Highlights from the SEW Blog: Dec. 18, 2006

Featured posts from the Search Engine Watch blog, as well as our customary headlines from around the web. If you’re not familiar with our blog, click on any of the links below, or visit the blog’s home page at http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/.

From The SEW Blog…

• Google Apps Gets a “D”For Domain Registration, that is. Google announced today that Google Apps for Your Domain now offers domain name registration services via eNom and GoDaddy.com, as part of the website management services offered by Google. …
• Google Base Trolling for Podcasts Steve Rubel at Micropersuasion posits that Google is building a stealth podcast search engine. Google appears to be prompting Google Base users to upload and share their podcasts. Users are offered opportunities to bulk submit podcasts and are promised potential audiences of millions. A quick search of Google Base shows …
• Internet users searching for a home has doubledAccording to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the number of Americans who have looked online for information about a place to live has doubled since 2000. Now, nearly two in five adult internet users in the U.S. (39%) have done this, up from 34% in 2004 and 27% …
• Nayio Gives New Meaning to “Hum Me a Few Bars . . .”Navio has launched a new search tool which will guide consumers to songs even when they don’t remember the words. All the consumer has to do is hum a few bars into the computer’s microphone and the search tool will find the words. Through a partnership with Napster, the service …
• New features added to Google Toolbar for FirefoxThere’s a new version of the Google Toolbar for Firefox. Google Toolbar 3 Beta offers Firefox users all the features of the Toolbar for Internet Explorer plus custom buttons, online bookmarks, Google Docs & Spreadsheets integration and new sharing capabilities …
• New social search engine, Decipho, launched todayA new social search engine called Decipho was launched today …
• Google Launches Patent Searchoogle has launched a new search engine for finding U.S. patents going back more than 200 years, Google announced on its blog. Danny has some details at Search Engine Land, and Gary Price shares a roundup of patent search options. Google Patent Search uses the same technology behind Google Book …
• New Release of Virtual Earth LaunchedThe Windows Live Local blog reports on a new build of Virtual Earth. This version has features that will especially appeal to walkers, runners and bicyclists. It has new tools for drawing and measuring that can be creatively used to determine bicycle and running routes. In the new version of …
• Newsknife names top news sites of 2006The folks at Newsknife have just announced the Top News Sites of 2006. Their list is compiled by analyzing a sample of 438,330 individual site listings at Google News by 4504 sites for 1768 news items during year. The Top News Sites of 2006 are: 1 ABC News 2 New …
• Yahoo and IBM team up in enterprise searchA minute after midnight, Bill Snyder, Senior Writer for TheStreet.com, broke the story about IBM teaming up with Yahoo in enterprise search. As of today, the two firms are offering IBM OmniFind Yahoo Edition as a free download. The underlying technology for the new product belongs to IBM, but the …
• Google Finance gets makeover Google Finance got a makeover today, just six months after being launched. According to the Official Google Blog, here’s what’s new: * A new homepage design which lets you see currency information, sector performance for the U.S. market, and a listing of top market movers along with the relevant and …
• Why is “news” a stop word in Google News?If you use Google News to search for the term, Google News, you are told “news” is a very common word and was not included in your search. That makes sense if you were search for news about Google. But, what if you were searching for news about Google News? …
• White paper says vertical search will hit $1 billion by 2009 Kate Maddox of B2BOnline reports today on a new white paper by Slack Barshinger and SearchChannel that projects revenue from B2B vertical search engines will reach $1 billion by 2009. Entitled “The Emerging Opportunity in Vertical Search,” the white paper analyzes 38 B2B vertical search engines serving two dozen industries, …
• Panama Now Open to New U.S. AdvertisersAn earlier-than-expected launch in October for existing Yahoo advertisers has apparently gone well, since Yahoo today opened up the platform to new U.S. advertisers. The move will still be optional, and does not yet include the new ranking algorithm, which will be put in place in the first quarter. …
• Google Says Click Fraud Makes Up Less Than 2% of Invalid ClicksGoogle’s click fraud guru Shuman Ghosemajumder says click fraud makes up less than 2% of all “invalid clicks”, which means the actual click fraud rate is more likely just a fraction of one percent. Andy Beal has the scoop over at Marketing Pilgrim. …
• Berkowitz Tells NYT about Microsoft’s ChallengesSteve Berkowitz, former CEO of Ask.com and now senior VP of Microsoft’s Online Services Group, overseeing Windows Live and MSN, describes the challenges with turning around Microsoft’s online unit in a New York Times interview. Communication, inertia, and a penchant to focus on technology instead of user experience are all …