Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google Sued for Posting Pictures of Private House
This weekend, there have been numerous reports about a couple in Western Pennsylvania that has sued Google for taking photographs of their home and displaying it on Google Street View. Aaron and Christine Boring are suing Google for violating their privacy and causing them mental distress. Some photos of the boring house include the following three photos: The claim is that the photograph was taken from a driveway that was labeled “Private Road” and that
Does the Google link: Operator Choose the Ordering by Relevance?
If you were ever to perform a link: query on Google, you’d be presented with a lot of links. But are they ordered in any such way that authoritative links are listed before any other links? Nobody knows for sure, but some people have seen some experience to indicate that the link: operator only shows higher quality links. However, they also note that in the past, Google has changed this policy because it was a
Google Code Snippets Now Available in Universal Search
Michael Gray pointed out that Google Code snippets are now part of universal search and I was able to reproduce his findings this morning. If you notice halfway down the page, you’re seeing a whole brand new set of results that are pulled from a file built in C programming language. I think the best part, though (at least for many SEOs) is that the Wikipedia result is below the fold. 😉 What do you

Is a Complete Website Makeover Bad for Search Engine Optimization?
Some great websites rank but have horrendous code. At Cre8asite Forums, a webmaster has been given the task of redesigning the website and cleaning up the messy code and adding standard SEO elements (robots.txt, sitemap, external CSS, etc.). However, since the website is ranking well (after all, it’s being updated fairly frequently and the content is good), is there a risk in taking on such a project? Will a redesign kill the rankings? Well, it
Google Analytics Adds Beta Graph View
Forum members are noticing a new feature to Google Analytics that allows you to select certain views (by day, week, or month). The day view is what you’re used to. On the other hand, the week and month views are entirely different. Here’s the week view: Here’s the month view: On each of these, you can hover over the end points and get the statistics you’re looking for (views per week or per month). Obviously,
Google Sometimes Not Grouping Results From Same Domain?
Barry Welford at Cre8asite Forums spotted and screen captured an interesting Google slip up earlier. Typically, if Google displays a search result from the same domain name on a page, it will group that result (i.e. indent the result) under the first result. But Barry Welford spotted a case, which I cannot reproduce, of Google showing a second listing as a stand alone result in the Google search results. Here is a screen capture from

You Got Three Weeks Yahoo, Said Microsoft; Give Us More Money, Responds Yahoo
Microsoft’s CEO, Ballmer, sent Yahoo’s board members a public letter saying: If we have not concluded an agreement within the next three weeks, we will be compelled to take our case directly to your shareholders, including the initiation of a proxy contest to elect an alternative slate of directors for the Yahoo! board. Basically, if you do not accept our offer in three weeks, then we will acquire you another way. The news flew through
A Look at Google Ad Manager Reports
There has been a lot of discussion over the reporting features in Google Ad Manager. Here are some threads, both praising and hating the reporting tools in Google’s new Ad Manager, a free ad delivery system. We have two threads at WebmasterWorld, one loving it and another WebmasterWorld thread hating it. So I figured I show you some of my reports: Order report Creative Report Sales Person Report Advertiser Report Targeting Report Placement Report Ad
Video Recap of Weekly Search Buzz :: April 6, 2008
In this week’s video recap of the Weekly Search Buzz we announced the winner of the prize from last week’s video recap, plus I chatted about some of the most interesting and important discussions around the search industry. In addition, you can win by watching me play garbage can basketball – just comment with the number of hits and misses (it won’t be easy). This week’s video recap is a summary of the Weekly Search

Other Great Search Forum Threads:

EU Advisors Say Search Engines Must Cut Data Retention Time, WebmasterWorld
Facebook hires away Google’s top chef, Sphinn
Google Hand Tweaks – Just for Spam or Editorial Reasons Too?, WebmasterWorld
Sitemaps – How Important Are They?, HighRankings Forums
What Does "standards" Mean?, HighRankings Forums
AdWords API Coming Out of Beta, Google Groups
Yahoo Reveals Details of Its New Ad Sales System, DigitalPoint Forums