Pandia has all the search engine news you can handle, and then some. Here’s what happened this week:

• Wolfram|Alpha Opens Up Paid API

  New API that will allow third-parties to access and display results from their database. (SE Land Oct 16 2009)

• Yahoo To Drop Paid Inclusion Program

  Yahoo has announced that their paid inclusion program will cease at the end of this year. (SE Land Oct 15 2009)

• Thoora – Discover what the world is talking about!

  Now, everyone can visit Thoora.com to find the news attracting the most attention and social reactions from the blogosphere, Twitter and traditional media sources. (Alt Search Engines Oct 16 2009)

• Google sparks e-books fight with Kindle

  The Web search giant said on Thursday it would launch Google Editions in the first half of next year, initially offering about half a million e-books (Reuters Oct 15 2009)

• Google Removes PageRank Data From Webmaster Tools

  Google: We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data (SER Oct 15 2009)

• German chancellor Merkel steps up against Google

  In her video she said the German government wants to protect its authors. (SearchCowboys Oct 15 2009)

• We Watch More YouTube Videos than We Conduct Google Searches

  In August 2009, Americans watched 10 billion videos on YouTube. That same month, Americans conducted 9 billion searches on Google. (SE Watch Oct 14 2009)

• Bing’s Growth Slows, Google Recoups Losses in comScore September 2009 Report

  This time, Yahoo! suffered the losses with a 0.5% decline. Ask.com and AOL held steady. (SE Watch Oct 15 2009)

• Tectonic Shifts Altering The Terrain At Google Maps

  Google recently upgraded Google Maps with a new land parcel data layer, added a Map error reporting function, and has replaced Tele Atlas as their provider of roadway data (SE Land Oct 14 2009)

• Exploring Google Wave - how could it transform journalism and publishing?

  It seems Google Wave is going to force many content producers to reassess the role of collaboration in news gathering and the creative process. (ITWire Oct 10 2009)

• Yandex Teams Up with Maxthon for Russian Language Browser

  Russian search engine Yandex is teaming up with Maxthon, a popular Chinese browser. (SE Watch Oct 16 2009)

• Yahoo, It’s Not Me. It’s You.

  Last month, Yahoo announced the slogan for its new advertising blitz (Marketing Pilgrim Oct 14 2009)

• The secrets of Google’s design team

  It’s humbling to see how the slightest changes in design, just pixel-level changes or barely perceptible changes to colours, can have such a dramatic impact on usage and revenue (techradar Oct 11 2009)

• Sorry, Yahoo, You DO Index The Meta Keywords Tag

  Last week, Yahoo made news by disclosing that it had quietly dropped support for the meta keywords tag. (SE Land Oct 14 2009)

• Technorati is Alive, Rolling and Kicking

  An expanded top 100 blog list plus a new feature that lets blog owners post content directly to the site. (SE Journal Oct 14 2009)

• Six Deadly Mistakes Of Web Page Testing & Tuning

  Poorly designed tests can take years to complete, and even worse, they might not provide concrete insights to what elements will convert more visitors into customers. (SE Land Oct 13 2009)

• Google Street Views Now Showing Street Numbers

  Google is showing the office building number, in a water mark like style above the building. (SE Roundtable Oct 13 2009)

• Google Creates Learning Site Specifically for Ad Agencies

  Google has launched a new site called AgencyLand. (SE Watch Oct 12 2009)

• Top 10 Pitfalls of International SEO

  The globalization of search and to follow, search marketing, brings a tremendous need for quality information and best practices. (Online Marketing Blog Oct 13 2009)

• Google Launches ‘Fetch as Googlebot’ and ‘Malware Details’ in Webmaster Tools Labs

  Fetch as Googlebot lets you view your web pages as Google’s famous indexing spider. (SE Watch Oct 12 2009)

• Google Makes Search More Functional On Android

  Google has moved voice to the forefront as a search interface (SE Land Oct 12 2009)

• Google Board Member Levinson Resigns

  We can’t help but wonder whether this has something to do with the ongoing dispute between Apple and Google (SE Jorunal Oct 12 2009)

• How to Turn Your Glossary into a Long-Tail Search-Marketing Machine

  First up it means you should write you site using a lexicon your audience will understand. (Searchvisibility Oct 12 2009)

• Google’s “Show More Results” Plus Box

  More and more people are noticing Google’s new more results user interface, where it shows a plus box, instead of taking the user to a site command like search result. (SE Roundtable Oct 12 2009)

• Searchtastic Throws Its Hat Into The Twitter Search Engine Ring

  Searchtastic, which bills itself as “smart Twitter search,” is launching its own Twitter search engine. (TechCrunch Oct 11 2009)

• 5 Ways to Add a Search Sidebar to Google SERPs

  This post looks at various ways to make Google search results page exhaustive and more scannable (SE Journal Oct 12 2009)

• Google Editions Bookstore to Face Stiff Challenge From Amazon, Perhaps Apple

  Google Editions, the online bookstore the search engine is planning for 2010, will offer 500,000 electronic books to any device (eWeek Oct 17 2009)

• 2nd Largest Search Engine Gets Real-Time Search

  YouTube has real-time search for the site’s comments. (WebProNews Oct 16 2009)

Google Street View, the hard work

Have you ever wondered how Google manages to produced its street view photographs on Google maps?

Here are two takes on the issues:

From the Google Blog:

From College Humor: