SeoAlchemist

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 10-Q Reveals Rewards, Risks of Being Google
  Google just released its SEC form 10-Q filing. For the six months ended June 30, 2007, Google had revenues of $7.535 billion vs. $4.7 billion during the same period a year ago. During the past six months Google has completed 10 acquisitions for $183.6 million or $18 million on average….
• 
  Yahoo Search Adds Baseball Shortcut
  The Yahoo Search Blog announced a new baseball search shortcut. For example, a search on Prince Fielder, of the Milwaukee Brewers, shows up a shortcut with a picture, his number, team, real statistics for the year and fantasy league statistics, plus links to news, game log, scores, schedules and more…
• 
  After Striking Out With Google, Perfect 10 Bats Against Microsoft Over Image Search
  Perfect 10 Sues Microsoft for Copyright Infringement off the news wire reports that Perfect 10 is now going after Microsoft for copyright infringement over including Perfect 10’s copyrighted images in Live Image Search. Norm Zada, Perfect 10’s president said: Microsoft is showing tens of thousands of extremely valuable celebrity images,…
• 
  JupiterResearch: Google And Yahoo Are Top Online Brands
  Following the Harris and BusinessWeek/Interbrand brand surveys, which put Coca-Cola at the top of the list, JupiterResearch asked Internet users about their favorite brands and dissected the audiences….
• 
  The Right Way To Think About Site Maps
  If you asked one hundred search engine optimization professionals to explain a site map and show you what an effective one looks like, chances are you will get 100 different answers. To many SEO professionals, a site map is an XML site map that one submits to Google containing…
• 
  Hitwise Launches 2008 Election Metrics Tracking
  Hitwise has launched a new data center that will track a range of metrics associated with the upcoming 2008 US election. It will reportedly update those metrics every Tuesday. The categories that will be tracked include the top websites from both parties, top political search terms and the fastest moving…
• 
  Google Deletes Custom Search Blog After Marking It As Spam
  Google Custom Search Blog Hacked? from Google Blogoscoped quickly reported what appeared to be a hack of Google’s official Custom Search Blog. But what really happened was that Google marked their own blog as a spam blog and ultimately removed the blog from Blogger, allowing someone else to claim the…
• 
  A Tool To Help Manage Internal PageRank Distribution
  Half’s SEO Notebook blog wrote a detailed post explaining his PageRankBot tool. After reading the post, it appears that this tool does some pretty intricate and detailed analysis of your internal navigation and helps you determine how to make adjustments to your link development to best allocate your most important…
• 
  Apple Continues To Integrate Google (& AdSense) Into Software
  Apple and Google alliance just got stronger from Last100 discusses how Apple’s latest software release with iLife and iWork have enhanced integration into Google Maps, Google AdSense and YouTube….
• 
  Don’t Obsess Over Superficial Details
  Ever see one of those movies that show some super-secret government agency with plush high-tech interior offices that belie the exterior location? You know the ones I’m talking about. The secret spy base in headquartered in a rundown part of town in a dilapidated building that nobody but a…
• 
  Supplemental Results and Google’s Extended Databases
  Until very recently, you might have seen a label next to a search result in Google that indicated it was a “supplemental” result. A couple of patents from Google, one of which was granted this week and one from earlier this year, discuss how a search query might return results…
• 
  Yahoo’s New Traffic Quality Center
  Today, Yahoo launched a new Traffic Quality Center for advertisers and consumers. The center will provide information on: Procedure on submitting a click investigation request Announcements on new product enhancements regarding ad quality Advice and tips on how to monitoring your traffic Featured questions regarding traffic quality, with answers from…
• 
  Now Showing: Google Video On Privacy
  Some webmasters may know of Google’s Maile Ohye through her work in Google Webmaster Central, but now she plays a new role explaining issues about search privacy, in a new video from Google. It’s the first of several videos on the subject that Google has announced that it will be…
• 
  Q&A On The New Google News Comments
  Google News To Newsmakers: Send Us Your Comments from me earlier covers the new system that Google unveiled today allowing for comments on news stories. I’ve now had a chance to talk briefly with Google News business product manager Josh Cohen about the system, to better understand its goals and…
• 
  Enquisite Launches Product To Track Clicks That Fall Outside Campaign Parameters
  Enquisite, a provider of free analytics software, has introduced a product called “PPC Assurance.” The aim of the product is to help search marketers identify whether their campaigns are performing as intended and to identify clicks that fall outside the parameters of their campaign guidelines or clicks they were billed…
• 
  Want That Top Ad Position On Google? The Rules Are About To Change
  In the upcoming weeks, Google will be releasing an updated algorithm to determine the ads that are displayed in the top ad spot, above the organic search results. The updated algorithm will continue to use the quality and cost-per-click (CPC) figure but will be slightly tweaked for that top ad…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Get ready for a new Live.com, LiveSide
• Lessons Learned: Google Tech Talk on Building Scalable Systems, juberjabber
• JavaScript Google Talk, Google Operating System
• Why Did Google Answers Shut Down?, Google Blogoscoped
• GMail Plus - A Smart Trick to Find, Digital Inspiration
• Google Reader to Retire the Old Interface, Google Operating System
• Cure Information Overload Using Google Reader, Google Operating System
• Is Google Rolling Out a Gmail Storage Upgrade?, Paul Kedrosky

Business Issues

• 10-Q Watch: Yahoo’s Acquisitions; Yang Salary, paidContent.org
• Equity Firm Invests in NBC Universal-News Corp. Online Venture, New York Times
• Taking on Google is ‘tasty’, says Ask.com chief executive, Times Online
• Yahoo Chairman Exercises Options, Forbes

Conferences

• Five TopRank Bloggers to Cover SES San Jose 2007, Online Marketing Blog
• Matt Cutts’ Lecture - Whitehat SEO tips for Bloggers’, One Man’s Blog

Local, Maps & Mobile

• ExtMapTypeControl 1.1: A Smarter Traffic Button, Google Maps API Blog
• The 59 Mile Drive, Google LatLong
• Terrible Accident Found in Google Earth Imagery - Or is it?, Google Earth Blog

Link Building

• Google Caught Selling High PageRank Links, Again, SEO Book
• Link Cloaking - The why, the where, the how, ShoeMoney
• Reverse Engineering Linking Patterns to Create Link Equity, Search Engine Watch

Paid Search & Contextual

• Get help uploading your campaigns into Microsoft adCenter, adCenter Blog
• Demystifying the Conversion Rate, Search Marketing Standard
• Google Expanded Match: Background and Pointers, Search Engine Journal
• Priceline Says Online Ads Do Drive Branding, ClickZ

Searching

• Competition is good for search privacy, report says, News.com
• Study: Search Engine Privacy Policies Improving, PC World
• Privacy and Alternatives, Hakia Blog
• Google Isn’t Always The Best Search Choice, Washington Post
• Google Confirms & Retracts Post on "Minutes" Crawl Time Stamp, Search Engine Roundtable

SEO & SEM

• How to get into the Google TrustBox, BlogStorm
• Should You Let Content Theft Slide if Site is Linking Back to You?, Search Engine Roundtable
• 10 SEO Tips to Remember While Launching a Site, Search Engine Journal
• 301 Redirect Results - 2 Weeks Later, SEOptimise
• Google Wants Feedback on Removing PageRank Score, Search Engine Roundtable
• Top 10 Tips for Beginning SEO, Reviewlicious
• Why I Check Rankings, The SEO Scoop

Social Media

• How Robert Scoble Hijacked My Facebook News Feed, Carnage4Life
• When it Comes to Social Media Websites, the Long Tail Doesn’t Apply, SEOmoz
• 11 Tips to Enhance Your Digg User Experience (and Hopefully Bring You Front Page Fame), Techipedia
• del.icio.us Opens Flood Gates But Only for Google, Yahoo!, Digital Inspiration

Video, Music & Image Search

• NBC’s Second Answer To YouTube: More Ads (But At Least It Has A Name), Techcrunch
• VideoCafe Brings Video Content From Google, Yahoo!, Intel and Others Directly to Bloggers, Press Release
• Flickr’s New Upload Picture Form, Cartoon Barry

Other Items

• Google China News, Googlified
• What Not To Do With Your Business Blog, Online Marketing Blog

Hot Items From Sphinn, Our Social News Sharing Site:

• 11 Tips to Enhance Your Digg User Experience (and Hopefully Bring You Front Page Fame)
• Sphinn Sluggishness
• What Pisses Me Off About SEO Blogs
• Should Google Hide the Toolbar PageRank Score?
• And Now, New Scientist Sells Paid Links
• Why Googleís Local Business Referrals Will Fail
• How I Promote My Websites: Revealed | Social Marketing
• Johnon challenges Sphinn to top Rand Fishkin with 100 Sphinns
• 10 Questions With Rae Hoffman (aka Sugarrae)