Want a snapshot of the day's search marketing news? Here we've collected today's top news stories posted to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along with search-related headlines from around the Web:
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. - Microsoft Upgrading, Adding Negative Keywords to Category Level
Microsoft adCenter will be improving the negative keyword tool to allow its use at the category level. - 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. - Askville Update
The Amazon-owned Q&A service seems to be getting some traction in its first six months. - 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. - 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.
Headlines & News from Elsewhere:
- What Drives Local Search Directories?, ClickZ
- Online Brands Rush to Embrace Facebook's Widget Platform, ClickZ
- Learning From Microsoft's Error, Google Builds a Lobbying Engine, Washington Post
- News Corp explores swap of MySpace site for Yahoo! stake, London Times
- Two top Google engineers leave — to Benchmark Capital, VentureBeat
- When Choosing an eCommerce System, Remember the Search Engines, SEO by the Sea
- 5 Basics of Writing "5 Basics" Articles for SEO, Johnon
- Universal Templates and SEO for Universal, Metamend
- Listen up, (college) sports fans, Yodel Anecdotal
- Who should buy Yahoo? Handicapping 5 likely suitors, GigaOm
- This July: Try Google-Free Fridays!, Search Engine Land
- Changes at Innovectra, Search Engine Tigers
- Dex Gets a Web 2.0 Injection, The Kelsey Group
- SEO: Metrics That Matter, Practical Ecommerce
- Yahoo + Yang = Google + (Page + Brin)?, Search Insider
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