I am currently in Israel on a quasi vacation, so I need to skip the video part of this recap. If you are in Israel and want to meet up with me, I am heading to the Jerusalem Web Professionals meet up, this Wednesday night January 28th at 8pm (local time). It is at PresenTense Offices on 64 Emek Refa’im (1 Flight up above the Bridal Shop). You need to register either over here or on Facebook. Hope to see you there!

In terms of the recap, here are, what I feel, the most important topics of the past week. Google had a minor PageRank update that turned out to be from a canonical URL cleanup that Google was running, so the PageRank update was not real. Yahoo and Ask.com seemed to have updated as well. Google leaked site penalties through a Hyves trick. I covered Google’s new “Preferred Sites” extension to SearchWiki. Also, Google and Microsoft announced earnings. Google Image search seemed to have updated. Google said the AdSense earnings were down due to cleaning up arbitrage sites. Google’s new AdSense code may invalidate your web site’s HTML. Google is late on paying some publishers. Inauguration day fell flat for many publishers. Google Blog Search may have issues indexing your content. Google did away with the iGoogle version for the iPhone. Google and Yahoo didn’t have a special logo for Inauguration Day, but did have logos for Martin Luther Kind Day. Here are links to these stories:

Google Toolbar PageRank Drops Over January ’09 WeekendYahoo Search & Ask.com January 2009 Search Updates?Google’s Hyves PageRank Loophole? Check If Site Has Google PenaltySEOs Discuss Impact of Google’s “Preferred Sites” Search PreferenceGoogle & Microsoft Announce EarningsGoogle Images January 2009 UpdateGoogle’s SVP Rosenberg Said AdSense Revenue Down Due To Arbitrage CleanupGoogle’s New AdSense Code Might Invalidate Your HTML CodeGoogle Confirms Not Paying Some AdSense PublishersInauguration Day A Big Bust for Google Advertisers & PublishersGoogle Blog Search May Not Discover Your New Blog PostsGoogle Drops iPhone Optimized iGoogle: Users RevoltGoogle Won’t Bring Back the iPhone Version of iGoogleSearch Logos for Inauguration Day, Did Google & Yahoo Forget?Martin Luther King Day 2009: Logos from Google, Yahoo, Ask, Live, Dogpile & More

Hope to see you at the Jerusalem Tech Meetup, if you are here! Everyone have a wonderful weekend!