Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.
Search Engine Roundtable Stories:
- Weekly Search Buzz RoundUp - 09/19/08:
Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! We're celebrating here and we hope you are too. It's year 13 of the holiday, and uh, I don't get it, but AHOY! Microsoft Search Update Underway If you visit the Live.com site frequently to check your rankings, you should have observed a search update. Most people are viewing some changes that seem to be pretty substantial. Google's Biggest Quality Score Change Ever Your Google Quality Score is now - Do You Like Yahoo's New Site Design?
Reuters reports that Yahoo is doing an overhaul of its homepage, but that not all users can see it yet (like me. I never get the good stuff early). According to the Reuters article, this change is intended to "give users a personalized view of the wider Web." Here's their screenshot: I'm not entirely sure who is seeing the new redesign, as Yahoo says less than 15% of users have been exposed to it. Thus - Google AdWords Site Stats Logo Now Optional
On the Inside AdWords blog, the Google AdWords team says that the AdWords Site Stats logo is no longer mandatory. The post says that there was a "Google Site Stats" text area that would be displayed when a conversion occurred which gave visitors information about AdWords conversion tracking (and instructions on how to remove it if you never wanted it). Given a variety of negative feedback, like this WebmasterWorld thread, for example, Google has now - Live.com Search Results Feature Powerset Integration
We've briefly seen search tool Powerset in action at SES just a month ago. They were acquired by Microsoft around that time and are already being integrated into search results. The Powerset blog explains some of the feature offerings: Freebase Answers, improved captions for Wikipedia results, and new related searches using the Factz engine. The blog also shows a screenshot of a relevant search. Unfortunately, I can't reproduce it just yet. From what I see - Search Industry Celebrates Talk Like a Pirate Day 2008
Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day, one of the geekiest days of the year. Yes, our geek companies are loving up the day! Google Pirate Search interface, via Google Blog: Dogpile pirate looking dog: Facebook's translation via TechCrunch: FriendFeed's logo: Our, Search Engine Roundtable's theme: Finally, I dressed up for the day! Last year Flickr had a pirate logo, but not this year. And Ask.com in 2005 dressed up Jeeves as a Pirate, not since. - Google & Yahoo's Search Ad Deal Kicks Off October 11th
To continue our coverage of Google ads on Yahoo Search, where advertisers are both happy and sad about this deal... The SEC has been sitting on reviewing the deal and requested more time. Google CEO said that with or without SEC's review, they will be launching the deal on October 11th. "While we have been talking to regulators, we don't know what their position is," Schmidt said. "We don't know if they think it's a - Updated Google Patent Hints At Linkage Penalties and Site Expiry
WebmasterWorld administrator, Tedster, posted a thread at WebmasterWorld discussing an updated Google patent named Information retrieval based on historical data. This is one of the more popular Google documents over the years, where much of the Sandbox theories came from. In any event, Tedster pulled out several abstracts that are new in this document. I will highlight only two that I find would be very valuable to our readers. (1) How does Google know when - Google Maps Adds Streets to Israel & Mobile Coming Soon
Recently, maybe a few weeks or months ago, Google Maps added street data for Israel. Before, they only had limited Satellite data for the country. But now, you can get street outlines with very limited street names in the map product. Here is an static image of the map of the "Old City" in Jerusalem. The blue markers represent where I stayed and learned for about 4 months of my life. The green patch at
Other Great Search Forum Threads:
- Can you believe that that Guy from Seinefield in the new Microsoft spokesman?!?, DigitalPoint Forums
- Closing Down the Blog.. (DaveN goes all Calcanis), Sphinn
- Google to go ahead with Yahoo AdWords, Search Engine Watch Forums
- Gotta go, SEO Chat
- How the 'Intelligent Cloud' may Change Google Search, WebmasterWorld
- Link Building Etiquette : The Value of the Connection, Sphinn
- Live Results Becoming More Relevant Than Google?, Sphinn
- Can a Gray Toolbar mean "Banned"?, WebmasterWorld
- Google Chrome Version 149.30 released!, Google Groups
- Yahoo Becoming Pro Active... Desperation... Or Good Move?, Cre8asite Forums
