SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 5, 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:

• Meet The New Google & Its Colorful, Useful “Search Options” Column

  After months of testing, Google is releasing a new look-and-feel for its search results today, a three column design that provides a permanent menu of search options and tools to help searchers refine their queries. Google also gains a freshly-updated logo along the way.
  The new user interface — UI for the tech crowd — […]
• New Google UI On Mobile Devices Too

  Danny’s otherwise exhaustive discussion of the new Google UI left out mobile. As you might expect, everything Google does these days it does with an eye toward mobile. And that includes the new UI changes.
  All the options available on the PC side don’t entirely show up in mobile but the major icons/filters do. Here’s the […]

• How To Choose The Right Site Search Solution

  An effective site search solution can help ecommerce sites drive sales and traffic, but customers’ expectations are high. You can thank search engines like Google—and now Bing—for raising your customers’ search expectations through the roof.
  You may be working hard on your natural and paid search campaigns to draw visitors to your site. Ideally […]

• Google Regains Search Share In April, Hitwise Says

  Google regained some of its recent losses in search market share according to the April statistics just released by Experian Hitwise.
  The company says Google held 71.4% of the market during April, up from 69.97% in March. Yahoo and Bing saw slight drops in market share between March and April. Here’s the chart:

  As far as Hitwise […]

• Google Disables Some Nationality-Based Search Suggestions

  Google has crippled its search suggestions tool for some search terms that refer to particular races and/or nationalities of people. The company says it’s a deliberate move based on Google’s policy against violence and hate speech, and not a technical bug like the one that led the phrase “islam is” to be disabled earlier this […]

• Conan O’Brien Is At Google Now

  Conan O’Brien, the comedian, tweeted that he is performing at Google today. I scanned through Twitter to find pictures from Googlers of his performance. Here they are:

  Here is another.

• What To Expect From An SEO/SEM Agency

  To many, I must seem like a curmudgeon who hates agencies. I often write about their failure to do this or that, or their overcharging for so little worthwhile output. Today, I’ll broaden the scope a bit and try to create a list of expectations you should have and that your agency should meet. Some […]

• Paid Search: The Glue Between Offline & Online

  While people use the internet for daily activities including reading news, doing research, communicating with others and shopping, many marketers still do not make paid search a priority when planning a new campaign. In fact, it is often implemented as an afterthought—a second level priority behind more traditional media such as TV and print. Rather […]

• B2B Blogging: Let’s Call It Something Else!

  There seems to be a growing trend amongst some B2B marketers, albeit a disturbing one, that blogging just isn’t right for their business. I’d like to question that assumption and provide a more acceptable way for business marketers to view: THE BLOG.

• The Site As A Service: Core Conversion Marketing Strategies

  This is the last in this series of core conversion marketing strategies: The Site as a Service Pattern. Get visitors into a trial from your home page, use email notifications to keep them interested and engaged, and you will get more and more customers from your online marketing efforts.

• Why Mobile Searchers Need Mobile-Optimized Sites

  In mobile SEO I straddle two industries: mobile marketing and search marketing, both of which contain smart people with good questions about mobile search. I think there’s a widespread desire in both camps these days to handle mobile SEO in a way that is not only going to be beneficial to brands today, but will […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Citysearch Gives Content to the Competition, New York Times
• Google’s new buggy microblogging Web app aims to educate, Ars Technica

Business Issues

• AOL Picks European Media Director Downing From Hearst Digital, paidContent.org
• Google Leads $23 Million Round In TV Ad Startup Invidi, TechCrunch
• Google Wins Industry Support for AdMob Deal, Ad Age
• There Goes The Neighborhood: Facebook To Open Seattle Office, TechCrunch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Places Statistics Off, Google To Investigate, Search Engine Roundtable
• Mapping the Gulf oil spill in Google Earth, Google LatLong
• Q1 2010 in Local Search (Developments of Interest), Mihmorandum

Link Building

• A Natural Link Love Story, SEOmoz

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdWords Downtime: May 8th, 10am-2pm PDT, AdWords API Blog
• Stop Wasting PPC Clicks and Start Saving $$$ Now, Search Engine Guide

Searching

• Math and Physics Results We Can Name, Wolfram|Alpha Blog

SEM Industry

• AdWords Product Managers To Post In Google AdWords Forums, Search Engine Roundtable
• Don’t Ask Googlers For Help & Lie To Them, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Disses Cinco de Mayo, Yahoo, Bing & Others Don’t, Search Engine Roundtable
• Proof Ask.com Is Dead, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Additional publisher resources: Using Webmaster Tools, Inside AdSense
• Buying the Right Aged Domain and Getting it Indexed Fast, Daily SEO Tip
• Google Negative Keywords & Blockers, Rimm Kaufman
• Old Google News Sitemaps Format Discontinued, Search Engine Roundtable

Social Media

• Blogger Outreach: The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly, 10e20
• How to Use Facebook for Business and Marketing, Techipedia

Web Analytics

• The Growing Google Analytics Ecosystem, Google Analytics Blog

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

• SEO is bulls**t. SEO is snake oil. SEO is a waste of money
• 7 Ways Your Homepage is Like A First Date