SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 7, 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’s Schmidt: ‘Next Great Stage’ Of Search Is Autonomous, Personal

  Speaking today at the IFA consumer electronics event in Berlin, Google CEO Eric Schmidt painted a vision of the future in which search is fast, personal, and all-knowing — even to the degree of providing search results when searches haven’t been conducted.
  “A new definition of Google would be, we’re trying very hard to get you […]

• Link Building and Public Relations, Different or the Same? SMN Webcast Sept. 16

  Next Thursday, Search Marketing Now will present a free webcast, Links, Link-Building and Public Relations at 1 PM EDT. Registration is still open at Search Marketing Now.
  With most folks eager to attract links to help their organic search rank, where does the public relations pro fit in?
  While links are an SEO function, link-building must also […]

• Hot On Sphinn: In Defense Of Links, Sphinn Drops Voting, Image SEO & More

  A three-part series about linking — and more specifically, how search marketers may view links differently from other Internet users — all went hot on Sphinn last week. Along with that, articles more specific to link building were also popular, as was an article on image SEO. But the hottest discussion topic of the week […]

• 8 Ways Backlink Analysis Can Offer Competitive Intelligence

  When studying backlinks to competitor sites, most people do so in order to identify potential link targets for their own site. While this is a very useful thing to do, there are many other strategically useful bits of competitive intelligence that can be deduced by studying links. In fact, I’ll go so far as to say […]

• SMX East Early Bird Rates Expire Friday; Keynotes Announced – Register Now

  Time is running out on early bird rates for Search Marketing Expo – SMX East!
  Register by September 10 and you’ll pay only $1295 for three days of exceptional content and invaluable industry connections.
  Join us October 4-6 in New York City for actionable tactics, best practices and strategies for all skill levels – whether […]

• Feds Consider Google-ITA Deal: Damned If You Do, Damned If You Don’t

  In what is becoming an annual ritual Google announces a dramatic acquisition, pundits speculate about the potentially market-changing impact and anti-trust investigators give it a long, hard look — only to allow it in the end. Last year the transaction in question was AdMob; this year it’s ITA software.
  Since the roughly $700 million deal was […]

• What’s Up With The Google Balls Logo On The Google Homepage Today?

  Visiting the Google homepage today may make you go “wow.” It has one of the most wild and explosive special Google logos I have ever seen. There are dozens of balls that make up the Google logo, and they bounce around the screen all to come together to form “Google.” The balls in […]

• Untangling The Confusing Search Scene In Asia

  A raft of recent search engine developments in the Far East means the picture is not so wonderfully clear anymore. In Japan, Korea and China there have been signficant search engine market changes. Let’s try and figure out what’s going on?

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Scribe, Google Operating System
• Google to start TV service in U.S. this autumn, Reuters
• Google’s Sci-Fi Now: Voice-Control TV, Eternal Memory, An End To Loneliness, paidContent.org
• Simpler sign-ups for Yahoo! users with OpenID, Official Google Blog

Business Issues

• Ex-Googler Aims for China’s Mobile Users, Wall Street Journal
• Google’s Schmidt: Autonomous, Fast Search Is ‘Our New Definition’, paidContent.org
• Is Yahoo! Built to Last?, fool.com
• Yahoo Engineers Talk Of Outsourcing To Bangalore; Yahoo PR Disagrees, TechCrunch

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Breaking News on EFF Location Privacy Win: Courts May Require Search Warrants for Cell Phone Location Records, Electronic Frontier Foundation
• MapQuest 4 Mobile Adds Rotated Maps to Free Turn-by-Turn Navigation, MapQuest Blog
• The Google Earth COM API is being phased out, Google Earth Blog
• The state of mapping APIs, O’Reilly Radar

Link Building

• How to Find the Best Internal Site Pages Based on PageRank and Backlinks, Search Engine Watch

Paid Search & Contextual

• A few updates on reporting in AdWords, Inside AdWords
• Microsoft Advertising adCenter API Portal Now Open in the Learning Center, adCenter API Blog for Developers

Searching

• Google Testing Vertical White Space In SERPs, andybeard.eu
• Google Changes Coming Tomorrow: AJAX Results, 30 Results Per Page, Streaming Results & More?, Search Engine Roundtable
• New: University of Virginia Releases iPhone App; Includes Access to Library Resources & Augmented Reality Feature, ResourceShelf
• Tips for a Better Product Search, AOL Search Blog

SEO & SEM

• 6 Clichés That Help You Understand SEO, Search Engine Guide
• Analyse This – Most SEO Tools Are $h*t, Hobo
• Capturing the Long Tail of SEO By Filling a Void [Case Study], Search Engine Journal
• Content and Culture: Localization for Global Businesses, Search Engine Journal
• How to Actually Use Google Suggest Feature for Keyword Research and Beyond, blueglass.com
• How To Silo Your Website: The Footer, Michael Gray
• Is Google AdWords Keyword Tool Now More Accurate?, David Naylor
• Is It Time To File A Reconsideration Request?, Search Marketing Standard
• Keyphrase evolution: from seeds to ripe fruit, grow your list!, SEO Copywriting
• Keyword Profiling : Get Into The Mind Of The User [How To], Search Engine People
• Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Google’s Rankings are Remarkably Well Correlated, SEOmoz
• The human process behind Google’s algorithm, CNET News

Social Media

• How We Do It: Shock & Aw Community Building, outspokenmedia.com
• The Next 5 Years in Social Media, mashable.com
• The Social Media Shift – Now it’s Not How to Get Involved, But How to Measure Your Involvement, White Hat Media blog

Web Analytics

• New Book: Conversions For Dummies, Google Analytics Blog

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

• 7 Compelling “About Us” Pages – There aren't many places on your website where you can really let loose and tell your story. In our opinion, the "about us" page is one of the most neglected pages on a typical e-commerce site. It seems as though it's often written…
• Google Rankings and LDA; is it LSI for the 3rd Generation SEOs? – Hey gang, here's my offering into what should be a littany of posts around LDA (and by extension SEOmoz's tool). Despite those that felt I should have been 'harder on them' I have tried to give more of a lesson into the world of LDA for now. More specifics on the tool's efficacy once I have tested more and used in the wild – Get yer geek on!
• Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) and Google's Rankings are Remarkably Well Correlated – Interesting article on LDA, from SEOMOZ. They have developed a tool to help in analyzing semantic relevance, that if it checks out, could be a very handy tool.