SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 20, 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:

• Google Maps Vs. Bing Maps: Summer Vacation Planning Showdown

  Wouldn’t it be great if there was one mapping service that offers everything you need to plan a trip to somewhere you’ve never been? Sure, map sites are generally pretty similar. You can see maps, find business listings, get driving directions, see images and stuff like that. But it’s actually more complicated than that. At […]

• Argentine Court Orders Google To Censor Results, Halt Suggestions

  An Argentine court has ordered Google to stop “suggesting” searches that lead to sites deemed anti-Semitic and remove the sites from the search engine’s index. The company has reportedly said it won’t take action until getting the official order from the Buenos Aires court. The injunction, which represents censorship of search results, stems from a […]

• Likes Are Not Loves – How To Waste Time “Marketing” In Facebook

  I heard the other day that if someone “Likes” your Facebook business page, they’re over 90% likely to never look at it again. Wow. 90% is a lot! We could assume that’s exaggerated by ½, but 45% is still a lot. When a website’s conversion rate is a fraction of its actual traffic – a […]

• Facebook Friday Question Says: Most Buy Google Ads, Then Google & Bing

  The last of my catch-up on our Facebook Friday Questions, our Facebook fans tell us that most of them buy ads on Google only, followed by Google and Bing, with only a small number buying Bing only. We asked those who follow our Search Engine Land Facebook page, “If you buy search ads, where do […]

• Search In Pics: Google Android Labyrinth, Yahoo Buggy & Google Pay Phone

  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. Google Android Labyrinth: Yahoo Volkswagen Buggy: Google Knuckles: Yahoo’s Vietnam Market Push: Chrome Chocolates: Google Pay […]

• Why Results Quality Is So Important to Search Engines

  Every single search engine has, at the heart of it, a dynamic tension that must be respected. It needs to balance user experience with revenue opportunities. Getting this balance right is incredibly difficult, as Ask, Yahoo and other engines that have seen their market shares precipitously fall can attest to. There was a time when […]

• Android On Fire — Others Not So Much

  The Q1 smartphone sales figures that were released yesterday by Gartner show that Android has surged and now leading all other smartphone operating systems. These numbers are Q1 sales figures and not reflective of overall market share but the show the direction the overall market is going. Gartner said “Windows Phone saw only modest sales […]

• Google Goes Big For Financial Comparison Shopping, Launches “Google Advisor”

  Google has rolled up its tools for consumers seeking side-by-side comparisons of financial products, launching “Google Advisor,” a one-stop-shop for consumers looking for mortgages, credit cards, checking and savings accounts, and certificates of deposit. For marketers, it’s an opportunity to gather leads, and Advisor seems to be aimed at stepping up the volume of those […]

• It’s Not About Cookies: Privacy Debate Happening At Wrong Level

  Some form of digital privacy regulation in the US is about 90 percent certain in the coming year. In Europe, where privacy rules are much more stringent, the details of new consumer protections are currently being worked out on a practical level. For example on Wednesday the EU data protection authority decided that location data […]

• Google Book Search Adds Contextual Search, Define & Translate

  Now within Google eBooks you can search, define and translate words within the book using the click of your mouse. Using the Google eBooks Web Reader, which works in all modern browsers, you can highlight words with your mouse and select from a contextual menu to Define, Translate, Search Book, Search Google and Search Wikipedia. […]

• Google Shuts Down Ambitious Newspaper Scanning Project

  Google’s ambitious effort to digitize the world’s newspaper archives and make them available online has come to an end. The project launched in 2008, and it currently has digitized material from what looks like about 2,000 newspapers — including the Milwaukee Sentinel, whose July 21, 1969 front page is shown at right. But rumors have […]

• Google, Smartphone Contacts & Social Graphs: Has Eric Schmidt Crossed The Creepy Line Again?

  Things have been a little quiet — perhaps even boring — since Eric Schmidt stepped down as Google’s CEO to become the company’s Executive Chairman. The strange quotes and not-so-funny attempts at cracking privacy-related jokes have slowed down in the past couple months. But Schmidt may have just added another one to his collection of […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Changes and improvements to AIM interoperability, Official Gmail Blog
• Google Is Serious: You Can Kill Chrome’s URL Bar, ConceivablyTech
• 7 Google Features Only Available in Google Chrome, Google Operating System
• Eureka! Google breakthrough makes SSL less painful, The Register

Business Issues

• Best Legal Department 2011 Winner: Google, law.com
• Schmidt: ‘Elites’ not ‘common men’ fret over net privacy, The Register

Local, Maps & Mobile

• A Brief History of Features in Google Local, Maps and Places, Mike Blumenthal
• Google Maps on your mobile browser, Google LatLong
• Groupon Now! Comes to Loopt Loopt In, blog.loopt.com

Link Building

• Link Building Secrets Presentation, Majestic SEO Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdSense for mobile content in 15 new countries, Google Mobile Ads Blog

Searching

• Weekly Yahoo! Search Trends – May 20, 2011, Yodel Anecdotal

SEM Industry

• Video: Bing Shows Facebook Power, Goodbye Silverlight, Pandalized & Google News, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• 6 Ways to Use Social Media to Boost Local Search Results, Search Engine Watch
• Google ads in second position get more attention, miratech.com
• Mobile SEO Tips For Everyone – Filmed on an iPad 2 – Whiteboard Friday, SEOmoz
• Reminder: Google Base APIs Retiring In 12 Days, Search Engine Roundtable
• Using Semantic Markup To Strengthen Your Local SEO Efforts, Search Engine People
• Using The Scotty Principle to Sell SEO Services, Search Engine Guide

Social Media

• You’re Not Too Old For Social Media, You’re Just Lazy, outspokenmedia.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Google Image Search in SSL, Google Operating System

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

• Bing Rankings Cheat Sheet – Google is important but they aren’t the only player out there. According to recent numbers, Microsoft’s Bing now generates 30% of all U.S.A. searches (half Yahoo – which is Bing-powered and half from the Bing.com web site.)  It’s becoming more important that you be sure your site is optimized for Bing.  So what does Bing look for?  Here’s a cheat sheet you can use to optimize your site for Bing.
• Expert SEO Interview with Matt McGee – Terrific SEO Insights from Matt.