SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 27, 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 Turns 12 Years Old Today Today is Google’s 12th birthday and to celebrate, Google has posted a special Google birthday logo cake. The birthday cake was designed by Wayne Thiebaud, […]

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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 Turns 12 Years Old Today

    Today is Google’s 12th birthday and to celebrate, Google has posted a special Google birthday logo cake. The birthday cake was designed by Wayne Thiebaud, an 89 year old artist. Wayne Thiebaud is well know for his work in painting and drawing cakes, pastries and other food items.
    Is today, […]

  • Hot On Sphinn: Journalism & SEO, Analytics For Social Media, Google Instant Reactions & More

    SEO continues to have an increased impact on journalists, as news writers and editors are being encouraged to learn SEO tactics and incorporate them into headlines and articles published online. But it’s not always a comfortable marriage. That’s one of the topics that reached the Sphinn home page a couple times over the past week. […]

  • Bing iPhone App Adds Flight Price Predictions & Better Maps

    Bing announced they have released a new version of their iPhone app that has better travel and mapping features.
    The travel feature now takes advantage of their Farecast acquisition, where you can now get Bing flight price predictions on your iPhone. The price predictions let you know if you should buy or wait […]

  • Wolfram Alpha App Coming To Android

    Wolfram Alpha announced a native Android app is on its way to the Google mobile operating system, Android.
    It is expected about a year after they introduced the Wolfram Alpha iPhone app. The launch date is October 6, 2010 and they are working with T-Mobile to launch the app. The app will […]

  • Study: Apple Gets More Positive Ink Than Google

    A newly released year-long study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism looked at US tech coverage in general and individual company coverage in particular and found some interesting things.
    Most of the technology coverage from June, 2009 to June 2010 was positive. However the single biggest story was about the dangers of […]

  • SMX East Next Week – Register Today!

    SMX East is next week! Register now and you’ll still save $200 off the on- site rate.

    You already know about the exceptional content and highly qualified presenters at SMX East. But there’s another aspect of the conference that is just as important and valuable – networking. And with more than 1300 companies sending […]

  • Google Instant: The Impact On Paid Search

    Google Instant rolled out September 8th to much fanfare and ballyhoo. The search marketing industry has been abuzz ever since with speculation about the impacts on both paid and natural search.
    Our firm has taken a pretty close look at the initial impact on paid search performance and we want to share our findings with […]

  • Let The Cold Calling Begin: Google, Apple, Others Settle Anti-Recruiting Complaint With DOJ

    Last week the US Department of Justice (DOJ) trumpeted a settlement with six firms over recruiting practices, which had been under investigation as anti-competitive. The firms involved are Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe, Intuit and Pixar. The claim was that they agreed not to “poach” employees from one another, allegedly to depress wages:
    The department said that […]

  • Three Things Small Businesses Really Need

    For nearly a decade, we have watched small businesses steadily shift their marketing spend from offline to online, but it is only now that we are coming to a key realization: unlocking the local opportunity is not just about capturing transitions in small business spending; rather, it is about understanding the unique pain points of […]

  • Maximizing Paid Search Campaigns For The Holiday Shopping Schedule

    The holidays are just around the corner, and with shoppers gearing up for the holiday rush, smart marketers are already preparing their paid search campaigns for the 2010 season. By evaluating consumer trends from last year’s holiday season we found some interesting insights that will help marketers be even more successful this year, including […]

  • Google Convicted Again In France Over Google Suggest

    For the second time this year, Google has lost a lawsuit in France related to the search suggestions that appear on Google Suggest.
    The recent case involved the appearance of the words “rapist” and “satanist” in search suggestions for the plaintiff’s name. The plaintiff had previously been convicted on appeal for corrupting a minor, but the […]

  • Need Pre-Facebook Movie Drama? Go Read “Googled” This Week

    With the Facebook movie’s debut a week away, how about something to keep you entertained while you wait? A book. About that other major internet drama story, Google. The book? “Googled, The End Of The World As We Know It,” by Ken Auletta.
    Googled came out at the end of last year, and I’ve been terribly […]

  • Google Releases Updated Keyword Tool, Explains New Volume Counts

    Google says its new keyword tool — which should be referred to as “The Keyword Tool” going forward — is out of beta and ready to replace its two predecessors: the original keyword tool and the Search-based Keyword Tool.
    Google recommends using the updated tool while logged in to your AdWords account, but says it can […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

Business Issues

Local, Maps & Mobile

Link Building

Paid Search & Contextual

Searching

SEO & SEM

Social Media

Video, Music & Image Search

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

  • Will Foursquare Survive? – Is the buzz around Foursquare starting to die? Interesting point of view on how Foursquare was the rage but now seems to be dying off.  Is the cost of losing your anonymity worth the half price day old muffin you receive by becoming Mayor?  
  • The 10 Painfully Honest Reasons I Visited Your Blog And Refused To Comment! – Ever wonder why your articles receive so few comments? In this article, a professional blogger finally explains why he does not comment on YOUR blog. Read it at your own risk: It is brutally honest!
  • Domain Parks Hijacking Previously Hacked Sites? – Domain Parks using frame busting scripts are now hijacking domains they were previously hacked with iframe injector scripts.
  • Hey Google, I've Blogged a Little Since 2005! – Bill Slawski highlights a bug in Google Snippets, and offers some advice on why it potentially is happening.
  • Google's Chrome Browser Inflated Google Analytics Data & Who Knows What Else – Google has announced having fixed a bug in Google Chrome which at a minimum inflated Google Analytics traffic data.  What isn't clear is why the news was relased on a Friday evening, 2 days after the fix. Nor is it clear if the problem was limited to JavaScript used by Google Analytics.. this seems unlikly.  More questions have been raised than answered.
  • Multiple Domains vs Subdomains vs Folders in SEO – Usually the most important decisions in SEO are the ones that affect the structure of the website. A popular SEO debate is if we should use multiple domains, sub-domains or folders when we have multilanguage websites or various main categories/activities. In this article, we’ll discuss when it is advisable to use the aforementioned methods and we’ll analyze how each method affects the SEO campaign.
  • Excellent Analytics Tip: Make Love To Your Direct Traffic – Avinash Kaushik says "Make love? Direct Traffic? Really?
    I am not kidding. Direct traffic contains visitors that proactively seek you out, everyone else you have to 'beg' to show up on your site!" and provides excellent solutions on handling / tracking direct traffic.
  • How To Become Famous on YouTube – It is not quite clear as to when it became possible to have a legitimate career as a “YouTuber”, but it is a fact. Understanding that the “YouTuber” is the Brand is the very first step! Learning how to shoot and edit video is the second.
  • The Never-Ending List of New Content Inspiration – Taylor Pratt writes, "Whether you are using content to expand your site as a means of ranking for new keywords, or you're exchanging content for inbound links from other websites, you're going to run into the same problem: what should you write about?"
  • 6 Ways to Tackle the Promo Code Problem – Love this article from Linda Bustos addressing the design/usability challenges of offering promo/coupon code discounts while also minimizing their impact on the checkout experience and on your bottom line.
  • Transcript: Stephen Colbert Interviews Google’s Eric Schmidt On The Colbert Report – Video & transcript of Stephen Colbert interviewing Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt. Colbert got in some expected digs, jokingly asks when the computer algorithm will take over and touches on some serious issues, such as how much Google remembers.
  • Explanation of the Twitter 'URL Injection' Attack – Once again a major website has come under scrutiny the past few days as a result of a basic measure being put in place to prevent a hack.Twitter experienced a URL injection attack bringing the service's stability and potential security of personal data into question.Read Miles Carter's explanation of the attack in greater detail here.
  • How Facebook fixed the site: they turned it off and on again. Literally – An unusual database problem at the giant social networking site could only be cured by taking the sort of action you normally take with a misbehaving PC

About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is 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 can be followed on Twitter here.

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