In Norway we have an expression saying that summer vacation time is newspaper “agurk tid” (cucumber time). Apparently local newspaper used to make reports on the local hobby garderners growing the longest cucumbers. Nothing else happened during summertime anyway.

And indeed, the search engine scene is slowing down during the month of August. The US is still dominating the search engine scene, and if American search engine employees ever do take a break, it is about now.

The last week saw one major news event only, and that was not a big one: Google is no longer labeling supplemental results on search engine result pages.

Fortunately, the search engine/search engine marketing blogs use this time spent in the eye of the hurricane for giving more generic advice on searching and search engine marketing, so we have found quite a few gems for you this week as well:

German Search Engines on AltSearchEngines
Top 10 Alternative German Search Engines (AltSearchEngines Aug 4 2007)

How to Make the Digg Home Page
Top Digg users have established social networks of friends on the site who vote on their stories. (Copybrighter Aug 3 2007)

Want Absolutes? Linking Ain't That Easy
Link expert Eric Ward at LED Digest (Aug 2 2007)

You can put 50 words in your title tag, we’ll read it
How many keywords will Google read in the title tag? (Hobo SEO Aug 4 2007)

Metatag Labyrinth
Great discussion on what metatags to include on a web page (Webmasterworld)

A Complete Glossary of Essential SEO Jargon
Useful information for newcomers (SEOmoz July 26 2007)

How to Find Relevant Links - SEO Tip Week 30
BigOak on finding places to get a link from (July 27 2007)

The SEO of Everyday Pages
These are commonly appearing pages that you might see on almost every website, such as the "contact" page, the "about us," the "terms of service" and the "privacy policy." (Search Engine Land Aug 2 2007)

Google Maps Now With Microformats
Microformats allow tools to make more sense of your web pages (Unofficial SEO Aug 1 2007)

Newbie Dictionary of SEO Terms
Webmaster World discussion.

Google Site Search for $100 a Year
For small sites with limited technical skills, it seems worthwhile. (Mike Moran July 27 2007)

100 Days For Yahoo
Yahoo needs to change, because otherwise it risks being left behind. (Read/WriteWeb Files July 30 2007)

Google Cache Showing Last Retrieve Dates in Minutes
Google updates its index more frequently (SE Roundtable Aug 1 2007)

Interview of Danny Sullivan, Publisher of Search Engine Land Fame
Aaron Wall talks to Danny about search and more (SEO Book July 31 2007)

8 Ways To Optimize For Personalized Search
Your goal should be to infiltrate everything and be everywhere. (SE Journal Aug 1 2007)

Google Dumps The Supplemental Results Label
Google promises that being in the supplemental index versus the main index should be less of an issue for site owners (Danny Sullivan July 31 2007)

ChaCha Search - Is People Powered Search Better?
SEO by the Sea takes a look at this alternative search tool (July 29 2007)

Gigablast Posting Index Numbers
The Gigablast search engine now indexes 12,643,911,680 documents (Researchbuzz July 29 2007)

Keyword Inspiration - Aaron Wall of SEOBook.com shares his secrets
Wordtracker Academy July 22 2007 via Sphinn.

Wordpress Sponsored Themes - How To Game The System
How do you ensure that theme makers get get credit for their work?(Andy Beard July 28 2007 via Sphinn)

10 Blogger Types: The Good, the Bad, and the Sleazy
Good bloggers give credit where credit's due (Jill Whalen July 25 2007)

And finally, some weekend fun:

Top 14 Lines Overheard at Search Engine Strategies After Hours Parties
Good link bait this one (from Webbed Marketing, undated)

10 Secret Benefits of Attending SEM Conferences. Shhh.
You’ll undoubtedly run into employees from competing firms. Be sure to ask lots of questions. (Online Marketing Blog July 30 2007)

Friday Fun - Help Matt Cutts Fight SEO Spammers
A fun Flash SEO game where you get to help Matt Cutts fight spam - literally! (Marketing Pilgrim Aug 3 2007)