Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web.
From Search Engine Land:
- Yelp Unlikely To Come Back To Google Places
Earlier today it was reported that Yelp’s content had been removed from Google Places — though not from Google.com results. What’s going on exactly? Here’s Google’s public statement about it:
“Place pages organize relevant information about a wide range of places and locations, and they surface great sources of information like reviews […] - Google Realtime Search Gets Home Page, Conversation View, Alerts & Geosearch
Google Realtime Search has finally gained its own home page, as well as some new tools including “conversations view,” Google Alerts for real time content and the ability to see tweets filtered by geography.
New Home Page
Back in June, my Can Google Real Time Search Have Its Own Home Page Now? covered how frustrating it has […] - Blekko: A Search Engine Which Is Also A Killer SEO Tool
Blekko is a stealth search engine which aims to change the search game by being fairly transparent with ranking data. Since they will start out with limited search marketshare, they aren’t risking much in sharing data that other search engines have traditionally been rather secretive about. Further, they allow customization of results via what they […]
- Using Citations To Optimize Google Maps Ranking
One of the most important factors in one’s ranking on Google is your volume of citations (i.e. mentions of your business name and address, not just links to your site.) The challenge lies not in obtaining hundreds of citations from any site, but by getting the right citations from the right places. That is, the […]
- Miss “Old” Google News? Another Option Helps Bring It Back
I noticed this morning that Google News has added a toggle for the right side column on the home page, allowing it to have a “two column” format that the old version of Google News had. It’s the second change now that allows people to make Google News like the old version, something many people […]
- Google Maps Updates Review Policy & Drops Yelp Reviews
The Google Maps Blog announced they have updated the maps review policy on how to write reviews and what reviews Google has the right to remove. In addition, TechCrunch reports that Google has dropped Yelp’s syndicated reviews from Google Maps.
The new Google Maps review guidelines share tips on how to write constructive reviews. […] - 8 Crucial AdWords Reports For Measuring Success
Reporting is a very integral part of search engine marketing (and digital marketing in general). Of course, it’s important to be able to show the return on investment (ROI) of the digital budget. However, by using reports to analyze performance, search engine marketers can optimize their accounts by changing bids, adding or pausing keywords, […]
- Bing’s Market Share Up 51% In Past 12 Months
Bing’s search engine market share has risen 51% in the U.S. over the past 12 months according to Nielsen stats announced today.
According to Nielsen, Bing’s market share in July 2010 was up to 13.6%, a 51% jump from its 9% market share in July 2009 — which was basically Bing’s second month of existence. Google […] - New Digg (v4) Goes Live
After a couple months of beta testing with invited Digg members, the new version of Digg — they’re calling it “v4″ for Version 4 — is now live and open to all. Digg founder Kevin Rose announced it here, but that blog post is down as I write this.
In that announcement, Rose says the new […]
Search News From Around The Web:
Applications & Portal Features
Business Issues
- Google Hunts for a Music Service Head, AllThingsD
- Google Street-View Car Searched by Paris Privacy Regulators Before Ruling, Bloomberg
- Slide’s Levchin takes lead role in Google’s social efforts, Los Angeles Times
- Slide’s Max Levchin Becomes a VP of Engineering at Google, Inside Facebook
- Why Google Has No Game, gigaom.com
- Yahoo Wants to Blind the Competition With Science, Wired
Local, Maps & Mobile
- Is Yahoo Going Hyperlocal?, HyperlocalBlogger
- Sneak Peak at Yelp Deals, Yelp Official Blog
- The 4 Hardest Things About Conversion Optimization For Local Search, Search Engine Journal
Link Building
- 28 New Link Building Resources: the "Dixon Jones Rocks" Edition (8/20 – 8/26), ontolo.com
- Want To Test The Text Link Broker Waters, Without Boiling Over?, seoroi.com
Searching
- A Search Service that Can Peer into the Future, Technology Review
- Gmail Voice about future search, not free calls, SEX, BOMBS & BURGERS
SEM Industry
- The SEO Community – A Tale of Friends and Scorpions, Michael Gray
SEO & SEM
- SEO Hosting : Web Hosting for Search Optimization, Search Engine Journal
- Writing Good Copy: Let Keywords Be Your Guide, Search Engine Journal
- 6 Ultimate On-Page Search EngineOptimizationTips, Search Engine Journal
- Absolute URLs for Image SEO Recommended?, Search Engine Roundtable
- Four Ways Bloggers Can Use Google Insights to Brainstorm, blueglass.com
- Google Responds To Detailed Questions On Pagination SEO Issues, Search Engine Roundtable
- How do PageRank updates work?, YouTube
- Please Don’t Go No. 2 on SEO Copywriting, BruceClay.com
- Selling SEO Services: A Consultative Approach, SEO Book
- SEO Guide To Microformats, www.dotcult.com
- What’s In Your PPC “Pre-Flight” Checklist?, SEM Geek
Social Media
- The Danger of Dismissing Social Media’s Value, BruceClay.com
- Google’s Orkut Tweaks Point To Google Me, gigaom.com
- How To Calm Employees Into Social Media, outspokenmedia.com
- Power Diggers React To New Version of Digg (video), centernetworks.com
- Twitter Reverts Its Facebook App As Facebook Continues Friend Blockade, TechCrunch
Web Analytics
- New Tools to Debug Your Tracking Code, Google Analytics Blog
Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:
- 62 Queries for Writing Ultimate Guides that Build Links, Leads and Legacy – This content series builds high-trust links because of its thoroughness, emphasis on utility and the inclusion of "info-swag" such as free tools, checklists and widgets.
- How User's Intention Influence Behavior in Search Results with Eye Tracking Study – New Eye Tracking Study Released July 2010: New study tried to determine whether the intention behind queries affects the way people browse the results page, the relationship between gaze patterns and intentionality while performing queries.
- When to Say Goodbye to a SEO Client – This post discusses at what point an Internet Marketing company should say goodbye to a client.
- The Death of SEO – Our newest author, Barry Adams, had an interesting first post where he see's the future of the internet in 'appification' and believes that our future, SEOs that is, will be changed far and wide from what we know today. Me? Believe it or not I am not much of a gadget geeek, so I have my doubts. An interesting suposition none-the-less. Give it a read!
- 5 Common Problems (and solutions) with Google Base – The writer remembered how many issues he encountered when creating feeds for clients (especially if you are using a CMS and not a custom xml feed for 50 or so products) and also how many questions posted by other people were left unanswered. He decided to compile a list of the 5 common problems when dealing with Google Base, with solutions. Very handy.