Below is what happened in search today, as reported on
Search Engine Land and from other
places across the web.

From Search Engine Land:

• Video As A
  Search Marketing Tool For SMBs
  Video is becoming an important part of local search marketing campaigns,
  and this week’s SMX Local Mobile conference features speaking talking
  about how small and medium businesses can use video to be more effective
  with their online marketing. Video solutions providers to these panels are
  Jared Simon, VP of Business…
• C’mon
  Microsoft — Say You’re In Search Because You Love It, Not Want To Earn
  From It
  Sigh. Reading Stephen Ballmer’s latest "rally the troops" memo over yet
  another Microsoft reorganization, I just want to scream at the man and the
  company in general that they’ll never win at search if they don’t get it
  through their heads that it’s not about selling ads but serving…
• The Inmates
  Are Running The Search Engine Asylum
  For search engine marketers and clients to communicate effectively, they
  must utilize a shared, common vocabulary. Some search engine marketing
  terms and concepts are easy to explain, such as query terms, commonly
  referred to as keywords or keyword phrases. And some concepts require a
  little more clarification. For example,…
• The Day
  After: Looking At How Well Knol Pages Rank On Google
  We’ve been assured that just because content sits on Google’s Knol site,
  it won’t gain any ranking authority from being part of the Knol domain.
  OK, so a day after Knol has launched, how’s that holding up? I found 1/3
  of the pages listed on the Knol home page…
• Microsoft
  Live Search Coming To Facebook
  When Microsoft made its investment in Facebook I always had thought that
  Live Search would come to the site, together with search monetization.
  Later it appeared that search wasn’t part of the deal. Facebook’s
  competitors all have web search, including Google’s much publicized deal
  with MySpace. Well today Microsoft announced…
• Live
  Blogging Yahoo SMX Local-Mobile Keynote
  I live blogged the Yahoo keynote so forgive the grammatical errors and
  typos. Frazier Miller: Rise of the Local Web, A Perfect Storm. Miller gave
  an engaging keynote that covered both online and mobile, user demand and
  advertising. Miller defined local in terms of four Yahoo properties:
  Search, Yahoo Local,…
• Google’s
  Blogger Makes Up 2% Of All Malware Hosts
  Blogspot.com cited as the No. 1 host for malware from News.com reports
  Google’s Blogger accounts "for nearly 2 percent of all malware hosts."
  Sophos, an antivirus vendor, published a report showing the state of
  malware injections and attacks throughout the web. Specifically, hackers
  can set up "malicious blogs" on the…
• Yahoo
  Acquistion Architect Johnson Departs Microsoft
  Kevin Johnson, who was arguably the primary architect of the now
  apparently failed Yahoo acquisition, is leaving Microsoft to run Juniper
  Networks. Simultaneously the company is reorganizing the division that
  Johnson ran ("Platform Services") into two: Windows and Windows Live +
  Online Services. Here’s the official Microsoft announcement from
  yesterday….
• Yahoo Takes
  One More Step Away From Competing In Paid Search
  I reported earlier that Yahoo wasn’t allowing new advertisers join the
  Yahoo Ambassador program, but it seems much worse then that. I reported at
  the Search Engine Roundtable and we have reports at PPC Hero that Yahoo is
  closing down the whole program as of September 30th. Yahoo sent their…
• A Visual
  Dictionary For The Web
  One of the most popular vertical search features on the web is image
  search index. What’s really remarkable, however, is how little has changed
  in the core technology approach to the indexing of multimedia over the
  last decade. When I was the head of product at FAST back in…
• Last Call
  For SMX London Session Ideas
  I’m in the process of finalizing the agenda for our SMX London conference,
  which will be posted in early August. If you’ve got a unique, compelling
  idea for a session you think we should consider for the conference, I’d
  like to hear about it. And don’t delay—tomorrow is the last…

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Google
  Account Phishing Attempt Using Orkut, Google Blogoscoped
• 
  Yahoo Gives IMAP Access to All Users Through Zimbra Desktop,
  Read/Write Web
• 
  Official Gmail Blog: Making security easier, Official Gmail Blog

Business Issues

• 
  Baidu Announces Second Quarter 2008 Results, MarketWatch
• 
  Gaffes: Ad-free Google News generates $100 million a year — and soon,
  some lawsuits, Valleywag
• Is
  Google’s Proprietary Tech Stack Destroying Its Acquisitions?, TechDirt
• 
  How Google could lose the Viacom/YouTube lawsuit - Part II,
  E-Consultancy
• 
  ReachLocal Hires a CFO, Screenwerk
• 
  Spain’s Telecinco wins lawsuit against YouTube, INQUIRER.net

Link Building

• Knol’s
  Nofollowing Of Links, Google Blogoscoped
• 
  Rankings, Reputation, & Optimization, Link Building Best Practices
• 
  Reciprocal Linking for Ranking is Anything But Dead, Web Optimist
• Link
  Building with Customers, Search Engine Watch
• 
  What’s in a Good Link?, WebProNews

Local, Maps & Mobile

• 
  Announcing trueSpace for Virtual Earth 3D Development, Virtual Earth,
  An Evangelist’s Blog
• 
  Video in Virtual Globes, Google Earth Blog
• 
  Waiting For Android, Forbes
• 
  Orange Ad Campaign: I Am Lost?, Mobile Marketing News

Paid Search & Contextual

• 
  Google Adwords Certification Exam - More Than Just A User Manual, SEO
  Speedwagon
• 
  Inside AdWords: (Ad)Word of the Day: Conversion, Inside AdWords

Searching

• 
  Google Indexing FTP Address URL’s = Big Security Risk!, SEOptimise
• 
  Good-bye, Google Bomb, Washington Post

SEM Industry

• 
  Tiers of Transparency: The Ethical Brand Ambassador, SEOmoz
• 
  Unsubscribing to seomoz for a bit., Matt Cutts
• 
  Is this the end for Matt Cutts, David Naylor
• 
  Why I No Longer Blog for SEOmoz, SEO Theory
• 
  SEO Haters: Misconceptions and Misinformation, Michael Gray
• 
  Tamar Weinberg: Search Blogger of the Day, The SEO Scoop

SEO & SEM

• 
  Big Brand Understands SEO, DerekChew.com
• Can You Be
  Penalized in Search Engines For Broken Web Links?, Search Engine
  Roundtable
• Get
  your search fix with two videos, Matt Cutts
• Google
  Sitemaps URLs Have "High Response Time" Message, Search Engine
  Roundtable
• Is
  Microsoft Not Serious About Webmasters?, Search Engine Roundtable
• MSN Live
  Sending Odd Referrals — QBHP — to Websites, Search Engine Roundtable
• 
  Optimizing for Multiple Word Order Search Phrases, SEOmoz
• 
  SEO "key" to image-based marketing, Digital Response Media
• 
  Seven Building Blocks of a Destination Website: #3 Website Design,
  Search Engine Guide
• 
  Source Ordered Content: SEO Benefits (and Drawbacks?), Search Engine
  Journal
• 
  How to Combat Complaints Sites in Google : Open Discussion, Search
  Engine Journal

Social Media

• 
  Digg To (Finally) Integrate OpenID, If This Picture Is To Be Believed,
  TechCrunch
• 
  How To Reorganize Management For Social Media, Search Marketing and
  Internet Advertising, Cshel
• 
  Facebook Takes The Fast Lane To Boring, TechCrunch
• 
  LinkedIn: La red profesional lader ahora en espaeol, The LinkedIn Blog
• The
  Top 4 Best Facebook Practices, Search Engine Watch
• 
  Geographic divide of social networks, Hitwise
• 
  Where Are My Followers?, Twitter Blog

Video, Music & Image Search

• 
  Inappropriate Google Image Search, Amit Verma
• 
  Study examines YouTube popularity, BBC NEWS
• 
  Yahoo Music buyers are approaching the DRM pain barrier, The Guardian
• 
  Windows Live Photo Gallery will Soon Recognize Faces in Pictures,
  Digital Inspiration

Other Items

• Researchers borrow
  from Google PageRank for network defense service, ZDNet
• Podcast:
  Google Launches Knol - Should Wikipedia Worry? Will Google Buy Digg? Plus
  More, Daily SearchCast

Recent Hot Items From Sphinn, Our
Social News Sharing Site:

• Knol Does Indeed Give Pages A
  Google Ranking Advantage
• Is This The End For Matt Cutts?
• How Net Promoter Score (NPS)
  Can Differentiate Your Search Marketing Agency
• On-Site Geo-Targeting and
  Local Search Optimization
• SEO Haters: Misconceptions and
  Misinformation
• Slagbait - The Future for SEO
  Blogging?
• 6 Sure-Fire Tactics to
  Re-Ignite your Linkbait
• Local SEO Hero: An Interview
  With David Mihm
• Create an Effective Strategy
  for Managing Your Online Profiles
• Twitter Backlink Tip
• Sadness In The Search Industry
  : Respect Each Other

Read Original Post Here

Video is becoming an important part of local search marketing campaigns, and this week’s SMX Local Mobile conference features speaking talking about how small and medium businesses can use video to be more effective with their online marketing. Video solutions providers to these panels are Jared Simon, VP of Business Development of TurnHere, and Anupam Gupta, President and CEO of Mixpo are speaking. I caught up with Gupta earlier this week and asked for a preview of what he’ll be presenting at the conference.

Click to continue reading…

Read Original Post Here

Sigh. Reading Stephen Ballmer’s latest "rally the troops" memo over
yet another
Microsoft
reorganization, I just want to scream at the man and the company in
general that they’ll never win at search if they don’t get it through their
heads that it’s not about selling ads but serving searchers.

Click to continue reading…

Read Original Post Here

by Ross Dunn

At Yahoo Anecdotal today Yahoo announced
that they had recently opened the Yahoo Accessibility Lab; a place
where only Yahoo employees (for now) can experience the world of
the Internet as a disabled web surfer would.

The blog posting also states:

“In addition to simulating the disabled experience, the Accessibility
Lab also provides a growing collection of books and videos that we hope
will help visitors become more comfortable with the culture of
disability. And help Yahoos keep disabled kids and adults clearly in
mind as they design and code.“

Congratulations Yahoo for taking the reigns and raising
awareness of such an under-served topic. Now I am the first to admit
that I have no concept of how difficult it must be to navigate the web
with a disability. That said, I would love to get a sense of such an
experience to provide valuable perspective when I create my own
websites and to consult clients on their designs.

My friend Lee Roberts over at MerchantMetrix is an authority on website accessibility and
through him I have learned a lot about just how difficult it can be to make a
website accessible; however, difficult or not it must be done. There is simply no denying it is important to raise the awareness of this sizable demographic and Yahoo has taken a commendable
step in that direction.

To quote Tim Berners-Lee the inventor of the World Wide Web:

The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless
of disability is an essential aspect.

What Accessibility Requires
Here is a summary of the 14 guidelines a website would have to follow in order to become officially accessible according to the W3C’s Checklist for Web Accessibility Guidelines:

• Guideline 1.  Provide equivalent alternatives to auditory and visual content.
  This covers such elements as the proper use of ALT attributes, adding redundant text link navigation for image maps, creating auditory equivalents of multimedia presentations (explaining what is happening in the presentation), etc.

• Guideline 2.  Don’t rely on color alone.
  If color alone is used to distinguish essential elements of a page then this must be changed to provide accessibility to the color-blind.
• Guideline 3.  Use markup and style sheets and do so properly
  Do not fix incompatibilities your website has with particular browsers using poor markup because this can confuse accessibility-based navigation/reading software.
• Guideline 4.  Clarify natural language usage
  Properly specify the natural language of a document and note if and where a change to the natural language is made. Also in the markup provide expansions on acronyms and abbreviations so that screen readers can adequately decipher their meaning.
• Guideline 5.  Create tables that transform gracefully.
  Tables should only be used to properly present data tables where necessary; not for page layout. In addition there are certain accessibility tags that should be used when implementing a table.
• Guideline 6.  Ensure that pages featuring new technologies transform gracefully.
  Ensure that your website can still be read even if significant technologies are disabled by the viewer (i.e. disabled Javascript or stylesheets).
  
  
• Guideline 7.  Ensure user control of time-sensitive content changes.
  Flashing, blinking, moving content must have the capacity to be disabled or frozen to increase accessibility for visitors with sensitivities to visual stimuli.
• Guideline 8.  Ensure direct accessibility of embedded user interfaces.
  Script and applets must have an alternative form of navigation if they are not accessible in their own right.
  
  
• Guideline 9.  Design for device-independence.
  Ensure that your website does not offer barriers to any of the major devices that disabled visitors may use to navigate or interact with your website.
  
  
• Guideline 10.  Use interim solutions.
  Certain limitations exist in browsers that currently have no established ‘fix’. This section of the guidelines provides sanctioned interim solutions for these problematic areas.
• Guideline 11.  Use W3C technologies and guidelines.
  To ensure maximum compatibility with current and future accessibility requirements it is recommended that everyone follow the W3C guidelines when designing a website.
• Guideline 12.  Provide context and orientation information.
  Where complex relationships exist between parts of a page it is important to provide descriptive text outlining the relationship.
• Guideline 13.  Provide clear navigation mechanisms.
  Ensure your website includes clear navigation formats such as textual navigation and sitemaps so that users have a better chance of finding what they are looking for.
• Guideline 14.  Ensure that documents are clear and simple.
  Make sure the language is clear and concise, the formatting and layout is consistent throughout the website, and always provide alternative descriptions to graphical content for the blind or visually impaired.

Most of Us with Web Sites Have a Lot of Work To Do
After compiling that list I feel disconcerted because I know of few websites that can safely say they are 75% accessible never mind 100%; including my own I am embarrassed to say. Something has to be done to incentivize designers and web site owners to make accessibility a priority. Perhaps Google should jump on board and provide a deadline for all sites to be compliant (or else); not a popular solution I am sure but it would sure get our butts in gear!

More Information on Website Accessibility
I have a lot to learn about accessibility and perhaps you do as well. Here are some websites that go into more depth on this topic:

• W3C Web Accessibility Initiative
• HTML Writers Guild Web Accessibility Standards
• WebAIM: Web Accessibility Training

Free White Paper: How to Optimize for Google
A free 10 page white paper on how to optimize a website on Google the right way - so the website succeeds.

Read Original Post Here

For
search engine marketers and clients to communicate effectively, they must
utilize a shared, common vocabulary. Some search engine marketing terms and
concepts are easy to explain, such as query terms, commonly referred to as
keywords or keyword phrases.

And some concepts require a little more clarification. For example, it
might take me weeks or months to undo the preconceived notion that PageRank
(PR) is a number between 1 and 10, because so many amateur search engine
marketers base their link-building services on the Google Toolbar feature.

Unfortunately, one of the reasons we search professionals have difficulty
establishing and using a common vocabulary lies with the search engines
themselves. If a representative from Yahoo or Google uses a term and shows
supporting documentation on the search engine’s site, their words are as
good as gold. In the meantime, I sit there with a furrowed, brow, clenched
teeth, and an eye roll that I could only learn from a teenager, and think, "Greeeeaaaat…here
is another search engine hype thing for me to deal with."

Click to continue reading…

Read Original Post Here

We’ve been
assured that just because content sits on Google’s Knol site, it won’t
gain any ranking authority from being part of the Knol domain. OK, so a day
after Knol has launched, how’s that holding up? I found 1/3 of the pages
listed on the Knol home page that I tested ranked in the top results. I came
away feeling that being on Knol does indeed give pages an advantage they
might not get if they’d been hosted on some other brand new web site.

Click to continue reading…

Read Original Post Here

When Microsoft made its investment in Facebook I always had thought that Live Search would come to the site, together with search monetization. Later it appeared that search wasn’t part of the deal. Facebook’s competitors all have web search, including Google’s much publicized deal with MySpace.

Well today Microsoft announced that Live Search will be coming to Facebook, together with paid search ads.

Click to continue reading…

Read Original Post Here

I live blogged the Yahoo keynote so forgive the grammatical errors and typos.

Frazier Miller: Rise of the Local Web, A Perfect Storm.

Miller gave an engaging keynote that covered both online and mobile, user demand and advertising. Miller defined local in terms of four Yahoo properties: Search, Yahoo Local, Yahoo yellow pages, Upcoming.

Interestingly Miller didn’t include Yahoo’s verticals, real estate, autos, maps, etc.
Miller said that over 100 million uniques visit Yahoo with some sort of local intent (search and browse). When discussing “browse” behavior, he did reference the vertical properties.

Click to continue reading…

Read Original Post Here

Blogspot.com cited as the No. 1 host for malware from News.com reports Google’s Blogger accounts “for nearly 2 percent of all malware hosts.” Sophos, an antivirus vendor, published a report showing the state of malware injections and attacks throughout the web.

Specifically, hackers can set up “malicious blogs” on the Blogger service, plus they can inject dangerous web links and content into Blogger blogs.

Click to continue reading…

Read Original Post Here

Kevin Johnson, who was arguably the primary architect of the now apparently failed Yahoo acquisition, is leaving Microsoft to run Juniper Networks. Simultaneously the company is reorganizing the division that Johnson ran (”Platform Services”) into two: Windows and Windows Live + Online Services. Here’s the official Microsoft announcement from yesterday.

The company announced no immediate replacement for Johnson. Instead, the existing group heads under Johnson will now report directly to CEO Steve Ballmer.

Click to continue reading…

Read Original Post Here