• Google Improves AdSense Reporting And Bolsters Smart Pricing With New Research

  Google has introduced several new reporting improvements for AdSense publishers, and it has released new research that shows publishers make more money with “smart pricing” — even though their revenue-per-click is discounted as compared with search ads — than they would without it. One reporting improvement is that AdSense publishers can now view “all time” […]

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

• Marketing Biz: All The Non-Facebook IPO News Fit To Print
• Americans Watched Record Amount Of Online Video Ads In April [Report]
• 7 Ways To Re-Energize Your Affiliate Marketing Program
• Report: Facebook Sued For $15 Billion Over Improper User Tracking
• Twitter’s “Tailored Suggestions” Will Use Widget & Button Data To Make Better Recommendations

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Exclusive: Yahoo Finally Set to Strike Alibaba Share Deal, AllThingsD
• Foursquare Hires Former iAd Exec as Revenue Chief | Digital, Ad Age
• Groupon Stock Spike Probed, Wall Street Journal
• Karma is moving to Facebook: Why social gifting is about to get a lot more social, Karma

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Can’t Get Guggenheim Museum’s Contact Information Correct, Search Engine Roundtable

Link Building

• Good Link, Bad Link: How to Stop Breaking Your Website, SEO Theory
• Link Decay, Your Link Profile Might be Rotting Away!, Search Engine People

Searching

• Making more pages load instantly, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog
• Bing Our Latest Release: Your Questions Answered, Bing Search Blog

SEM Industry

• Best SEO Thing of the Day: Google Bugle, How’s Your Pony? Blog
• International SEO School Opens in Barcelona, State of Search
• SEO in 2012: The Best of Times or the Worst of Times?, Search Engine Journal
• Video: Google Penguin Hack, Google Purges Directories, Bing Updates, Yahoo CEO Fired & Facebook IPO, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Was Target Hit By Penguin?, RKG Blog
• Ways to Win Customers and Influence Rankings – Whiteboard Friday, SEOmoz
• Why Keywords Suck, MediaPost

Social Media

• YouTube Phases Out the +1 Button, thenextweb.com
• Want to find new favorites? Check out ‘Explore nearby’ for shortcuts to places like the ones you love, Foursquare Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• Searching for a way to get a human being at Google on the phone, Los Angeles Times