SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 15, 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 Analytics: Goodbye Site Overlay, Hello In-Page Analytics

  Google has removed the “Site Overlay” tool from Google Analytics and replaced it with a new one called “In-Page Analytics.” It’s fairly similar to Site Overlay, but appears on first glance to offer better data visualization and an improved interface.
  In its announcement, Google admits that the old Site Overlay tool “hasn’t worked as well […]

• From Apple To Google TV: A Quick Overview Of Six “Connected TV” Offerings

  While many people are focused on the recent launch of Google TV, there are a range of existing alternatives for people who want more than just TV on their TVs — or who may what to “cut the (cable) cord” entirely. The chart below offers a short overview and comparison of the major providers and […]

• Google Testing Images On Google India’s Home Page

  Amit Agarwal reports Google is testing scrollable images on the Google India home page. I personally do not see it, but here is a picture and video from Amit.

  I should note, Google Korea has had an animated home page in the past. But these images on Google India seem very interesting. Amit […]

• Google Segmenting, Categorizing Reviews On Places Pages

  Google is now “segmenting” and separating local reviews from third parties such as Yelp from those of its own user-reviews. It has also added favicons next to the third party reviews to offer some “branding” on Places Pages. David Mihm noticed this yesterday.
  Here’s what it looks like on a Places Page for popular San Francisco […]

• Google Testing Colored Top Navigation Bar & AdWords At Bottom

  William Vicary tweeted that he is seeing a colorful Google top navigation bar. The navigation bar is very similar to what is there now, except for the colored stripe at the top and the settings icon at the right of your email address.
  I assume the icon replaces web history, settings and signout links to […]

• How Consumers Search For A Perfect Meal

  How do consumers find the perfect restaurant? Word of mouth plays a role, but there are other elements at play. How important is your brand? Is value more important than quality? What role does content play in this quest? Here I take a look at the term “restaurant” to show what consumers value when searching […]

• Yahoo.com Is Down

  Right now, Yahoo.com, one of the most visited sites on the Internet, is down. No one can reach it.
  Currently there is no explanation on Yahoo’s official Twitter account, @yahoo, but we see tons of complaints that it is down on Twitter.

  Some are reporting that Yahoo is not down but extremely slow.
  Update: About 30 minutes […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Live Online This Afternoon: 25th Anniversary of MIT Media Lab Symposium, Eric Schmidt and Nicholas Negroponte Among Panelists, ResourceShelf

Business Issues

• News Corp. approached about Yahoo buy, hollywoodreporter.com
• For Google, Capex Costs are Worth The Money, gigaom.com
• Google on Facebook-Bing Social Search: What, Us Worry?, Fast Company

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Cars Born to Run With Smartphone Apps, New York Times
• Nearly half of mobile owners have made a purchase via phone, Internet Retailer

Link Building

• Advanced Link Building Strategies for Affiliate Sites Presentation, BlogStorm

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google’s Quest to Blur the Lines Between Paid and Organic, Orlando SEO
• Site Maintenance on Saturday, October 16, Inside AdSense

Searching

• New: Online Database: "California State Prison Agency Launches Online Inmate Locator", ResourceShelf
• Resource of the Week — MetaLib: A New Federated Search Tool from the GPO (Government Printing Office), ResourceShelf

SEM Industry

• Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: October 15, 2010, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Image SEO Basics – Whiteboard Friday, SEOmoz
• Launched Today: Advanced Usage Settings for Greater Control Over Your Feeds, Google Merchant Blog

Social Media

• Schmidt On Social: “We Want People To Be More Logged Into Google.”, TechCrunch
• How Republicans Are Using Social Media to Win Mid-term Elections, Fast Company

Video, Music & Image Search

• Download YouTube Captions, Google Operating System
• Google Music in China… the way it should be everywhere., Google Blogoscoped
• User experience researcher at Google image – What works and what doesn’t inside Google’s labs (photos, CNET News

Web Analytics

• Introducing In-Page Analytics: Visual context for your Analytics data, Google Analytics Blog

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

• New: Submit News Tips via Twitter – Starting today, you can now submit news tips to Sphinn via Twitter. It's easy: just add "tip @sphinn" into your tweet. This makes Sphinn even easier to use, and opens up Sphinn to all Internet marketers — not just our registered users.
• Updates to AdWords Search Funnels Reports – Michael Harrison asks:  Are you using Adwords Search Funnel yet? If not you should, Google recently added features to the reports such as an increase in the conversion history window and a way to sanitize conversions that were potentially affected by cookie deletion bias.
• Top 10 Myths About Domain Names – If you only pay tangential attention to the domain name industry (or pay it none at all), I think you'll find this to be a good read. Mark Fulton shares his thoughts on domain availability, benefits of .com over other TLDs, buying and selling domains, and more.
• 10 foolproof ways to promote your app in the App Store – The App Store houses over 250,00 apps. Even if users know exactly what they’re searching for, it can be difficult to find a certain app. Nothing is more frustrating than designing something like an awesome RSS reader for the iPhone only to end up buried on the fourth page of the search results for “rss readers.” Here are 10 tips to conquer the App Store and make your app stand out.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.