SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 13, 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:

• QR Codes: Are You Ready For Paper-Based Hyperlinks?

  You’ve probably seen them in newspapers, magazines or other paper-based publications: two-dimensional bar codes, called quick response codes (QR codes). What are they? They have been described as paper-based hyperlinks, and this is a good description. You simply take a picture of a QR code with your smart phone, and you get redirected to […]

• Google Approves Anti-Google Ad Despite AdWords Trademark Issue

  Almost all Google AdWords advertisers know that bidding on some keywords are off limits. One of those keywords is [google] and typically you won’t see any ads for a search containing the word [google], unless the ad is from Google.
  However, recently Google has allowed an anti-Google ad to be shown. CNet reports the […]

• Google Adds Alternate & Hreflang Attributes

  Google introduced new SEO specific attributes for handling multi-lingual pages and content. The new attributes are rel=”alternate” and hreflang=”x”. It looks something like this when used in the source code of your files:
  <link rel=”alternate” hreflang=”a-different-language” href=”http://url-of-the-different-language-page” />
  Google says it should be used when (1) template (i.e. side navigation, footer) is machine-translated into various […]

• The Five Words You Can Never Suggest On Google Instant

  Like it or not, lots of people search for nude celebrities on Google. But with Google’s new Google Instant Search, those inclined to seek celebs in the buff have to figure out their queries without any help from Google. The same is true for those interested in nude beaches, famous nude artwork or “innocent” topics […]

• Who Will Own Local Data? Search Engines, Yellow Pages, Aggegators Or Social Media?

  Increased demand for local data, and with technologists who recognize a need for an authoritative local information database, suggest that we’ll soon see a landgrab for ownership of local data. A Techcrunch article in April articulated the Zeitgeist surrounding a local “database of places”, exciting a lot of talk around the subject. As many players […]

• Google Buys Quicksee, Get Ready For “Virtual Tours” Of Places, Products, People

  We’ve all seen “virtual tours” of open houses on real-estate sites. What if every location, every restaurant, store, museum, theme park ride and airport had a virtual tour on Google Maps? In three or four years that may be the case as a result of the acquisition of an Israeli company called MentorWave Technologies (or […]

• How Many Google Privacy Policies Are You Violating?

  If you’re a Google advertiser, or use Google Analytics, you may be inadvertently violating some of their privacy policies. When I examined more than 200 sites I found that more than 90% were violating at least one Google privacy policy. Are you?

• The Art Of Link Building For Established Brands

  Building links for a well known brand site that already has 100,000+ links (or even one million plus links) is an interesting challenge. If your site has that many links, chances are that your competitors have a lot as well. When your link building challenge is this big, you need to think about the problem […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Yahoo Mimics Facebook With Groups Update; Users Retaliate, TechCrunch
• Yahoo! Stands Up To Cancer – And Pledges $100,000 With Your Help, Yodel Anecdotal
• A welcome and a look back, Official Google Reader Blog

Business Issues

• Google Gets Good Results in Three AdWords Trademark Cases (Jurin, Flowbee, Dazzlesmile), Eric Goldman
• Bartz in a China Shop: Has Yahoo’s CEO Wrecked the Valley’s Most Valuable Chinese Relationship?, TechCrunch
• Why is Google so condescending?, ITworld
• Alibaba Wows Arnold With Jobs Claim, Wall Street Journal
• Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg opens up, The New Yorker
• Microsoft Said to Plan Debt Sale to Pay for Dividends, Buybacks, Bloomberg

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Directions now draggable in the Maps API v3!, Google Geo Developers Blog
• Why Android is Bad for Business, Yahoo! News
• A Fully Interactive Mobile Experience with Interstitial Ad Units, Google Mobile Ads Blog
• A ton more data from the Pakistan flooding, Google Earth Blog
• Google Maps Does Not Use Domain For Ranking, Search Engine Roundtable

Paid Search & Contextual

• Discover v201003: Using Ad Sitelinks, AdWords API Blog
• A Look at AOL’s New Ads, Wall Street Journal
• AdWords Campaign Experiments rolling out globally, Inside AdWords
• Google Instant Promotional Message, Google Operating System

Searching

• Appeals Court Rules Counsel May ‘Google’ Potential Jurors During Jury Selection, legalblogwatch
• Google Instant hides secret agenda, Catholic Online
• Transfinite Cardinal Arithmetic with Wolfram|Alpha, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• Google Instant Serving Up Instant Trash For The Kids, dreamsystemsmedia.com
• Google Instant: What Does it Mean to a Car Dealer?, Dealer.com
• Google to launch e-book service in Japan in 2011, AFP

SEM Industry

• Are there any SEO certification programs you are aware of?, YouTube
• Google vs. Bing 9/11 Remembrance & Other Logos, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Don’t Let Small Disconnects Lead to SEO Disaster, Search Engine Watch
• SEO Strategy: Predicting Yearly Site Traffic, SEOmoz
• The Optimizer’s Guide to Google AdWords: Knowing & testing your audience, blog.performable.com

Social Media

• Facebook Launches Page Discovery “Browser”, Inside Facebook
• 7 Signs You Ignored Your Social Media Plan, outspokenmedia.com
• 7 Social Media ROI Value Indicators, Microsoft Advertising Blog
• Combing Your Friends’ Tastes, Not the Whole Web’s, New York Times
• The Facebook Reckoning, Anil Dash

Video, Music & Image Search

• Yahoo! Partners with MTV to Bring VMA Fans “Behind the Lens”, Yodel Anecdotal
• Testing, testing…YouTube begins trial of new live streaming platform, YouTube Blog

Web Analytics

• Urchin 7 64-bit Released!, Google Analytics Blog

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

• B2B Lead Generation with Google Analytics – You probably already use analytics to track your websites visitors, page views, average time on site etc already, but let’s dig a little deeper and look into one particular underused feature – service providers. Service Providers enables us to see which organisations are visiting your website. Let’s create a basic report that will provide a list of companies who are potentially interested in your product.
• Dear Mainstream Media – Please Remove Foot From Mouth – Google Instant. SEO is dead.
  Yes, I’m sick of hearing about it too.
  But, Greg Boser alerted me via Twitter today that TechCrunch had made a blog post that showed a clear misunderstanding of Google Instant in regards to SEO…

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.