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Search Week in Review for Feb. 26, 2011

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Here's a recap of this week's columns and news stories for the week of Feb. 20 to 26, as reported by Search Engine Watch, as well as search news and tips from around the web.

SEM Basics

14 Tips for Making the Most of Feeds by Andrew Girdwood
Seven tips for using feeds from other sites to ensure you're among the first writing about a topic, and seven tips for using your own site's feeds to grow and keep your audience.

Search Engine Optimization

Search + Social: A Growing Relationship by Erez Barak
Make sure you're tracking, measuring, and analyzing three key indicators in real time: SEO, social, and business.

Google Goes Boom on Low-Quality Sites...So They Say by Brent Rangen
Chances are good that you or someone you know has seen some ranking changes today as Google rolled out a new algorithmic update.

Overstock.com Lands in Google's Penalty Box Over Links-for-Discounts Deal by Danny Goodwin
Overstock.com was enjoying some great rankings earlier this year. Unfortunately for Overstock, Webmaster World began examining why they were seeing such great rankings for numerous common terms, a review which led to yet another mainstream news organization "outing" a major retailer for linking practices.

Google Changing Titles in Search Results, SEOs Not Happy by Danny Goodwin
Google is altering the appearance of a site's title as it appears in the SERPs. And SEOs are getting frustrated.

Majestic SEO Unveils Site Explorer by Brent Rangen
Majestic SEO has released its new Site Explorer tool.

Search Advertising

AdWords Campaign Experiments: Details and Pitfalls by Melissa Mackey
Campaign Experiments is a great enhancement that can really take your PPC campaigns to the next level, but it also poses many challenges and can be quite confusing.

Optimize for Conversions With New AdWords Feature by Danny Goodwin
A new ad rotation setting in AdWords lets you choose to show ads you expect to provide the highest conversion rate, rather than receive the highest click-through rate.

Analytics & ROI

Mapping Search Strategy to the Buy Cycle by John Lynch
A breakdown of the four major stages of a buy cycle, and opportunities in which search marketing, SEO, and PPC can be incorporated.

Google Analytics Adds SDK for iOS by Thom Craver
The Google Analytics blog has announced the availability of the Google Analytics SDK for iOS devices. The iOS SDK joins the Android SDK announced last year.

Social Media Marketing

The Social Media ROI Conundrum by Nathan Linnell
Don't be shortsighted -- look at these four essential components to see how social media can impact the long-term health of your brand. This is where you'll find the true value of social media.

Social Networks and Health: Bad Medicine? by Dean Stephens
Social networks can be invaluable for helping consumers with health care decisions, as well as brand awareness for health practitioners, organizations, and treatments -- as long as it's done right.

External, Hybrid, and Internal Communities: Why You Should Care by Jacob Morgan
Exploring three social communities and some typical business problems that effective engagement can solve.

Link Building

Link Lovers From Hell by Jennifer Van Iderstyne
Warning! These are some of the more undesirable link partners you'll come across on the web -- sites you definitely don't want to take home to mom.

Local & Mobile Search

Google Defines Mobile Sites & Offers Advice on Being Mobile Friendly by Brent Rangen
With the explosion of mobile users and projected growth showing staggering numbers, it's a great time for Google to clear the air on mobile sites.

Google Drops Facebook Contact Merging From Latest Android Version by Thom Craver
Android smartphone owners have been waiting for the Gingerbread, the latest operating system upgrade. Android 2.3 is deploying now but it won't have is the ability to load contact information for Facebook friends.

SMB Search Marketing

Enterprise SEM

Big Brands and Bad Linking: How to Avoid Google Penalties by Josh McCoy
The recent hype involving JCPenney's linking scheme penalty may have many wondering if their SEO firm is playing by the rules. Learn how you can avoid punishment from Google.

SEM Agency Issues

Twitter Promoted Tweets & Accounts: A Preview by Marc Poirier
An overview of what you can expect once Twitter's self-serve ad platform becomes available.

Freelancers Will Take Over, Agencies are History by Mathieu Burgerhout
Freelancers are a growing trend in the online marketing world -- even big clients are going for the more personal approach. Drawn from three perspectives, here's why freelancers rule.

International Search

Google Antitrust Deal in Works? Schmidt Meets With Key EU Regulator by Danny Goodwin
Outgoing CEO Eric Schmidt met with Joaquin Almunia, vice president of the European Commission, during the World Economic Forum in Switzerland to discuss the ongoing EU antitrust investigation.

German Town Tells Google Maps: Give Us Back Our Harbor by Danny Goodwin
Google Maps has angered officials and residents of Emden, Germany, by placing their port in the Netherlands.

Mihaly Munkacsy Google Hungary Doodle by Danny Goodwin
In honor of Hungarian realist painter Munkácsy Mihály's 167th birthday, Google Hungary has posted a Doodle.

Google Doodle Celebrates World Ski Championships by Thom Craver
Visitors to Google Norway today saw a new Google Doodle that celebrates the start of the 2011 FIS Nordic World Ski Championships.

Russian Search Engine Yandex Plans $1 Billion IPO by Danny Goodwin
Yandex, Russia's top search engine and contextual advertising company, plans to raise $1 billion with an initial public offering (IPO) on NASDAQ in either June or July of this year.

Google Map Tracks Protests in Libya by Thom Craver
An activist and active Twitterer from Iran has created a Google map of the violence and protests and shared it publicly to chronicle the protest reports on the ground as they happen.

Baidu Executives Fly to U.S. For Meeting With Facebook by Thom Craver
Last week, executives from the Chinese search engine Baidu flew to the United States to meet with Facebook in their Silicon Valley offices.

Government Controlled Search Engine Panguso Launches in China by Danny Goodwin
Panguso, a new search engine from state-owned Xinhua News Agency and China Mobile, has launched in China.

The Search Industry

World's First Hotel Room Search Engine Launched by Brent Rangen
We have seen recipe, real estate, books, prices, and job specific search engines, but never one specifically for hotel rooms. Yesterday, Room 77 unveiled a search engine that does just that.

Google News

Google Adds Recipe Filter For Foodies: Calories, Ingredients, Cooking Time Filters by Frank Watson
Finding a recipe in Google is not that hard -- you mention an ingredient and they will start suggesting -- but with the new Recipe View Google rolled out today you can filter those results by time to cook the meal, what ingredients to include or by how many calories it has.

Doodle 4 Google Contest a Tool to Collect Kids Social Security Numbers? by Danny Goodwin
Why would Google need the date of birth, city of birth, and last four digits of children's social security numbers for what is supposed to be an innocent art project? Was it to try to get parents to unknowingly hand over the full social security numbers of their own children, while providing Google with invaluable marketing data?

Google Legal Briefs: Rosetta Stone, Jurin, Oracle, VoIP by Danny Goodwin
Here's a quick recap of recent developments in four of Google's legal battles.

Google Simplifying Chrome UI, Hiding URL Bar by Thom Craver
Google chrome is getting a new look. Four new designs are being considered for the browser, including removing the address bar from the product.

Google Calendar: Missing Data Fiasco Finally Resolved by Brent Rangen
Imagine logging into your calendar to check your agenda for the day. When you login you see absolutely nothing -- no events, no calendar entries, or notes. That's exactly what happened to numerous Google Calendar users today.

Google Enhancing Oscar Night Viewing With 3D Venues, Flying Red Carpets by Frank Watson
Google is making use of its virtual tour abilities in Maps to provide Oscar fans with a walk through of the Kodak Theatre where the event is held and 3D models of "the Red Carpet, Hollywood and Highland Center, and the Kodak Theatre."

Bing News

Bing Adds Tiles to Search Results by Danny Goodwin
Bing is rolling out a new "tiles" feature in its SERPs. Bing Director Stefan Weitz revealed the arrival of the new "visual indicator" in an interview.

Bing Extends Facebook Likes to All U.S. Search Results by Danny Goodwin
If you live in the U.S. and have connected Bing to your Facebook account, you should now see integrated Facebook Likes whenever you conduct a search on Bing.

Yahoo News

Yahoo Officially Ends MyBlogLog by Thom Craver
After announcing what they called the sunset of various properties, Yahoo today announced the end date of MyBlogLog is May 24, 2011 and recommended users move to Yahoo Pulse.

Video Marketing

Market Researchers and Online Video: Blind Men and the Elephant by Greg Jarboe
Recently, The Nielsen Company reported that 143.9 million unique viewers in the U.S. had streamed online video in January 2011. A few days later, comScore Video Metrix reported that 171.2 million unique viewers in the U.S. had watched online video content that month.

YouTube Negotiating to Stream Live NBA, NHL Games by Thom Craver
Is Google is in talks with the National Basketball Association and National Hockey League to broadcast live games?

35% of Viewers Watch Skippable YouTube TrueView Ads [Report] by Danny Goodwin
Some early results are in on YouTube TrueView video ads, the cost-per-view skippable ad model launched back in December.

SES Conference & Expo

SES London 2011 - Day 1 Coverage #SESUK by Danny Goodwin
A roundup of Day 1 live blogging and coverage of SES London 2011.

SES London 2011 - Day 2 Coverage #SESUK by Danny Goodwin
A roundup of Day 2 live blogging and coverage of SES London 2011.

SES London 2011 - Day 3 Coverage #SESUK by Danny Goodwin
A roundup of Day 3 live blogging and coverage of SES London 2011.

SES New York To Feature 'Focus Latino' Track by Greg Jarboe
SES New York will feature a "Focus Latino" track on Wednesday, March 23, 2011. Programmed by LatinVision Media Inc., the track will specifically address the U.S. Hispanic and Latin American markets.

Search Week in Review 2011 Archives

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

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