Danny looks at Google's anti-phishing warnings in action while more news that the anti-phishing list may leak usernames and passwords emerges; Google looks at downloadable books, ads in games and pushes audio ads. How being in a search engine's circle of link trust can help you. How Wikipedia wants to close its own circle of link trust; Belgian newspaper insanity and more!
Tune-in by listening to this MP3 file, listening via WebmasterRadio at 11:30am Eastern and repeated at 2pm Eastern Monday through Thursday (see instructions here), through iTunes via this link, though our Yahoo Podcasts channel, on our Digg podcasts channel (and vote for us!) or in other ways listed here.
Need more help tuning in live or finding the chat room? See the Daily SearchCast FAQ. See below for links to more information about stories discussed.
Advertisement
Upcoming Seminars:
5 Ghastly PPC Mistakes to Avoid - SEM Agencies and Reporting: Best Practices for Success
Listen to this podcast now using the Odeo player below:
- Google &
Firefox 2 Anti-Phishing Warning In Action
Last month, I covered a number of ways that browsers and search engines are working together to protect surfers from phishing sites. These are sites pretending to be run by someone else, such as bank, in hopes of catching your personal log-in information. This week while doing my banking, I... - Google's
Blacklist Of Phishing Sites Contained Bank Information & More Confidential
Details
Google Blacklist Contained Confidential Information at Techcrunch reports that Google's phishing blacklist, which is publicly available for anyone to see, had confidential information enclosed. Such information included "usernames and passwords of individuals, including credentials for accounts at banks and other financial institutions." Google has quietly removed the information that may... - Yahoo Search
Index Update - January 2007
The Yahoo Search Blog officially confirmed the recent speculations of an index update taking place. Priyank Garg of Yahoo says, that Yahoo is "in the process of rolling out some changes to our search results. As usual, you may be seeing some changes in ranking as well as some shuffling... - Looksmart's
Furl Gets A Facelift
Furl, a personal web-page clipping and sharing service that I reviewed several years ago, has a streamlined new look, and is also faster. Looksmart has also made it easier to create and find topics to help you organized your cache of saved web pages, and has improved the browser buttons... - Google Picks
North Carolina For Server Farm
Google Plans N.C. Data Center by Forbes confirms Google has selected North Carolina over South Carolina as the location for their huge data center. Yesterday, we wrote how the Carolina's are bidding against each other to win Google's business. Google will be spending about $600 million on their new data... - Google,
Microsoft & Yahoo To Develop NGO Conduct Code
CIO reports that Microsoft, Google, along with Yahoo will be developing a code of conduct with the coalition of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to "promote freedom of expression and privacy rights." This move is to help the companies' ventures into China and help paint a better picture for the search giants... - Google Book
Search To Add Chinese Books
AsiaMedia reports that Google has partnered with Cite Publishing Holding Group to bring Chinese books to Google Book Search. The service will enable users to search and read up to 20% of a book on their computer. The initial launch will be about 1,000 books, but they hope to have... - Google To
Provide Downloadable E-Books
Via Techmeme, Google plots e-books coup at the Times Online reports that Google is looking to make books more accessible to users. They hope to "allow readers to download entire books to their computers in a format that they could read on screen or on mobile devices such as a... - Google Adds
Sponsored Links To Your Search History
Google Operating Systems reports that Google has added your sponsored link click activity to Google Search History. For example, I looked at my search history and limited it to just sponsored links, and I noticed I search for "gift dad" and clicked on an ad, yes my dad and father-in-law's... - spam
- Google Seeking
To Place Ads In Video Games; In Talks To Buy Adscape Media
Google's Next Ad Frontier May Be Inside Videogames at the Wall Street Journal shows reports that Google is in talks with Adscape Media, an in-game advertising company. This shows that Google is interested in placing ads within video games such as PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo and other game console units. Since... - BBC in talks on Google link-up, The Guardian
- Google
Advertising Google Audio Ads
Philipp Lenssen reports that Google is now promoting via AdWords their own Audio Ads product. A Google search on audio ads brings back an ad from Google, leading to http://www.google.com/ads/audioads/index.html.... - Checking Out
Allcheckin Travel Search
I'm going to Berlin to speak at a travel conference in March, which meant booking a flight. With a British Airways strike looming, I wanted an alternative to fly from my closest airport -- London Heathrow -- to Berlin. But no one but BA seems to fly to Berlin from... - Farecast Offers
Insurance Policy on Airfares
Travel search engine Farecast officially launched its Fare Guard service, protecting flyers from volatile airfare prices. The service allows travelers to basically purchase an insurance policy on a flight for $10 ($3 until February 1), thus locking in the published rate.... - Are You In The
Circle Of Link Trust?
How do you define "link popularity?" I talk daily with SEO/SEM firms, content creators, interactive agencies, marketing firms, ad agencies, PR firms, and with other consultants. It's amazing how varied people's beliefs are with regards to link popularity, but as different as they are, all share a common purpose. Search ranking. I... - Wikipedia
Nofollows Links Again - Due To SEOs Abusing Wikipedia
Carsten at Search Engine Journal reports that the English Wikipedia has decided to add the nofollow attribute back to the English Wikipedia space. The decision came from the founder, Jimbo Wales, partially, if not completely, based on a discussion of a new SEO contest, where editors are warned of an... - Yahoo Tells
Belgian Newspapers They Did Nothing Wrong
Yahoo Denies Violating Belgian Copyright Law at the Wall Street Journal gives us insight into how Yahoo will be handling the legal threat by Belgian newspapers to sue Yahoo over violating copyright laws. Yahoo has claimed that they did not violate any copyright laws for "publishing snippets and links" to... - Search Engines'
Test Beds
In Search of... Better Ways to Search at the Wall Street Journal goes through the different ways search engines like Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask.com use "spin off" sites to test new features. We have reported about all these in the past, but the article offers a nice overview of... - Google
Librarian Central: Talking At Librarians
Google has created the Librarian Central Blog just in time for ALA Midwinter. The decision to create the weblog arose from their request for suggestions from librarians on how to improve the Google Librarian Newsletter, the two common ones being 'make it a blog' and 'give us more current information'.... - The Year in Review, Google Webmaster Central Blog
- Yahoo
Introduces Personal Finance Site
Gary Price reports that Yahoo has launched a new site, named Yahoo Personal Finance. News.com explains that this new sub-site offers "free tools and how-to guides for tax planning, budgeting, real estate planning, and saving for college and retirement." Gary explains they offer additional tools such as: financial calculators for... - Yahoo Debuts
U.S. Schools Search Tool
Yahoo Real Estate has introduced a new Schools Search service that lets you search for U.S. schools by city and state or zip code. Results are plotted on a map, and you can sort by school district, distance from a specific location, grade level, or school type (public, private, charter).... - Search Engine
Land Comment Feed Now Available
Thanks everyone for all the great feedback on improving comments at Search Engine Land, after my post yesterday. I'm taking them all on board, and feel free to add more. In the meantime, we've brought up a feed of all comments posted to the site plus tweaked the main site... - Social Search
Webcast Next Week
A quick heads-up for our SearchCap newsletter readers and also to anyone who visiting Search Engine Land. Next week the Social Search: New Marketing Opportunities webcast from our sister site Search Marketing Now will be taking place with Search Engine Land executive editor Chris Sherman. The webcast happens Thursday, January... - GOOGLE MAPS: Sometimes, even Google is too proud to ask for directions, Valleywag
- Google Maps Suggests Over 200 U-Turns, Search Engine Roundtable
