Highlights from the SEW Blog: January 1-4, 2008

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: New Search Engine Trends, Old SEO Troubles in 2007
  With advances such a universal search and the explosion of social media, 2007 was quite a landmark year for search marketers. For all of its breakthroughs, a few bad habits still remain from years past.
• SEW Experts: SEO.edu: Can You Learn SEO From a Book? – Part 3
  Search engines give SEOs the 4 PRs for submitting sites: press releases, product releases, proper rules, and PageRank. But these alone won’t solve SEO problems.

Search Advertising

• SEW Experts: Google AdWords 101
  The Internet is overflowing with high-level discussion of how to plan a search advertising campaign. But sometimes, a new advertiser needs to know the actual steps of setting up an AdWords campaign and look into the methodology of setting up ads and A/B testing.
• Ask and LookSmart Send Out Click Fraud Settlement Letters
  Letters were sent out yesterday for a class action suit that both companies are trying to put behind them.
• AdSense Adds Newbie Central
  In their ongoing efforts to help educate their users the Google AdSense team has added Newbie Central – “the complete resource center for newly approved AdSense publishers.”

Linking Issues & Social Media

• Which Industries Really Like Sponsored Links
  When advertising on destination sites, some industries prefer sponsored text links while others are less focused on them.

Local & Mobile Search

• Ask.com introduces voice-activated capabilities to mobile search service
  The new “Click to Speak” feature lets people speak their location and desired destination to receive directions on their web-enabled mobile devices.
• ChaCha launches text service at Sundance Film Festival
  The “human-powered search engine” now lets users text questions of any kind to a ChaCha guide and receive text answers on their cell phone.

Vertical & Specialty Search

• SEW Experts: Vertical Search: B2B Survey Says … Blazing Hot
  A look at Convera’s recently released Vertical Search Report.

In-House & Outsourcing

• SEW Experts: Win the Right Search Marketing Clients
  As a new search marketing firm, what kinds of clients will best fit your business?
• SEW Experts: Search Engine Marketing 21st Century Manifesto
  As Web marketers, our time has come. We must stand up to our clients and demand they build sites worth linking to.

SEM Industry Issues

• SEW Experts: 2008 Wish List: Search Engine Hangover Cures
  The new year is always a time for looking forward, and while last week’s column focused on the old, we kick off the year with a wish list for 2008.
• InfoSpace Seeks Search Engine Market Share
  Now that InfoSpace has cleared away other business lines and staff, they just re-committed to online search.
• Presidential Candidates in Need of SEO Help
  There are glaring holes in search strategy on virtually all of the sites of major candidates and minor players on both sides of the aisle.

Searching/Search Technologies

• Wikia Search Engine To Launch Test Version Jan. 7
  Wikia founder Jimmy Wales said last year that this open source, community-driven program would eventually challenge Google.
• Network Neutrality
  If the telcos succeed in violating network neutrality, it will blow up the web experience as we know it.

More from the SEW Blog

• SEO Company CEO Arrested, Jailed: Accused of Foreclosure Scam
  Traffic Power earned an infamous reputation as a search engine optimization firm, allegedly using “black hat” tactics that may have resulted in bans by Google, Yahoo and other search engines. Now Traffic Power’s CEO is behind bars for allegedly running a housing foreclosure scam.

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.

• How 2007’s Key Search Trend Will Impact 2008, ClickZ Experts
• Why SEOs Will Kill Wikia Search, Marketing Pilgrim
• What Does 2008 Have In Store For Local?, Search Engine Land
• Googler’s Bet Goobles On Predictive Markets During Their Free Lunch, Search Engine Land
• Video: Flipping the 80/20 Business Rule, Search Engine Guide
• Google on Reading Text in Images from Street Views, Store Shelves, and Museum Interiors, SEO by the Sea
• What Was the Most Improved PPC Program in 2007?, Search Engine Roundtable
• Why SEMPO is Worse than the Defunct Search Marketing Associations, SEO Book
• Is Google Knol Really a Wikipedia Rival?, Bill Hartzer
• Why Can’t Google Be More Like Ask.com?, SearchRank
• 2008 The year of Reputation Management?, Endless Plain
• Prediction Markets at Google, Battelle’s SearchBlog
• Search Spend Laps Display Advertising, Alchemist Media
• Clix Marketing’s Favorite PPC Blogs, Clix Marketing
• Queen Of Links – Debra Mastaler Interview, LinkJuicy
• My plea to Google – Please sanitize your REP revamps, Sebastian’s Pamphlets
• 8 AdSense resolutions for 2008, Inside AdSense