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Search Week in Review for March 5, 2011

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Here's a recap of this week's columns and news stories for the week of Feb. 27 to March 5, as reported by Search Engine Watch, as well as search news and tips from around the web.

Search Engine Optimization

The Difference Between Black Hat SEO and Bad SEO by Mark Jackson
The safest way to build up trust/links for your website is to create good, unique, resourceful/helpful content, promote via social channels, and try to win links the "white hat" way.

The Canonical Tag Can Save You from the Duplicate Content Monster by Ray "Catfish" Comstock
How the very useful rel="canonical" tag solves many common SEO problems that exist around duplicate content issues.

Why Google's Panda Algorithm Update Dropped Sites by Danny Goodwin
Google's Matt Cutts and Amit Singhal have revealed some more about what is officially known as the Google Panda update, Google's latest algorithm update. There has been much speculation about why sites were dropped and others were promoted.

Really Google? Penalizing Good Sites To Get Some Bad Ones by Frank Watson
The results are in and more than the handful of "low-quality sites" have been swept from Google's search rankings. Many innocent sites that may have a few flaws -- the ones a natural site would have if not worked over hard by an SEO -- have fallen through the cracks.

Let Google Know How the Algorithm Change Affected Your Site by Danny Goodwin
In what is the closest Google has come to admitting some sites have been unfairly punished in the SERPs, Google has created a thread, "Think you're affected by the recent algorithm change? Post here." in Webmaster Central.

Mahalo, Business.com, Article Aggregators Hardest Hit By Google Update by Frank Watson
The impact of Google's latest search ranking algorithm update is starting to show. While Mahalo is getting a bunch of the press, the ezine article aggregators seem to be the ones most heavily hit -- along with some of the business directory sites.

SEM Basics

5 Steps for Crafting an Effective B2B SEO Blogging Strategy by Derek Edmond
Organizational methods that will help B2B companies achieve success with their blogging strategies.

Search Advertising

Yahoo-Bing Search Alliance: 3 Key Findings All Search Marketers Must Know by Matt Lawson
Is it a good time to buy in the combined Yahoo-Bing marketplace? A paid search study examines how paid search ads are performing.

AdWords Call Metrics Now Offers Deeper Call Reports by Danny Goodwin
Google AdWords now shows more detailed reports on every call your campaign has received with call metrics enabled. This includes the call's start time, end time, duration, status (missed or received), and area code.

Google AdWords: Ad Preview Marries Ad Diagnostics by Brent Rangen
Google has incorporated a diagnostic tool within the preview feature. The diagnostic tool is integrated within the AdWords dashboard under the campaigns tab and also in the keyword research tool.

Analytics & ROI

Lifting Conversion Through Curation and Badging by Stephen Cobb
Badges call attention to specific items on a web page. Curation determines which items to badge. Here's why curation with badges boosts conversion rates.

The Lost Art of Web Analytics: Breaking Bad News Gently to Win Support by Garry Przyklenk
A swelling head and lack of audience can be a big problem for job security. Keep the following approaches in mind when breaking bad news.

Adobe & Conductor Team-Up to Monitor SEO ROI Alongside PPC by Jonathan Allen
Adobe SearchCenter has been updated to integrate organic search data, such that ROI from SEO campaigns can be measured directly alongside PPC data in a single interface.

Social Media Marketing

B2-Believe: Targeting Decision Makers Using #LinkedIn by Lauren Litwinka
How to leverage LinkedIn's PPC platform to identify the B2B target audience of your dreams, and qualify that audience by way of LinkedIn organic search. Added bonus: serious Facebook targeting goodies.

Separating Trend from Fad with QR Codes in Social Media by Jason Cormier
A common challenge in the world of social media marketing is separating trends from fads. Today, I'm proclaiming "trend" regarding the use of Quick Response (QR) codes for social media.

Google AdSense No Longer Facebook Approved Advertising Option by Danny Goodwin
Facebook's list of preferred advertisers went into effect Monday, and Google AdSense isn't on the list. This new list prohibits developers from making revenue from their Facebook applications via AdSense.

SortPrice.com Say Retailers Listing 60% More Products on Facebook by Jonathan Allen
SortPrice, a shopping app that enables online retailers to deliver an e-commerce experience directly through Facebook has posted data that suggests that F-commerce is a trend that retailers are embracing.

Facebook February Frenzy: Page & Profile Update Summary by Brent Rangen
With so many Facebook updates in one month, what would be better than having one all-inclusive post summarizing the updates you need to know about?

Facebook CEO Gets Own Comic Book - But Not A Superhero by Frank Watson
Seems Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and creator of Facebook, will be getting his own comic book. Bluewater Productions will be producing the comic written by Jerome Maida.

Link Building

21-Day Link Builder Relationship Challenge by Jeremy Bencken
As link builders, we must give in order to receive. Here are three general categories of relationship-building "gives" that will help you create a worthy relationship foundation and attract an unfair share of links.

Resource Page Cocitation Analysis for Authority Link Builders (and Other Content Marketers) by Garrett French
By using this six-step process, link builders can determine what's in demand and the quality and characteristics of the most link-worthy content for their vertical.

Local & Mobile Search

Mobile Growing Faster Than Predicted, says Google's Schmidt by Danny Goodwin
In a keynote at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's annual leadership meeting, Eric Schmidt said mobile is taking off faster than predicted.

Google Acquires Security Firm Zynamics Same Day Android Apps Hit by Malware by Danny Goodwin
Google acquired German software company Zynamics, a company that specializes in reverse-engineering and analysis tools. Seems like the acquisition came just in time, because only a few hours later, 21 free apps were pulled from the Android Marketplace due to malware.

Google AdSense Gets a New Mobile Interface by Thom Craver
Google AdSense announced a new mobile interface for those using mobile phones and other devices. Starting now, mobile user get a very different version of AdSense, instead of the standard "desktop" interface.

SMB Search Marketing

Twitter Plans to Offer Ad Placement for Small Businesses by Brent Rangen
Twitter is looking to offer more opportunities for small to mid level businesses.

International Search

5 Money-Saving Strategies for Localized Websites by Christian Arno
How microsites, subdomains, duplication, post-edited machine translation, and competing in foreign markets will increase your ROI and save you more money.

Dear European Commission: Please Don't Ruin PPC by Duncan Parry
While reading and answering the questions in the two documents my agency has received, I feel a growing unease that the bureaucrats who will ultimately pass judgment on Google may do more damage than good.

Navigating Search in China by Adaline Lau
With Google's presence sliding in China, state-owned search engines want to have a go in a Baidu-centric landscape.

St. David's Day Celebrated With Google UK Doodle by Thom Craver
Google UK users woke up to a new Google Doodle honoring Saint David's Day. St. David is the patron saint of Wales.

Google Doodle Toasts Chinese Poet Li Bai by Danny Goodwin
Famous Tang Dynasty romantic poet Li Bai, born on Feb. 28, 701, was the subject of a Doodle on Google Hong Kong.

Japanese Doll Festival Google Doodle by Danny Goodwin
Today the Japanese are celebrating the annual Japanese Doll Festival, a tradition during which families -- especially those with young daughters -- pray for the happiness and healthy growth of girls. Google Japan is likewise celebrating, having posted a special Doodle.

The Search Industry

Who is Behind the Successful PR Campaign Poking Holes in Google's Search Quality? by Greg Jarboe
It appears someone has launched a successful PR campaign poking holes in Google's search quality.

StatCounter: Bing Bigger Than Yahoo Globally; Still a Blip vs. Google by Danny Goodwin
Bing overtook Yahoo globally for the first time in January, and further expanded its lead in February, StatCounter announced today.

Google News

Is Google Reaching Out To Sites With Analytics To Replace AdSense Losses? by Frank Watson
So I got an email from Google today asking me to sign my sites up for AdSense, the interesting thing is it came from AdSense but was addressed to me as a Google Analytics user.

Google: New Nav Bar is For Your Privacy by Thom Craver
The new navigation bar, which we reported on earlier this month, is more about managing your identity and privacy online than integrating social or tracking you, according to Google.

Google Restoring Gmail Accounts After Buggy Update by Danny Goodwin
Google apologized last night for a bug that deleted e-mails and contacts for about 40,000 Gmail users. All the data will be restored soon.

Customize Your Google News by Thom Craver
Google News users are familiar with the color-coded categories on the left side bar. These categories include Top Stories, World, Business, Sports, etc. Now, Google News is giving you the ability to customize your categories based on a search query.

Google is Cheating, Copying Facebook's Profile Design by Danny Goodwin
By now, you may have read Google's recent post, "Decide what the world sees when it searches for you," and seen the various reactions and comments around the web today. However you define copying, the bottom line is, these new Google social profiles sure do look an awful lot like Facebook profile pages.

Google Cloud Connect Extends Itself Directly Into MS Office by Thom Craver
Do you like the coolness of simultaneous document editing Google offers, but really need all the features in Microsoft Office? Now you can have both.

Error! Error! Google's New Fail Page Features Broken Googlebot by Danny Goodwin
Google is serving a new custom 404 page when you stumble across a page that doesn't exist. It tells you: "404. That's an error. The requested URL was not found on this server. That's all we know." Also, Googlebot is in pieces, no doubt symbolic of a broken link.

Bing News

Bing Announces Live Deals - Available on Your Desktop and Phone by Brent Rangen
What's always hot on the web? No matter where you are or how small a city it, what are users usually looking for? The answer is coupons.

New on Bing: Flight Auto Suggest & Natural Language Shopping Search by Brent Rangen
Bing unveiled a nice little feature for searchers looking to travel. Auto-suggest results, built off of their price prediction algorithm, shows instant price ranges for flight prices.

Google ITA Acquisition Will Not Leave Kayak Paddling Upstream by Frank Watson
Kayak has partnered with Bing to help them with travel search results.

Yahoo News

Blekko News

DuckDuckGo News

Video Marketing

SES Conference & Expo

10 Reasons Why You Can't Miss #SESNY by Mike Grehan
SES New York brings the answers you're looking for. Join us for 75+ sessions, featuring 120 speakers, dozens of express clinics, theatre presentations and networking opportunities.

Run, Don't Walk, to SES New York 2011 by Greg Jarboe
Google's Eric Schmidt says mobile is growing faster than predicted. There were more updates than you can shake a stick at during the Facebook February Frenzy. And to top things off, Google is shaking up the SERPs with their latest algorithm update.

3 Ways To Get More Followers Via #SESuk Tweetwall by Jonathan Allen
So SES London was a blast wasn't it? More parties than any single year and a new venue slap bang in the heart of London should have given you plenty of opportunities to network with the buzzing search marketing industry in the UK.

Search Week in Review 2011 Archives

Feb. 26 | Feb. 19 | Feb. 12 | Feb. 5
Jan. 29 | Jan. 22 | Jan. 15 | Jan. 8

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SES Online

Introducing SES Online
Want to view one of the sessions you missed or listen to an especially informative presenter a second time? SES New York sessions are available for purchase on ClickZ Academy's new e-Learning site. SES is now Online!

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