Search Engine Forums Spotlight: January 25, 2008

What’s going on in the search industry? Find out here, with these links to some of the latest topics being discussed in our own Search Engine Watch Forums, and other search marketing forums across the Web:

AdWords 101 Writing Creatives
Search Engine Watch Forums
“You can’t stress enough to focus on conversions and test, test, test!”

Site Search?
Cre8asite Forums
“Adding a script to do search on a website is not an easy task, entailing ‘stop words’, cron jobs and the like. My recommendation is to try and improve on the CMS search code. It will probably be easier.”

Jobs in SEO
High Rankings Forum
“I really can’t figure out how I can utilize my SEO skills when there’s no SEO company in my neck of the woods.”

Inbound Link Quality in Google
Search Engine Watch Forums
“What do you think are currently the top characteristics of a quality inbound link for Google ranking improvement?”

The Best Completely Free Tools We Use
Cre8asite Forums
“What are the best completely free tools that we use in our website/new media/everything computer-style world?”

Web Stats Software
High Rankings Forum
“Why is it common these days to use JavaScript rather than analyzing log files? Is there a software that I can install myself to generate a log file?”

AdWords Vanity Bidding
Search Engine Watch Forums
“Bidding yourself up to #1 on large production keyword sets is a dangerous game. That’s vanity bidding. I’ve found that not only does CPC shoot up, but cost/conversion goes through the roof.”

Fishing For Work
Cre8asite Forums
“Most cold-calling attempts result in nada, but some do turn into contracts.”

Alt Tag on All Images?
High Rankings Forum
“We’ve recently received some advice that EVERY image should have an alt tag. Currently, every hyper-linked image has an alt tag… should we tag up every spacer and shim gifs?”

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.

• Moving Beyond Campaign Efficiency to Campaign Effectiveness, ClickZ Experts
• Free Textbook on Yahoo! Search Marketing, Clix Marketing
• Matt Cutts: Industry Leaders Are Incapable Of Performing Editorial Discretion, Smackdown
• adCenter Account Structure, adCenter blog
• Redirects: Permanent 301 vs. Temporary 302, Stepforth SEOMicrosoft reports 30% growth in revenue, LiveSide
• Avoid Scope Creep Money Pit SEM Jobs, aimClear
• The Blurring of Business Strategy and Search Strategy, Webmama
• Mahalo Traffic Growth Vulnerable To Google Penalty, Natural Search Blog
• Microsoft’s ‘Gatineau’ Analytics Shows Statistics by Age, Gender, Occupation, and Geographic location, eWhisper
• Duplicate Content – Thinking Inside the ‘Big Box’ Stores, SEO Speedwagon
• 10 Reasons Why You Should STILL Be Using Facebook, SEO Chicks
• Study: Search Marketing In Prime Spot To Play Major Role in Political Spending, SEMGeek
• SEO Is The High School Cheerleader, The Van Blog
• Why Jason Calacanis For a Third Time at SES?, Search Marketing Gurus
• Five Strategic Steps for the Modern SEO, Ramblings About SEO
• Even More Advice for Startup CEO’s, Sugarrae
• Optimizing the Fortune 100 – Enterprise SEO, Marketing Pilgrim