SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 25, 2010

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

From Search Engine Land:

• Live Matrix Wants To Be Your Guide To The Live Web

  If you’re looking for something to do, there are several event search engines you might use: Upcoming.org and Zvents are two biggies, while Joobili is a smaller one that combines events with travel search. But all of this is for finding offline events. What about the thousands of things happening on the web every day?
  Enter […]

• The Death Of Web Analytics? An Ode To The Threatened Referrer

  One of the most important online marketing tools is the referrer string. Little known to most web surfers, this is effectively the Caller ID of the internet. It allows web site owners and marketers to know where visitors came from. It’s crucial marketing data, and data that might be going away.
  What’s The Referrer?
  When you visit […]

• Google Lets Users Opt Out Of Analytics Tracking, But Doesn’t Expect Many Will

  Google has announced the launch of a browser plugin that lets users avoid being tracked by Google Analytics. The company warned two months ago, in the midst of loud privacy-related complaints, that it was working on such a tool.
  Google says the plugin will work in the following browsers:

  Internet Explorer, versions 7 and 8
  Mozilla Firefox, […]

• How To Use Goverment Website Information To Create Sticky Link Bait

  If you have a tiny marketing budget but need big links, this sticky link bait tactic might be for you!
  A recent report from the Pew Research Center found 61% of all American adults (or 205 million people) look for or completed a transaction on a government website in 2009. This information alone is impressive, but what made the […]

• A Priceless Formula For Success: Customer Feedback + Web Analytics

  Several years after the introduction of feedback analytics, online retailers continue to find ways to put the priceless resource of the user’s voice to work to increase conversions, sales and customer loyalty. Among the most innovative applications of direct customer feedback is analyzing trends to predict search queries, inform SEO design, adjust merchandising and […]

• Google “Economic Impact” Report Shows How Google Contributes To Local Economies

  Google has released a report that shows its economic contributions to local economies in the US. Timed to coincide with National Small Business Week this is something of a “charm offensive” and effort to burnish Google’s recently tarnished corporate image:
  Google’s not just a search […]

• Yahoo Acquires The Foursquare-Like Koprol

  Yahoo announced that it has acquired an Indonesian site called Koprol. Think of it as a kind of cross between Twitter and Foursquare, with more emphasis on the latter. (Yahoo had been rumored to be in talks to buy Foursquare. This move may reflect its inability to close that deal.) It touches local, mobile and […]

• How To Put The Facebook “Like” Button On A Site

  Last month, Facebook dropped the news about their “Open Graph” or new Facebook Platform that brings content into Facebook – and of course expands Facebook’s web reach out to a more granular level. Since the announcement, there have been two questions asked quite frequently:

  Should I put this on my website?
  How do I put this on […]

• How To Target The Savvy European Youth Market

  Europeans spend a lot of time on the web—half of all Europeans are regular users and 80% use a high speed connection. Thats nice, but every search marketer out there will tell you that you need to target specific groups. And one specific group of Europeans should be very interesting to search marketers: the […]

• FAQ: Twitter’s New Rules On Third-Party Ads

  Earlier today, Twitter posted new rules about how third party ad companies can insert ads into the Twitter “timeline” of tweets. Is this a death knell for those third party companies? Not necessarily, but it’s sure a crimp in some of their plans. Below, what the new rules seem to ban and allow.
  The Background
  Battle […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Faster finding and other document tweaks, Official Google Docs Blog
• Google Chrome for Mac: Ready, beta, now stable!, Official Google Mac Blog
• The new Hotmail gives Gmail a run for its money, Slate Magazine

Business Issues

• Google offered Viacom $500 million for content, CNET News
• Microsoft to Shake Up Entertainment Group, Wall Street Journal
• The Tragic Cost of Google Pac-Man – 4.82 million hours, RescueTime Blog

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Superpages Offers Improved Profiles, Screenwerk
• After the overwhelming popularity of the first…, foursquare
• Google Place (LBC): While listing in multiple languages is OK beware of merging, Mike Blumenthal
• Kick Off the 2010 World Cup With Yahoo! Mobile, Y! Mobile Blog
• SuperPages New Profile Pages Not Doing Advertisers Any SEO Favors, localseoguide.com
• The Best Local Search Directories For Vertical SEO, localseoguide.com

Link Building

• How to Improve Internal Linking on Your Blog, Daily SEO Tip
• Join the Experiment: Do Comment Links Still Hold Any Value?, Search Engine Journal
• Strategic Link Building That Drives Huge Results, SEO.com

Paid Search & Contextual

• Improvements to view-through conversion reporting for display campaigns, Inside AdWords
• Sandbox Account Viewer Released, AdWords API Blog
• Google AdSense Now Displaying Revenue Share in AdSense Console, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Launches AdWords API Sandbox Account Viewer, Search Engine Roundtable
• Join us for a top tech tips webinar this week, Inside AdSense
• Upcoming AdWords & AdSense Webinars, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• UK Times’ Paid Sites Will Turn Search Engines Away From Stories, paidcontent.co.uk

SEM Industry

• Interview of Google’s Maile Ohye – SES Toronto Preview, Web Analytics World Blog

SEO & SEM

• Are Search Queries Becoming Even More Unique? Statistics from Google, Brad Geddes
• Google Wages War on Guestbloggers, The Gospel According To Rhys
• How to Optimize Your PPC Campaign to Profit From Every Click (For Beginners), Search Engine Guide
• HTML “text-indent: -9999px” and holding the line, Maile Ohye
• Something Is Up (Or Down) With Google’s Search Algorithm, Search Engine Roundtable
• Spying on (and Learning from) Your Competitors: Step 5 of the 8-Step SEO Research Strategy, SEOmoz
• The Value of AdWords Brand Bidding, SEOptimise
• The Value of Google Result Positioning, Chitika Research
• When is it OK to Use Keyword Insertion in B2B Paid Search Creatives?, KoMarketing Associates

Social Media

• Fake BP Twitter Account Draws Followers With Oil-Spill Satire, Wall Street Journal
• Protecting Privacy with Referrers, Facebook
• The State of Linkedin, ViralBlog

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

• 27 Awesome Blogs about Blogging
• Consolidation and Amalgamation of Your Websites, the Pros and Cons!
• Commercializing Social Media: Facebook E-commerce and Shopping Apps
• U.S. Newspapers Start Selling SEO
• 8 Tools to Better Understand Your Target Audience

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.