SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 27, 2012

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• Bing’s Social Sidebar Gains Klout Scores & People Recommendations

  Klout has become the latest social service to be integrated into the new Bing Social Sidebar that was launched earlier this year. Bing says that Klout scores will now appear next to people surfaced in the sidebar, plus Klout’s data will be used to help determine some of the people who show. From Bing’s post: […]

• Google Merges Insights For Search With Google Trends

  Google has merged two of its popular search/keyword research tools. Google Insights for Search has been absorbed by Google Trends; the combined tool keeps the Google Trends name and exists at the www.google.com/trends address, too. If you try to access the Insights for Search address (www.google.com/insights/search), Google redirects you to the new Google Trends. When […]

• The Google Dance: Google’s Eric Schmidt and PSY Dance “Gangnam Style”

  Technology news site The Verge shared a photo and video of Google chairman Eric Schmidt doing the “Gangnam Style” dance while visiting Korea this week. He took a break from his tour of East Asia where he is launching the Nexus 7 to meet the PSY – the rapper behind the record-breaking viral YouTube hit. […]

• Last Call – SMX East Starts Next Tuesday in NYC; All Access and Free Expo+ Passes Still Available

  Time is running out! Search Marketing Expo – SMX East begins next Tuesday in New York City. Register now to reserve your spot! The search marketing landscape changes almost daily, but your goals don’t. You strive to increase traffic, improve conversions and maximize your ROI. Invest in attending SMX East and you’ll get 3 days […]

• Twitter Opens Up To More Crawling, But Do Search Engines Want Its Search Results In Theirs?

  Twitter recently updated its robots.txt file and, though the change opens up millions of pages to being crawled, there’s no guarantee that the main search engines want what Twitter is offering. The Sociable seems to have been the first to notice Twitter’s robots.txt changes, which now specifically allow Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex and other bots […]

• Google No Longer Passes Search Referrer Data In iOS 6 From Safari Search Box

  Another source of Google search referrer data appears lost. Searches through Google that happen in Apple’s Safari browser’s search box on iOS 6, Apple’s latest mobile operating system, no longer pass along search terms to publishers. For those unfamiliar, “referrer” data is information a browser passes along to a publisher about the last page you were […]

• Understanding SEO Friendly URL Syntax Practices

  Poor URL structure is a frequent SEO issue, one that can impair rankings, keep pages out of the search engine indexes, and suck ranking authority from your other pages or even the entire websites. Some content management systems bake poor URL structures right into their websites. Lax rules can be a culprit, for example, not […]

• Google Celebrates 14 Years With Special Logo (Here Are The Past Google Birthday Logos)

  Today is Google’s 14th birthday and to celebrate Google has a special animated logo of a cake with 14 candles being eaten up. We have a copy of the Google Birthday logo, aka Google Doodle, on the right side of this page. For the past ten years, Google has posted birthday logos to celebrate their […]

• Google Confirms Hidden Benefit Of Authorship: Bonus Links After A Back-Button Click

  Google has confirmed that there’s a hidden benefit to having authorship status: If a user returns to the search results after reading an author-tagged search result for a certain period of time, Google will add three additional links to similar articles from the same author below the originally clicked link. Say what? A couple visuals […]

• SEARCH LOLZ: Internal Memes From Googlers Leaked (And Some Are Rather Damning)

  Popular social news site BuzzFeed, has uncovered a stash of images that allegedly leaked from an internal meme generator within Google intranet. The majority of the images appear to be pro-Google and rib at rivals Facebook, Yahoo! and former Google exec Marissa Mayer. All of the images were sent in from a tipster who stated […]

• Closing The Loop From Mobile Search To Mobile Payment Systems

  As the adoption of smartphones increases, consumers are becoming comfortable using their smartphones and tablets to buy goods, transfer money and perform many different kinds of financial transactions. A new study by comScore reports 80% of U.S. smartphone owners accessed mobile commerce sites and apps in July (85.9 million total). According to Google’s Our Mobile […]

• Google Street View Coming To Google Maps For Mobile, For Both iOS & Android

  Just in time for those on iOS 6 wanting missing Google Street View photography, Google is bringing its street-level pictures to the mobile web version of Google Maps in two weeks. That also means, as best I can tell, these will come to the web versions of Google Maps for Android and other smartphones, too. […]

Recent Headlines From MarTech, Our Sister Site Dedicated To Internet Marketing:

• Klout Gains Clout With Microsoft Investment
• Google Introduces “Local Discovery” App: Field Trip
• Time To Get Personal With Facebook’s Page Post Targeting

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Docs Ditching Old Microsoft Export Formats on October 1, thenextweb.com

Business Issues

• Google’s President of Brazil Operations Arrested, thenextweb.com
• Murdoch’s Times unblocks search engines to seek new subscribers, paidContent.org
• Apple seeks patent for Siri automated assistant, appleinsider.com
• Google exec released in Brazil, CNET News
• Schmidt raps Apple for patent trolling, koreatimes.co.kr

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Play hits 25 billion downloads, Official Google Australia Blog
• Apple’s new Passbook isn’t quite ready for prime time, gigaom.com
• AT&T Trials Text-Message Translation, Technology Review
• Give mobile users what they want: clearer, simpler, faster sites, Inside AdSense
• Google Fakes Address In Apple Maps, Business Insider
• The Primetimeness of Apple’s Passbook, Robot Tuxedo by Matthew Panzarino

Link Building

• 5 Lies You Tell Yourself About Building an Audience (and Links), CopyPressed
• Finally: An Easy-to-Understand Link Building Plan to Help You Recover from Penguin and Panda, quicksprout.com
• The Quick-Start Guide to Turning Content into Links, Search Engine People

Paid Search & Contextual

• Ad Click Through Rate By Device Type On Google AdSense, Search Engine Roundtable

Searching

• .xxx to launch porn search engine, networkworld.com
• 3D Charges and Configurations with Sharp Edges, Wolfram|Alpha Blog
• Finding the perfect movie for your next excursion to the…, Google – Google+
• Google Mocks NFL’s Replacement Refs With Replacement Google, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Turns Off Trends In Web History During Upgrades, Search Engine Roundtable
• People like porn: search.xxx gets 500k searches in a day, Domain Name Wire

SEM Industry

• 8 Marketers Share Where They Go for Creativity, Research, Humor & More, BruceClay.com

SEO & SEM

• Google Instant, Query Behavior, and the Long Tail, RKG Blog
• Image Search Branding Opportunities, Search Engine Watch
• International SEO: Dropping the Information Dust, SEOmoz
• Staying one step ahead of Google updates, Branded3
• The Brick and Mortar of Local SEO, portent.com