It is time for the Pandia Search Engine News Weekend Wrap-up again, and this time we have decided to open the show with a search engine rap. No, serioulsy…

Page Rank Rap

Mo Serious TV is a collection of videos based on the thoughts of Chuck, aka the Poetic Prophet, aka The SEO Rapper. Mo Serious is his entertainment company based in Missouri City, Texas.

Here’s a rap about Google Pagerank:

The latest search engine news

Below find the search engine news headlines we have found interesting this week.

• Google’s 11th Birthday Logo: September 27th, 2009

  Google has a special logo up on September 27, 2009 to celebrate their eleventh birthday. (SE Land Sep 26 2009)

• Microsoft Tells Users Not to Install Google Chrome Frame

  Did you really think that Microsoft would just roll over and take Google’s ‘effort’ to make Internet Explorer adopt to the changing web technology by releasing the Google Chrome Frame? (Loren Baker Sep 25 2009)

• New Data Suggests We’ve Grown Bored of Twitter

  If we can believe Hitwise, we’ve all hit a Twitter slump (Marketing Pilgrim Sep 25 2009)

• Yahoo Adds Zimbra to the Garage Sale as It Tries to Shed What Isn’t “You!”

  According to numerous sources, Yahoo has been shopping around Zimbra, the open-source email company it bought in late 2007 for $350 million. (BoomTown Sep 21 2009)

• New Free Keyword Research Tool

  Manoj Jasra: Last month, WordStream invited me to participate in a private beta of their Free Keyword Tool, which was released as a public beta this week. (SE Guide Sep 20 2009)

• Google’s Flying Saucer Logos Lead To H.G. Wells, Father of Science Fiction

  Google has come clean on what all these flying saucers Google Doodles were about. It is to honor the 143rd birthday of H.G. Wells, the Father of Science Fiction (SE Land Sep 21 2009)

• Google does not use the keywords meta tag in web ranking

  Google Webmaster Central: At least for Google’s web search results currently (September 2009), the answer is no. Google doesn’t use the “keywords” meta tag in our web search ranking. (Sep 21 2009)

• EU Advisor says Google did nothing wrong

  Google is not constituting any trademark infringement by letting in advertisements for fake products on Google Adwords. (Search Cowboys Sep 22 2009)

• Yahoo! Puts Its Focus on “Y!ou”

  Company Aligns Brand and Product Strategy around Users’ Experiences; Launches Global Brand Campaign (Yahoo Finance Sep 22 2009)

• Why I’m Not Sweating Reputation Bullets Over Google Sidewiki

  Even if it’s wildly successful, we’re talking months (maybe a year or more) before it becomes widespread enough to effect the reputation of any company. (Andy Beal Sep 23 2009)

• Google Says, Referrer Spam Does Not Hurt Your Google Rankings

  The technique involves making repeated web site requests using a fake referrer url that points to the site the spammer wishes to advertise. (SE Roundtable Sep 23 2009)

• Google Chrome Invades Microsoft Internet Explorer

  Google’s Chromium Blog has just announced the Chrome Frame, an open-source plug-in that enables Internet Explorer to run HTML5 and other advanced web technologies. (SE Journal Sep 23 2009)

• Google SideWiki Extorts Google Network Participation

  Now, Google is telling site owners that they can either participate in SideWiki or else see competitors’ nasty comments dominate the discussion about their site(s). (SE Journal Sep 24 2009)

• Microsoft working on social media Analytics tool

  The new tool, LookingGlass, analyzes social media and “helps companies to listen and participate”. (SearchCowboys Sep 24 2009)

• Preview of StumbleUpon’s Upcoming Site Changes

  The new design is based around simplicity, which can be seen in the beta changes to the user homepage, submission comments, subscriber options, and even the rating system. (SE Journal Sep 24 2009)

• Google Offers New Keyword Research Tool

  Barry Schwartz: I reported at the Search Engine Roundtable this morning that Google has a beta version of a new keyword tool available in the AdWords console. (SE Land Sep 24 2009)

• Announcing Project 10^100 idea themes

  Google: Late last year we announced Project 10^100, a call for ideas to help as many people as possible, and a program to bring the best of those ideas to life with a total of $10 million. (Google Blog Sep 24 2009)

• Google Book Search Settlement: What Will Happen Now?

  One optimistic scenario sees all the parties quickly modifying the existing agreement and satisfying the various objections raised by the opponents and US DOJ. (SE Land Sep 25 2009)

• Judge Shuts Down Innocent User’s Gmail Account Over a Bank’s Screw-up!

  U.S. District Court Judge James Ware, in the northern district of California, just issued a court order forcing Google to shut down a Gmail account and turn over users identity & contact information. (Marketing Pilgrim Sep 25 2009)

• Under new management…yours

  Next week, we will launch what will be Yahoo!’s single-largest global integrated marketing campaign ever. (Yodel Sep 22 2009)

• Government Urges Changes to Google Books Deal

  The Justice Department said that while the agreement would provide many benefits to the public, it also raised significant issues regarding class-action, copyright and antitrust law. (NYT Sep 18 2009)

• What If Google Books Goes Away?

  Stephen E. Arnold: I have four or five publishers right now. I would toss them overboard for a chance to publish my next monograph on the Google system, let Google monetize it any way it sees fit, and give me a percentage of the revenue. (Beyond Search)

• Struly multi search engine

  It worked well; I was impressed with the speed. It’s basically a tabbed engine, so if you search the web you get Google results displayed for you, with tabs to move to Yahoo, Bing, Carrot2, Wikipedia, YouTube and Flickr. (P Bradley Sep 21 2009)

• Duck Duck Go adds new feature

  The strangely named search engine Duck Duck Go has added a ‘quick peek’ feature. It addresses the problem of having to hunt through a page to find the reference to the thing you’re searching for. (P Bradley Sep 21 2009)

• Does Google Docs Translation Tool Really Work?

  The translation is overall pretty good, much better than what you might get from putting entire paragraphs through Babble-fish, or other free translation tools. (Google Tutor Sep 21 2009)

• European Search Vendor Full List Update

  An overview over European search technology companies (Beyond Search Sep 22 2009)

• A Look at the New Yahoo Search

  Yahoo’s search results provide, along with its own Web results, results from other places around the Web like Wikipedia, YouTube, eHow, and Answers.com. (ResearchBuzz Sep 23 2009)

• Google Sidewiki Is Knol, SearchWiki Compromise, Sans the Tedium

  Google Sidewiki, a browser sidebar launched from the Google Toolbar that lets users make comments on the content they stumble upon in Web searches. (Google Watch Sep 23 2009)

• New Version of the SEPB, Other Offerings

  The Scholarly Electronic Publishing Bibliography, version 76, is now available from Digital Scholarship. This version covers over 3,480 articles, books, and whatnot related to scholarly electronic publishing efforts online. (ResearchBuzz Sep 24 2009)

• Google Fast Flip may not be great for media

  This month, the Mountain View company introduced Fast Flip, an online news hub that allows readers to quickly browse news articles online in a method akin to flipping the pages of a magazine. (SFGate Sep 27 2009)

• Google Adds Links to Web Page Sections in Search Results

  Google has enhanced its search results by providing links to different sections of Web pages, in addition to the traditional main Web page link. (Yahoo! Tech Sep 15 2009)

• Google’s brand value surges amid recession

  The value of Google’s brand has surged as people rely on the search engine for information about the recession, research suggests. (Telegraph Sep 18 2009)

• Google signs deal to print 2m books on Espresso machines

  Two million out-of-copyright books that have been scanned by Google could come back into limited printed form after the search giant signed a deal with On Demand Books, the company that makes the Espresso Book Machine (Guardian Sep 18 2009)

• Google looking for more acquisitions

  Schmidt said that acquisitions are “turned on again” and expects to do one small deal a month. (TG Daily Sep 25 2009)

• Google Books deal postponed for hearing

  The Authors Guild, the Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Google will get more time to modify their proposed agreement to settle lawsuits the two organisations filed against the search company over its book search service. (Computerworld UK)

SMX New York October 5 - 7

We would also like to use this opportunity to remind you that you still have time to sign up for the Search Engine Marketing Expo in New York City on October 5 to 7. This is a great place to get updated on the latest developments in the search engine field.

Click here to register for the SMX New York conference with the US$ 100 Pandia discount! (The Pandia partner discount code is smx100pandia).

Disclosure: Pandia and SMX have a promotion agreement.

Steve Ballmer on search

TechCrunch has interviewed Steve Ballmer of Microsoft. He makes a very interesting comment on search:

“I think the first five years there was innovation in business model, there was innovation in approach, give credit to competition, the last 5 years there’s been some, quote, innovation, which is really things like digitizing, maps and books, or whatever the case may be, adding the larger content base to the corpus of information. But in some senses the UI, the approach, the algorithms have changed less in the last five years, than more … so I think if you look out the next 10 years we’re going to see more innovation in search. And, of course, that’ll be best served by good competition in the market and, y’know, at this stage, hopefully with the government approval of our deal with Yahoo, the good competition better come from us. Otherwise I don’t think we’ll see some of that innovation. But whether it’s natural language, visualization, change in the UI, change in the business model… Business model on search is making life tough for other content providers, makes life tough for some of the merchants…”

He is right. Recently search has been more about incremental innovation, step by step improvement of the search experience, rather than radical changes of the underpinning search algorithm. Radical innovation requires competition.

An interesting parallell would be Microsoft vs. Apple. Most of the improvements in Windows are the result of the pressure from Apple and its Mac OS. It would be ironic if Microsoft ends up as the company playing the role of an innovative Apple vis-à-vis a slumbering Google in the search arena.

Here is the Microsoft Bing team interviewed by Rand Fishkin of SEOMOz.

They talk about the Bing/Yahoo! partnership, how to optimize for Bing and more.

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday - Interview: The Bing Team from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.