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

From Search Engine Land:

• Video SEO Can Give Small Businesses An Edge
  Many of us in the online video advertising space have been encouraging small businesses to deploy video to stand out in search results and level the playing field with larger competitors. Some colleagues and I have been working with select clients to test, learn, test again, and learn again...
• What SEO/SEM Professionals Should Know About Website Usability - Part 2
  In part 1 of What SEO/SEM Professionals Should Know About Website Usability, usability experts Peter Morville and Susan Weinschenk answered the question, "What should SEO professionals know about usability?" For this installment, website usability guru Jakob Nielsen and Kim Krause Berg share their observations and perspectives. Enjoy! Jakob Nielsen's...
• Google's CEO Discusses DoubleClick, MicroHoo, Don't Be Evil, Googlephobia And Mobile Search
  CNBC news anchor Maria Bartiromo interviewed Google CEO Eric Schmidt on Tuesday and discussed a wide range of topics, from MicroHoo to advertising on YouTube, mobile and Googlephobia. There are no real surprises and nothing especially new (other than the statement about new ad products for YouTube this year). However...
• Google TV Ads Available To All US Advertisers
  The Inside AdWords Google Blog announced that all US-based advertisers should now have the TV ads option in their account. In fact, you should see the option after logging in to your AdWords account at the bottom, where it says "Other Campaign Types." Here is a screen capture of that...
• Video Advertising: Branding Opportunity Or Direct Response Platform?
  We??™ve all seen the stats on video advertising growth. eMarketer suggests $4 billion by 2011 and Jupiter goes as high as $7 billion. As is often the case with these numbers, they are largely a black box, in that unpacking the elements that actually get us there from where...
• SEMPO Institute Now Offering Agency Training Certification
  The SEMPO Institute, a training division of SEMPO, is now offering agency training certification. The certification basically is a seal of satisfactory completion of their course work. SEMPO Institute is offering Gold Seal level certification and Platinum Seal level certification. Gold Level requires 20% to 49% of their search marketing...
• Live Twittering The UK's Microsoft Live Search Executive Symposium
  I'm in London today for Live Search's Executive Symposium, designed to educate key thought leaders, company executives and others about what Microsoft is doing in search and what's happing in search generally. I've twittered the morning sessions, which were interesting and full of stats. Below, the raw twitters. If time...
• Microsoft Willing To Raise Bid, But How Much Is Enough?
  The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft's directors are collectively willing to authorize the company to raise its bid for Yahoo to up to $33 per share but perhaps not to the levels that Yahoo has signaled it wants to be acquired. If such a sweetened bid did occur...

Search News From Around The Web:

Applications & Portal Features

• Show the Real Number of Search Results in Gmail, Google Operating System
• Find out what they're thinking, easily, Official Google Docs Blog
• Open Letter To Google Reader Team On The Future Of RSS, Andy Beard

Business Issues

• Semel, Kotick pass the buck on Yahoo's future, Reuters
• Glamour at Google, Wall Street Journal
• Google's Art of War - With Facebook, TIME

Local, Maps & Mobile

• Incremental Update to Google Earth 4.3.7204.0836 (beta), Google Earth Blog
• Local.com in Deal with Ad Network MediaSpan, Screenwerk
• Mapped web pages in Google Maps, Google LatLong

Link Building

• Do You Engage in 3-Way (Triangular) Link Exchanges?, Search Engine Roundtable
• There Are No Free Links: Budgeting Resources for SEO Link Building, Search Engine Watch
• What We Can Learn About Link Building from the TV Show Friends, Search Engine Guide

Microhoo

• Layoffs: Steve Ballmer to hold town hall at Microsoft tomorrow, Valleywag
• Microsoft CEO Says Walking Away From Yahoo Still An Option, CNN Money

Paid Search & Contextual

• Are Your Ads Displaying on the Content Network? Better Check Your Settings!, PPC Hero
• Google Responds to Adwords Quality Score Variable Leak, Search Engine Journal
• Register to beta test the Microsoft adCenter Desktop Beta - adCenter Advertiser, adcentercommunity.com
• Beware: the search advertising sky is falling, iMedia Connection
• Google AdWords Conversion Tracking, Serengeti Communications
• Keyword Mashup Tool Launched, Search Commander Blog

Searching

• Creating Highly Specific Communities around Search Queries, Hakia Blog
• Danny Sullivan Downgrades Ask.com To Irrelevance, WebProNews
• InfoSpace's Dogpile.com Gets New Look and Features, InfoSpace
• Interview with Kosmix, theme oriented search, altsearchengines.com
• xRank Musician - better than top 40 night at the disco, Live Search

SEM Industry

• Six Questions with Matt Bailey, BruceClay.com
• Win a Free Pass to PPC Summit, Search Engine Guide
• Jason Gambert - New Low in the SEO Trademark Saga, Search Engine Journal
• Review: Google Apps Hacks, Matt Cutts
• Six Questions with John Marshall, BruceClay.com
• Some Thoughts on SEO Ethics- Matt McGee, Michael Gray, Jeff Quipp, Jim Hedger and More, seoaware.com

SEO & SEM

• How to Use Hx Tags To Boost Page Performance, Search Engine Guide
• Digging Deeper: 9 Tips to Improve Search Engine Optimization, PBS
• Buying the perfect domain name: twelve things to consider, Jennifer Slegg
• GoogleBot Getting Tired? Google's Spider Crawling Less Documents, Search Engine Roundtable
• How Much is a Top Google Ranking Worth to Your Business?, SEO Book
• Pimp My Site: Tweaking High Traffic Landing Pages, Search Engine Watch Blog
• SEM Bootcamp: Three Steps to Creating New Content, Search Engine Guide
• SEO and Web Site Redesign, Online Marketing Blog
• Shout it from the Rooftops!, Google Maps API Blog
• Theories in Duplicate Content Penalties, Search Engine Guide
• Updating our attribute requirements for submitting products, Google Base Blog
• Why I Actually Use (SEO) Tools, Search Engine Journal

Social Media

• LinkedIn: We're Selling Ads For $75 CPM , Silicon Alley Insider
• New Updates and Publishers for Yahoo! Buzz, Search Engine Watch Blog
• Yahoo! Tries to Spread Buzz, Adds Widgets, RSS, Read/Write Web

Video, Music & Image Search

• How Do Images Get Ranked in Image Search?, SEO By The Sea

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

• SEO and Web Site Redesign
• Usability & Holistic SEO Persuasive Web Design
• How Much is a Top Google Ranking Worth to Your Business?
• Twittering For Charity
• The Evolution Of A Newbie SEO
• 7 Things Twitter Can't Do
• The Web Developer's SEO Cheat Sheet
• Reputation Management Campaign Strategy
• Blogger's to do checklist before hitting the publish button
• Jason Gambert - New Low in the SEO Trademark Saga
• The Website Analysis System called Crazy Egg
• 4 Pillars of Social Media Algorithms ... Trust x4
• How Social Proof Can Kill or Fill Your Blog
• Social Media Marketing for Small Business
• Google's Eric Schmidt: Exclusive 6-Page CNBC Interview
• Blackhat Techniques Which Shouldn't Work in Google But Still Do
• To Tweet or Not to Tweet? 50+ Links & Tools
• Twitter: Is it really worth using?
• Getting the Twitterati to Talk about You
• Will Your Website Pass a Google Review?
• Yahoo! oneSearch: 28 days later
• Transforming a Company Blog Into a Community Destination
• Google's Whois Domaintool Pages Have Paid Links Passing PageRank
• How to increase your StumbleUpon Campaign conversion rate 405% in one day
• Rethinking Blog Comments: Much More Than Just A Quick Way to Get Web Traffic
• Why Whitehats Need to Know Blackhat SEO
• Conversion Rate: What's Your Website Tracking As A Conversion?

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Chris Winfield of 10e20.com published a blog post today about Twitter. It’s a great example that if you talk about those who talk, you are going to be talked about.Most marketing is common sense. Big up ten people and you will find ten people bigging you up in return.Does this represent a new label for [...]

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As the link building strategy becomes more and more difficult (at least by some), people are seeking out alternatives to the standard two-way linking practice. In a WebmasterWorld thread, a member is looking at a triangular link strategy which wouldn't...

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How much time do you spend working on your Web 2.0-cross voting network? Don’t get me wrong, a network is vital, the right network can propel you into social media marketing heaven. But, there comes a point where watching your story rise on digg and constantly plundering your IM contacts becomes notworking, not networking. You [...]

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The SEMPO Institute, a training division of SEMPO, is now offering agency training certification. The certification basically is a seal of satisfactory completion of their course work.

SEMPO Institute is offering Gold Seal level certification and Platinum Seal level certification. Gold Level requires that 20% to 49% of their search marketing employees graduate from a course. The Platinum Seal level is for 50% or more employee participation and certification.

Click to continue reading...

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The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Microsoft's directors are collectively willing to authorize the company to raise its bid for Yahoo to up to $33 per share but perhaps not to the levels that Yahoo has signaled it wants to be acquired.

If such a sweetened bid did occur it would put further pressure on Yahoo to negotiate and make it harder for the company to argue that it was being significantly undervalued.

Click to continue reading...

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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....

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