Have you ever been around a friend who points out a flaw about themselves and you say, "I would never have noticed that if you hadn't pointed it out?" Google is doing the same thing sans flaws. On the Official Google Blog , Ben Gomes explains that sometimes Google's search experiments are very subtle. They'll test things like white space in the search results or how big the plus box should be next to a stock quote link.

Recently, CarMax released a new search feature allowing car buyers to search for vehicles by Miles Per Gallon )MPG(. Now, they're releasing data shedding light on that decision. From the period beginning March 2008 and ending in July, searches for hybrid vehicles increased by 43%. The spike is, of course, driven by high gas prices during that time, and hybrids get great gas mileage. CarMax is also pointing out that cost alone isn't a reason to switch to hybrids.

As a new homeschooling parent, finding online learning resources that are safe, well-designed, and fun for my kids is important - but inexplicably difficult. That's why I was thrilled to learn about Ask.com's expansion and redesign of AskKids.com . I've already found Ask.com itself to be a great search engine for my kids, with its suggested searches and images in the sidebars. But AskKids.com gives me even more confidence. Plus, there's a SUPER FUN feature on the front page.

Google AdWords will remove older reports from its Report Center beginning September 2. Reports that are 6 months old or older, or before March 2, 2008, will be removed. The data will not be removed, just the reports. Until September 2, you can export these reports to Google Spreadsheets or .CSV files, Excel, HTML or another format. Expect the purging of 6 month old or older reports to happen periodically going forward.

comScore has released display ad data for June 2008. Microsoft was the top display advertiser, while Fox Interactive Media, with its ownership of MySpace, was the top publisher. 180 million unique visitors were exposed to display ads in June. On the publisher side, Yahoo reached 130,680,000 and Fox reached 83,714,000. On the advertiser side, Microsoft reached 126,367,000 of them. Ask Networks advertised to 102,565,000, coming in as the 10th top display advertiser.

Over the past few days, more and more articles and posts from SES San Jose 2008 have been written. I'm sure there will be more stories to come out of the event, but this seems like a good time to recap the conference. A quick Google News search for "SES San Jose" finds 276 articles from the past month â€" 138 when the duplicates are removed. A search in Yahoo! News for "SES San Jose" finds 114 articles from the past month.

You've heard it before, but that doesn't make it any less true: content is king. In today's natural search column, " SEO Success - Guess What...Content Works! ," Mark Jackson notes that while fixing problems and implementing some search engine-friendly practices can have an immediate effect on a site's search engine rankings, but for long-term improvement, no search engine optimization technique works better than creating quality content.

More retailers are turning to social media as part of their back-to-school marketing campaigns, according to Jupiter Research. From Facebook to widgets, from virtual worlds to online video, retailers are targeting youth, who may not share the same feelings as their parents about a tough economy. "The back-to-school season has grown in importance for retailers and leads into the all important fourth quarter sales period," explained Patti Freeman Evans,

Electronics merchant Newegg.com has decided to not charge taxes in accordance with a new New York state law requiring e-commerce sites to collect sales taxes . The law, which went into effect June 1, is highly controversial. Amazon.com is suing the state of New York, saying the law is illegal and unconstitutional. Opponents of the sales tax point to a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that said a mail-order company only has to pay taxes in the states where it has operations.

Google is adding a feature that brings up suggested searches as you type, Google Suggest , as default on Google.com in the coming weeks. Google Suggest has been working on this feature for years, and it has been available to users in Google Labs. Google has already added Suggest to the toolbar and YouTube . Yahoo, Live.com, and Ask.com already offer search suggestions. Like many updates and features,

Writing small, punchy ads requires plenty of art and science. In today's Profitable PPC column, " Killer PPC Ads: The Fundamentals ," David Szetela offers some guidelines to help you get more clicks and stymie your competitors.

With the Democratic National Convention starting today in Denver, I thought it would be prudent to see which search engine is handling the highly anticipated event the best. Of course, Microsoft rocked the Olympics and outpaces everyone in mapping Georgia , but who's got political game? Microsoft proved again that it's on top of current events, but it's AOL that takes the cake in my book. First, AOL makes use of its design as a portal to serve up content on the homepage,

Real estate search engine Trulia today announced three new features to assist home buyers, sellers and agents. Personalized news feeds, mobile applications, and a blogging platform are now available to those in the home buying and selling process. The personalized news feed can be found on Trulia's homepage and includes new property listings, home prices changes, upcoming open houses, median sales price trends, recently sold properties,

In February, AOL announced a partnership with Citysearch to distribute its data across its network . Now, MapQuest has announced that it is integrating Citysearch's data to provide more comprehensive search results. Features such as reviews, menus, and photos will be available for select listings. When you conduct a search, if you see an gold icon with a star on it, that's your clue to click for the new results. I was unable to find an icon after several searches,

Google quietly announced the changes to AdWords on Thursday through their blog. Last day of Search Engine Strategies conference may have been a strategy in itself. I had not heard of this during the conference - though it was a hectic one to say the least. But from what I have read, Google is about to turn back on all inactive keywords - that is a lot of accounts that will suddenly see a spike in spend.

Yahoo! is rolling out a new mobile search feature for Nokia devices. The feature is a shortcut that allows users to access oneSearch via one click on the downloadable mobile search client. The feature is available on Series 60 Nokia devices North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and South America. Yahoo says a key integration of the shortcut is Search Assist, which is search suggestion technology for oneSearch.

41% of women are likely to begin their search for a new home online , compared with just 25% of men, according to a survey released by Obeo . 52.6% of women and 45% of men research 21 or more homes online at some point during the process. 95% of women said photos of a home are very helpful in searching for a home and 70% of them said 360-degree panoramas are useful. Obeo is a provider of interactive online marketing tools for the real estate industry.

The team at Google AdWords has announced that they will be rolling out improvements to Quality Score in the coming weeks.

Yahoo has released a new look for Site Explorer . Currently, the new version can be found at https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/new , but will be made default in the future. The new look also comes with an update that increases the number of rules for Dynamic URL Rewriting from 3 to 10. Here are some screenshots of the new look: What do you think of the new look? Let us know in the comments.

Google increased their market share of searches by 0.4% in July, coming in at 61.9%, according to comScore. That gain came at Yahoo's expense, who dropped 0.4% to 21.5%. Microsoft also dropped 0.3% to 8.9%. Both Ask and AOL picked up that gain.