SearchCap: The Day In Search, October 31, 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:

• Content Strategy Tuesday, Improve Paid Search on Thursday – Webcasts this week

  Search Marketing Now, our sister site, will host two webcasts this week. Tomorrow, November 1, Maria Pergolino of Marketo will deliver a presentation on “Content Marketing Success with Search and Social Optimization”. She’ll cover what marketers need to know to build the best content strategy. On Thursday, the topic is how to improve your paid […]

• Google Revamps AdWords Location Targeting Tool

  Google is unveiling some changes to its location-targeting tool in AdWords which allow advertisers to search and discover new targets, view targeted areas on a map, and get additional information about the audience likely to see the targeted ads. The first change involves a search interface that gives instant results on matching locations, locations that […]

• Do You Have Duplicate Content Issues Across Domain? Google Will Now Alert You

  Today, Google webmaster tools has launched a new message alert to let site owners know when a particular URL doesn’t appear because Google sees it as duplicate of a URL on a different domain. In the blog post announcing the feature and in an in-depth help topic, they provide details on how they identify duplicate […]

• Infographic: The Top Three US Search Engines

  How big is Google compared to competitors Bing and Yahoo — and can they catch it? One metric is the number of searches each search engine handles in a given month. Search Engine Journal created a nice infographic charting these figures over the past few years. It highlights Bing’s climb, mostly at Yahoo’s expense: Want […]

• Siri, Are You Taking Over Mobile Search?

  The new iPhone 4s comes with a feature that is bound to impact how search marketers try to reach iPhone users. Siri, the voice recognition app that comes standard with the new iPhone, can be used to control text messaging and reminders inside the device. But it can also be used as a search tool, […]

• New Look for Places Results On Google.com

  Several people spotted a Google test involving a new look for local results on Google.com. It substitutes a horizontal map for a vertical one on the right rail (thus allowing more ads to appear above the fold) and gray pins instead of red. The gray pushpins become red when moused over. Here’s a screen showing […]

• How To Find Local Influencers On Google Plus

  Google has been making a big deal out of privacy lately, but Google+ just launched a slew of new features designed to make people easier to find. I am particularly intrigued by the new Ripples feature, which allows you to see who has shared a post and track it as it gets shared by others. It is, […]

• Google Tests New Drop Down Navigation Bar From Google + Logo

  Google Operating System reports a finding by guao.hk where Google is testing a new top bar navigation bar that may replace the navigation bar we have today. As you can see, there is a little arrow down mark on the right of the Google + logo. Clicking on it drops down this black bar with […]

• 3 Tips Key To 2011 Holiday Advertising

  Last holiday season, online consumers spent approximately $32.6 billion, a 12 percent increase from 2009. We can safely assume the trend will continue in 2011 as shoppers’ propensity to search online for the best deals grows and retailers respond by bulking up their online offers. As a result, competition among online retailers will be at […]

• Google’s Halloween Logo Made Up Of 6,000 Pounds Of Pumpkins

  There is a special Google logo on Google for Halloween today, the logo is a video of Google’s Doodle team carving the Google logo out of huge pumpkins. One of the pumpkins 1,298 pounds, and many of the others are over 1,000 pounds. Here is the video of the Google logo in action: Here is […]

• Apple Maps Inevitable As Company Acquires 3D Mapper C3

  Apple has apparently bought its third mapping company, the Sweden-based C3 Technologies. The company’s site has been taken down. C3 provides 3D mapping (a la Bing Maps or Google Earth) for a number of other publishers such as Nokia (Ovi Maps) and UK directory publisher Yell. (In the wake of this transaction Nokia will probably […]

• Last-Minute Halloween Costume Hunting? Search Activity Reveals Hot Costumes This Year

  Lady Gaga and Snooki … err, Nicole … from MTV’s Jersey Shore were among last year’s hottest Halloween costume searches. Are they back this year, or have other pop culture icons replaced them? Let’s take a look at the hottest 2011 search halloween costume searches, courtesy of a few different sources from Google to one […]

• Even Google Thinks “Romney Can’t Win”

  US presidential candidate Republican Mitt Romney can’t seem to catch a break even from Google. Not only does it suggest that he can’t win, if you start typing in Romney’s name, but if you disagree, Google tries to correct you. Suggestion: Romney Can’t Win Start typing in Romney, and Google as its top suggestion “romney can’t […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Test Page For GDrive Appearing In Google Search Results, TechCrunch
• Update for Offline Google Docs, Google Operating System

Business Issues

• Yahoo Said to Lean Toward Dividend, Buyback Instead of Sale, BusinessWeek
• The Entire $1.65B Acquisition Of YouTube Took A Week, Was Negotiated At Denny’s, TechCrunch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• News developers worried about new cost to use Google Maps, Poynter
• Driving directions, biking directions … and now, carving directions!, Google LatLong
• New Google Places Layouts w/ Gray Map Pins: Face-lift or Botox Shot?, www.localvisibilitysystem.com

Link Building

• How to Develop Link Marketing Ideas, Search Engine Watch
• 7 Criteria to Consider When Building Links, Vertical Measures

Searching

• Google Now Indexes Facebook Comments on Websites, Digital Inspiration

SEO & SEM

• Downloading reports for lots of client accounts, AdWords API Blog
• PPC Copywriting Tips You Can Use in Your SEO Copy, Search Engine Journal
• SEO Projection Modeling, Infolific
• 30 SEO Myths That Are True or False Depending on Who You Ask, SEOptimise
• Confessions of a Googleholic – Getting Ahead of the Game, Search Engine People
• Google Panda Update Brand + Usage Search Relevancy Signals, SEO Book
• Mining Social Data for SEO and Profit, Outspoken Media
• The Business of SEO: Perception vs. Reality, SEOmoz
• The Modern SEO’s Toolkit, outspokenmedia.com

Social Media

• Twitterology – A New Science?, New York Times

Web Analytics

• Custom Reporting using Google Analytics and Google Docs – The Ultimate Analytics Mashup, SEOmoz

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

• How To Identify Lost Links In Linkscape, Majestic or Webmaster Tools Data – Are the links in your Linkscape, OpenSiteExplorer, Majestic, or Google Webmaster Tools data still live? A simple tip to keep check on your links, based on Neils Bosma's SEO Tools for Excel and a little XPath…
• Data Analysis 101: Seven Simple Mistakes That Limit Your Salary – Good post with insights into common mistakes in analytics data analysis.
• Pricing experiments you might not know, but can learn from – Lots of entrepreneurs struggle with pricing. How much to charge? It’s clear that the right price can make all the difference – too low and you miss out on profit; too high and you miss out on sales.
• 8 Best Ways to Find Negative PPC Keywords – Some solid tips on how to properly utilize Adwords' Negative Keyword feature.
• 7 SEO Friendly Site Features that Developers Often Miss – But unfortunately, a lot of developers can have a bit of a blind-spot when it comes to SEO. While some on-site SEO features almost always come as standard now