SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 2, 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:

• Nearly 90% Of Twitter Users Follow Brands & Just 10.9% Of Users Find Promoted Tweets To Be Annoying

  In a new article from eMarketer and Lab42, information was released around brands and Promoted Tweets. Surprisingly, 89.4% of users polled stated that they follow a brand’s Twitter account. Most users (30.6%) follow 1-5 accounts and 8.2% follow over 50 accounts: Additional information from the report showed promising results about Twitter’s Promoted Tweets product. Overall user sentiment […]
• Search In Pics: Louis Gray As A Noogler, Taylor Swift At Google & Google + For Dummies

  In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. Louis Gray As A Noogler: Google at Advertising Week: Google+ For Dummies: Google News Coffee Sleeve: […]

• Google To Begin Reviewing Paused Ads In AdWords

  Starting September 6, AdWords advertisers can get ads through the Google approval process even if they’re immediately paused after creation. Google is beginning a new practice worldwide under which it will review paused AdWords ads, as well as active ones, the company confirmed. The change seems to be aimed at allowing advertisers to set up […]

• Why Display Is Changing The Value Of Search

  A few weeks ago, I was talking shop with Josh Shatkin-Margolis, CEO and founder of search retargeting firm Magnetic, when he stated, “Display is changing the value of search.” I balked. But I took the bait. “What’s that even mean, dude?” I said. Josh went on to explain that all signs point to the fact […]

• Google Wins Potentially Significant Antitrust Victory In Ohio

  Google has won a potentially significant legal victory in an Ohio case that involved antitrust claims and may portend victory in other similar cases where private litigants have asserted antitrust violations against Google. The case, which we’ve written about before is Google v. myTriggers.com, originally filed in late 2009. The short version of the underlying […]

• How Analytics Can Help Balance Your Annual Search Advertising Budget

  At the online marketing agency I work for, we primarily focus on ROI driven online marketing campaigns. With this marketing philosophy, search engine advertising (SEA) budgets don’t play a role, and as long as every order delivers profit / ROI, the SEA budget should be endless. Of course, this ideal situation doesn’t happen at a […]

• SEO Smackdown: Information Architecture vs. Technical Architecture

  Why do SEO professionals believe that technical architecture is more important than information architecture (IA)?

• Ask.com Opens Up Its Human Q&A Community, Steps Further Away From Search

  After more than a year in beta, Ask.com today opened the doors on its community-based question-and-answer product. It positions Ask as much less search-oriented, and much more Q&A based — not unlike its original incarnation in the 1990s. The Q&A site had been available in beta to a limited number of users since last July […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Another new programming language? Google registers DartLanguage.com, fusible.com

Business Issues

• Google Acquired Motorola for More Than Patents, Chairman Eric Schmidt Says, Bloomberg
• Google Chairman Schmidt Says He ‘Couldn’t Stand’ Apple’s Board, San Francisco Chronicle

Local, Maps & Mobile

• New 45° imagery available for 24 cities, Google LatLong
• Google Earth Outreach trains environmental journalists in the Amazon, Google LatLong
• Measuring distances with the Google Earth Ruler, Google Earth Blog

Link Building

• How to Train a Link Builder, SEOmoz
• Yes, You Really Can Build Links With Twitter – Whiteboard Friday, SEOmoz

SEM Industry

• Video: Google’s New Subdomain Definition, Google To Fight Scrapers Again & Microsoft adCenter Changes Relevancy Standards, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• SEO Agencies: How to Sell Infographics to Your Clients – Part 2, Search Engine People
• 5 Best SEO Plugins for WordPress, Search Engine People
• 60 Second #PPC Self-Audit! Is Your Account Fat, Dumb & Lazy?, AIM Clear Blog
• High Ranking Local Results You Just Might Not Want, Mike Blumenthal
• How to Avoid Targeting Paid Search to the Masses in 6 Steps, Search Engine Watch
• SageRock SEO Pricing Guide Revealed, SageRock
• Why PPC and SEO Engagements Fail, Searching Beyond the Paid
• Why You Can Almost Guarantee Google is Using Your Analytics Data, WebProNews

Social Media

• How Social Media Users Engage with Marketers on Twitter, eMarketer

Web Analytics

• What Website Metrics Should You Be Tracking?, Search Engine People

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

• What's the R.O.I.? A Framework for Social Analytics – A very lucid breakdown of how to properly frame ROI as it relates to social media. There are some great visuals to help drive home the main takeaways.
• Target Launches New Site at Target.com and Fails Miserably – I don’t even know where to start with this. Target launched a new site last week. I guess they’re pretty proud of it, but they’ve managed to completely fail in so many ways.
• SEO Guide to Creating Viral Linkbait and Infographics – An extremely deep and well put together guide to linkbaiting by the folks at Distilled.
• An SEO Client's Bill of Rights – Stoney deGeyter updates his basic guidelines to help SEOs and their clients realize what they have a right to in their SEO campaign.