Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

There are reports that Microsoft is going to do a huge ad push in the UK in an effort to capture market share there. Currently, Microsoft's Bing has a 3% share of search, whereas Google holds about a 90% share.

Here is the news:

Microsoft is to launch a multimillion-pound TV ad campaign for its search engine Bing, as part of a major marketing push designed to challenge Google's dominance of the UK search market, MediaGuardian.co.uk can reveal.

Microsoft will certainly have its work cut out winning over consumers "“ it currently holds about a 3% share of the search market while Google controls about 90%.

"This is a big moment "“ we are taking out our slingshots and taking on Goliath," said the managing director and vice-president of consumer and online at Microsoft UK, Ashley Highfield, adding that he believed Bing met a real desire from both consumers and advertisers.

A WebmasterWorld thread has some comments, here is one:

In the UK I believe there is a large number of people who do not like Microsoft and unless they can hide their identity as far as Bing is concerned, I doubt they will make any great inroads however much money they pour into Bing. And that mention of taking out their slingshots and taking on Goliath is a joke! Who is the real Goliath between the two companies?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google announced a new feature named Google Public Data Explorer. What it does is allow you to mash up data from the public sectors into neat charts and graphs.

Google explains:

With the Data Explorer, you can mash up data using line graphs, bar graphs, maps and bubble charts. The visualizations are dynamic, so you can watch them move over time, change topics, highlight different entries and change the scale. Once you have a chart ready, you can easily share it with friends or even embed it on your own website or blog.

A WebmasterWorld thread mocks the announcement, where one member said:

Next up, Google unveils "Private Data Recorder" which makes large datasets of private information easy to explore, visualize and communicate.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." ... "But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time. And [...] we're all subject, in the US, to the Patriot Act, and it is possible that that information could be made available to the authorities."

Kind of funny - but heck, this isn't too far off, we have Google sourcing traffic data from your mobile device for use on Google Maps traffic layer.

In any event, this is neat stuff.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread started by forum administrator, engine, wrote:

A webmaster I spoke to today was after a simple way to find new link opportunities. I mentioned something to him, which was to try using Google's related: feature

It worked for him, does it work for you?

The single response so far said that they do not use search operators anyone. They have other strategies to get links. This one, in particular, said he creates "a list of the biggest, baddest websites in my niche and find a way to get a link from them." Can't you use advanced search operators to discover those sites? I guess you don't need to.

My question to you, do you use search operators, such as related and so on, to find linking opportunities?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

I was browsing the various Google forums and spotted several complaints in the Google Web Search Help forums and Google Webmaster Help about there being no International Women's Day Doodle on March 8th, yesterday.

There are literally dozens of complaints, some calling Google anti-women. Google is a very women friendly company, I know that. So what is going on, why no Doodle for International Women's Day?

I initially thought Google just doesn't always celebrate every event every day. They are human, they can forget. But then I saw someone mention that a logo was live on Google Russia. It linked to 8 марта, which is March 8 but in the URL parameter it had "&ct=womensday10-hp&oi=ddle", i.e. a doodle for women's day. Here is a picture of the doodle:

What is weird is that I don't see it live on Google.com. But I do see it linked to at google.com/logos/womensday10-hp.gif - so why not on the main Google.com?

In any event, I wrote this post on March 8th and scheduled it for tomorrow. I hope by then, the logo would have been posted. But I won't be able to check until later, because I will be on a plane.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help and Google Webmaster Help.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

In October 2009, Google proposed a way to index AJAX. Back then, all it was, was a proposal, but it was not implemented. However, last week, Vanessa Fox reported that the AJAX feature for Google is now live and well.

I am not going to get into the technical details of how it works again. In fact, you can read about that over here and begin implementing it as soon as you like. We currently have no real feedback on how well it works yet, so I will keep my eyes open on that in the forums.

However, Vanessa Fox did see signs of Google crawling AJAX earlier this year and wrote up some of the pros and cons related to that.

In any event, I may want to give this a try myself on some of our sites and let you know how well it works or not.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

We rarely ever talk about Bing's outstanding image search, but I spotted a thread today in the Bing Community forums on that topic.

In short, one webmaster complained that Bing had about 50% of the images from his site, when compared to Google. So Google had about 50 pictures from this guys site in their index, coming up for a site command. Bing had about half that.

Brett Yount forwarded the complaint the the image search team at Bing and when he received a response, he copy and pasted it in the forums. This is what they said:

All in all I would say we have ok coverage for this site. We do not include all images that we know about in our index -- it is quite plausible that we decided to not include certain images from this site due to better relative ranking of other sites during crawl time. We should see its image search rank go up (and our coverage of it improve) as the site gets more popular and the images get reused and referred to by more sites.

This is really no different than web search - Google, Bing and other search engines may not consider a page worthy of crawling or indexing due to it's popularity or lack there of. This works the same way with images, according to Bing.

Forum discussion at Bing Community.

The Google Web Search Help, Google News Help & Google Merchant Center Help forums all are announcing new changes coming to how forum members are ranked in these forums.

Currently, the member titles or levels are from Level 1 to Level 4. Some users get special titles, such as top contributors and/or certified professionals, or even Googler's get a special label, labeling them as Googlers. I do not believe the labels will be changing, but the levels will.

Instead of the 4 levels, there will be 20 levels. Your level will increase based on"

• Posting an answer
• Having your answer selected as the "best answer"
• Having your post rated as helpful
• Rating a post (either as helpful or not)
• Correctly marking a question or answer as spam.

I believe the levels determine what rights you have in the forums. By rights, I mean, can the profile show an avatar? Can they have clickable links? Stuff like that. Each forum sets the rights per level themselves and how hard it is to reach a level as well. So while the Google News forum might be easier to get to a higher level, it might take longer to post a clickable link.

The levels are by forum, so if you have a Level 15 in the Google Webmaster forum, it doesn't mean you have the same level in the Google AdWords forum.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help, Google News Help & Google Merchant Center Help.

Yahoo announced they have removed the BETA from the Yahoo Search Marketing Desktop client.

Yahoo Pete, Yahoo's search ad representative, said in both a WebmasterWorld & Search Engine Watch Forums thread:

Just wanted to make you aware that our desktop editing tool, Search Marketing Desktop, is now available to most of our advertisers (eligibility is based on minimum monthly spend and a few other factors). Using SMD, it takes just a few clicks to modify multiple campaigns, ad groups, keywords and ads at the same time.

For more details, please visit our blog [ysmblog.com] or the SMD sign-up page [advertising.yahoo.com]. We're also hosting a free webinar about SMD this coming Thursday--you can sign up through the link in the blog post.

Obviously, towards the end of this year or early next year, this tool will be terminated due to the Microsoft Yahoo deal - but hey, remove the beta label, why not.

For more information about the tool, please see here and for Thursday's webminar click here.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld & Search Engine Watch Forums.

Yesterday was the second ever SphinnCon event, a small Search Marketing Expo, ever. The first one took place about two years ago in Israel and the second took place yesterday in Israel. The second event was a bit larger than the first in terms of the number of sessions, speakers and attendees. Overall, the networking and educational event was a huge success and we look forward to hosting one again next year.

The even took place in the Jerusalem College of Technology's new lecture rooms. The rooms hard larger capacity than the first time we held the event there but we were still limited to only about 200 or so attendees. In any event, the university was incredibly welcoming to us, they not only partnered with us for this event by giving us a place at their home, but also had their own speakers at the event.

We had sold out the event a couple months prior to yesterday and had a waiting list of about a hundred people, hoping to get a spot. We also had people show up at the door, waiting to see if they can get in. Ultimately, I believe we began letting people in an hour or so after the show began. I honestly believe we could have had 400 or more people at this event. So for next year, I hope to work that out the accommodations with JCT to make this possible.

We started off the event with Avi Kay from the university, who introduced me to give the welcome address. In my five minute welcome, I thanks the sponsors, which included Compucall Web Marketing, Answers.com and Whired Rhino. We had additional requests for sponsors, but we had to turn additional sponsors away at a certain point.

I also thanked all the volunteers who put tons of hours into the event. They either ran around getting the caterer scheduled or printing the conference banners and handouts. Or they dealt with helping formulate the conference agenda and organizing the 30+ speakers. Acted as the front door bouncer and speaker organizers during the event. Or they helped organize the after hours party or provided Israeli hospitality to our out of town speakers. They include, but are not limited to Olivier Amar (@olivier_amar) of WhiteWeb, Ophir Cohen (@ophirco) of Compucall, Eli Feldblum (@Feldbum) of RankAbove, Roi Hildesheimer of Tens Technology, Charlie Kalech (@charliekalech)of J Town, Itay Paz (ItayPaz)of Affilicon, Mayer Reich (@mayerreich) of RankAbove, Branko Rihtman (@neyne) of WhiteWeb, and Gilad Sasson (@algoholic) of Nekuda. So thank you again, from the bottom of my heart.

There were four speakers, at least that I am aware of, that came from outside of Israel, excluding myself, to make it to this event. Vanessa Fox of Nine By Blue came all the way from SMX West (but native to Seattle), with what appeared to be bronchitis. Dixon Jones from Majestic SEO flew from the UK to speak about one of his favorite topics, links. Ariel Sumeruk from Click2Customers came from SMX West (but native to South Africa) to speak on paid search. Finally, Tomer Honen from Google, came from the Ireland Google office to represent the Google Webmaster team in Israel. Thank you all for coming from so far to make it to this special event - the Israeli SEM industry deeply appreciated it and you all made a huge impact yesterday.

I would also like to thank all the speakers. I heard some great, unique and fun presentations yesterday. This was event definitely lived up to the quality of the SMX name. Here is a list of our speakers for SphinnCon Israel 2010:

• Adir Regev, CEO, GO Internet Marketing
• Ariel Ozick, WiredRhino
• Ariel Sumeruk, Head of Business intelligence & CTO, Clicks2Customers
• Barry Schwartz, RustyBrick, Inc.
• Branko Rihtman, Whiteweb
• Charlie Kalech, Director, J-Town Productions
• Dan Gerstenfeld, Lecturer at JCT & CEO of Interteam
• Dan Perach, Co-Founder, PPCPROZ
• Daniel Waisberg, Head of Analytics, Easynet
• Debra Askanase, Owner, Community Organizer 2.0
• Dixon Jones, of MejesticSEO
• Eli Feldblum, CTO & Founder, RankAbove
• Gab Goldenberg, SEO ROI
• Gil Reich, Answers.com
• Gilad Sasson, Search Marketing Analyst at nekuda.co.il
• Itay Paz, ItayPaz.net
• Menachem Rosenbaum, TENS-Technology
• Michal Neufeld, Account Strategist, Google Israel
• Miriam Schwab, CEO, illuminea
• Naomi Sela, Media Director, Compucall Web Marketing
• Olivier Amar, WhiteWeb
• Ophir Cohen, CEO Compucall Web Marketing
• Oren Shatz, Chairman, SEO Israel Technologies Ltd.
• Pavel Israelsky, blogger & SEO expert, AskPavel SEO Blog
• Roi Carthy, Writer, TechCrunch
• Sam Michaelson, Five Blocks
• Shira Abel, Abel Communications
• Shlomi Aizenberg, Director of SEM, Easynet Search Marketing
• Tomer Honen, Search Quality Strategist, Google
• Uri Breitman, TBWA\DIGITAL
• Vanessa Fox, Nine By Blue
• Yuli Dasiatnikov, SEO, Compucall Web Marketing

After the presentations, some of the attendees travelled up to Tel Aviv to hit the party at the Dancing Camel. The party was sponsored by 888.com and Gammon Empire. Here is one of my favorite pictures from that event:

Thank you all so much for making this such a successful event! If some of you were unable to make it, there were tons of tweets and pictures of the event. We have some greatest hit recaps and live blogging of the event. Here are some of the pictures from people mentioned above, including a Flash embed from TENS Web Marketing.

Update: The Jerusalem Post did a write up on the event, which you can read over here and here is a picture:

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

I am still in Israel, so no video recap this week again, I apologize but here is the text alternative.

Google dropped SearchWiki for Starring search results, which makes me very happy. Yahoo celebrated it's 15th birthday. We posted the March Google webmaster report. Is there such a thing as a seven day indexing delay with Google? Google Webmaster Tools added better notifications, sharing capabilities, Sidewiki control, but had bugs with setting the crawl rate and verification through AdSense. Bing recommends validated HTML for better indexing and dislikes chain redirects. Google is showing "related commercial searches" in the AdWords spot. AdSense publishers from Brazil may not get paid this month. Google Maps has an avoid tolls feature that doesn't fully work every where. Google posted a Doodle for St Davids Day & Vivaldi. Finally, SMX West was this week and Keri and Brian did a great job with the excellent coverage. That was this past week at the Search Engine Roundtable.

Select Topics For This Past Week:

Google Search:

• Good, Google Killed SearchWiki, Adds Stars

Yahoo News:

• Yahoo's 15th Birthday Logo : March 1, 2010

Google SEO:

• March 2010 Google Webmaster Report
• The Google 7 Day Index Delay?
• Google Webmaster Tools Bolsters Notifications & Eases Sharing
• Google Adds Sidewiki Control to Google Webmaster Tools
• .TV Domains Can't Set Crawl Rate in Google Webmaster Tools
• AdSense Data Link With Google Webmaster Tools Failure

Bing SEO:

• Bing Recommends W3C Compliant Code For Better Indexing
• Bing Doesn't Like Redirect Chains, No One Does Really

Google AdWords:

• Picture: Google "Related Commercial Searches"

Google AdSense:

• Brazilian Google AdSense Publishers May Not Be Paid This Month

Google Maps:

• Google Maps Avoid Tolls Feature May Cost You

Google Doodles:

• Google's St Davids Day Logo Insults Welsh
• Vivaldi Gets A Google Doodle

• SMX West 2010 Live Blogging Recap

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If you login to your verified web sites at Google Webmaster Tools and go to the "labs" section, you may notice a new feature to help you control your Sidewiki messages.

Here is a picture:

The feature basically let's you control the message you show to users who use that Google Sidewiki within the Google Toolbar. In the past, webmasters had to use the Google Toolbar to add a site owner message. Danny has a great article on how that worked at Search Engine Land.

Now this can be done directly in Google Webmaster Tools. I do not believe Google announced this feature yet.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld& DigitalPoint Forums.

There are some reports at the Google Maps Help forum that the "avoid tolls" feature for Google Maps driving directions does not always work right.

The issue spans as far as Australia and as close as Pennsylvania.

Brian B., a Googler, from the Google Maps help forum said:

Just wanted to give an update here that there are folks looking into this "avoid tolls" issue, and I'll post an update here when there's a resolution.

I am not sure when or if it has been fixed, but at least Google is aware of it.

Forum discussion at Google Maps Help.