SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 6, 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:

• This Week On Google+: Suggested Users, API Delays & Measuring Google+ Influence!

  Over two months in, Google+ has continued to make many changes to the fledgling social site. Here is what’s happened over the weekend and what you will see in Google+ this week! New Suggested Users List Suggested Users were launched this weekend in a very “Twitter-esque” format. The list starts with a generic “picks” list and […]

• Hot At Sphinn: Too Much Search Traffic, Web Designers Vs. Web Developers & More

  Can you have too much search traffic? The first answer that probably comes to mind is “no,” but what about when search represents 70% … 80% … or even a higher percentage of a website’s overall traffic? That was the theme of the “Discussion of the Week” last week on our sister site, Sphinn. We […]

• How Machine Translation Has A Habit Of Mangling Multilingual SEO

  Recent discussions force me to return to the subject of translation versus SEO — particularly machine translation — as it seems this old topic has not yet gone away. For multinational sites, maintaining your site can be an expensive affair, and the cost savings of machine translation seem outstandingly attractive. But as my mother always […]

• Pew: 58 Percent Use Geosocial And Location-Based Services

  Pew has released some new survey findings showing that roughly 58 percent of smartphone owners use what Pew is calling “geosocial and location-based services.” There’s a mix of activities and applications grouped under these headings, including maps & directions and sites like Yelp and Foursquare among other things. Pew data reflect that 35 percent of […]

• Live @SMX East: Google’s Future, & Book Signing By Bestselling Authors Levy & Jarvis

  Google’s going through an extraordinary time. It faces anti-trust investigations in the US and the EU. Competitors worry more and more about it, as the company seems to continually expand into new areas, such as social. Some consumer groups worry about privacy issues and data collection. Some marketers worry that the company might be too […]

• Why Canonicalization Matters From A Linking Perspective

  Search engine optimization (SEO) can be like any other technical field of study. It is filled with specialized jargon that, to a newbie, can be more than intimidating. I recall that feeling was especially strong when I first encountered the term canonicalization. It is a 14-letter, seven-syllable monster of a term. I first heard it […]

• Is Your Business Too Reliant On Social Media?

  There is a fine line between integrating social media as part of an overall marketing strategy and relying completely on it to market a business. Just because social media is the so-called “next big thing”, it doesn’t mean that it can be a business-savior. The following are some reasons why relying on social media along […]

• Google: 44 Percent Of Searches For Last-Minute Holiday Gifts Will Be Mobile

  Google has done some calculations based on mobile query growth patterns over the past few years and come out with a remarkable projection for the coming holiday shopping season: “44 percent of total searches for last minute gifts and store locator terms will be from mobile devices this holiday season based on historical growth rates.” […]

• Search Engine Land Coming to NYC – SMX East Starts Next Tuesday, Register Now!

  Panda-proof your content. Effectively retarget without backlash. Maximize mobile and local search opportunities. Attend Search Engine Land’s conference – SMX East for over 55 sessions covering search engine optimization, paid search advertising and more. Register now and save $200 off on site rates for your All Access ticket! Join us September 13-15 in New York […]

• Update Your Google Product Feeds By September 22nd

  Google has posted a reminder that the updates to the Google Product search feeds is just around the corner. If you do not update your product feeds with the new guidelines by September 22nd, Google may suspend your account. Google said: As we announced in July, the new Google Product Search Feed Specification and Policies […]

• Google Now Showing Three-Line Ad Sitelinks

  We’ve seen reports and are also seeing some AdWords ads displaying with three lines of sitelinks, and Google has updated its help documents to indicate that “up to six” and “three-line” Ad Sitelinks are now being displayed. Previously, Ad Sitelinks were only displayed in one-line, two-line and embedded formats. Generally speaking, the multi-line AdSitelinks are […]

• Google Customer Support Surprise: Phone Reps Handling 10,000 Calls A Week From 60 Countries

  Google has long received mixed-to-negative criticism for its customer service — or lack thereof. But Francoise Brougher is changing all that. Perhaps the least well-known senior executive outside Google, the VP of Global Advertising and Product Operations has quietly built an impressive telephone customer support organization for Google AdWords advertisers. Telephone support for AdWords was first […]

• Google Celebrates Freddie Mercury’s 65th Birthday With Google Logo

  Today on most Google properties you will see a special logo, video logo, for Freddie Mercury’s 65th birthday. Freddie Mercury is most well known as the lead vocalist for the popular band, Queen. He was born today in 1946 and died from bronchopneumonia brought on by AIDS on November 24, 1991. The logo is seen […]

• Google Estimates How High You’ll Need To Bid To Be Top-Of-Page

  Now that you know how your AdWords perform on the top of the page, versus on the side, the next question is how much it’ll cost you for that (presumably) better performance. Google aims to answer that question with a new metric — top of page bid estimates — announced today, which shows how much […]

• Google Shutters Fast Flip, Sidewiki, Aardvark, Subscribed Links & More Google Labs Projects

  Google has just announced the closure of several well-known products, including Fast Flip, Sidewiki, Aardvark and Subscribed Links. Some of these are part of the ongoing purge of Google Labs products, while others that are being shut down were not part of Labs. And Google has also announced that other Google Labs projects have “graduated” […]

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google Voice for Takeout, Google Voice Blog

Business Issues

• Google Acquires Digital Coupons/Incentives Platform Zave Networks To Bulk Up Commerce, TechCrunch
• Google-Oracle settlement likely with top execs called to court, ZDNet
• Google: ‘Considerable Progress’ on Fighting Copyright Infringement, PC Magazine
• After Doubling Fund Size, Google Ventures Looks For Next Google, Forbes
• Google exec Marissa Mayer threatened by man on Twitter, San Francisco Examiner
• Google Goes Big With Its Hulu Bid, AllThingsD

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Baidu Looks To Leapfrog Google With Cloud-Based Mobile OS, TechCrunch
• An exploration of Yelp’s own filtered reviews, Jamieh Davidson
• Closed in Error on Google Places, Merchants Seek Fixes, New York Times

Link Building

• Getting Links from Guest Posts, Site Visibility
• Historic Backlinks Index Update, Majestic SEO Blog
• How to Find Link-Worthy Data, SEOmoz
• 5 Simple Ways to Make Your Blog Links Better, Search Engine Watch
• Should You Worry About Link Spammers Targeting Your Site?, Search Engine Roundtable

Paid Search & Contextual

• PPC Optimization Guide: Keeping Your Ads Visible When the Holiday Competition Heats Up, adCenter Blog

Searching

• How Google Might Introduce Job, Recipe, and Other Search Modes into Web Search Results, SEO By The Sea
• Yandex Beats Google To Infinite Scrolling Results — Sort Of…, multilingual-search.com

SEM Industry

• Liveblogging Schedule for SMX East 2011, Outspoken Media

SEO & SEM

• Why You Can’t Game Google and Bing with +1s and Likes, WebProNews
• Different Types Of Google Bans, David Naylor
• Free Tools to Audit Your PPC Campaigns, Search Engine Journal
• Google Subdomain Change Only Related To Webmaster Tools, Search Engine Roundtable
• Majestic SEO DOES show more inbound links than Google!, Majestic SEO Blog
• 10 Ugly SEO Tools that Actually Rock, SEOmoz
• 5 Small Tips to Find Big SEO Problems, Search Engine Journal
• Big Brand SEO – Campaigns, Integration and Extended Brand Keywords, SEOmoz
• How referral traffic improves your rankings in Google, intelligentpositioning.com
• International SEO Strategy – Domains, Subdomains or Subfolders?, SEOptimise
• Squeeze More Out of Your No. 1 Results Rank, Search Engine Journal
• The 7 Most Common AdWords Mistakes You Will Want To Avoid, Search Engine People

Social Media

• Facebook Is Testing a “Translate” Button for Comments on Pages, Inside Facebook
• 28% of American adults use mobile and social location-based services, pewinternet.org
• Google+ API Launch Still Months Away, TechCrunch
• Symantec finds 15% of Facebook videos are likejacking attacks, ZDNet
• The Life Cycle of a Social Network, Techipedia
• The Mark Zuckerberg Guide to Building Facebook Profiles, quicksprout.com

Video, Music & Image Search

• Creating an interface for geofences, Code: Flickr Developer Blog

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

• An exploration of Yelp's own filtered reviews – Yes, people review Yelp itself right on Yelp. Yes, Yelp filters some of those reviews, too. In fact, this article finds that 75% of the reviews that Yelp has filtered about itself are 1-star reviews. Things that make you go Hmmmmmmm….
• The real reason Google Analytics launched multi-channel funnels – Forget all the fancy new report capabilities…the real reason why Google Analytics launched multi-channel funnels is because they got tired of having to explain why Google Analytics showed fewer conversions than Google Adwords reporting.
• Apple, Google and RIM – Who Has the Right Domain Strategy? – Interesting article comparing how the 3 companies deal with product launches and domain registration. (Did you know that Apple still doesn't own ipad.com??)
• 10 Years as an SEO and Search Marketer – Ben Wills, founder of Ontolo, tells his 10-year-old story of being an SEO.