SearchCap: The Day In Search, November 8, 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:

• Hot At Sphinn: SEO’s Bad Reputation, Google ‘Pollutes’ The Web & More

  A news article about Google from The Guardian was popular last week on Sphinn, as was last week’s member discussion about the SEO industry’s ongoing reputation management problems. The Guardian article, Google is Polluting the Internet, says that “the danger of allowing an advertising company to control the index of human knowledge is too obvious […]
• RockMelt: Ad Free Google Search From Toolbar

  I’ve been using the new RockMelt browser since late last night, but this is not a review. I’m merely interested in pointing out that users can search the toolbar (as with Safari or Firefox) and get Google results — but they’re ad free in this case. There’s no SERP with ads, just a list of […]

• Removing Your Personal Information From Google

  As our culture continues to move online, personal information about us that previously may have only been seen by our friends and family is increasingly shared in public spaces on the internet. What can you do if you search for your name on Google and find information you’d rather keep private? Or find yourself or […]

• Removing Pages From Google: A Comprehensive Guide For Content Owners

  As a site owner, you generally want Google to index as many pages of your site as possible. But there are certainly times when you find that you’ve accidentally let Google index confidential content or other information you don’t want published, and you want to get it removed as quickly as possible. Read on for […]

• Local SEO Primer: How To Rank Higher In Google Place Search

  Google’s recent rollout of Place Search for local business searches has resulted in a spike of interest in how to rank higher in the local-centric display of business listings. If you want to know how to rank higher in Google local search results, this article has what you need: a primer for how to rank in business searches in your city or town.

• Google Logo Celebrates 115th Anniversary Of X-Rays

  Today, November 8th, is the 115th anniversary of the discovery of X-Rays. To celebrate the date, Google has a special X-ray version of their logo up, worldwide. Here is a picture: In 1895, German physics professor Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays by accident. Röntgen named the wavelength “X-ray” because this type of radiation was unknown type, […]

• Priceless Keyword Research Data You Already Have – But Never Use

  It is easy to lose sight of your customers when doing keyword research by relying on tools. These tools are not going to spend money with your company; tools just show you the most popular phrases regardless if your customer’s actually use these words or not. One of the best sources for keyword research is […]

• Report: Hungry Bankers Manipulate Press To Kickstart AOL-Yahoo Merger Talks

  A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma: according to the Wall Street Journal and Reuters, based on the Journal’s report yesterday, financial advisers have been hired by AOL to “explore various strategic options for the company, one of which includes a possible tie-up” with Yahoo. This is just the latest installment of the […]

• Leveraging The Tension Between Conversion Optimization & SEO

  In today’s post I am going to discuss the importance of conversion optimization (or landing page optimization), why it is critical to online marketing success and how it interacts with SEO. I am not going to cover conversion optimization in as much depth as the team that writes the conversion science column, but will set […]

• Twitter Places Getting Ready To Stake Its Claim?

  About five months ago Twitter launched Twitter Places to provide tweets with more “context.” Matt covered it with enthusiasm and imagined its potential: the marriage of location and real-time communication. But nothing much has really happened since that time. There have been lots of geotagged tweets but Twitter still isn’t all that useful as a […]

• Google May Face Congressional Hearing Over WiFi Data Collection

  Calling Google’s collection of personal data over unsecured WiFi networks “very troubling,” a US congressman says CEO Eric Schmidt may be called to answer questions when the new Congress convenes next year. Representative Joe Barton made the comments on C-SPAN’s The Communicators program today. Although Google has repeatedly said the data collection was inadvertent, Barton […]

• Meet The New Borg: Google, Facebook & Apple

  Back in 1996, the now defunct Boardwatch Magazine had a classic cover depicting Microsoft and CEO Bill Gates as the Borg. For 2010, we’d like to submit some more modern candidates: Google, Facebook and Apple. The article below assumes some knowledge of the Borg from Star Trek. Never heard of them? Nasty creatures that “assimilated” […]

• Google Maps: Uncle Sam’s To Blame For That Costa Rica-Nicaragua Border Error

  Earlier, we covered how a Nicaraguan military commander, using Google Maps, moved into Costa Rican territory and sparked a dispute between the two countries. Now Google has explained where the boundary error came from: the United States government. In a blog post today, Google explained how the error happened: This morning, after a discussion with […]

• Google Lets Searchers Show 11 Search Ads On Top

  A reader emailed me screen shots of Google testing AdWords top ads that can expand to eight additional ads. When expanded, you see a total of 11 ads, followed by the free organic Google search results. Here are screen shots: And when you expand them, they push the free listings down. Here is a cropped […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Gmail Tests Call Recording, Google Operating System
• Google Confirms Gmail Speed Issue, Says It’s Now Fixed, TechCrunch
• Undocumented Gmail Shortcuts for Composing Messages, Google Operating System
• Tips & Tricks: Our favorite shade of beige, the ruler, Official Google Docs Blog

Business Issues

• Microsoft’s Ballmer sells 12 percent of his stake in company, Reuters
• Google’s growth online reflected by expansion in Mountain View, Mercury News
• Google, Dell Likely to Keep Acquisition Spree Alive, BusinessWeek
• Happy holidays from Google Chrome: free holiday Wi-Fi at 30,000 feet, Official Google Blog
• Nextag Acquires Online Coupon Provider, NextCoupons.com, prweb.com

Local, Maps & Mobile

• About Costa Rica, Nicaragua, their mutual border, and Google, Ogle Earth
• Google Places: Another Reason to Move to Canada; Duplicate Listing Removal, Mike Blumenthal
• Google Search app for Windows Phone 7 – in the Marketplace now, Official Google Mobile Blog

Link Building

• 58 New Link Building Resources: Roundup for 10/22-9/4, Ontolo
• How to Get Your Community to Build Links For You, SEOmoz

Paid Search & Contextual

• AdWords: 10 years of your success, Inside AdWords
• comScore: Facebook Now Accounts For Nearly 1 In 4 Display Ads In The U.S., TechCrunch
• Discover v201008: Remove incomplete BulkMutateJobs, AdWords API Blog

SEM Industry

• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: November 5, 2010, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Getting Your Product Data Ready for the Holidays, Google Merchant Blog
• The Blekko SEO Guide You’ve Been Waiting To Read, We Build Pages
• Page Rank Unmasked, Receptional
• Do You Use SEO Audit Tools?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Doesn’t Penalize For Slow Sites, Kind Of, Search Engine Roundtable
• Video and Google TV, BruceClay
• What’s up with PPC?, Search Engine People

Social Media

• Facebook, Twitter, WordPress Fail Security Report Card, PC Magazine
• Facebook Now Letting Brands Claim Community Pages, All Facebook
• Learn What Your Facebook Profile Looks Like to Others (Preview Your Facebook Profile), blueglass.com

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

• Agency vs In-House SEO for Small Businesses – Susan Esparza asks: Should you rent or buy your SEO inhouse solutions? Obviously the answer is going to depend on your business, your market and your life. But one thing is for sure, you need an online presence and that means investing in SEO.
• Mayo Clinic & What Happens When a Facebook Wall Goes Terribly Wrong – A firestorm erupted on the Mayo Clinic Facebook Fan Page when allegations against one of their doctors got ugly.  Here's a look at what happened and what the Mayo Clinic did to bring the situation under control. 
• Customer Service Scorecard: What’s Your Grade? – A really great overview of what goes into a user-friendly, customer service-oriented online shopping experience. Many small retailers may not have the budget/technical setup to implement all of these things, but it's something to strive for in any case.
• 3 Steps To Mid-Tail PPC Profitability – Article suggesting 3 key PPC strategies for taking advantage of less relevant keywords. Firstly, the separation of keywords into campaigns depending on their level of qualification. Secondly, the qualification of ads to reduce wasted clicks. And finally, the persuasion in ad messages to capture flexible searchers and increase conversion rates.
• Facebook Becomes Lowe's Black Friday Marketing Tool – Black Friday is *the* biggest shopping day of the year, why not use Facebook to push it?  A look at how Lowe's is leveraging Facebook ads to push Black Friday sales.  
• SEO Audit Tool Comparison – Doing an SEO audit? Outspoken Media does a big review of five major tools.
• Facebook Like Numbers are Inflated – When a Like isn't a Like. The Like number shown to users around the Internet is actually the total_count – “the total number of times the URL has been shared, liked, or commented on.” Large Like numbers throughout the Internet make it seem like the functionality is being used frequently. Yet, here we see that the specific Like feature isn’t as popular as we might have suspected.
• 4 Tips For Search (And User) Friendly Design – Ian Lurie offers SEO-friendly design advice that should help bridge the communication gap between the two sides that have frequently divergent interests.