SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 1, 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 Can Now Execute AJAX & JavaScript For Indexing

  This morning we reported that the comments on Facebook are being indexed by Google. Google’s Matt Cutts just confirmed on Twitter that Google is now able to “execute AJAX/JS to index some dynamic comments.” This gives Google’s spider, GoogleBot, the ability to read comments in AJAX or JavaScript, such as Facebook comments or Disqus comments […]

• See Who’s Speaking at SMX Social Media Marketing – Rates Increase Next Week, Register Now!

  Early bird rates for SMX Social Media Marketing expire next week on November 12! Save up to $350 on your All Access ticket by registering now! Join us December 5-6 in Scottsdale, AZ for an intensive dive into successful social media marketing tactics from leading internet marketing experts. The agenda features laser focused sessions on […]

• Organic Keywords: The First Step In Search Engine Optimization

  In this and some following articles, I’ll outline the steps we’ve developed over the years to optimize pages to improve organic search results – not just rankings, but click-throughs and conversions, too. The first step is to choose the keywords to focus on and then map those keywords to pages on the site. Choosing Organic […]

• Google Creates “GoMo” Portal To Help You Mobilize

  Over the weekend Fusible.com surfaced several domain registrations from Google that suggested Google was creating a mobile site builder or portal. Then yesterday several outlets picked up on the Fusible post. Today Google is formally launching a mobile site development portal dubbed HowToGoMo. It provides education, case studies and best practices for marketers large and […]

• Facebook Comments Now Being Indexed By Google

  Add-on commenting systems like Facebook Comments enhance the user experience, but can make it harder for search engines to index content. Most third party commenting systems leverage javascript to display information and add bells and whistles. However, Labnol.org reported that now Facebook Comments are being crawled (and ranking) in Google’s SERPs effectively breaking the mold for third party […]

• Fastest Growth For Baidu, Second Place For Yandex & Google Is The Runner Up?

  Last time, I was analysing the financial performance for the quarter of Google and demonstrated that internationally — excluding the UK — Google’s growth rate over last year was around 44%. We have now seen the same quarter’s figures from other major international search engines and we can conclude that Baidu’s growth rate in China tops […]

• How To Canonicalize URLs As Backlinks In Local Search & Online Business Directories

  If you read my previous Link Week entry, Why Canonicalization Matters From A Linking Perspective, you know that canonicalization – the process of selecting and using one specific URL for each page on your website for indexing in search – is vitally important for consolidating potential link juice. This is because search engines index URLs […]

• Google Unveils Ad Preferences Center For Search And Gmail Ads

  Sensitive to privacy issues surrounding ad targeting, Google is opening the kimono to consumers about why certain search and Gmail ads are targeted to certain people. The company is launching an additional section to its ad preference center — where users can already manage targeting criteria for display ads. In the new area, people will […]

• 7 Quick Wins For High Converting PPC Landing Pages

  In paid search, it’s one thing to get a click but it’s completely something else to get a visitor to convert. To get a high enough ROI to make paid search profitable, practitioners need to be proficient not only in PPC optimization tactics, but also have ninja techniques on how to improve conversions. And where […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Incoming: A Native Gmail iPhone App. Finally., parislemon.com
• New in Reader: a fresh design, and Google+ sharing, Official Google Reader Blog
• Revealed: Why Techmeme links to them instead of you!, Techmeme News
• Gmail’s new look, Official Gmail Blog
• Google eBooks opens a new chapter for Canadian readers, Inside Google Books
• Read Your Shared Items in Google Reader, Google Operating System

Business Issues

• Yahoo CEO Search: David Kenny Will Not Be the Next CEO, Ad Age
• Yahoo Shares Melt as Rumors Conflict With Other Rumors, AllThingsD
• Yahoo! Announces Agreement to Acquire interclick, Yahoo! Advertising Blog

Local, Maps & Mobile

• ‘Completely new Google+ app’ for Android live on Market, 9to5google.com

Searching

• Thumbnail images in search results — no work required!, Google Custom Search

SEM Industry

• SEO Q&A with Barry Schwartz of Search Engine Roundtable, Dave Cain
• An intimate interview with Marty Weintraub, CEO of aimClear, SEO Copywriting
• Would There Be SEO Stars Without SEO Celebrities?, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• 3 Steps to Social SEO for Your Boring-Ass Clients, SEOmoz
• Google Panda Minor Update More Vince Like?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Heads Up: Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Scheduled Maintenance, adCenter API Blog for Developers
• How Google May Demote Some Search Results for Subsequent Related Searches, SEO By The Sea
• The Very Odd Obsessive Compulsive Behavior of SEOs, SEO Theory
• Using Google Suggest in your Online Reputation Management Strategy, Search Engine People

Social Media

• Introducing Twitter Stories, Twitter Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• Insight Report Enhancements, YouTube API Blog

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

• Google Now Indexes Facebook Comments on Websites – Is Google now crawling and indexing Facebook comments on websites just like any other text? It looks like this might be the case.
• We Screwed Up! How We Still Managed 25% Success – This blog post shows exactly how taking ownership of a mistake can still produce results.
• Advanced Google Analytics – Tips and Tricks – SEOgadget's Fabian Alvares shares some great advanced segments, multiple goal conversion tracking and the secret sauce behind cross domain tracking.