SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 30, 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:

• Google AdWords Gets New ‘Click Type’ Report

  If you take advantage of some of the relatively new AdWords features like click-to-call, Sitelinks, and Product Ads, there’s a new report in your AdWords account to show how each one is performing. It’s called “Click Type” and you can access it by going to Campaigns > Segment > Click Type. Here’s a screenshot from […]

• Report: Google’s Social Network Project Delayed Due To Internal Debates

  Mashable reports Google has delayed their social networking platformed, rumored to be Google Me, until Spring 2011. It was expected to be out in 2010 or early 2011, but that has been pushed back to do delays. Mashable said they have a source that said the delay is due to internal “disagrement” about the “design, […]

• Link Curation – Man Vs Machine

  The words curator and curation have been showing up a lot lately, whether it’s with regards to cataloging the Web, mining social media, seeking links, or identifying trustworthy product reviews. This is when my Web years start to show. I’m thrilled to see the current group of “in-the-know” web marketers talk the curation talk. And […]

• EU Steps Up The Pressure: Pursuing Formal Anti-Trust Investigation Against Google

  The European Commission has opened a formal antitrust investigation into whether Google abused its market power and position in Europe. A number of complaints have effectively been consolidated in the action, which comes after a preliminary inquiry by the EC. The individual complainants include Microsoft-owned shopping engine Ciao, price comparison site Foundem and French legal […]

• Share the Experience: Send Your Team to SMX West… and Save

  Shared knowledge, experiences, vocabulary…they’re all part of building an effective internet and search engine marketing team. And Search Marketing Expo – SMX West provides an exceptional opportunity for teams to learn and network. Choose from more than 60 sessions covering topics including SEO, PPC, social media marketing, local/mobile, analytics and more. Take a look at […]

• Video: Google Translate Beatbox

  The web is buzzing about how you can use Google Translate to make a neat beatbox. This came via Reddit and all you need to do is go to Google Translate, set the settings to translate from German and to German. Then copy and paste the following text and hit “listen.” pv zk pv pv […]

• Google To Gain Access To Over 1.5 Million European Patent Documents

  Google Signs Pact With European Patent Office from the Wall Street Journal reports, Google has made a deal with the European Patent Office to gain access to over 1.5 million patent documents. The deal involves Google using their machine translation technology to help the European Patent Office translate the 38 member countries patents. The EPO […]

• Google Would Be Crazy To Spend $5B For Groupon

  Google is sitting on more than $30 billion in cash so maybe $5 billion isn’t so much in that context. But it seems crazy (capital C) to me for Google to pay that kind of premium for the company — making it by far the largest acquisition in Google’s long history of acquisitions — despite […]

• The Incredible Stupidity Of Investigating Google For Acting Like A Search Engine

  I did a search at Google today for “cars” and was shocked. Rather than list links allowing me to search for “cars” on Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Voila, Naver and Yandex, Google instead favored its own search results. I’m glad the EU will be investigating whether this favoritism violates anti-trust laws. Consider the evidence. Here’s a […]

• Protecting Your Intellectual Property On The International Stage

  If you’re planning to trade in international markets — or in some cases even if you’re not — you need to take steps to protect your intellectual property. Whilst this is wise if you’re launching just in the US, it’s even more critical to plan for this in the wilder reaches of the five continents as retrospective action can be difficult and very expensive.

• Google To Buy Groupon This Week In $5 To $6 Billion Deal?

  Whew. The rumors of a Google-Groupon deal are getting hotter. Yesterday, there was a report the deal was done for $2 billion. Today, there are two reports that negotiations continue with a price of $5 to $6 billion being discussed. Back on November 19, the first report of a Google-Groupon deal came out from Kara […]

• New Google Maps Legend Exposes More Content Including Google Earth

  Last week we wrote about Google testing some new UI elements on Google Maps. Today these showed up for me (in Chrome, but not Firefox). Replacing static buttons for traffic, terrain, satellite and so on, the new controls and “legend” make the range of Google Maps features and content more discoverable. They also make Google […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Gearing Up For A Chrome Web Store Launch (For Real This Time), TechCrunch
• New in Labs: Recently used emoji, Official Gmail Blog

Business Issues

• Russian internet firm eyes £1 billion IPO – report, Reuters
• Analysts on Groupon Deal: Google Upping Its Fight with Facebook?, Wall Street Journal
• AOL Names Yodle’s De Luca To Head Local Ad Sales, paidContent.org
• Are Those Yahoo Layoffs Starting To Roll Out Today?, TechCrunch
• Facebook Now Worth $50 Billion In Secondary Trading, TechCrunch
• Facebook Sued For Having Privacy Controls In Place. Yes, Seriously., TechCrunch
• MYSPACE NAMES MIKE JONES CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, PROMOTES DUSTIN FINER TO CHIEF OF OPERATIONS, myspace.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Mapplets to transition out of Google Maps, Google LatLong

Searching

• Blekko Gets Into Product Search With New Holiday Shopping Vertical /Safeshop, TechCrunch
• Deck the halls with smarter shopping, Official Google Blog
• Google Shopping Won’t Show 100 Results Per Page, Search Engine Roundtable
• Learning as you search along: Why learn-as-you-search is so important, SearchReSearch
• Test Drive New Automotive Data in Wolfram|Alpha, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• Weird Google Bug: Now Title In Search Results, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Top 5 Search Engine Optimization Audit Quick Tips, Bill Hartzer
• 10 Ways to Get More SEO Clients, SEOmoz
• 4 Things SMB Owners Must Do in 2011 Or Die, outspokenmedia.com
• Dynamic Landing Pages, PPC Hero
• Keyword Normalization in adCenter: What You Need to Know to Avoid Missing Out on Traffic, adCenter Blog
• PPC – Geographic Targeting, Search Engine Journal
• Search Engine Optimization in an Increasingly Social World, Search Engine Watch
• The Agency SEO Process – Part 2, Search Engine People
• Website Auditor Review, Michael Gray
• What Google Buying Groupon Means For Search Marketing, SEO Book
• Why We Rank Well For Free Viagra In Google, RustyBrick

Social Media

• News Corp weighs MySpace options, Reuters
• Badges on orkut! Can you collect them all?, Orkut Blog
• Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes officially launches Jumo, social network for social activism, Los Angeles Times
• For social search, similarity could trump friendship, O’Reilly Radar
• How Facebook Connect Freaks Me Out, daggle.com
• LinkedIn Thinks Publishers Need Yet Another “Share This” Button, TechCrunch
• More Proof That Facebook Is Supplanting Search, Business Insider
• Twitter Turns Off Verified Accounts System, AllThingsD

Video, Music & Image Search

• Bing Oprah’s Favorite Things on Bing: An intro to Visual Search Gallery, Bing Education blog
• Wolverton: Google TV underwhelming and overpriced, San Jose Mercury News

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

• How Obama Raised $60 Million by Running A/B Test – A few weeks ago President Obama visited Palo Alto to raise money the good ol' fashioned way: a $30,400-per-plate fundraising dinner. This tried and true fundraising technique is a great way to raise money if you can get the President of the United States to show up to dinner. But how can you raise money if no one has heard of you and all you have is a website?
• 22 Inspiring Examples of Facebook Page Designs – To get your audience engaged give them a little more than just a generic wall. How to get people to like you? I have selected the pages where new visitors are directed to somewhere else tha wall. Here are 22 examples of what you can do with your Facebook page’s landing tab.
• Yes, Google Knows You Have Bad Reviews — And Maybe That'll Hurt You, In The Future – My own take on the big New York Times story about the guy who says bad reviews still help him rank on Google. Maybe — but I doubt it. What I don't doubt is that Google can indeed understand if a merchant has bad reviews or not. While it currently doesn't seem to factor that into its ranking algorithms, or even show that there are bad reviews next to a merchant listing in "regular" Google, I think that will change. Lots of illustrations.
• 10 Ideas To Keep Your Social Team Motivated – I love this post by Adam Singer on the ways to motivate a social media team. It covers a really great deal of issues I face and I'm nodding my head in agreement on so many levels.