This week we could all feel the stock market’s disappointment in Google’s performance. The reason seems to be that Google has invested much in manpower and research — i.e. human capital.

We would not worry too much about this, as these are investments that probably will lead to innovation and product improvements further down the line.

The EU has OK-ed German federal support for the European Theseus search engine project. As we noted in December 2006, Theseus has grown out of the French/German Quareo project, predominantly a result of the French need for providing European alternatives to everything American.

It seems to us that both Quaero and Theseus are to a too large degree science and technology driven projects. You can’t beat Google if you do not understand the market and business side of search. Still, the fact that the Germans now operate more independently gives reason for hope. The Germans are more into developing a supplement to Google and other traditional search engines, namely an advanced multimedia search engine that can translate, identify and index images, audio and text.

Here are these and some of the other search engine news items we found interesting this week:

Google Stops "Related Links" Service
Google Blogoscoped on Google killing the Related Links widget (July 19 2007)

Search Engines Crawling FAQs to Learn How to Answer Questions?
Google researchers on automated strategies for answering questions that people type into a search box. (SEO by the Sea July 19 2007)

DMOZ is getting smaller
Webmaster World discussion on the Open Directory shrinking (June/July 2007)

June 2007 Yahoo! Weather Report
Yahoo! Search is undergoing its monthly update (Unofficial SEO July 20 2007)

Getting Started in Local Search
New column over at Search Engine Watch; Gregg Stewart opens the ball (July 20 2007)

Google’s Chief Legal Counsel Settles $700k SEC Complaint
I’m not sure what to make of the news that Google’s chief legal counsel just settled an SEC complaint for is role with a previous company. (Andy Beal July 20 2007)

Exalead Search Now Being Used on Directory Site in France
Resourceshelf on www.118218.fr (Le Numero) using Exalead (July 19 2007)

Facebook Buys Parakey, Brings on Firefox Developers
Parakey’s mission is bridging “the gap between information on the web and the desktop� (SE Journal July 20 2007)

Lexxe : Search Engine that Answers Exact Queries
Drill down into clusters lets the engine further select the links relevant with the context mentioned by the cluster. (SE Journal July 20 2007)

Top 10 Unofficial Gmail Apps and Add-ons
Lifhacker: Google's high tolerance for third-party apps have only helped Gmail win the hearts of power users and tweakers everywhere (July 18 2007)

Visual Timeline of Search Engine Acquisitions
SEO Scoop has put a useful map over search engine acquisitions (July 18 2007)

Games Boost Microsoft's Search Share
Microsoft Corp.'s search share climbed to 13.2 percent in June, and it's all due to the Chicktionary web search scramble puzzle (Physorg July 18 2007)

SearchEngineWatch about to become a butterfly…
Search Engine Watch will get a facelift. Less clutter, they say. (SEW Forums July 18 2007)

Google launches Custom Search Business Edition starting at $100/year
Use Google as your own site's search engine without Google ads or branding (ars technica July 19 2007)

EU OKs German online search-engine grant for Theseus/Quaero
The European Union on Thursday authorized Germany to give $165 million for research on Internet search-engine technologies (AP July 19 2007)

Google plays a googly, Microsoft deals with Xbox
Both Google and Microsoft shares tumble. Google has high research and manpower costs. (theage July 21 2007)

And you thought it was tough to get hired at Google before
One area where Google execs acknowledged they need to exercise some self control is their appetite for brains. (SiliconValley July 20 2007)

Google to face US Congress over buyout plan
Congress hearings over Google's acquisition of web advertising supplier DoubleClick. (Scotsman July 19 2007)

Google Launches ValueClick Killer
Google Adsense members may now display ads that are compensated based on a Cost-Per-Action [CPA] basis. (SeekingAlpha June 21 2007)

Mayer: Translation, Universal Search Google's Future
Universal search and automated translation are big parts of Google Inc.'s future, a company executive said Friday in Beijing. (IDG July 20 2007)