SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 25, 2008

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

From Search Engine Land:

• 
  OpenSocial Becomes More Open, Facebook Says No; AOL In Trouble; Court Rules Against Clicking Minors
  The big news today comes from a trio of major Internet brands. Google, Yahoo and News Corp.’s MySpace joined forces to announce that OpenSocial, the social networking platform alternative to Facebook platform, is going to become a non-profit foundation. As such it will have a completely separate management and…
• 
  Social Media Optimization: Submit it, But Don’t Forget It
  When putting together a social media campaign, you should consider many different things before you actually submit your content. You need to think about creating good social media accounts, quality content, and which social media site to submit to. Finally you get to the point you can submit your…
• 
  Is Yahoo Hoping For Justice Department Intervention To Stop MicroHoo Merger?
  If you’re getting tired of the relentless back and forth about whether Yahoo has any more options to avoid a Microsoft takeover, so are we. And I would imagine so are Yahoo and Microsoft employees. With News Corp. publicly saying it won’t bid against Microsoft and AOL seemingly fading as…
• 
  Google Webmaster Central To Host Live Chat Event on Friday
  Adam Lasnik announced the Google Webmaster Central team will be hosting a free live chat event this Friday. The live chat session will enable webmasters to call in and ask questions to Google, while watching Google Webmaster Central members respond to their questions in real time. The live chat session…
• 
  Google’s Search Box Grows As Needed: Yahoo & Live Search Don’t
  Google Operating System noticed that Google will increase the width of the search box, if your query is long enough to warrant a wider search box. Note, Google does not expand the search box as you type. It only happens after you search. I measured Google’s search box on my…
• 
  White Spaces: Google’s Second Bite At The Wireless Apple
  Now that the 700MHz auction is over and Verizon and AT&T are the winners of the largest spectrum blocks, Google is placing renewed emphasis on its shared bid for a piece of unlicensed TV “white spaces.” We’ve written about the so-called “white space coalition” previously….
• 
  Search Illustrated: Link Blazing To The Good Neighborhood
  There are many places and ways to get links to your site. While some are easier than others, it takes time to earn quality links. This week’s infographic visualizes two link paths: one to the good neighborhood and one to the bad….
• 
  Change Your Address In The Google Plusbox In 5 Simple Steps
  Google’s enhanced listings for local search results are called the “PlusBox” because clicking the plus sign opens an inline box with additional information about a business. Over the past several weeks I’ve written about the problem of erroneous address information appearing in the Google PlusBox (here and here), and recently…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Bloglines Beta Gets Search, Flickr View and Improved Add Page , Bloglines News
• Badges for Yahoo! Pipes, Yahoo! Developer Network blog
• Google Gmail 502 Errors: "We’re Working On it", Search Engine Roundtable
• How To Set Up Google Ad Manager On Your Site or Blog, RustyBrick

Business Issues

• Amid Flat Ad Spend In ’07, Display Grew 15.9 Percent; Online’s Share Passes Radio – Report, paidContent.org
• Defection Watch: Google’s Director of Social Media Decides Its More Social at Facebook, TechCrunch
• Google Announces Internet Availability of Proxy Materials for its 2008 Annual Meeting of Stockholders, Google

Conferences

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Android Phone to be Released By Summer?, Search Engine Journal
• Mapping Marketshare: Maps Up, Mapquest Down & Yahoo Local is UP!, Mike Blumenthal
• Sudden impact: Google unearths rare meteorite crater, The Sydney Morning Herald

Link Building

• Why You Can’t Fake a Websites Link Reputation, SEOptimise
• $299 Yahoo Directory Paid Link Worth Every Penny, Reality SEO
• Hackers Forcing Sites to Cloak Search Engines with Link Spam, Search Engine Journal

Paid Search & Contextual

• Paid Search Resources: The List, PPC Discussions
• Screen Shots of Google AdWords Demographic Bidding, Search Engine Roundtable
• Are your AdSense ads too blended?, JenSense
• Keyword Research – A really good place to start, Serengeti Communications
• PIN without the pain, Inside AdSense
• Who Else Wants to Increase Conversions From Their Landing Pages?, PPC Hero
• Why isn’t Google Ad Manager affiliate and AdSense publisher friendly?, JenSense

Searching

• Answers.com presents WikiAnswers What is it?, altsearchengines.com
• Healia Launches Online Health Community, altsearchengines.com
• Quaero Vs. Google: The Search Equivalent of Airbus Vs. Boeing?, paidContent.org
• Yahoo HotJobs Launches New Search Algorithm, Search Engine Journal

SEM Industry

• Jason Calacanis Is The Devil & SEOs are Children, BruceClay.com
• John Holland, co-founder of Search Me, Search Feature
• Recap of the SES NY Charity Party sponsored by Best of the Web, Best of the Web

SEO & SEM

• Do Links From Foreign Language Sites Have Value?, Search Engine Journal
• Does SEO Die on Web 3.0?, SEO.com
• Google Webmaster Tools Can’t Verify Serbia’s .rs TLDs, Search Engine Roundtable
• I’m Deindexed… Now What?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Microsoft Live Search March ’08 Update, Search Engine Roundtable
• SEO Clients Not Being Responsive?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Striving for a big bite, reportonbusiness.com
• Taking advantage of universal search, part 2, Official Google Webmaster Central Blog

Social Media

• Is Twitter About to Have a Big Spam Problem?, mashable.com
• Facebook To Launch Preferred Application Program, TechCrunch
• Finally, FriendFeed Answers The Twitter Conundrum, TechCrunch
• Mixx’s New Feature Aims To Get Breaking News To Home Page Faster Than Digg, TechCrunch
• What is Your Social Media Marketing Strategy?, Online Marketing Blog
• Windows Live teams up with social networks for contact portability, News.com

Other Items

• A common sense approach to Internet safety, Official Google Blog

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

• Social Media Optimization: Submit it, But Don’t Forget It
• Google Wants Your Analytics Data Badly (An Open Letter)
• Can You Take a Vacation From Social Media?
• MSN and Live.com embedding videos in search results
• Yes, You Can Do SEO on Facebook (How To)
• How to Do Basic Website SEO
• Dell Caught Spamming by Dave Naylor. This is pretty blatant too…
• Aaron Wall Interviewed By Todd Mintz
• Creating Landing Pages that Appeal to Motivated Searchers
• Hackers Forcing Sites to Cloak Search Engines with Link Spam
• The SEO Industry Survey Results
• How to Analyze the Internal Power of Your Website
• Sorry Andy, You’re Wrong: Google ‘Search Within A Site’ Is A Big Deal
• Secrets of Going Popular Twice on Digg
• Why You’ve Got to Dig Digg to Get Dugg
• Which Is Better – PPC or SEO? How One Company Increased Traffic 60% After Ditching PPC for SEO
• Do You Really Get That Many Local SEO Clients?
• A New Scourge For Yahoo: Affiliate Mapspam
• 9 SEO FireFox Plugins I Can’t Live Without

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz 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.