Highlights from the SEW Blog: September 24-28, 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

• Microsoft Updates Live Search
  Microsoft made some significant improvements to Live Search, both to its core search technology and in the vertical search areas of entertainment, shopping, local and health.
• Overview of Microsoft Searchification
  Overview of Microsoft Searchification
• Live! From Microsoft Live Search: Trovix Search Found?
  Trovix grew up in the Googleplex but would thrive down the road at MS SV Live Search.
• SEW Experts: Top 10 Reasons SEO Rocks: “SEO is Dead” Is Dead
  Mark Jackson gives the first half of his list showing that SEO remains alive and well.
• Google Group Promises Five Solid Answers
  In the Google Webmaster Help group, Google’s Search Evangelist Adam Lasnik has promised users that five big questions would be thoroughly answered in that group in the next two weeks.
• SEW Experts: Content Creation About Journey, Not Destination?
  Is creating content really the cornerstone of SEO? If so, do you pay your writers, or do you expect them to write for free?

Search Advertising

• SEW Experts: Branding Steers Search Beyond Direct Response
  Matt Spiegel discusses the myths of direct response advertising. If CMOs build brands, who does direct response? White mice, search marketers, and Pavlov’s dogs?
• Ask To Launch New PPC Platform October 2
  Ask Sponsored Listings 2.0 – in keeping with the world’s love for the 2.0 extension – promises improvements in cost and budget controls, and other benefits.
• Google to Offer AdWords Conversion Optimizer
  Google is making cost-per-acquisition (CPA) based bidding available to AdWords advertisers through a new Conversion Optimizer tool.

Linking Issues & Social Media

• SEW Experts: Knock It Out of the Linkin’ Park!
  Is the job of an SEO to drum up valueless links, or to be the driver of creative content and content distribution for clients’ Web sites?
• Social media vs. “pre-Web 2.0” portals like Yahoo News
  While EmTech panelists were predicting a growing role for community-oriented sites in the media industry, a survey of attendees found the majority rely on traditional news outlets and “pre-Web 2.0” portals like Yahoo News.

Analytics & ROI

• Compete Search Analytics Now Live
  Compete’s pay-as-you-go Search Analytics service, which was announced last month at SES San Jose, is now live.
• Interview of Usability Guru Jakob Nielsen
  Known as one of the foremost usability gurus in the world, Jakob also has a keen understanding of SEO.

Local & Mobile Search

• Marchex Connects Its Local-Vertical Network
  Today, it launched the hub of its network at OpenList.com, and expanded the network to 150,000 sites.
• SEW Experts: Mobile Search Fortune Seekers
  Even if mobile search doesn’t hit the ad revenue jackpot this year, marketers need to know how to secure a seat at the table.
• DoubleClick Launches Mobile Ad Serving
  Like its soon-to-be parent company Google did last week with AdSense for Mobile, DoubleClick today launched a new mobile ad serving product, DoubleClick Mobile.

Vertical & Specialty Search

• Microsoft’s New Shopping Search
  Microsoft’s new shopping search offering offers some unique and interesting stuff.
• Yahoo Podcasts Closing At End Of Month
  Another Yahoo service is about to be killed off, with Yahoo closing down its podcast search site on October 31.

In-House & Outsourcing

• SEW Experts: Roadblocks Sidetrack Search
  Aaron Shear explains that diplomacy may be one of the most useful tools in your SEO toolbox. To advance your search marketing strategy, you need to be less SEO and more politico with the head honcho.
• Got IT? Optimized Code + Crawlability ≠ SEO
  Agencies often must debunk the myth that SEO is all about making a site crawlable, and the thought of bringing an SEO partner into the mix is just a waste of time and money.

SEM Industry Issues

• Copyright Procedures for Search Marketers
  Search marketers will almost certainly run into copyright issues at some point in their careers. Thankfully, most online copyright infringement issues can be handled with some simple legal procedures.
• Google-DoubleClick Hearings Get Muddled
  Google’s potential acquisition of DoubleClick is now under scrutiny by a U.S. Senate Judiciary Subcommittee, and based on yesterday’s hearing, the closing of this deal could still be a long way off.
• IMNY Charity Event Scheduled for October 15
  The Internet Marketers of New York are holding a charity event on October 15. The event will help raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Searching/Search Technologies

• Google Testing Time Elements In Search Results
  Time elements could be an interesting filter when dealing with news or blog sites, but beyond that it promotes constantly changing your content.
• Google Trends Now Updated Daily
  Google has increased the frequency that it updates its Google Trends service, so that trends are now updated daily, instead of monthly.
• Universal Search Coming to Microsoft’s Live Search
  A number of new features of Windows Live Search 2.0 are expected to be rolled out on September 26 at Microsoft’s Searchification 2007.
• Google’s Growing Searches? FT(P) That.
  Ever FTP’ed a news analysis? Transfer this to Financial Times Piffle file: “Growing Google searches for the right balance.”
• Yahoo Under-represented at IAB
  One unintended consequence of the departure of Wenda Harris Millard from Yahoo is that Yahoo no longer holds a seat on the board of the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB).

More from the SEW Blog

• SEW Experts: Halo 3 as Meta4
  With the release of Halo 3, it’s worth your while to take a look at what can be learned from the big launch.
• Google Hack Gets At Personal Data
  Philipp Lenssen has discovered a hack to Google’s XSS that allows access to personal data.
• Happy Birthday Google
  Google is celebrating its 9th birthday today.
• Google Tops 125 Sales Organizations For Client Satisfaction
  The 2007 Myers Survey of Advertising Executives found Google to top client satisfaction for the 125 websites used in the survey.
• Google SERPs Promoting Google Book Links
  It seems Google search results are promoting the Google Books product.

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.

• SES Chicago Speaker Updates, Search Engine Strategies Blog
• Give Users (and Search Engines) What They Want, ClickZ
• Microsoft finally unveils its answer to Google Docs, All About Microsoft
• Office Live Workspace: What it can and can’t do, Todd Bishop
• Slicing the Local Pie too Thin, Small Business Commando
• Yahoo! Is the Most Fulfilling Search Engine?, SEOmoz
• “Engagement” Is Not A Metric, It’s An Excuse, Occam’s Razor
• Buzz Continues Re: Brand Perception, Click Fraud, Local Search, Search Insider
• Search Engines, Classifications, and Assignment of Categories, SEO by the Sea
• A Yahoo Approach to Avoid Crawling Advertisement and Session Tracking Links, SEO by the Sea
• Why Relevant Links Are Irrelevant, SEO Chicks
• TechMeme Top 100 is ‘Top 100′ of what, exactly?, Ben Metcalfe
• Help! I’m New, I Need Links, What Can I Do?, The Link Spiel
• Being a more relevant business on the Web, SEO Theory