Here are some of the search engine news articles we have found interesting this past week:

• Surchur has been updated

  This is a nice search engine which has a rather different looking interface. (P Bradley Feb 24 2009)



• A Bad Day for Gmail

  The day GMail went down (About Feb 24 2009)

• Mr Taggy; social media engine

  Results are clear, although there’s no summary, just a list of tags and the thumbnail. The emphasis of the engine is on the tags of course, so that’s not surprising. (P Bradley Feb25 2009)

• The Future of Search for Microsoft Live Search

  Opinion Search aims to elevate the current Opinion Index feature of Live Search by collecting, storing, and organizing user opinion data through product reviews, video game rental experiences, hotel booking activities and other data (SEJ Feb 24 2009)

• Ask.com Implements Canonical URL Tag

  A couple of weeks ago, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft announced their support for a new tag that helps sites with duplicate content issues. (SEW Feb 23 2009)

• Hitwise Report: “Search Queries Are Getting Longer”

  More than half of all search queries are at least three words long. (PageTraffic Feb 25 2009)

• Get Immersed (in Search) at TechFest 2009

  On the latest Microsoft research projects (Live Search Feb 24 2009)

• More on Yahoo Reorg in Process: Ari and Hilary Rule, but Who Is Joel Jones?

  Execs at the troubled Web company are being moved around the board like chess pieces (BoomTown Feb 25 2009)

• Google adds ads to Google News searches

  Google has extended its AdWords program to Google News searches, delivering text ads on the right side of the search results page (cnet Feb 25 2009)

• Translate between 41 languages with Google Translate

  Google Translate recently added Turkish, Thai, Hungarian, Estonian, Albanian, Maltese, and Galician to the mix. (Google Blog Feb 26 2009)

• Drawings Coming to Google Docs?

  I’ve not got much information on this but it looks like some kind of drawing capabilities could be coming to Google Docs soon. (Blogoscoped Feb 27 2009)

• A Summary of Danny Sullivan’s SMX Keynote

  There is now a situation where there is no reason to switch from Google…and this is a major problem for competitors. (Marketing Pilgrim Feb 27 2009)

• The Big List Of Search Engines & Their Employees On Twitters

  Here’s a starting list of who’s out there from the search engine world (SE Land Feb 27 2009)

• Google’s New Search Engine Rankings Place Heavy Emphasis on Branding

  Extensive article on the development of the Google algorithm (SEO Book Feb 26 2009)

• Google’s Big Brand Bump Bailout

  It looks like Google is following suit on the big brand bailout, by offering up better results to those bigger brands. (Stuntdubl Feb 27 2009)

• Exploring Connections Between Books in Google Book Search

  Popular Passages lets us find connections between books by taking interesting quotations from one book and showing where those appear in other works. (SEO by the Sea Feb 28 2009)

• New Report Shows Decline for PPC Advertising in Q1

  Sales from search ads have declined by around 20% since week 27 2008 (Marketing Pilgrim Feb 28 2009)

• Google Is Finally On Twitter!

  It has been officially confirmed by Matt Cutts that it is the real Googler! (PageTraffic Feb 26 2009)

• Blogger connects to Google Friend Connect

  Google is integrating the Blogger Following feature with Google Friend Connect. (Google Blog Feb 26 2009)

• New Yahoo CEO Ushers Out CFO In Executive Shake-Up

  Besides pushing CFO Blake Jorgensen out the door, the overhaul will expand the responsibilities of Yahoo’s chief technology officer, Ari Balogh (PageTraffic Feb 27 2009)

• Yahoo Search Updating?

  Yahoo Search is currently in the process of updating their index and algorithm. (PageTraffic Feb 27 2009)

• Google Blog Search To Test “New Link Command Features” Next Week

  Google will release a “user visible experiments” next week, in order to target Google Blog Search’s issue with “blogroll detectors” and the link queries in a better way (PageTraffic Feb 27 2009)