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
- Google Adds Site Location To Webmaster Tools
Google has finally added the ability to tell them where your site is located. - Yahoo Quietly Making Algorithms Changes
Yahoo announced they have been making changes to their crawling, indexing and ranking algorithms over the past few days. - Do I Hear Butterfly Wings Flapping or Sense a Google Algorithm Update?
Since change can come at any moment, search marketers must constantly be alert and listening for that first flap of a butterfly’s wing that will cause the next hurricane. - Reservation Road: A Study in SEO-based Movie Promotion
Some SEW experts and bloggers have taken up the challenge to implement a best practices marketing campaign for the new Reservation Road movie. - SEW Experts: eHobbies and Action Jackson: SEO Quarterly Site Review
Site reviews flesh out advice, best practices, and tips and tricks. See SEO in action. - Old Time Spam Tactics Still Work (Sometimes)
Granted that the sites I see this working for tend to be smaller sites that are competing for terms that are at best moderately competitive. My best guess is that it relates to the demands that it would place on the search engine infrastructure to try and detect even the obvious tricks on all web sites.
Search Advertising
- Microsoft adCenter Adds Immediate Editorial Updates, Daily Spend Limits
The Big Three seem to be getting closer and closer to being mirrors – guess that will be easier on us when Google buys Microsoft and Yahoo. - Do Not Track List? AOL Letting Users Opt Out of Tracking
AOL will allow their users to opt out of tracking. This stops the behavioral information collected about visitors activities which is used to determine which ads will be presented. - Content advertising: Search Engine content networks
One of the biggest challenges facing SEMs: making smart decisions about search engine content networks. It’s often a problem they can’t easily solve. - Physical Addresses To Aid Online Targeting?
Recently, Acxiom announced new services which actively connect addresses to online ads. When their customers collect addresses online, Acxiom maps them to lifestyle codes and enables ad targeting using these codes.
Linking Issues & Social Media
- Google to Launch OpenSocial APIs
Shortly after losing out to Microsoft in its efforts to woo social network du jour Facebook, Google has unveiled OpenSocial, a set of common APIs to be backed by Google and an alliance of social sites. - OpenSocial and Search Marketing
What makes this so intriguing is the large list of participating companies. - SEW Experts: How Site Architecture Influences Link Building
Site architecture determines how successful link building campaigns will be. - Washington Post creating Facebook “News Tracker’
WashingtonPost.com is developing a “newsTracker” service for Facebook users. - Matt Cutts Confirms Google-Slap
With all the guessing and theorizing about Google’s recent PageRank update, there’s now at least confirmation that the update happened, and why.
Analytics & ROI
- SEW Experts: Life after SERP: A/B Split and Multivariate Testing
When searchers find your site, what will they see? If you’re using A/B split tests and multivariate testing, they’ll see customized results on the fly. - Microsoft “Gatineau” Analytics in Beta
Microsoft has begun a beta test of its free Web analytics service, code-named “Project Gatineau.”
Vertical & Specialty Search
- Fox, NBC and Others Testing Online TV With Hulu.com
Competition for YouTube offers Google’s competitors a way to garner more traffic and possibly improve their search share.
Small Business/Big Brand SEM
- SEW Experts: SME Brand Strategy: SEM Tactics, Tips, and Tricks, Part 2
Is building a small business brand online impossible? Not when all forms of online media are converging under search. - SEW Experts: Achieving Brand and Affiliate Harmony in Search
Forget brand vs. brand brawls in the search engines. The new UFC: Affiliate vs. brand.
In-House & Outsourcing
- SEW Experts: Search and Brand Authenticity
CMO life expectancy shrinks. Search for brand authenticity grows. With the need to market an authentic brand, it’s time for marketing to reclaim some of its glory.
SEM Industry Issues
- Seth Godin Dishes Out Meatball Sundaes
SES Chicago keynote speaker Seth Godin spent an hour dishing out his marketing wisdom on the ideas behind his new book, Meatball Sundae. - GoogleClick Clears One Hurdle, Another Looms
Google’s planned $3.1 billion acquisition of DoubleClick cleared another regulatory hurdle this week in Australia.
Searching/Search Technologies
- Search Engines and User Query Intent
One of the simplest ways search engines can determine user intent is to look at the search query itself. - Google Custom Search Overlay
This provides a way to have the results of a user’s search overlay itself on top of the screen containing the search box. - Relevance is Relative
Google is perceived by many as being “the best” search engine, returning the most relevant results. But is it really the best search engine for all applications?
More from the SEW Blog
- When Business Mags Venture Beyond Wall Street
When the well-known business magazines venture beyond Wall Street and even Main Street to find stories, don’t be surprised to see your contextual and search ads running on their august domains. - Ask.com Carrying IAC Through Tough Times?
Ask.com’s strong performance is helping offset a rough quarter on parent IAC, driven largely by a troubled mortgage industry’s impact on its real estate and lending businesses.
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.
- What’s New at Yahoo?, ClickZ
- Google’s Page Rank Update Increases Profitability of Selling Text Links, Problogger
- Right from the resource, Inside AdSense
- Stealing From the Best: Grok’s Copywriting Cheat Sheet Explained, E-Marketing Performance
- Google Open Social I’m Disappointed I Think, Graywolf’s SEO BlogSEO Fundamentals Are Still Important, SEO-space
- I, Robot: The Man Behind the Google Phone, NY Times
- 5 More Books Search Marketers Should Read, SEOmoz
- Quickly Find Out How Much Your Competitors Are Making, Groove Commerce
- Choosing a Second-Tier Search Engine: Affiliate Networks and Vertical Traffic, SearchAnyway
- Domain Name Investing 101, DotSauce