SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 19, 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:

• Taking a Closer Look at the Google’s Panda 2.5 “Flux”

  On around September 27th, Google launched what’s being called 2.5 of its Panda algorithm. On October 5th, Google’s Matt Cutts tweeted: “Weather report: expect some Panda-related flux in the next few weeks, but will have less impact than previous updates (~2%).” Panda-related flux? Indeed, this seems to be the case, with site owners reporting Panda-related […]

• As Yahoo Struggles Can It “Bring Sexy Back”?

  Yesterday Yahoo released Q3 revenues. While they generally met expectations, and operating income came in at the “high end” of Yahoo’s guidance, overall revenues and profit declined: Revenue excluding traffic acquisition costs (“revenue ex-TAC”) was $1,072 million for the third quarter of 2011, a 5 percent decrease from the third quarter of 2010. Income from operations […]

• Stephen Colbert Gets His Siri On

  It was pretty funny – Stephen Colbert started The Colbert Report last night talking to Siri on his iPhone 4S and not feeling particularly happy about the responses, all of which were real. Colbert began by asking Siri to “write the show” since, as he later explained, he’d been playing with it all day and hadn’t […]

• Google: Local Now 40 Percent Of Mobile, Physical Distance Becomes A Ranking Variable For AdWords

  Today Google is introducing some new ad formats for mobile and announcing that it will now use location proximity as a scoring factor in deciding which AdWords to show the mobile user. Google’s Surojit Chatterjee also shared some mobile data in the context of announcing the new units and policy: Click to Call is now driving “millions […]

• Aspirations Of Incompetence: Benchmarking Competitors

  Why oh why do we obsess over our competitors’ SEO strategies and tactics? Business leaders, frequently molded from concentrated Type-A material, can’t help but obsess over performance relative to competitors. They celebrate gains in market share, the thrill of stealing a client and the schadenfreude of a competitor’s stock decline. When introduced to SEO, they […]

• Google Analytics Gains “Napoleon’s March” Flow Visualization Charts

  Google Analytics announced a new set of reports that should help marketers and website owners to understand how users behave on their websites. The feature was presented this morning during Web 2.0 Summit, on a keynote delivered by Susan Wojcicki (SVP of Google, Advertising) & Phil Mui (Group Product Manager, Google Analytics). This feature is […]

• Having Won The Land War Google Is Now After “Hearts And Minds” With Ice Cream Sandwich

  With a wide array of new features and upgrades Android 4.0 (“Ice Cream Sandwich”) launched last night in Hong Kong. The new version of the operating system unites Android for tablets and smartphones, though there are not yet any Ice Cream tablets. Honeycomb, which proved to be tablet-only was largely a failure. (Android boss Andy Rubin says […]

• Google: 1% Of Searches Affected By Site Speed Ranking Factors

  In a recent video posted on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel, Matt Cutts answered the question How does Google determine page speed? In his answer, he said approximately 1 out of 100 searches are affected by the site speed ranking factor. Cutts said, 1 out of 100 searches done on Google are affected by […]

• Where Did Cached Pages Go On Google?

  Since Google launched the new instant previews just about a month ago, the question we have seen come up from searchers time and time again is “where did the cached page go?” Yes, Google has moved the “cached” and “similar” links from near the display URL in the search results and to the instant preview […]

• Yahoo Completes Global Organic Transition To Bing (Except Korea)

  Twenty months later, Yahoo and Bing have announced the completion of the organic (algorithmic) transition from Yahoo powered search results to Bing powered search results globally, with the exception of Korea. If you do a search on any Yahoo powered site via your desktop or mobile device, with the exception from within Korea, the search […]

• 5 Reasons Online Display Advertising Is Simpler Than Ever

  A good glass of wine is one of life’s simple pleasures. However, industry “experts” often make it sound complicated. This is the case with online display advertising today. But marketers need to know that display advertising today is a lot simpler than many of them believe. Complexity: Old News Time and again, we are told […]

• Why Search Marketing Silos Are Conversion Killers

  The conversion rate for your site is the number of conversions divided by visitors. Quality traffic is half of the equation (the bottom half). No matter how well optimized a site is, if the traffic isn’t qualified, conversion rates will falter. I recently commented to Chris Robino* of SearchRanking.net that companies rarely get our conversion […]

• SearchWeek: October 17, 2011

  Search Week is an exclusive weekly newsletter for Search Engine Land premium members that recaps stories covered on Search Engine Land over the past week. Below are top stories organized by topic that happened over the past week. Each topic (or Search Engine Land column) is also a link, where you can click through and […]

• Ballmer: 70% Of The Time, Google & Bing Are The Same, So Try Bing!

  It’s perhaps one of the strangest product pitches I’ve heard. Asked on stage at Web 2.0 Summit by John Battelle about his Bing search engine, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer encouraged the audience to try Bing because, well, it’s pretty much the same as Google. The Ballmer 70/15/15 Challenge “I would issue you all a kind […]

• Reactions From SEOs Come Loud, Fast & Often Angry To Google’s Switch To Encrypted Search

  Google caused a major stir in the search marketing community today with the news that it will begin encrypting searches and outbound clicks by default in some situations. The move means that valuable keyword referral data will not be passed to analytics programs (including Google Analytics) when a logged-in Google user searches from Google.com. Although […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Designing an infinite digital bookcase, Official Google Blog

Business Issues

• Google deal with L.A. sours: City wants out, GigaOM
• Ben Horowitz: “Facebook Is The Best-Run Company In Technology”, TechCrunch
• Google’s Andy Rubin on Apple After Steve Jobs, AllThingsD
• Microsoft idea: Search the Internet like a celebrity, GeekWire
• Private-Equity Firms Circling Yahoo, Wall Street Journal
• Trial postponed in Oracle patent suit vs Google, Reuters
• Yahoo investors have questions, but execs don’t have answers, gigaom.com

Link Building

• November 2011 Linkscape Update + New OSE Features, SEOmoz
• Supreme Court of Canada Stands Up for the Internet: No Liability for Linking, Michael Geist

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Follow Your World, now in 43 more languages, Google LatLong
• Microsoft’s Ballmer Bashes Android, Google Apps, iPhone: Web 2.0 Summit, eWeek.com
• The Day We Closed Google Headquarters: An Illustration Of The Problem With Crowd Sourced Edits, SEM Clubhouse
• Wednesday Search Challenge (October 19, 2011): Who owns that piece of land?, SearchReSearch
• What Are Mobile Marketing Opt-ins and Why Are They Important?, Social Media Examiner

Paid Search & Contextual

• Enjoy more API units this holiday season, AdWords API Blog
• Google AdSense Reports Stop Working October 18, 2011, Search Engine Roundtable
• Lead Gen Comes to LinkedIn, PPC Hero
• PPC Secret Weapons & Brand Cannibal Combat with Melissa Mackey, AIM Clear Blog

Searching

• Google Shows Your IP Address, Google Operating System

SEM Industry

• Dear Google: This is war, Search News Central
• Google Invests in Privacy for Profit, Outspoken Media

SEO & SEM

• 6,700 Posts Later: Google Still Suggesting Panda Victims To Post In Forum, Search Engine Roundtable
• 7 Lessons Learned Running an SEO Agency, SEOmoz
• 8 Tips to Improve Quality Scores, Search Engine Journal
• How a Search Engine May Automate Web Spam Reports and Search Feedback, SEO By The Sea
• How Many of Your Visitors Are Logged In to Google?, www.thegooglecache.com
• How to optimize page load speed in WordPress, Search Engine People
• Infographic: Why Content is King for SEO, Read/Write Web

Social Media

• 3 Stats to Think About When Crafting Your Social Media Campaign, smallbiztrends.com
• 6 Ways to Measure Your Social Media Results, www.socialmediaexaminer.com
• 7 Quick Ways to Turn Your LinkedIn Profile into a Social Media Marketing Workhorse, www.copyblogger.com
• A Faster Way to Message on Mobile, blog.facebook.com
• A New Era for Klout Scores « Measuring Online Influence, The Official Klout Blog
• Moms Continue Flocking to Facebook, eMarketer

Video, Music & Image Search

• GMusic Unites Google Music with Apple iOS, Evolver.fm

Web Analytics

• Google Analytics Keyword Privacy Policy Update, Vertical Leap Blog

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

• Google Invests in Privacy for Profit – SEO heroine Rhea Drysdale summarizes Google's recent 'privacy evolvement': "Guess what? Google just pissed on the SEO community and tried to call it rain."
• The Complete Google Panda Reference Guide – Everything you need to know about Google's Panda algorithm (up to the most current iteration) all in one place.  Get explanations about each Panda roll-out as well as timeline.
• The Power of Slideshare for Inbound Marketing – A short but interesting look at using slides/presentations to gain extra visibility, especially during speaking presentations.
• The 2011 Web Analytics Review [Infographic] – Web Analytics infographic based on Google’s ongoing study of web browsing behavior.
• Mobile SEO is a Myth – Ryan Jones explains why "The best Mobile SEO strategy is to not have a mobile SEO strategy."