Highlights from the SEW Blog: November 19-21, 2007

We’ve collected all the search marketing news from selected posts to the Search Engine Watch blog in the past week, along with recent search-related headlines from around the Web.

From the SEW blog:

Organic Search

• SEW Experts: On Page vs. Off Page SEO
  Off-page SEO factors are getting all the attention these days. But good, old-fashioned, on-page factors are also vital for every SEO project.

Search Advertising

• BidHero Brings Analytics to PPC Bid Management
  Bid management for PPC campaigns has become more complicated with the introduction of “quality scores” by the major ad platforms.
• SEW Experts: How to Integrate PPC and Display Advertising
  Pay-per-click (PPC) or display advertising? You don’t always have to choose one or the other.
• AdSense Video Units To Launch In UK, Ireland and Canada
  Publishers will be able to show videos from YouTube content partners in ad units on their sites.
• SEW Experts: Content Advertising Explained – Part 3
  Content ads need to work harder than search ads to distract the reader’s attention from the Web site content that attracted them in the first place.

Linking Issues & Social Media

• Privacy Group Takes on Facebook
  Privacy watchdog MoveOn.org has posted an online petition demanding that Facebook respect the privacy of users by making it easier to opt out of the “Beacon Ads” program.

Local & Mobile Search

• Oodle 2.0: Improved Classifieds Search
  With a new release it’s dubbed “Oodle 2.0,” the classifieds search engine has greatly improved its search functionality and user experience.
• AT&T To Acquire Pay Per Call Company Ingenio
  AT&T announced plans to acquire Ingenio whose Pay Per Call technology they intend to integrate with YellowPages.com.
• User-Edited Locations on Google Maps
  Google Maps users now have the ability to edit locations on Google Maps for all users to see.
• Poynt Gives New Local Search Option for Windows Live Messenger Users
  Multiplied Media has teamed with Idearc to deliver Superpages.com’s full directory of local U.S. business listings over instant messaging platforms.

Vertical & Specialty Search

• Discover Your Video Search
  Video search providers agree that indexing and searching through millions of online videos isn’t the real challenge facing them.
• Bloglines Eric Engleman Interviewed
  One of the more interesting aspects of the interview was learning about the search functionality built into Bloglines.

Small Business/Big Brand SEM

• SEW Experts: Slow Growth in Search? Long Tail Keyword Solutions
  When building a new startup, you initially see search marketing boom year over year. Inevitably, that growth will slow. The first step in reversing the slow growth trend is to admit your search campaigns may have hit a wall..

In-House & Outsourcing

• SEW Experts: Search Marketing Staffing Crisis
  There’s a tradeoff most people face in the process of hiring a search marketing team: hire people with less business experience who are likely more familiar with search, or hire people less familiar with search who have more business experience.

SEM Industry Issues

• Senate Subcommittee Cautions FTC on Google-DoubleClick Acquisition
  U.S. Senators are urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to look with a critical eye on Google’s planned acquisition of DoubleClick.

Searching/Search Technologies

• Google Custom Search Engines Go International
  Google has expanded its Custom Search Engine program internationally. Now it’s available in 40 languages, and in close to 80 countries worldwide.
• SEW Experts: Global SEM Growth Leaves U.S. SEOs Behind
  Now that search engine marketing has become a global game, the need for translation services for Web sites has never been greater.

More from the SEW Blog

• Google Gets Its Court Date In Australia
  Australians are taking Google to court over the lack of clear division between paid and organic search results. The courts set a date for the hearing in June.
• Yahoo Could Be Selling European Units
  Seems Yahoo is unhappy with their European marketing efforts, the new head of Yahoo’s European business Toby Coppel told the Financial Times.

Search Headlines

We report the top search marketing news daily at the Search Engine Watch Blog. You’ll find more news from around the Web below.

• Social Networks Set Sights on U.K. Market, ClickZ
• Tools for Competitive Search Intelligence, ClickZ
• The Politics & Policy Of The Google-DoubleClick Acquisition, Search Engine Land
• The Thanksgivings of a Search Marketer (2007 Version), SearchRank
• Why We Have to Keep Doing Market Research, Out of my Gord
• R/WW Thanksgiving: Thank You Google for Open Social (Or, Why Open Social Really Matters), Read/Write Web
• Part 2 – The Genesis for a Successful Online Marketing Campaign, Stepforth SEO
• URL Structure and SEO, SEO-space
• SEO & Ninja LinkBuilding > A Chat with We Build Pages’ Jim Boykin, Hobo SEO
• Are Your Landing Pages Lean, Mean Conversion Machines?, Online Marketing Blog
• Techniques that Always Work?: Who Uses Dynamic Keyword Insertion, Traffick
• $110 Million Annually is Wasted by Google With the “I’m Feeling Lucky” Button, Search Engine Rountable
• The Inevitable Evolution of SES Chicago, AimClear Search Marketing
• Landing Pages and Google’s Website Optimizer Patent Applications, SEO by the Sea