Highlights from the SEW Blog: December 17-21, 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

• SEW Experts: How to Market SEO to Humans
  How do you explain your job to the people you meet at a holiday party?
• Search Engine Visibility and Crawlability of Dynamic Sites
  Huge databases that generate Web site content on the fly can be the bane of search engine spiders’ existence.
• SEW Experts: SEO.edu: Can You Learn SEO From a Book? – Part 2
  The general consensus from the SEO community and Search Engine Watch readers: learning SEO solely from a book doesn’t cut it.
• Matt Cutts Video on ALT attributes
  Matt Cutts has posted a new video about ALT tags in images, outlining the basics about how they should be used, and why they are helpful.

Search Advertising

• Microsoft adCenter Offering Affiliate Program
  adCenter will pay a bounty for each new advertiser people bring to the Microsoft PPC program.
• SEW Experts: B2B Marketing, Road Rules for Content Advertising
  B2B marketing is tough. B2B search marketing is even tougher. The most challenging form of B2B marketing, without a question, is content advertising.
• AdSense Ad Review: Good for Advertisers?
  AdSense publishers will be able to view ads that advertisers have directed to their sites via Placement Targeting, and choose to block ads they don’t feel are “relevant” to their site visitors.

Linking Issues & Social Media

• SEW Experts: Link Building Case Study: Santa Claus
  Is Santa Claus a savvy Web marketer?

Vertical & Specialty Search

• Comparing Kayak and SideStep Businesses, For The Last Time
  With the recent announcement that Kayak will acquire SideStep, we wanted to examine the two travel search businesses and what they bring to the party.
• SEW Experts: Online Travel SEM Addictions: Web 2.0, Paid Links, Social Media
  In today’s rapidly changing search marketplace, ideas and technology move faster than the speed of light. Search marketers need to catch up, if they can.
• Shopping Search Engine Providing Online Safety Tips
  Sortprice – a price comparison search engine – is doing its part this holiday season with a guide to safely purchasing online without falling victim to identity theft.
• Google Listening To SEW Blog? Offers Video Sitemaps
  A few days ago SEW Blogger Deborah Richman wrote an article about how tough it was to find videos through the search engines. Yesterday Google announced it now offers Video Sitemaps. Coincidence? Maybe.
• Still Tough To Find Videos!
  Despite all the search options available, only 33% of consumers find videos to watch through search engines.

Small Business/Big Brand SEM

• SEW Experts: Large Enterprise SEO: Content Development
  SEO for Large Enterprises means content development on a massive scale.

In-House & Outsourcing

• SEW Experts: SEM Agency: Uphill Battle? – Part 2
  After deciding to go out on their own to start a search marketing agency, the main stumbling block for many people is a lack of organizational skills.
• SEW Experts: SEO Conversion Testing: Advanced Search Engine Optimization
  The C-level executive doesn’t often understand A/B Web site optimization. What do you do, then, when the CxO asks you to explain it?
• SEW Experts: Search Marketing Skills: Tips, No Tricks
  What are the most important skills needed to break into the search business?

SEM Industry Issues

• FTC approves Google’s acquisition of DoubleClick
  The FTC’s investigation focused on antitrust issues, and in its clearance opinion released today, explicitly rejected any current or potential competition concerns.
• Microsoft Cofounder Paul Allen Bidding Against Google For WiFi Access
  Allen heads an investment company called Vulcan Capital and is a majority shareholder in U.S. cable operator Charter Communications.
• SEW Experts: Yahoo, Facebook, Life and Death
  The holiday season is a time for sharing, spending time with family, and the time for writers everywhere to hopelessly pontificate about the coming year.
• SEW Experts: Search Marketing on the Efficient Frontier
  Microsoft bought Avenue A | Razorfish and Atlas Search. Google, buying Performics. Where does that leave Efficient Frontier?
• Is Google The Borg or Big Brother
  Google is growing and the question of whether or not it has become too invasive (or persuasive) is one that needs to be answered now.

Searching/Search Technologies

• IBM introduces free smart email search software
  While search engines still can’t help you find your missing car keys, prescription glasses or remote control, IBM Research has invented a “smart” email search solution that can figure out what you are trying to find, even when you aren’t so sure yourself.
• Google’s Feed Indexing Policy
  Google is officially not going to index any feeds, with the exception of multimedia feeds such as podcast feeds.
• Who’s Google Taking On with Knols?
  It seems Google’s goal with Knol is to take back some of the traffic that Wikipedia is getting from Google searches
• Sep Kamvar Discusses Personalization
  According to Google’s engineering lead for personalization, the personalization algorithms currently in use by Google currently use two signals: search history and location.

More from the SEW Blog

• BitDefender Finds Google AdWords Hijack Trojan
  Seems there is a trojan out there that can replace Google AdWords with other ads, loaded when a person visits an infected website running AdWords.

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.

• Local Online Ad Sector Filled with Challenges, Promise in 2008, ClickZ News
• Mobile Advertising: More Talk than Action in 2007, ClickZ News
• Using Yahoo Site Explorer for Site Intelligence, ClickZ Experts
• Behavioral Marketing: A Look Ahead to 2008, ClickZ Experts
• Webmaster Support For Christmas, Search Engine Land
• Scoop: Google Responds To Rep. Joe Barton’s 24 Privacy Questions, Search Engine Land
• Christmas Day Or April Fools?: Prediction That Web 2.0 Will Die in 2008 Due To Lack Of Advertising, TechCrunch
• 2007 In Numbers: The Ask Mouse Squeaked A Little Louder This Year, TechCrunch
• Comparing Traffic From The Big Three Search Engines, SEO Scoop
• Do Search Engines Hate Blogs? Microsoft Explores an Algorithm to Identify Blog Pages, SEO by the Sea
• Give A Little SEO for Christmas, Local SEO Guide
• Using Google Sitemaps for Competitive Intelligence, Graywolf’s SEO Blog