Over at the Official Google blog , Dan Russell of the Search Quality team, has written a lengthy post on field studying search behavior. One of the things Russell discovered is that there is often a disparity between what people say they're searching for and what they actually do search for. There's also a disparity between what they searched for and what they remember searching for later on. Another area Russell dives into is eye tracking.

Microsoft is attempting to pull the rug out from under Google's talks with Verizon to be the default search engine on its mobile phones. And they're doing so by dishing out the dough. It's no secret that Microsoft has a bunch of cash on hand. They've been using some of it to create incentive programs like Cashback and SearchPerks to essentially pay people to search. Now,

Google is converting their Help Forums to a new system. The new features include: improved search results, including posts from current and new forums the ability to designate especially helpful forum members as "Top Contributors" a reputation and ranking system the ability for users,

The Live Search Maps team has made it easier for you to search for Photosynths. If you're not familiar, Photosynth was launched earlier this year and users can take multiple photos of a location and have it mashed up into a 3D image. Now, if you want to find Photosynths of a certain location, go to Live Search Maps and enter in the location you're interested in. Once the results come up, look on the left hand sidebar for "Explore Collections" and click on it.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has responded to Jerry Yang's comments about being open to a Microsoft acquisition. Speaking to a group of developers in Sydney, he dismissed the option of an outright acquisition, but remained open to a search deal. Though, even that didn't sound particularly promising: We made an offer... We made another offer. It was clear that [Yahoo] doesn't want to sell the business to us and we moved on.

Blogger has released a cool new feature that lets readers offer quick responses. It's called Reactions, and it allows bloggers to create a variety of responses for their readers to choose. One possible implementation of the feature looks like this: You're not limited to "LOL" or "Fail." You can set your own annotations: To use the feature, go to Layout > Page Elements. Click the "Edit" link under the Blog Posts element. Check the Reactions box and enter words,

Just a quick reminder, Bill Tancer, the General Manager of Research at Hitwise and one of the keynote speakers at Search Engine Strategies Chicago , will be interviewed by Matt McGowan, Global VP of Marketing at Incisive Media, during an SES Webcast today, Nov. 7, 2008, at 1:00 p.m. EDT / 10:00 a.m. PDT. The title of Bill's presentation is: "We Are What We Search.

In Google AdWords, an ad's Quality Score calculation is based on how well the account's campaigns have performed over time, especially in terms of CTR. So what happens with new accounts? Since there's no CTR data on which to base QS, how does Google determine minimum bids? In today's Profitable PPC column, " The Account Quality Score: Money Pit for the Uninformed ," David Szetela outlines what happens with new AdWords accounts, and what you can do about it.

YouTube is adding search and 3 other features to embeddable videos. The search feature will appear at the end of videos that are embedded on other sites. The other features are things you've seen if you visit YouTube's site but were not previously available for the embeds: High-quality start images )thumbnails( Integrated video annotations Integrated closed captions Google says 44% of their users watch videos embedded on third party sites.

Jerry Yang told attendees at the Web 2.0 Summit yesterday that a deal with Microsoft is still the best option for Yahoo. To which I say: Then why didn't you accept the $31 per share acquisition offer made earlier this year? And then I read this: "People who know me know I don't have an ego about remaining independent versus not remaining independent." Wow.

Earnings are in for MySpace )owned by NewsCorp(, interCLICK, and Answers Corporation. The three advertising revenue-based companies had mixed results. NewsCorp reported that Fox Interactive Media, of which MySpace is the primary web property, saw a 17% gain. However, that's still a 57% drop from the previous quarter.

Wordtracker has launched " Keyword Questions ," a free tool that let's webmasters and SEOs find the specific questions that people type into search engines. The answers to these questions can provide interesting web copy and could pick up a lot of search traffic. According to Ken McGaffin, Chief Marketing Officer of Wordtracker, "People have a ton of questions about all sorts of things and people will go straight to a search engine to find the answers.

Yahoo announced that Google has decided to terminate its advertising partnership with Yahoo, "following indication from the Department of Justice that it would seek to block it, despite Yahoo!'s proposed revisions to address the DOJ's concerns," the Yahoo press release stated. While I understand Google does not want to add another legal battle, does this mark a pull back on the part of Google from their previous aggressive acquisition and partnership agenda?

U.S. business-to-business search engine Accoona has been acquired by Denmark-based business-to-business search engine Masterseek. Accoona launched in 2004 and has seen much of its success in China. "We have worked intensely for the last two weeks in order to get all of the legalities and finances in place for the takeover and there is still a great deal of work in front of us to integrate and re-launch the search service," states Rasmus Refer, founder of the Masterseek Corp.

Revenue for AOL's advertising dropped 6% in the third quarter of 2008. Total revenues for AOL dropped 17% but that's primarily due to declining subscription rates. AOL is in the midst of a business model shift - from one based on internet access subscriptions to one based on advertising. That shift, of course, is coming at quite the rough economic patch for the country in general. AOL is also looking into joining forces with Yahoo , who also posted dismal Q3 results.

Google is ending its search advertising partnership with Yahoo. It was never even implemented. Concerns over antitrust issues rose fast and furious since Google + Yahoo = an enormous chunk of the search ad market. Groups of advertisers spurred on by Microsoft lobbied the Department of Justice to oppose the deal. But they might have just facilitated the search market going from 5 major engines to 4, providing less competition.

Sometimes, a company's marketing efforts can have an unintentional impact from a link building perspective. Such is the case with this fantasy sports community site focused on building communities in Facebook and other social media environments. In today's Web analytics and ROI column, " Social Media Link Building: From Fantasy to Reality ," Eric Enge shares the successful strategy of Citizen Sports Network.

Yahoo's last ditch effort to generate additional revenue and thwart a hostile purchase from Microsoft might have provided sufficient impetus for a partnership six months ago, but we're a long way from the world we all knew then. The government, consumer watchdogs, and advertisers are all raising opposition to the Google-Yahoo ad deal. In today's Searching for Meaning column, " Suing Google over Yahoo ," Kevin Ryan explains why the drama is far from over.

No, the two are not related, as far as I can tell. But Congratulations to Firefox )my personal browser of choice( for reaching 20% of market share . They reached the number for 2 out of 4 weeks in October. For a browser that doesn't come pre-installed on most computers, that's quite impressive. The new privacy feature is included in a pre-release version of Firefox 3.1. It's called "Private Browsing" and you can turn it on via the Tools tab. When you do,

The FCC agreed to open the "white space" - the broadcast spectrum used by over the air television - to use by others apart from the regulated television stations, by a vote of 5-0 yesterday. This is a major accomplishment that companies such as Google, Microsoft, Dell and Hewlitt-Packard have been lobbying for over the past couple of years. As Larry Page noted in the Official Google blog ,