SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 4, 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 Forcing Some Searchers Into 20 Search Results

  For some searchers, Google seems to be forcing them into 20 or more search results on a page. By default, Google shows searchers 10 results on a page, but even if that searcher specified 10 on a page, some may be seeing twenty or more per page.
  Andy Beard and myself are in […]
• Google’s Top AdWords Advertisers: Leaked Document Reveals Advertising Dollars

  adAge obtained an “internal Google document” that disclosed the first half of 2010 AdWords advertising spend of Google’s customers. As you can imagine, the numbers of pretty revealing.
  It showed that $574 million was spent, where 1,356 advertisers spent between $10,000 and $100,000. It also showed that AT&T was Google’s largest AdWords customer in […]

• 13 Questions To Ask Before You Hire A Local SEO Consultant

  I am sick of small businesses being scammed by shady and/or incompetent SEO consultants so I put together this list of questions that any business should ask before they hire a local SEO consultant.

• Google Settles Buzz Lawsuit With $8.5 Million Payment

  A busy day for Google on the legal front continues with news that the company has agreed to $8.5 million in payments to settle a federal lawsuit surrounding Google Buzz and privacy.
  According to AFP, court documents filed today show that seven plaintiffs will get no more than $2,500 each, lawyers that filed the case […]

• Google Announces Can’t Be Missed Press Event On Search – What’s Up?

  Google’s announced a special press event for next Wednesday on search that “you won’t want to miss.” What big news could there be? Let’s speculate — but I wouldn’t get too excited.
  Here’s what the invite says:
  We invite you to join us on Wednesday, September 8, to share our latest technological innovation and to get an […]

• Facebook Adds Popular News Articles To Search Results

  It’s sort of a baby step in Facebook’s efforts to improve its search results, but certainly worth noting here: Facebook is now showing news articles in its search results and ranking them by how many “likes” and “shares” the articles have received from Facebook users. The All Facebook blog says the number of friends who […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Inside Facebook Seattle [Pictures], TechCrunch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Business Photos Visits Our Flower Shop, floristblogs.com
• Quintura URL Info – New Android Application, Quintura blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• Google AdWords "Try Also" Suggesting "Breasts", Search Engine Roundtable
• Pest Control Firms Fight to Control Bedbug Search Ads, New York Times

Searching

• How to Build a Great Query, AOL Search Blog
• Free Access to Public Library Logo from Cecil County, MD Public Library, ResourceShelf
• Intellectual Property Search/Info Site IP.com Upgrades Search Functionality & Adds IBM Redbooks as Non-Patent Literature Collection, ResourceShelf
• Israel: Online Databases: GuideStar Israel (30,000 Registered Non-Profits), ResourceShelf

SEM Industry

• Google still bashing creative agencies?, blog.arhg.net
• Interview: Mel Carson of Microsoft Advertising, Online Marketing Blog
• Labor Day 2010 Search Engine Logos Lacking (Google & Ask.com), Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• Would Google Offer Embedded Search Links to Site Owners?, SEO By The Sea
• Google Improves Control of PPC Exposure With Modified Broad Match, Search Engine Guide
• LDA – Is On-Page Optimization the SEO Secret?, SEOmoz
• How I Kicked Myself Out Of Google Blogsearch For Months or Years, andybeard.eu
• Eight tips for understanding Baidu SEO, econsultancy.com
• Five questions for B2B paid-search marketers, econsultancy.com
• Google Adwords – Mid to Long Tail – Google Doesn’t Care?, andybeard.eu
• SEO Speak: Canonical Issues, Vertical Leap Blog
• Why Brand and Reputation Management SEO are the Way Forwards, Search Engine Journal

Social Media

• Facebook Prevents Users From Sending Suspicious Friend Requests To Strangers, Inside Facebook
• Mining social networks: Untangling the social web, The Economist
• New Sidewiki “Sidebar” web element, Google Code Blog
• Two Quick, Simple Social Media Tips, SEOmoz

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

• Just Cause You Spend $65k On A Site Does Mean Google Should Like Your Affiliate Site – With lots of honest discussion on the direction of a site on the webmaster help forums, combined with reinclusion request, it is possible for Google to change their evaluation & trust of a site, removing penalties.Also more confirmation from Johnmu that Google don't hate affiliate sites…I still beleive they prefer the Mayo Clinic over "Top 10 Ways To Cure All Your Ills Infographic – click here for your Acai Fix"
• Google Power User Tips: SERP URI Parameters – Good tips. About time you learn to search with wget and your browser's URI bar, without fancy UI widgets …
• Why PRs can be better link builders than SEOs – Kelvin Newman writes on Econsultancy that that the public relations firms could have done more to get into search engine optimisation but he continues by saying that despite this reticence to get going he thinks there’s a scary truth that the search firms need to wake up to: if and when the PR industry gets its act together a lot of the link development tactics search companies are delivering could be delivered by someone with a public relations background.
• 6 Ways to Know He’s “The One”: Client Edition – Another great post by Lisa Barone. If you've been in business for any length of time you'll know this post on saying no to the wrong clients is completely true. Whether you put it into practice may be another story!
• In Defense of Links, Part One: Nick Carr, hypertext and delinkification – Original Title:' "In Defense of Links, Part One: Nick Carr, hypertext and delinkification"By Scott Rosenberg – co-founder of Salon
• In Defense of Links, Part Two: Money changes everything – Part two of this three part series focuses on corporate links.  …"These are links placed on pages because they provide some tangible business value to the linker: they cookie a user for an affiliate program, or boost a target page’s Google rank, or aim to increase a site’s “stickiness” by getting the reader to click through to another page."
• In Defense of Links, part three: In links we trust – As SEO's we view links as a form of digital currency, that can be bought, sold, bartered, or gained through attention manipulation. However for the rest of internet this isn't always the case. Scott Rosenberg makes the argument that for many people links are the updated modern version of footnotes, where an author can provide reference or back up material to support their article.