SearchCap: The Day In Search, September 18, 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:

• 
  SMX East Speakers and Attendees — SEM Who’s Who!
  Look Who’s Coming… Join your peers at SMX East – search marketers, representing all skill levels, from more than 600 companies looking to get up to speed and stay ahead the ever-changing world of search. Look Who’s Speaking… Learn from and network with the search marketing community’s most well known…
• 
  Pro-Life & Pro-Choice Now Side By Side In Google Search Ads
  Anti-abortion groups to buy ads on Google from the TimesOnline reports that Google is now accepting “pro-life” search ads. In the past, Google did not allow anti-abortion groups to advertise against abortion-related keywords. Google stopped that practice a couple days ago after agreeing that the policy it may breach UK’s…
• 
  SEO Ethics Are In The Eye Of The Beholder
  True story. I was sitting at one of my computers, a bit flustered because I was trying to solve yet another CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) browser incompatibility, and I received the following email: I would be pleased to buy some text links on your website. Let me know if…
• 
  Microsoft Launches New Live Search Maps India & New Virtual Earth Imagery
  Microsoft has announced they released a new Live Search Maps India plus new imagery to Virtual Earth….
• 
  Yahoo Tests New Home Page
  Yahoo has announced they are testing a new home page in the US, UK, France and India. The new homepage contains information from both Yahoo and non-Yahoo properties, such as AOL Mail and Gmail data. They will also keep the “Featured” section more up to date with “timely content from…
• 
  Amid Economic Wreckage And Political Resistance, The Good Ship Google Steams Ahead With Smart Grid, Android, Chrome & More
  Advertising spending is down across the board and the financial markets are in a crisis not seen since the Depression. Layoffs are happening or appear to be impending at a number of high-profile tech companies, including HP, eBay and Yahoo. Yet Google appears to be navigating through these difficult economic…
• 
  Yahoo Enhances Music Artist Shortcut
  About a year ago, Yahoo created a music artist shortcut to make it easier to find quick details about artists, such as videos, photos, sample song tracks and even their official website links, directly from the search results page. Now, in partnership with online music service Rhapsody, Yahoo music shortcut…

Search News From Around The Web:

Business Issues

• Microsoft announcement tomorrow: No more Seinfeld ads!, Valleywag
• Beacon Makes a Comeback, With More Choices and Options, Stay N’ Alive
• Google’s Schmidt, Page and Brin hold court at Zeitgeist, LA Times
• It’s Over For Seinfeld, But Crispin Porter Keeps Microsoft Business, TechCrunch
• Mark Zuckerberg Becomes 321st Richest American, All Facebook
• Survey Says: United Airlines (UAL) Stock Price Drop Blamed On…, Search Engine Roundtable
• The Forbes 400, Forbes

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Google Maps: Widespread Hijacking of Business Listings Confirmed, Mike Blumenthal
• Google Phone To Sell For $199: Report, TheStreet.com
• Shelter from the storm, Official Google Blog
• The Google Maps API Open Source Their Selenium Test Suite, Google Testing Blog

Link Building

• Links Should Really Look Like Links, SEOmoz
• The Google Link Conundrum Summed Up, Search Engine Roundtable

Paid Search & Contextual

• Continuing to improve our ads, Inside AdSense
• Dynamic Text Insertion – Introducing adCenter’s Superhero – adCenter Blog for Advertisers, adcentercommunity.com
• Facts about our Yahoo! ad deal and ad prices, Google Public Policy Blog
• Google Points Out to Advertisers How Easily Ads are Confused With Organic Results, Google Blogoscoped
• Q&A: How can I tell if Google’s Ads Bot can spider my landing page?, BG Theory

Searching

• Making Google Products Easier To Use Is Not ‘Encouraging Stealing’, TechDirt
• Sometimes Google Isn’t Enough: New Research Engine Searches "Deep Web", Read/Write Web

SEM Industry

• 10 Things I Love About You, Our Reader, BruceClay.com
• A Lesson to Deadbeat Clients: Why you should never, never rip off an SEO, Marketmou
• Closing Down the Blog.., David Naylor
• hakia hosts Alt Search Engine Party, Hakia Blog
• What Does the Stock Market Implosion Mean for Your Online Business?, SEOmoz

SEO & SEM

• SEO 101: Beginning Viral Marketing, Web Optimist
• Some Insights into Image Optimization for Search, Search Engine Roundtable
• Taking Your Business Online Requires More Than A Web site, BruceClay.com
• Think SEO Before You Name Your New Company!, AIM Clear Blog

Social Media

• From Twitter with Love: The Ultimate Romantic Linkbait, SEOmoz
• 5 Million Users Hate the New Facebook? No Problem, Search Engine Watch
• The Dangers And Advantages Of Meme Marketing, SEOmoz

Video, Music & Image Search

• More Google products broken. This time YouTube, Bloggle

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

• Closing Down the Blog.. (DaveN goes all Calcanis)
• Google’s Human Reviewers – Matching User’s Intent.
• Link Building Etiquette : The Value of the Connection
• Live Results Becoming More Relevant Than Google?
• Apology to Guy Kawasaki
• The Value of the Yellow Pages for Small Businesses Today
• Google Maps announces Quality Guidelines & Reinclusion Option
• The Dangers And Advantages Of Meme Marketing
• Handle Your Site Footer Wisely
• Ten Mistakes Asda make Online
• Top Search Engine Marketing Tools
• Don’t Leave Home Without It: 8 Steps for Making Your Site Mobile Friendly

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's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.