There’s so much happening in the world of search, it’s hard to stay abreast of even half of it. However, it’s my responsibility to keep those of you who aren’t taking the time to read SEL in the know. 
First, some of the bigger stories (or ones I have more commentary on):
- Threadwatch is Closing Down Friday
It’s almost unbelievable, but the fabled center of gossip & reporting in the world of search is finally taking a hike. Aaron’s reasons are solid, but I have to mourn it – I honestly really enjoyed the posts there and often found a gem or two each week that wasn’t covered elsewhere. - Marketing on LinkedIn
I shared the Get Dugg panel in Toronto with Helen Overland, who’s taken much of the advice given during her fascinating presentation and made a blog post. If you’re not marketing on LinkedIn, you’re almost certainly missing an opportunity personally & professionally. Growing faster than Facebook and with more user loyalty than Digg, LinkedIn is the next “big” thing in our space, as long as it doesn’t do any shark-jumping. BTW – I only accept LinkedIn invites from people I’ve actually met in person (for more than a few minutes) – it’s no disrespect, I just think that the goal of the site is to connect with people that you can actually vouch for. - Class Divide Between MySpace & Facebook
My friend, Jon Mendez, was in Seattle today and took Mystery Guest and me to the Mariners game tonight (where we saw Matt McGee, too) and commented that he felt this was a long time coming. Certainly anyone who spends considerable time playing on both can feel the remarkable differences between the people who populate the sites. The most revealing quote to me came early in the report – “…the division in the military reflects the division in high schools. Soldiers are on MySpace; officers are on Facebook.” Wow. - 20 to 25% of the Queries We See Today, We Have Never Seen Before
This has to be the quote of the month for SEOs. It shows us that, really, we have no idea how big the tail of search really is. It’s daunting, overwhelming, all-consuming. To imagine that each day, Google’s query logs reveal a full 25% that haven’t ever been seen before is simply mind-numbing. How do you target that? How can you play in that arena, at that size. My only piece of advice – no matter how proliferate a writer you are and no matter how excellent your editorial work, you can never match the power of UGC for long-tail targeting. - Advice for Jerry Yang When Taking Over Yahoo!
I know I’m way behind on covering this, but I thought that Andrew’s post was simply brilliant. The only thing he didn’t mention was LinkedIn, which Yahoo! should also acquire, ASAP. Yahoo! also needs a brilliant bit of viral marketing to steal some search share from Google – they can probably only do this in a single vertical at first, but the suggestion to acquire Yelp was ingenuous and the idea that mobiles should all be Yahoo! default is also excellent. Listen up, those Canadians know what they’re talking aboot.
Some quick ones:
- An RSS Subscriber is Worth a Thousand Links – well said, Aaron, and very true (though I’d say, rather, 250 or 300)
- The Enormous Linkbait List – a great roundup of linkbait-related posts. Now if only someone would do the same for landing page optimization…
- Mobile Metrics Data – shows us that, much as in search, Google dominates mobile device access, though Yahoo! and MSN are much more substantive players in this arena.
- Capitalize on Universal Search – optimization techniques from Ben Pfeiffer to target many of the search verticals at Google here. There’s nothing earth-shattering, but it should help to un-scare you a bit.
- SEO-Scoop Turns 3 – When I started the SEOmoz blog, all I wanted in the world was to be noticed by Donna Fontenot at SEO-Scoop, my favorite blog. Congrats, Donna – it’s been a terrific three years 🙂
- How to Market B2B in Social Media – Loved this post. Point your stuffed-shirt clients here before letting them onto Digg, Reddit, et al.
- The Value of Speaking at Conferences – Amost two dozen search folks contributed their thoughts on why it makes sense, including yours truly.
- Google Supplemental Weirdness – Rae wrote some great stuff here, and the comments are even more illuminating. Supplemental does act strange – sometimes I’ll see PR7, high ranking pages tagged with “supplemental” and sometimes supplemental has no consistency between sites at all.
- Brilliant AdWords Tip – Holy mackerel, that’s amazing. CTR up 135% with the addition of one letter to an Adwords Ad.
As always, please add your news items and links in the comments.
p.s. Is it OK that I’m totally jealous I didn’t get an invite to Foo Camp? Sniffle, snifflle…
