Weekly Rap-up of Search Engine Industry News – 12/11 – 12/15

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A summary of search related news items that occurred this week including Matt Cutts debunking common rumors, AOL is found to have the safest search results, Yahoo’s new search platform is rolled out, new social search engine, Decipho launches, Google releases updated tool bar for Firefox, Yahoo! Publisher network ads Ad Blocking feature and finally Rebecca Kelly from SEOmoz puts together a funny cartoon trip report from SES Chicago.

Monday

• Matt Cutts Debunks Common Rumors – While Mrs. Cutts is away, Matt is at play, debunking common rumors and misconceptions that is. There are many! Items include whether the toolbar helps Google index pages, is Google working with the CIA, comments on the story of Google funding terrorism through AdSense (part 1 & part 2) and finally, if you are trying to advertise a product that is competitive to Google, then you’ll never be able to receive the Top Ad Position, no matter how much money you spend.

• AOL Has Safest Search Results – Danny Sullivan points out that AOL has the “safest” search results in terms of not listing sites that might be somehow be risky or unsafe for searchers. This revealed in a new study by McAfee. Additionally the study revealed that paid search results are more risky than organic ones. What constitutes a dangerous site? Sites that attempt to install adware or spyware on your computer, sites that send spam upon collecting email addresses and sites launching pop-up ads that attempt to change browser settings are a few examples.

Tuesday

• Yahoo’s Panama Rolled Out To New Advertisers – WebProNews reports that Yahoo has officially opened its new search-marketing platform known as Panama to new US advertisers. Just last week, new advertisers were still made to use old platform and then wait for upgrade. Now any new advertiser will bypass the old platform and enter the new platform which Yahoo is still in process of adding older advertisers to. “We’ve received an overwhelmingly positive response to our new search marketing platform to date, so we are thrilled to open it up to all businesses that want to take advantage of our more intuitive and powerful system,” said Steve Mitgang, senior vice president, Yahoo! advertising products and platforms.

Wednesday

• New Social Search Engine Launched – Loren Baker points out that Decipho has been launched. The engine is built upon categorization, voting, ranking and social media measurement. Loren’s favorite feature is its “Social Meter.” Decipho’s base search index is powered by Ask.com and signed in users may build and rank their own categories.

• Google Toolbar 3 for Firefox – Google has released a new version of Google Toolbar for Firefox which adds features that were available only in the IE toolbar and a special bonus. Now you can bookmark sites without using third-party tools, add custom buttons that let you search other sites and read their feeds, send snippets from web pages by email, open files from the web using Docs & Spreadsheets and finally drag and drop files from Windows Explorer to Firefox or just associate documents with Firefox. Official announcement here.

Thursday

• Google Launches Full-Text US Patent Searching – From Search Engine Land, Google has rolled out a new Google Patents search engine that allows people to search across the full-text of US patents from 1790 through the middle of 2006. You can already search patents at the US Patent & Trademark Office web site so why this new service from Google? “We’ve really applied the Google experience to it. It’s easier so you don’t have to apply the fielded searches,” said Bill Brougher, a group product manager at Google overseeing the project. “I think it will open up patent search to a lot of non-lawyers.”

• Microsoft and Baidu Seal Paid Listings Deal – WebProNews reports that Microsoft and China search engine Baidu have reached a “strategic alliance” in regards to Chinese paid search listings. According to an official statement, “Microsoft will display Baidu’s paid search listings on the search results pages of certain Microsoft websites, including MSN, Live, and other partner websites in China.” Because Baidu is the clear leader in the Chinese search market, Microsoft is undoubtedly patting itself on the back for securing such a powerful ally.

Friday

• Yahoo Publisher Network Adds Domain Blocking – A feature already available for AdSense but not for Yahoo! Publisher Network, you can now block domains and sub-domains from your Publisher account. Called “Ad Blocking,” you can now employ Domain-Level Blocking as well as Sub-Domain Level Blocking.

• SEOmoz’s SES Chicago Trip Report – Rand Fishkin and Rebecca Kelly attended this years Search Engine Strategies conference in Chicago and instead of posting the typical “textual” style trip reports, they have created a fun comic strip. Very funny stuff that I assume Rebecca put together? Check it out at SEOmoz.