“Local search is an important priority for us, and we’re focused on helping businesses be discovered and helping consumers find the right local business,” a Google spokesperson told ITBusiness.ca in an e-mail interview. “One key component of that is the Local Business Center to allow business owners to have control over their listing.”

If you’re running a business and still believe that Yellow Pages is more reliable for a local listing than Google, this article might make you think twice.

Google News is without a doubt the reason why we where we are today.  And, the social networking aspect of Google News has helped us tremendously.

Joe Vallee and Dennis Bakay measure the impact Google, Facebook and Twitter have had on social networking for websites. If its traffic you’re after, this makes for an interesting read.

The difference between how Facebook and Google have addressed privacy issues offers a stark contrast. While Facebook has quickly responded to criticism and backlash, and has implemented additional changes to try and accommodate concerns, Google CEO Eric Schmidt dismissed privacy concerns entirely.

Tony Bradley compares the approaches taken by both Google and Facebook with regards to online privacy; something that every online business has to take very seriously.

Google released a preview version of its latest tool this past October. There was much anticipation around Wave, which developers promised would revolutionize the way we communicate and collaborate. Google capitalized on this anticipation by limiting who would be allowed to use Wave; upon making the preview available, they sent out a limited batch of invitations and each invitee could ask 10 friends to join. Those 10 friends were not given additional invites, so there was a limited number of invites available.

If you just happen to be one of those who had bought into the whole, “email and instant messaging ain’t ever gonna work for my business for they’re both dead” hype, Google Wave could be the app to change your mind.

Paul points it out as a failed dishwasher search. Mike complains about automated content as does RWW. And we all have experienced it: The Google ecosystem is failing more – failing to get us what we think we want. Failing to not frustrate us. Failing at the more complicated queries we are throwing at it. Failing to be the Google that we came to love back when the web was small and Facebook was a way for Harvard geeks to try to get laid.

John Battelle points out something that more and more SEO specialists have been noticing. Find out if Google is satisfying your search needs and how this issue might affect your online business.

Watch out Apple, here comes Nexus One, the Google phone the tech world has been salivating for. Over the weekend Google set off a fury of speculation when employees tweeted they were testing a new Android-based mobile device. Google later ratcheted up the Google phone buzz when in a blog post it confirmed it was testing a handset with “innovative hardware” from one of its partners. Said to be named Nexus One, many critics believe this device will give the iPhone a run for its money.

If the iPhone has revolutionized the way we conduct business online, then news of Google releasing its own phone; Nexus One should alert you to something really exciting on the horizon. This could mean new business opportunities for you. Read on to find out what’s coming.

Given the statements made in my last post, I figured this might come in handy.

Here’s a short list of people and sites whose advice I follow and would go to for help, to outsource a project, or to learn more about search, whether I was stuck or just wanted the latest information. It’s by no means all-inclusive, and not in any particular order. This is just off the top of my head, and for the sake of variety I took a person’s site off the “site” list if I mentioned them by name.

People:

1. David Bullock
2. Jill Whalen
3. Danny Sullivan
4. Wendy Boswell
5. Andy Beard
6. Jennifer Laycock
7. Marty Weintraub 
8. Ann Smarty
9. Lyndon Antcliff
10. Donna Fontenot
11. Aaron Wall
12. Lee Odden
13. Chris Winfield

Sites: 

1. SEO Rainmaker
2. Search Engine Blog Daily Crawl
3. SEOMoz
4. Sphinn
5. SEO Roundtable 
6. Search Engine Watch
7. Search Engine Guide
8. ISEDB
9. Search Engine Journal
10. StuntDubl

News and Clip ==> Yahoo’s getting a new home page, and someone has a screen capture.

The biggest change is the customizable left nav bar featuring Yahoo properties that now allows people to add or edit links to outside sites through an “application gallery” that opens up via tabs at the top and bottom of the section.

Link ==> Yahoo Readies a New Home Page – PC World

Screenshot of Yahoo’s Alleged New Homepage at Mediapost.

Important? ==> This could be the first of many changes designed to make Yahoo more competitive with Google, who is dwarfing the former King of Search at the moment. A decade ago, we didn’t know what a Google was, remember, and Yahoo has somehow survived all its competitors, and though it should be all but crushed by Google, is still around. Don’t bank on a TKO yet. As long as Yahoo continues to fight for search dominance, it’s not over.

And until then, whatever traffic Yahoo can bring you is good for your business. So don’t abandon a Yahoo search strategy just yet.

We haven’t had one in a while. For those of you joining us in the years since we practiced this tradition, I used to have a column originally called “Google Tuesdays” and later renamed “Search Engine Tuesdays”. It so named because it was on Tuesdays of each week that I:

• where I  gave you a business summary of news I found that week, as well as a few sentences about its relevance to business owners,
• showed you which resources, tools and sites to trust, and,
• gave you one or more of my search tips to help you get more results

I stopped doing it for a while for 3 reasons 1- my failing health 2- lack of time and 3- I didn’t want to fill the echo chamber with noise.

I’m told it’s a missed feature so we’re going to bring it back for this week we’re doing on search. Your responses via Retweets, page views, comments and trackback will determine whether or not it stays.

For those of you following us on Twitter, there’s simply too many articles for all of them to go in my main feed. So after this article, I’m pausing our RSS updates for the day.

If you still want to see them on Twitter, you can follow my Twitter link feed @tinustuff.

So you’ve added your site to Yahoo Directory, maybe paid the fee for a fast response. But now you have a question about your listing. Think you have to wait to get an answer via email? Think again!

Now, before I tell you what cool thing the Yahoo Directory team is doing on Twitter to help you, please remember the following. I will highlight it for emphasis, as it comes directly from the person behind this Yahoo identity on Twitter:

the quickest, most effective way to get a site reviewed for listing in the Directory is here – https://ecom.yahoo.com/dir/submit/intro/

Please don’t tweet them requests for inclusion. Because if I find out, I will personally shame you in public. And no, you won’t get a link out of it. Nothing but embarrassment and shame.

Okay, with that out of the way, follow Yahoo Directory on Twitter for updates, @ them for help. Oh, and if you don’t know how to use Twitter effectively, reply and I will make you guys a list of free resources for learning.

Who else have you encountered on Twitter doing awesome customer service?

Here’s another article that deals with the Panama Project and deals with the momentum (?) that Yahoo has and Google doesn’t. (The “?” was my insert).

Here’s a quote from the article:

” Google’s $3.1 billion acqusition of digital adverstising services DoulbleClick, announced last Friday, also could give Google a boost in its efforts against Yahoo.

The increase in Yahoo’s sotck is largely due to optimism about the company’s new search tool, called Panama Project.

The consensus among many followers of the search advertising industry is that Panama, which is in the process of being rolled-out to advertisers, is leading to more relevant search results on Yahoo, and that, in turn, should generate more revenue-per-search, and eventually, increase market share”.

Let the games begin.

Morgan