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:

• 
  6 Common Website Mistakes That Are Costing You Money
  As I’m reviewing company websites to prepare for our August SEO Training Class, I’m struck by how often I see the same website mistakes. Since we’ve been offering the SEO classes over the past 7 months, we’ve reviewed over 40 websites. In each class of 6 online marketers, there’s…
• 
  Google Reader Improves Friends Sharing Feature
  The Google Reader Blog announced they have added a few features to improve the flexibility of sharing your feeds with your friends. With the new feature, you can now manage your “Friends list” in Google Reader, separate from your Gmail chat contacts. Why is that important? Well, when Google Reader…
• 
  YouTube Changes Their Minds On Streaming Video: They Won’t Do It
  Earlier this year, we reported that YouTube said they will be providing live streaming features by the end of 2008. According to a new report at Silicon Alley Insider, YouTube now says they will not be releasing live streaming this year and likely not even next year. A source told…
• 
  India Sues Google, Yahoo & Microsoft For Allowing Sex Selection Search Ads
  India’s National Newspaper reports that India’s Supreme Court is suing Google, Yahoo and Microsoft for allowing “sex selection” ads. India has a law that does not allow the sale or advertisement of services that allow people to pick the sex of their unborn child. India has virtually stopped all advertisements…
• 
  Live Search Maps Offer Local Ads
  The Virtual Earth blog wrote about how Live Search Maps can have sponsored ads, as icons or logos, embedded directly in the local results. This is a feature Google had at least since August 2006 and Google Earth had since February 2007. I am not sure how long Live Search…
• 
  3,000+ Hours Of Olympic Video: Can Search Engine Users Find It?
  During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, NBCOlympics.com is streaming 2,200 hours of exclusive live Olympic video, as well as over 3,000 hours of replays. This content is housed exclusively on the NBC site. Users can search NBCOlympics.com to watch their favorite highlights or catch something they may have missed. But…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Baidu.com To Develop Finance Area With Hexun.com, ChinaTechNews.com
• Get your Google Calendar in 38 languages, Official Gmail Blog
• More African countries now have their own edition of Google News, Google News Blog
• One month later: Google Lively? Not so much, Ars Technica

Business Issues

• Boom: Apple Worth More Than Google, AllThingsD
• Google Searches Sought In Defamation Suit Against Cisco, InformationWeek
• Google’s Schmidt talks stocks, huge mobile opportunity, scandals, advertising and YouTube with Jim Cramer, VentureBeat
• No Split for Google (Still), Wired
• Facebook faces class-action suit over Beacon, Network World
• Online Campaign Ads Come Into Their Own, National Journal Online
• Wikipedia Wins Dismissal of Baseless Defamation Claims, Electronic Frontier Foundation

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Gas Prices Now Instantly Show up Near You, MapQuest Blog
• Real Estate Search Engine Zillow Launches Geo-targeted Ads, Search Engine Watch Blog
• What Are The Most Important Factors to Google Maps UK Rankings?, SEOptimise

Link Building

• Making Backlinks Actionable Again, Live Search Webmaster Center Blog
• Headsmacking Tip #5 - Link Building through Conservation, SEOmoz
• I’ll Take Links And 11 Gold Medals Please, The Link Spiel
• Let Current and Future Events Help Your Linking Campaigns Thrive, Search Marketing Sage
• Linkbait 2.0: The Soul of Linkbait (Part 3), SEMpdx Blog

Paid Search & Contextual

• adCenter Editorial Disapproval Tips: Common issues and solutions - adCenter Blog for Advertisers, adcentercommunity.com
• Google Ads: Emphatic ‘No’ on Homepage, but Mobile Will Be Big, Wired
• Landing Page Critique Podcast - Video Game Price Guide, PPC Hero

Searching

• Wuala Launches Social Grid Storage In Public Beta Tomorrow, TechCrunch
• Searching in Singapore? Check your MOCCA., altsearchengines.com
• See Moments Missed in the 2008 Olympics, Yahoo Search Blog

SEM Industry

• Don’t Fall For The "Most Dependable" Award, Search Engine Roundtable
• Raaj Paatkar: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop

SEO & SEM

• 404 or 301 Your Old Pages? Which is Best For SEO?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Cartier Goes Slumming While Google Adds Insights, Search Engine Guide
• Do Search Penalty Discussions Worry You?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Google Fixes Sitemap Pending Issue & Blogger Crawling Issues, Search Engine Roundtable
• How To Block Search Indexing If Your Site Is Under Construction, Search Engine Journal
• Why I Don’t Obsess About Google, Search Engine Guide

Social Media

• Changes for Some SMS Users - Good and Bad News, Twitter Blog
• Dipity’s Archaeologist Provides Timeline of Digg Articles for any Keyword, TechCrunch

Video, Music & Image Search

• Online Video Ad Spending Growth, eMarketer

Other Items

• Lunatics in Brazil, Yodel Anecdotal

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

• 35 Must-Read Articles for Social Media Marketers
• How a Search Engine Might Handle Singular and Plural Queries
• » 10 Ways to improve SEO Conversions | Utah SEO
• How the SEO Bubble Will Pop
• 7 Talents of an Excellent SEO/M Employee
• Bloggers Selling 'Sex' Like Prostitutes
• Bidding On Competitors’ Branded Terms: Moral Dilemma Or Business Decision?
• You Have Great Content, But Are You Promoting It?
• Online Identity Searching and Tracking Tools
• iPhone Search Result Optimization Tip #1: Phone Numbers in Meta Tags
• Does PDF metadata have any significant effect on ranking in Google search results?
• Teaching Advanced Link Building and Why Pagerank Will Never Die