SearchCap: The Day In Search, March 12, 2008

12 March, 2008 (21:17) | SEM News

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

From Search Engine Land:

Open Letter To
Google: Do The Right Thing, Divest Yourself Of Performics
At long last, Google owns DoubleClick. In doing so, the company has done
something else that many people would have never believed possible. Become an
SEO. That’s right — Google’s in the SEO business now, selling services
through DoubleClick’s Performics to people who want to rank well on — um…
News Corp.
Appears To Close Door As AOL Opens One To A Potential Deal With Yahoo
Monday News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch seemed to say that he won’t be doing a deal
with Yahoo, which argued that Yahoo had few options left in its bid to stay
independent. However today, in an article in the NY Times, Time Warner Chief
Jeffrey L. Bewkes said that he’s ready…
Search Biz:
Google’s Project Management Tools, Iowa Seeks Microsoft & More
Click Forensics gets $10 million in funding. An early Googler donates money to
San Jose State. The fight to control IAC carries on. Disney doesn’t want AOL.
Yahoo and Microsoft do research labs in Israel. A glimpse into the internal
tools Google uses to manage products and Iowa passes…
Health
Insurance Carrier Aetna Introduces Personalized Health Search From Healthline
Vertical health destination and search engine Healthline has teamed up with US
health insurance carrier Aetna to offer what the company is calling Aetna
SmartSource — customized health search. The service, powered by Healthline,
will roll out on Aetna’s member self-service website and offer personalized
search results based on individual…
Eight Tips For
Successful B2B Blogs
Virtually all marketers have realized that blogs can be a powerful part of an
overall search marketing campaign. This is especially true in the B2C
marketplace, but what about for B2B focused companies? What do successful B2B
blogs have in common? In looking at hundreds of B2B blogs, eight…
Using Wikipedia
To Reveal Web Traffic Data
Before investing time and effort in search rankings, and even before setting
client expectations, it makes sense to gather whatever intelligence you can
about the keywords you’d like to rank for. SEOs and webmasters have few
reliable sources of information about the relationship between rankings and
traffic. But Wikipedia’s traffic…
Linking Prowess
For In-House Teams
Linking is still de rigueur when optimizing for Google and all major engines.
Linking strategies have run the gauntlet, from simple link exchange requests
to buying links. For a good review of current best practices in linking
tactics, I refer you to The Link Spiel by Debra Mastaler and…
Got Duplicate
Content? Don’t Let It Dilute Your SEO Efforts
"Water, water everywhere nor any drop to drink," laments a sailor adrift in
Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. The poor guy needs
water to say alive—and he’s surrounded by it— yet if he drinks it, the salt
content will kill him. As a search marketer,…
Building
Referral Links While You Sleep
Most webmasters have two goals for their online businesses: to be financially
successful and to be self-sustaining. Ideally, webmasters want to be fully
established and top of mind so the business they have supplies all the
business they need. Sweet scenario if you can get it but the reality…
Message In A
Bottle: Google Now Stores Messages For Unverified Webmaster Central Users
Google Webmaster Central has announced that they now will have webmaster
communication messages waiting for webmasters even if they have not yet
verified their site in Google Webmaster Tools. Let me step back a bit and
explain why this is incredibly important. In July 2007, Google released
Message Center within…
"Google Earth
Town" Nanaimo Wires Self To Google Maps To Drive Tourism
How Google Earth Ate Our Town from Time Magazine highlights Nanaimo, a British
Columbia town on Vancouver Island, also known as "Google Earth Town" or "the
capital of Google Earth." Nanaimo has been plotting virtually all of their
town’s data directly on Google Maps and Google Earth. From real-time
firefighter…
Preview: Search
Engine Land’s SMX Social Media Marketing Conference
Last year in New York, Search Engine Land held its first SMX Social Media
Marketing conference. I’ve been organizing conferences for nearly 10 years
now, and this one was exceptional, if I say so myself. Every speaker blew me
away with great ideas on how to tap into social media…