Highlights from the SEW Blog: June 25, 2007

By Kevin Newcomb, Search Engine Watch, Jun 25, 2007

We've collected all the search engine news from selected posts to the Search Engine Watch blog in the past week, along with recent search-related headlines from around the Web.

From the SEW blog:

Organic Search

• SEW Experts: Flash: The Pink Elephant or the Spark
  Chris Boggs goes over the history of epic battles between designers and SEOs over Flash.
• SEW Experts: Defining SEO Success
  Mark Jackson counts the ways of defining SEO success. There may be different strokes for different folks, but there’s only one sure way to measure success from your organic search engine optimization campaigns.

Search Advertising

• Advanced Dynamic Keyword Insertion
  Dynamic keyword insertion is a great concept, but challenging to do well.
• Google Expands Pay-per-Action Ads
  Advertisers choose how much they want to pay for a user to complete a pre-defined action like a purchase, newsletter sign-up, or other conversion.
• Yahoo Moves to Short Descriptions
  Yahoo now requires advertisers to provide a short, 70-character description for all ads.
• Are IT Buyers and Marketers Search-Aligned?
  According to a recent survey of 3,000 IT buyers and marketers, some 83% of buyers actively use Google to find tech information. About 65% of marketers participate in paid search programs to find these buyers. Maybe the other marketers are missing out.

Linking Issues & Social Media

• SEW Experts: Does Your Site Deserve Link Love?
  Sage Lewis offers some examples of clever ways to go about getting links and making your ideas go viral.

Analytics & ROI

• SEW Experts: The Impact of User Registration on Generating Real Estate Leads
  Eric Enge discusses changes to lead generation strategies in the real estate industry, given that the Web has jarred this system with its premise that information should be freely available online.

Local & Mobile Search

• Google Maps Integrates User Reviews (Finally)
  Google will begin to offer the opportunity to read and write user generated reviews of businesses that show up in local listings in Google Maps.

Vertical & Specialty Search

• Getting Ranked on News Search Engines Is Getting More Difficult
  There was a time when simply optimizing your press release with the right keywords and links got you top ranking on news search engines. Not anymore.
• YouTube Adds 9 Localized Country Sites
  YouTube has added nine country-specific sites, which are fully translated, with localized home pages, content and search functions.
• Law.com launches vertical search engine
  Law.com Quest is a search engine focused on the searching of legal documents.
• Searching Through Widget Content
  Many embedded flash widgets are injected onto MySpace and now Facebook pages. But what happens when you want to actual search them? Not much.

Small Business/Big Brand SEM

• SEW Experts: Can Social Media Work in Big Business?
  Aaron Shear reviews various social media strategies and offers advice on justifying it to VPs in the boardroom.

In-House & Outsourcing

• SEW Experts: The Five Characteristics of Highly Effective PPC Specialists
  As anyone in the search marketing industry can tell you, talent is scarce. If you can find one with all these traits, hire him/her on the spot.

SEM Industry Issues

• Semel Ousted as Yahoo CEO
  Embattled Yahoo CEO and Chairman Terry Semel has been replaced as CEO by Yahoo founder Jerry Yang. Susan Decker has been named Yahoo's president.
• SES Latino Coverage
  The Search Engine Strategies Latino conference in Miami this week provided attendees with a wealth of search-related information.
• Seth Godin Interview
  Eric Enge has a chat with Seth Godin about Squidoo, and about the challenges facing Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.
• More Thoughts on SES Toronto
  More reports from SES Toronto have been trickling in as speakers and attendees return home and think about what they learned.
• Latin American Market Poised for Growth
  Speaking at Search Engine Strategies Latino today in Miami, Gonzalo Alonso, Google's general manager for Spanish-speaking Latin America, said that Google sees huge potential in the Latin American market.
• Update on SES Advisory Board
  We've also got some great people coming forward to offer their voice on the SES Advisory Board, but there's still time to have your voice heard.

Searching/Search Technologies

• Askville Update
  The Amazon-owned Q&A service seems to be getting some traction in its first six months.

More from the SEW Blog

• Google Getting Serious About Lobbying U.S. Government
  Google has stepped up its lobbying efforts in the last two years, moving from a single lobbyist in Washington to a staff of 12.
• Google Launches Public Policy Blog
  Google now has a public policy blog, to keep the world abreast of its endeavors in Washington.
• Murdoch Wants to Trade MySpace for Chunk of Yahoo
  Got to love the aggression of Rupert Murdoch. Buys MySpace and now wants to leverage it for a chunk of Yahoo.
• Ask.com Asks a Ninja for Ad Help
  Ask.com has turned to popular video blog Ask A Ninja for a live-read video campaign.
• Google International Press Day
  In what appears to be much of a recap of its recent Searchology event at the Googleplex in Mountain View, Google hosted an International Press Day in Paris.

Search Headlines

We report the top search marketing news daily at the Search Engine Watch Blog. You'll find more news from around the Web below.

• Three Simple Ideas For Yahoo! Search Marketing From The Trenches, Finding the Sweet Spot
• Bringing SEO In House - Insight from the Experts Part 1, Web Analytics World
• Insider Thinks Google Won’t Serve DoubleClick’s ASP Customers, ClickZ
• Blogging for Search Engine Optimization, ClickZ
• Reprise Media Lands Microsoft Search Marketing Deal, ClickZ
• How Google Makes Money in 2007, SEO-space
• The missing key to great headlines, Distilled
• Linking to yourself on a client site is not SEO, Ogletree SEO
• The Benefits of CSS Over Table Based Design, Fresh Egg
• Predictive Queries versus Unique Searches, SEO by the Sea
• The SEO's Guide to Beginners, SEOmoz
• SEO Pricing & Costs - What Should You Charge / How Much Should You Pay?, SEOmoz
• Don't Put All Your Links In One Basket, Search Engine Land
• Google Supplemental Weirdness, Sugarrae
• SEO Myth: Press releases for SEO, SEO Theory
• Marketing with Zvents - SEO and Shopping in One, SEO'Brien
• How to Reboot Yahoo, Marketing Shift
• SEO "Don'ts": 20 Fatal Mistakes You Must Avoid To Succeed, Search Engine Land
• Put your business on Google Maps, Google LatLong Blog
• Skooiz unveils study on behaviour and attitude of French Canadians when searching on the web, Skooiz Blog