Highlights from the SEW Blog: November 26-30, 2007

We’ve collected all the search marketing 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

• SEO Is Not a One-Time Event
  Too often, companies “approve” SEO only to treat it as a one-time hit, or a short-term project. Months or years later, when they asked someone else to “do” SEO for them, it is discovered that the company had laid none of the basic foundation for SEO.
• Matt Cutts Videos on Search Snippets
  Google engineer Matt Cutts recently recorded a video taking a detailed look at how Google constructs a “search snippet,” the information about your site returned in search results.
• Organic Results Showing Many Malware Sites, Google Expunges Thousands
  Seems companies using malware are starting to get good placement in the organic SERPs (search engine result pages), according to numerous reports this week.

Search Advertising

• Yahoo Fine Tuning Panama Tools, Launches Campaign Tune Up and More
  Yahoo has announced some tweaks to the Panama paid search product including campaign tune up tools.
• Yahoo to Distribute Contextual Ads on PDFs
  Advertisers on Yahoo’s Content Match network may soon see their ads appearing alongside Adobe PDF (portable document format) documents.
• SEW Experts: The 5 Commandments of Content Advertising
  Content algorithms operate in ways that are counter-intuitive, and to some extent different than the search engines‘ explanations imply. Before you get into content advertising, you need to know what to do, and what NOT to do.

Linking Issues & Social Media

• Strategic Link Building
  Getting links from authority sites and earning trust from others in your space can pay off more than getting even a large number of other links.
• Facebook Alters Beacon program
  Facebook has apparently seen the light, making changes to the Beacon program to make it an opt-in program, rather than an opt-out one.
• SEW Experts: 5 Best Reasons to Build Links In-House
  It’s tempting to outsource link development, but that may not be the best move for your site.
• Social Media + Press Release = Meatball Sundae?
  A meatball sundae is the unfortunate result of mixing two good ideas. In this case, the meatballs are the press releases and the sundae toppings are the Technorati tags, Digg buttons, del.icio.us bookmarks and other Web 2.0 features.
• Defense of the social media press release
  Yesterday afternoon, the prosecution asked, “Is the Social Media Press Release a Meatball Sundae?” A short time later, the defense made its case.
• Strumpette testifies in social media press release trial
  With the opening arguments out of the way, the prosecution will now call its first witness to testify.

Analytics & ROI

• SEW Experts: SEO for Widgets: CLIQ Case Study
  The search marketing world continues to expand in all sorts of ways. In an SEO strategy, widgets can be extremely effective gaining exposure for the content and tools featured on a site.

Local & Mobile Search

• SEW Experts: Local Search: Competing All Over the Map – Part 2
  While Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft battle for online mapping domination, another competitor is fortifying its position quietly off to the side.
• YellowPages.com Explains Ingenio Acquisition
  Yellowpage.com CEO Charles Stubbs made a surprise appearance at ILM:07/ SES Local today to talk about AT&T’s acquisition of call tracking provider Ingenio.
• Citysearch Partners with MerchantCircle
  Citysearch expanded its reach to small business advertisers and added small business content to its local guides through a deal with the social media network for local businesses.
• Google Maps Add Collaboration Features, Terrain Maps
  Google Maps has gained some more features from Google Earth this week, including the ability for a group to collaborate on map updates, and the addition of a terrain maps feature.
• YPA Adds Mobile to Local Search Guide
  At The Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media 2007/Search Engine Strategies Local show today in Los Angeles, the Yellow Pages Association launched a mobile section to its Local Search Guide.

Vertical & Specialty Search

• News Sites Look For More Control Over Search Listings
  A number of the leading online news publishers are looking to get greater control over how and what news of theirs gets listed in search results.

Small Business/Big Brand SEM

• SEW Experts: Brand Strategies for Search Marketing – Part 2
  Once you convince your executives to buy your own brand terms, how do you properly manage and measure them?
• Take Advantage of the Offline Rush
  As an online advertiser, you can actually take advantage of the Offline Rush — and maybe stretch your holiday ad budget as well.
• SEW Experts: SEO and Usability: Use ’em or Lose ’em
  Making sure your small business Web site is user- and search engine-friendly is a challenge.

In-House & Outsourcing

• SEW Experts: SEO for New Web Site Launch
  The first step in any SEO initiative for new sites is to set realistic expectations and goals.
• SEW Experts: Knowledge Gap: CEOs, CMOs, VPs and SEM
  When your CEO, CMO, or other decision-maker knows a little bit about SEM, you’ve got trouble.

SEM Industry Issues

• Seth Godin Interview – What’s a Meatball Sundae?
  Seth had offered some criticism of SEO in the past, but it turns out that the real criticism Seth has is not of SEO, or SEOs. It’s more focused on what happens when people start thinking that SEO is a magic bullet.
• SEW Experts: Understanding the Global Search Marketplace – Part 2
  Searches are up all over the world, and it’s an interesting juxtaposition to think of the rest of the world as “emerging” compared to North America and Europe.
• Yahoo Europe Gets New Hire, Facing Possible Closing
  Though Yahoo Europe has been given until the end of the first quarter next year to improve their numbers or face closing, their new hire of a former brand manager for BlackBerry and telephone service provider Orange shows they do not plan on going out without giving it a hard shot.
• Are Your Eyes Open to the Changed Advertising Ecosystem?
  Books are food for the mind. Some merit gobbling down quickly; others are to be read more slowly, nibbled at and savored. Kevin Lee’s new book should be read carefully and thoughtfully, for there is a lot of nutrition for the mind between the covers.

Searching/Search Technologies

• Google experimenting with Digg-like features
  A test in Google Experimental lets users influence the search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results.
• IBM enhances free enterprise search software
  IBM has unveiled a new release of the free IBM OmniFind Yahoo Edition enterprise search software.

More from the SEW Blog

• What are exhibitors exhibiting at SES Chicago?
  A lot of people will be coming to see what the exhibitors are exhibiting on the show floor. But, what will they see?
• Google Using Doodles To Viral and Brand Market
  A promotion to hold a competition for the Google Doodle that will adorn the Australian search results next January 26 helped push their brand in the Australian market.

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.

• Online Ad Spend to Continue Growth Through 2010, ClickZ
• Federated Media to Broker Ad Deals in Facebook Apps, ClickZ
• IAB, WAA: Different Audiences, Different Missions, ClickZ
• The Keys to the Mobile Kingdom, ClickZ
• Jimmy Wales on the role of Wikipedia in society, Information World Review
• Secret mailing list rocks Wikipedia, The Register
• Live Search Conference Coverage 2007: SES Chicago Day One, Search Engine Land
• Honk If You Loved Your Web Site Experience, Cre8pc
• Is Result Diversity Enough? Search Offers a Reflection of What?, SEO Book
• 12 Product Page Conversion Strategies That Shant Be Ignored, Search Engine Guide
• A Slippery Slope: Google Owns a Search Engine Optimization Company, Search Engine Guide
• 5 Questions for Matt Creamer, SearchViews
• Bring back the Butler!, Alt Search Engines
• Are You A Canonical Fascist? Stand Tall!, SEO Speedwagon
• Adwords Impression Share Exact Match: Fact or Fiction?, SEM Geek
• Why PPC is Making Me Love SEO, AU Interactive
• Hiring a consultant? Use an audit to start., Market Motive
• Search and Display: Perfect Together, Yahoo Search Marketing Blog
• Silly Rabbit, Tricks are for Black Hat SEOs, Hubspot
• Matt Cutts of Google on Mission to Remove PageRank from Toolbar, Search Engine Roundtable