My Many Words for Snow – speaking of profanity. The IR geeks are generally a more reserved bunch (or so I thought) until now. Seriously… it’s pretty funny. Read it. Takes 30 seconds.

Overcoming The SEO Challenges Of Huge Online Commerce Sites – ok sure, Eric said the dreaded ‘PR sculpting’ but at least it has a new spin (lol). All in all, still a worthy edition for those in ecom.

Relevance: Good for SEO, Good for YOU – Virginia has a nice little road map for relevance. I enjoyed this one as it was anti-geeky. Taking ‘relevance’ back to the thought level… Nice.

Google Fails 5th Grade Math Test – and hey, what’s a week without poking some fun at Googly? And who better than Michael VanDemar to take them to task?

A concise list of SEO black hat tactics – while Michael may not luv me no more, (something to do with the SEOBS blog hehe) I still do, so here’s his nearly weekly addition into the mix. For the record, I have mate in BH, just not a fan of it myself.

“Inkbait”: A Case Study In Linkability – Deb does some link bait deconstruction and (as always) gives us some good take-aways. Seriously, she’s more of a content strategists at times, not merely a link builder.

50 Ways To Lose Your Link – speaking of links, Julie had a list (yup, I hate ‘em, but this one ain’t too bad) of the many ways that outreach can go wrong.

Using the hReview Microformat for your Review Pages – did I metion microformats were important? Richard seems to be getting right into them over the last while… Bookmark this one as it is a’ coming!

Why it’s time to take the SEO industry seriously – ok, sure, the content is a little light. But how often will we see a major (non SEO) website actually not crapping on our collective heads? Print it out. Frame it.

Master Baiters Taking The Bait – since we’re all sh*ts and giggles this week, I thought I’d add Milt’s post that asks the pertinent question. Why to SEO Baiters always find a hungry fish?

The Benefits of a Targeted YouTube Distribution Strategy  - a new addition to the newsletter are the guys at Reel SEO. Be sure to grab their feed and bookmark the site. We’ll be looking at VSEO more and more this year (part of a good universal search strategy right?).

Search Stuff

Social Search

Local SEO

Videos

Weapons

Google

Content identification expansion

Automatic completion of fragments of text

Multiple index based information retrieval system

Providing Posts to Discussion Threads in Response to a Search Query

Microsoft

Pseudo-anchor text extraction for vertical search

Recommendation system that identifies a valuable user action by mining data supplied by a plurality of users to find a correlation that suggests one or more actions for notification

Fast on-line learning of transformed hidden Markov models

Searching questions based on topic and focus

Clustering question search results based on topic and focus

Yahoo

Identifying related searches in a database search system

Classifying documents using implicit feedback and query patterns

Building a research document based on implicit/explicit actions

Can Too Much Keyword Density Be Interpreted as Boiler Plate Text? – Barry picked up on an interesting thread over at GWC on how high density might actually get one tagged for boilerplate ( a spam signal). Read it. Remember it. M’kay?

No Feed, No Problem – Google Reader Now Tracks (Mostly) Any Website Change – is an interesting update to Reader where one can now create a feed from websites without feeds. For those in the tin foil dept. this almost seems to be part of the ‘need for speed’ as it offers Google new avenues for discovery and page changes beyond traditional crawling.

Archive Dive with SEO Experts — SEM Synergy Extras – whaaaat? A ‘Dave Bait’ sighting? Sure is. Virginia rounds up some of the more interesting interviews on SEM Synergy from the last while including…. you guessed it, yours truly.

7 Do’s & Don’ts For Working With A Technical SEO During A Redesign – is a good round up of advice for ensuring the left hand knows what the right hand is doing during a redesign. It can’t be stressed enough that you involve the SEO team right from the outset with a redevelopment or even a new site.

The Algorithm Chasers – Kim dropped into SEL with this great post that had me worried when I first read the titles (being the algo geek that I am). My fear subsided once I realized that I fully agreed with here assertions. Have a read and let me know what YOU think.

Google Adds Click-to-Call Phone Numbers – it seems every year we hear, “this is the year for Mobile” and while it has never manifested, we still keep hearing it. Will this be the year for mobile and SEO? No idea. But it’s always a good idea to keep up with it…so I thought this was an interesting development.

Google May Be Crawling AJAX Now – How To Best Take Advantage Of It – a while back we heard that Google is getting better at java-script and now it seems they’re getting into Ajax. This VERY comprehensive post from Vanessa is a great look at the most recent developments.

Why Mahalo (and Other Content Scrapers) Render Google’s Spam Team Flaccid – everyone’s favourite ranting mad man, or at least one of my favoutites, Aaron Wall, was at it again. And it wasn’t a new target, oh no, he’s once more going off on the (one time?) enemy of SEO’s, Jason and the Malhalo crew. Ahhh… I love the smell of a good rant in the morning!

Three new myths SEOs tell you – Michael is back this week and hits a few not so common Myths that are running around the SEO community of late. For the record, I shall always be a SEO Geek and won’t be ‘evolving’ into another form of internet marketing any time soon.

What SEO’s Need to Know About Page Speed – While I do believe that we should get too worked about the so-called Page Load Speed Signal, it can never be a bad thing to keep an eye on from a usability perspective, never mind SEO. As such, this post on SEP is a worthy addition to this week’s edition.

Search Stuff

Social Search

Local SEO

Videos

Weapons

Google

Interactive financial charting and related news correlation

Microsoft

Search Engine Enhancement using mined implicit links

Yahoo

User Sensitive PageRank

Federated community search

Suggesting keywords based on mobile specific attributes

Selling SEO: Pitching Page Rank As a Metric Over Conversions? – ack…. Yup, nothing scarier than a client that uses TooBar PageRank as a metric. Barry covers an interesting thread on that very conversation.

SEO Priorities Survey: The Results – Virginia was noting the results of a recent survey on the Bruce Clay blog. I’m certainly one that enjoys these as it is nice to see how others in the business perceive things.

Web self help for Small Business – just for a change we have Bill (Slawski) with an entry out of the tech ‘Search Geek Central’ section. It is a groovy analogy from Ben Franklin no less. Good readin’!

Remember The Problem With SEO Theory Blogs, Like This One – I enjoyed Shaun’s little poke at himself and the rest of us technical search geeks. Always remember that testing is generally from a limited set and knowledge. Even we take it with a grain of salt.

What Spammers Can Teach You About ORM – I enjoyed Dave’s lament as he digs into the dark side of SEO on SEJ last week. He also has a few good approaches for cleaning up ORM issues should they happen to you.

Do I need to know Blackhat SEO? – Rishil makes a debut in the newsletter (really? Took this long? I must be slacking) as he asked the search community about how black hat fits into the greater scheme of things.

SEO 101 Common Mistakes – I’m not a fan of lists, but when we come across a HUGE one like this, it simply can’t be over-looked. What made it more interesting is the guys on Dave Naylor’s blog tend to have more ‘quick hit’, drive by blogging posts most of the time. Nice work!

PageRank Sculpting Leaves NoFollowed Tags Behind – I am not sure if the terminology works, (I’ve always called it PageRank management), but the concepts are solid. Understanding how the flow of internal link love operates, is an essential IMHO. Thus this one makes this week’s edition…. (see’s MM and ducks).

Google Search Just Got a Little Bit Smarter: Highlights Answers to Factual Questions – in Google’s never ending quest for ‘no click surfing’ comes an update over on Read Write Web. Interesting space this rich snippets and RDFa is… get to know my friends! There is some more interesting stuff on this over at Search Engine Land.

How to Employ Multiple Keywords for SEO & Conversions – one question I hear a lot in my travels is, “How many terms can I target on one page?”. This post from Rand looks at that and does a good job of explaining some approaches (with pretty graphs and pics as always).

The Ethical Dilemma of Providing Marketing Services and Tools – while not exactly big news, I thought it worth noting this Raven SEO post which lays out their new business model. Essentially this helps to diffuse any potential conflict of interest the tools previously had. Kudos gentlemen… a wise move!

Search Stuff

Social Search

Local SEO

Videos

Weapons

Google

Transliteration for query expansion

Lord of the SEO Friendly CMS – Jon was highlighting some of the issues with, and his thoughts on the perfect, content management system. This is a huge consideration as it can handcuff one into working from behind. A good addition to this week’s edition.

Handling Blank Review Pages for Better Traffic and Conversion – I enjoyed this one as it is one of the little tactics that can maximize the granular elements of an SEO program. We want to have every advantage possible, so keep this one in the arsenal.

The Great Grandma Content Caper – ok, the title alone as enough to get this one into the newsletter, but the content delivers as well. Michael’s advice for content publishers dealing with scrapers/crap-hatters, is spot on as always.

Cleaning up the SEO Cesspool – while I appreciate Allan’s ‘rant-ish’ title, he’s fighting the age old battle of search ‘standards/ethics’ which history has proven to be a losing one. But, that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth putting out there again… (the comments are great as well).

Tracking Your SEO Success With Charts – Aaron dropped into SEL with some pretty pictures and good ideas. As a data geek, I am always drawn to the precioussss… I mean, purdy graphs and such.

After The Hack, Should I Still Trust Google & The Cloud With My Data? – After Google was attacked Danny gave pause to muse over the security of ‘the cloud’. I particularly enjoyed this one and it is a fairly important editorial. Read it if ye haven’t already.

Build Links with Better Answers – as we’re always looking for new angles for link building, it was nice to see this post on SEJ from Jennifer. It’s actually an old tactic (answering a burning question as link bait) but she does a great job of laying out the process. Nice work Jen.

2010: The Year of the Little Guy – Julie Joyce was on a road tour this week (from the SEO chicas) and stopped into Search Cowboys… I personally work a lot with SMEs which made this anthem to the little guy ever so enjoyable! Kickin’ arse and takin’ ranks!

Getting Links for a Poker site is easier than you think – We also had a Lyndon alert last week (don’t hear much from him anymore). I’d read this one if you’re having problems with the creative process in content development. There’s always more than one way to skin a cat!

2010 Marketing Predictions & Resolutions – this is a round up on Search Engine Land of the many predictions/resolutions made by search bloggers going into 2k10. Some interesting theories abound, that’s for sure.

Detecting and dealing with duplicate content – we had a guest poster on the Trail last week, (Mark Thompson) and he put out a pretty good post. He looks at methods and tools for dealing with dupes and even scrapers. While I wouldn’t worry about every page, pillar content and target pages are best to keep clean. Give it a read!

Search Stuff

Social Search

Local SEO

Videos

Weapons

Google

Methods and systems for output of search results

Yahoo

Predictions of a degree of relevance between query re-writes and a search query

Link optimization

System and method for indexing web content using click-through features

Talking Google Personalized Search – for those that missed it, yours truly was on SEM Synergy (on Webmaster Radio) just before the break. We were talking about personalized search and it’s effects on the future of SEO. Thanks to Virginia, Brascoe and the gang for having me on!

Is SEO Science or Art? – Aaron looks at the recent hub-bub over SEOmoz’s post that dealt with ‘testing’ of the nofollow tag. Is SEO an Art or Science? Should one REALLY share research data? Why is Aaron ranting? For these answers and more, read the post.

How to Rank Duplicate Content Without Cheating – the AIM Clear Blog had an interesting article on ways you can get around traditional issues related to dupes.

How SEOs Win the War on Personalized & Real-Time Search – looks at another recent Top Story, increased personalization from Google. Dave does a good job of summing things up and has some (Gypsy approved) common sense tips for optimizers looking to deal with the new implications.

What does an SEO Strategy look like? – friend of the FireHorse, Ben McKay, was putting together a strategy outline for his company and was looking for feedback. I’ve already come on board and offered some help, so why not drop by the post and offer your own 2c?

How to Drive More Links Via Public Relations – the gang over at BuzzStream had a good piece on how the PR Dept. (no that’s not PageRank silly) can work together with the SEO peeps for maximum effectiveness (they’re first appearance in the newsletter).

Google Doesn’t Want Searchers To Find SEOs & Web Designers – Matt McGee was musing over some interesting SERPs related to geo-local universal results. It seem’s there are a few query spaces that don’t produce them without the ‘in’ term modifier. Bring tin foil, just in case.

How to treat the Supplemental Blues – Michael (Martinez) discusses some ins-and-outs of indexation, PageRank (the real stuff) and the infamous SI. Oh, and of course, a little more swatting at PR Sculpting gets into the mix …lol…

Link Building this year – Wiep wraps up some of his fav link building posts from 2009. Yes, it’s a flippin’ end of year post, which put me to sleep, but this one has some pretty good articles…         

Sanitize links in your content feeds – I have personally been very wary of some of the funky links being produced by services such as Google Reader and everyone’s fav mad scientists of SEO, Sebastian X, has a great post (and WP plug-in) to help sort it for you… Nice one Seb, greatly appreciated!

Search Stuff

Social Search

Local SEO

Videos

Weapons

Google

Query identification and association

Determining query term synonyms within query context

Annotating webpage content (Site Wiki?)

Improving a search ranking using location awareness

Microsoft

Semantic canvas

Name searching a ranking function

Consistent phrase relevance measures

Yahoo

Adapting a ranking function of a search engine for use with a specific domain

Using activation paths to cluster proximity query results

Pre-fetching data for document ranking

Background contextual conversational search

Google Caffeine Now Live On One Google Data Center – for those that care, SEL was reporting on the new DC that it’s living on. I haven’t had a chance to play with it recently… hopefully this week.

Does website structure matter to SEO? – Michael’s entry this week (seems he has one in every edition?)… was dealing with a variety of reasons why you MUST be paying attention to site architecture. I am a HUGE fan of anything not link building.. Site architecture is an area worth nailing.

How To Take Control Of Your Link Building In 2010 – speaking of link building, Eric (Ward) was looking for us all to be more empowered and stop outsourcing link building activities. Considering the value of links, I tend NOT to outsource this stuff…thanks for the advice tho’ Eric.

A Reader’s Guide To 30+ Advanced Search Marketing Blogs – Michael (Martinez) was recently doing what he’s termed as ‘Dave bait’ which seem to be the approach used by Gabs on this one. It’s a safe bet that adding me to a list is a good way to get into this publication… if not vanity, it’s my way of saying THANKS!

Trademark Owners: Get Your New International Domain Names Now! – this is actually a fairly important news tidbit.. I’d advise you all lock up your brands ASAP.

Why Doesn’t Google See My Inbound Links – yes, MM makes another appearance this week (Dave bait seems to be working). This one I think is actually important. Regardless of what those running link index services tell you, there is no reliable way of measuring a link’s value. Read it… Know it… Realize it. M’kay?

Google & Yahoo SERPS Hijacked? – Search Commander Blog was lamenting some malware that he’d picked up somewhere which was causing the SERPs to go somewhat bonkers. I’ve encountered this with a mate in the past … best beware my friends, it’s ugly out there.

“See No Evil” Is No Way For Big Companies To Deal With Search Spam – I did have to enjoy the ride on this one. I am not a guy that deals with a lot of large corp work anymore, and stories like this one are part of the reason why.

Hard facts about URI spam – friend of the Fire Horse, Sabastian X returns this week with yet another geeky tin toil touting post. I’ve been noticing these fecked up URIs over the last while and it’s nice to see someone go off on them… Suhweet!

The Top 5 Reasons we Canucks use Google Differently CanuckSEO – ok, sure… I hate lists as much as the next person, but since this one is from the CanuckSEO blog and I just happen to be one; why not?

An Interview with David Harry; founder of the SEO Dojo – oh yea, did I mention earlier that pimpin’ me is a good way into the weekly edition? The guys at Raven SEO went a step further and decided to interview yers truly… Thanks a bunch Lee, it was fun and an honour!

How a Google Penalty Can Make Your Site Stronger – as a guy that does a fair bit of work with penalties, this post I respected. Ross spins a tale of woe and was some good insight as well… A keeper for sure.

Yahoo and Bing – I thee wed – Pete Young was reporting that the deal is all but final. Let the games begin!
(also on SEW here)

How To Get More Links From Back Linking Competitors – competitive analysis is a huge part of the link building program for me… In this post Debra gives us sound advice on reverse engineering competitors successes.

25 Websites every SEO should know for 2010 – oh, and have I mentioned ‘Dave Baiting’ is in season (hee hee)? Yup, another list that popped up on my radar. And yes, it is a good list, not just pimpin’ for the sake of it.. :0)

Six Years Covering the Search Marketing Community -  a huge congrats goes out to Barry whom celebrated 6 years reporting over on Search Engine Roundtable… Please take a few moments to leave some support in the comments!

Search Stuff

Google

Inferring search category synonyms from user logs

Duplicate document detection in a web crawler system

Microsoft

High scale adaptive search systems and methods

Context-based key phrase discovery and similarity measurement utilizing search engine query logs

Recommending queries when searching against keywords

Presenting search queries related to navigational queries

Germany says Google Analytics is illegal – now there’s a title that gets one’s attention. In an interesting move, Search Cowboys noted a government decision that essentially states that collecting user information without their consent is a no-no. It also seems to be leary of Google’s data gathering in general.

How to borrow relevance from authority pages with 307 redirects – Dr. Evil, ( aka; Sebastian X) was having some fun playing with 307 redirects for fun and entertainment. From a slight to the sandbox to Twitter links, bring some tin foil for this one.

Buy Viagra At NME.com – not to lose the ‘fun’ theme, we also had Shaun over at Hobo whom was looking at a site (forum) that was nuked by Google, for all things… Viagra-spam! Who knew? The interesting part is that not the entire site was nuked; just the boards.

Under The Hood: Google News & Ranking Stories – Danny’s series on digging under-the-hood at Google news continued… I enjoyed the whole journey. If he’d asked me, I have a whack of patents on it…(hmmm… maybe a follow up huh?).

SEO Management 101 – What Makes for a Good SEO Manager? – is Richard Baxter’s look at the elements that make a great manager. For the record, I am a crappy boss…lol…

Google Adds Breadcrumbs to Search Results Interface – Aaron over at SEO Book’s look at Google’s recent addition of bread crumbs to the SERPs… He’s always entertaining, thus we decided to go with his coverage (bring tin foil of course).

Why link building may not work – looks at some sound reasoning why one should ALWAYS work at building diversification into their link building. Although we should all know that by now, right?

What Are Google’s 200 Search Engine Ranking Factors? – Barry was reporting that the gang at WPW were trying to nail down the infamous ‘200+ ranking factors’. For the record, they are mixing signals and dampening factors, so it might not work out as envisioned (yet another reason for SEOs to learn more about information retrieval).

Searchers using longer search-queries – as reported by the folks at Search Cowboys. These reports are always interesting and once more bears out the observation that longer queries are still on the rise.

The Top 5 Reasons we Canucks use Google Differently CanuckSEO – ok, sure… I hate lists as much as the next person, but since this one is from the CanuckSEO blog and I just happen to be one; why not?

What does my perfect SEO training scheme look like? – Ben McKay dropped a post on the SEO Scoop which hits one of my fav topics; SEO training. If you’re an agency type, you might want to read this one… a def keeper.

Achieving Strong Themes through Silos and Data Mining Server Logs in the SEO Newsletter – I am a HUGE proponent of siloing (and PR management) and the gang at Bruce Clay are some of the best on the topic. If you learn only ONE thing from this week’s edition, this would be it!

How often should you review your SEO strategy? – is a good post that looks at another area I am a big believer in; quarterly reviews. As Kevin outlines, one should never sit on their laurels – search engines evolve, so must approaches.

Linkbait: The New “Fake!” – as many would know I am a fan of link bait… in all of it’s forms. One of the unfortunate parts of the naming convention, is that all link-bait is associated with crap/evil stuff. Anyway, Ruud had a good post lamenting the age of LB pandemonium.

Spark Something; Like cohesive marketing strategies – hehe… nothing this ol war horse likes better than chewing up screw ups. Amrit did a good job of taking apart some serious FAIL work from the folks over at Erikson… Nice ride (be sure to ‘mount up’).

Search Stuff

Social Search

Local SEO

Videos

Weapons

Google

Enhanced search results

Yahoo

User-sensitive pagerank

21 Link Builders Share Advanced Link Building Queries – was a great post from Garrett French over on SEL which the gang at the SEO Dojo were put to use in giving some input on. If you’re a fan of link building and Google dorking, this is a must read.

How Google News uses click data for rankings – is an interesting piece that looks at some of the statements made recently by a Googler on using query analysis and click data in the News SERPs… always an interesting topic.

Hidden H Tags by Google – funny stuff here.. Google using some hidden tags? Yikes… say it ain’t so! Go get ‘em Irish!

What is Whitehat Automation? – Rob Adler is taking a stab at the world of white hat SEO by bringing some of his dark-side automation over to the other side. You know U want to play with us Rob, nice stuff brother!

5 Worries that can kill your SEO campaign – Stoney uncovers some common issues that can bring a search campaign to its knees.

Linkbait vs. Linkbuying – Paul Carpenter takes us through the ins-and-outs of link bait V buying. As long time readers would know, I am a baity’ kind o guy. Why buy what you ca get for free?

Does Reading Level Matter in SEO? – David Waterman over at The Search Agents played with an interesting theory of how reading level might affect rankings, or at least how it relates when studying existing rankings. Fun stuff… tin foil likely required.

Keyword Research: A Proven System – friend of the FireHorse, Garrett Pierson dropped a post over at Search Engine People. While it’s not the most in-depth piece ever written, it contains the concept that KW research is one of THE most important aspects of SEO; something I believe in and not enough peeps state it as such… so it’s worth noting.

Do More Domains Help SEO – was the question being asked AND answered (sort of) by Michael over on the ‘best SEO blog’. I liked this one as it highlights the problem with ANY question in SEO; it depends on the situation and reason for doing so. Nice one MM!

10 Resources: SEO Going Underground Again – is a bit of a rant from Tad on the joys of being pegged as an SEO out in the online world. He relates his experiences and the venom faced by many of us in social circles.

Three Pages from the Same Domain in Google SERPs? – Alan was noting some interesting 3 page listings (main and 2 indented) and why there hasn’t been more buzz about it. Dear Alan, methinks it is because this only happens with navigational searches, so it really doesn’t affect most of us… m’kay?

Building Links “Outside The Box” – as always Debra has some interesting perspectives on link building methods beyond the every-day. Of particular interest this time out, is actually building links by identifying your target demographic – kudos as always Deb!

Search Stuff

Search Taxonomies and Search Engines: Answering Questions vs. Indexing Webpages - SEO by the Sea

How Google Might Insert Artificial Named Anchors into Web Pages – SEO by the Sea

Exploring Exploratory Search – Noisy Channel

FacteryLabs Launch FactRank Engine – Search Engine Watch

Information Glut, or Information Gluttons? – Haystack Blog

Random linguistics – the Lousy Linguist

Social Search 

Local-Social Search: A Powerful Marketing Channel For Small Businesses – SEL

Ask Making A Bigger Bet On “Social Search” Or Q&A – Search Engine Land

Yahoo Adds Fresh, Social Content to Search, Twitter Included – SEJ

Collecta Powers Real-time Search for Identi.ca – Alt Search Engine

Local SEO

6 Ways Local Domains Crush Dot Coms In International SEO – Search Engine Land

The 3 Variables of Google Local Search – Search Engine Guide

Mapsicle 1.0: Annotating Street View Panoramas – Google Geo Developers Blog

How to use multiple sitemaps on one domain for geo-targeting – Search Cowboys

Videos

Marketing in the Age of Google – Web Pro News

Bruce Clay on the Business of Local Search – Web Pro News

Fliqz Launches Online Video SEO Tool - SEW

Google’s new KW research Tool – Jim Stewart

Cutt’s Corner

Matt on Load speed and Caffeine

Why would an FAQ page rank above a site’s homepage?

Weapons 

3 SEO Browsers to Evaluate on-Page SEO – SEJ

How to Track Competitor Search Engine Rankings with SEJ Tools

Use Google Speed Tool to Speed Up Site – RustyBrick

Google Analytics Filter Best Practices – Search Engine People

Playing with Google Analytics Intelligence – Blog Storm

Google

Artificial anchor for a document

Agent Rank

Microsoft

Multi-modal search wildcards

Multi-modal query refinements

Ranking functions using an incrementally-updatable, modified naive bayesian query classifier

Yahoo

Search Results with a Word or Phrase Index

Search results with most clicked next objects

Search processing with automatic categorization of queries

Indexing information and providing results for a search including objects having predetermined attributes

Search Stuff

Here are some of the search geekiness that caught our eye for this edition;

Google Webmaster Tools Patent on Crawl Rates – SEO by the Sea

A relevance rank for communication – Geeking with Greg

Google is sharpening it’s squares – the Noisy Channel

Social Search

These stories are mostly related to the emerging world of Social Searching;

Twitter Talking With Google, Microsoft About Data Sharing – Search Engine Watch

Goby: A Search Engine to Cure Your Boredom – Mashable

Twitter Search Refines Trend Searches To Give You More Real-Time Results, – TechCrunch

Local SEO

The happenings from the world of local/geo search;

Google Geo Targeting Some UK Sites to France?, Search Engine Roundtable

Everything you need to know about Google local business center – Think Seer

Be wary of tracking numbers in local search – Search Engine Land

Exploring Local Google Maps – The Brand

Videos

All the latest videos for SEO peeps that we thought were interesting;

Google Faculty Summit 2009: Google Wave – Google Tech Talks

Search Round Up - Barry (via Search Engine Roundtable)

Which is better and HTML site map or an SML one? – Matt Cutts

Un-crawled URLs in search results – Matt’s got a white board

Un-crawled URLs and Yellow Pages – Jim Stewart (some commentary on MCs post)

Weapons

If it’s tools you’re after, here’s what we found for you this week;

Foxy SEO; a quick way to access multiple tools – Search Engine Journal

Google keyword tool v KW external – SEO Gadget

Monitor Any Page with Website Monitor Google Gadget – Search Engine Journal

SOSG Alerts

Here we have alll kinds of geekiness for the seriously obsessed (outside of the Big 3);

NewsDots – nifty visual approach to news search/recommendations

Whoozy – a new people search engine.

Nu2Me provides a central location for links from UsedEverywhere.com, Kijiji.ca and Craigslist.ca!

UsedEverywhere.com was founded in 2003 with the vision that an effective, free, online marketplace for the sale of used goods would reduce landfill content and benefit the environment.

Pillbox was developed to aid in the identification of unknown solid dosage pharmaceuticals.

Google -

Zero-minute virus and spam detection

Search result ranking based on trust

Detecting spam documents in a phrase based information retrieval system

Microsoft -

Quality of web search results using a game

Dynamic search with implicit user intention mining

Ranking search results using biased click distance

Yahoo -

System for classifying a search query

Hybrid term and document-based indexing for search query resolution

System and method for improving online search engine results