Search Headlines & Links: June 8, 2006

Below, a recap of stories posted today to the Search Engine Watch Blog, along
with other items we’ve spotted but not blogged separately:

From The SEW Blog…

• Hitwise:
  Google Nearing 60% Of Queries In US
  Just over a week ago, NetRatings said Google went over the 50 percent mark in
  powering web searches in the US. New stats today from Hitwise put them nearing
  the 60 percent mark. Here’s the percentage of searches each service handled
  over the past three months, according to Hitwise:…
• Search
  Engine Watch Discussion Forums Celebrate 2nd Birthday
  The SEW Forums are turning two years old today. Come join the celebration in
  our forum thread,
  
  Happy 2nd Birthday SEW Forums!
• Daily
  SearchCast, June 8, 2006: Yahoo Answers Grows And Grows; Google Sued Over Ad
  It Refuses To Run; Google Urges Users To Rally For Net Neutrality & More!
  Today’s search podcast covers the growth of Yahoo Answers; alternative ways to
  be listed in Google and Yahoo; Google sued over ads it doesn’t want to run;
  Google rallies users behind net neutrality and more!
• New
  Search Patents: June 8, 2006 – Stanford updates Pagerank Patent
  The patent for pagerank has been updated, Hewlett-Packard introduces advanced
  searching options for searchers, IBM patents a query translation server to
  help search engines provide search results in more languages than English,
  Microsoft uncovers a way to learn more about the people who are clicking upon
  ads, and Yahoo integrates external sites into its shopping portal….
• Yahoo
  Photos Upgraded, Beta Available
  TechCrunch has a good writeup on the new Yahoo Photos beta. To access the beta
  go to http://photos.yahoo.com/ and after you sign in, you may see a “try the
  new beta” link, click on that. I personally do not see it, so I will base my
  notes after TechCrunch’s coverage….
• New Link
  Building Guide
  Andy Hagans linked to a new link building guide by Jim Westergren. The guide
  goes over how to build links in 2006. For example it describes the “natural
  simulation” of link development and methods of building links naturally and
  quickly. Just be warned on some of the tactics, there are 43 comments appended
  to the guide, probably worth a full read before deploying all the ideas….
• Unique
  Content VS. Plagiarism In The Eyes Of An Algorithm
  Chris Boggs over at the Search Engine Roundtable wrote an item named Which
  Came First: the Content or the Plagiarism? which discusses the challenge
  search engines face when it comes to determining the original source of a
  particular piece of content….
• The Top
  100 Companies Searched Most On Hoover’s Web site
  Hoover’s released the Hoover’s 100, the top 100 companies searches most on at
  the Hoover’s web site. The top ten are; Wal-Mart, Apple, Proctor & Gamble,
  Dell, Microsoft, GE, Starbucks, Johnson & Johnson, Google and IBM,
  respectively. To view the full top 100, visit The Hoover’s 100….
• 
  Alternative Ways Into Google & Yahoo
  Search Engine Guide has an article named Alternative Ways to Get Into Google
  and About.com has an article named 8 Ways to Submit Your Site to Yahoo, so we
  thought it would be nice to make one summary of both….
• Google
  Browser Sync For Firefox
  Google announced a new Firefox plugin named Google Browser Sync. The Firefox
  extension allows you to “synchronizes your browser settings ? including
  bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords ? across your
  computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across
  different machines and browser sessions.” I have a more detailed write up and
  walk through of the extension at the Search Engine Roundtable….
• Lawsuit
  Over Killed Anti-China Ad On Google
  Google Sued for Allegedly Refusing Anti-China Ad at Wired News covers a
  lawsuit filed against Google after it refused to carry ads from activist
  Christopher Langdon protesting against the Chinese government….
• Google
  Calls On Users To Lobby For Net Neutrality
  Google cofounder Sergey Brin might not have been able to lobby all the US
  senators he wanted earlier this week to stop a bill that threatens net
  neutrality. But Google still has a big stick to wave — its users. The Debate
  over Net Neutrality on the Official Google Blog urges Google users to call
  their representatives and ask that the bill be stopped (it’s up for a vote
  this week)….
• US, UK
  Searchers & The World Cup
  The World Cup opens tomorrow. For my fellow Americans, many of whom may have
  no idea that the US is in it, you might want to check out my personal
  experiences living in World Cup-mad Eng-er-land at the moment. And now the
  run-up to search and soccer is starting. Hitwise: World Cup and Soccer
  Searches over at iMedia Connection covers stats from Hitwise showing how Yahoo
  sent the official FIFA World Cup site the most traffic — no surprise given
  Yahoo’s a key sponsor. You can also see what soccer players are most popular
  among US searchers, with former women’s…
• 
  IceRocket Sale To Think Is Off
  That deal for Think Partnership to purchase blog search engine IceRocket? Andy
  Beal notes that it’s off….

Other Things We Read, Didn’t Blog But You Might Want To Read…

• 
  Google Researchers Propose TV Eavesdropping, InformationWeek
• 
  Google Calling?, ClickZ (maybe they’ll be calling you soon for advice on
  AdWords, too)
• Censored
  Searches on Google.cn, Google Blogoscoped
• 
  Was It Google Or Was It Print?, MediaPost
• High-PR
  Frontpage, But Other Pages Unranked?, Google Blogoscoped
• 
  Don’t believe the MySpace hype, CNNMoney
• 
  Google Earth Takes Down Fire Agency, All Points Blog
• 
  BT: Google is our biggest threat, ZDNet UK
• 
  Microsoft Plans To Extend Paid Search Platform To Games, IPTV, Other Media,
  MediaPost (Microsoft’s said this before, but just in case you needed to hear
  it again. Oh, and it’s not “paid search” they’ll be extending but ads of
  various types).
• 
  UPDATE: Where Google’s wireless projects stand, San Jose Mercury News
• 
  URL shortcuts for feed syndication specs, Niall Kennedy
• 
  Fake Generic Viagra Site Using Google Name, InsideGoogle
• Google
  Account’s Authorized Websites?, Google Blogoscoped
• 
  Blogger Gets RSS, InsideGoogle
• 
  Firefox Extension Adds Wikipedia to SERPs, Google Blogoscoped
• 
  Microsoft teams up with the cool kids, Fortune
• Google
  Office: it’s about file formats, not MS Office, Ars Technica
• 
  Google Analytics Adds AdWords Analysis Report, Marketing Pilgrim
• 
  The Captain’s Back?., WebGuerrilla (the
  
  mustache auction is back)