Matt Cutts is addressing the ever-present topic of spam again, only this time it's on the Official Google Blog . Cutts wrote about coming across spam links in the search results. He says this doesn't happen nearly as often as it used to, thanks to Google's anti-spam metrics. One of those metrics is data from search logs . Many have worried what Google does with the data collects,

While the announcement of the Seth "Family Guy" McFarlane link to Google was not new, the way Google has announced it will distribute and monetize reflects a deeper reach for the online media behemoth. Google is going in to the content production space. The caveat about this is the actual information given for advertisers about publishers and their audience. As NYT reports : "The innovative part involves the distribution plan.

If you give Google a cookie it will probably want to store your search behavior and given the scope of its publishing network.... Something tells me this story does not end happily. Though this story has been developing for months, the New York Times article on Friday seems to have sparked a deeper look and the issue of privacy has come in to play. And so it should at this stage.

Bill Slawski, of SEO by The Sea, has uncovered another patent filing. This time Yahoo is applying for a patent for meal search technology . Bill's article gives a much better interpretation than I ever could and should be read. The interesting parts include technology that ties photo recognition to meals and ingredients and places to buy either the meal or the ingredients to make them.

Rotten Neighbors , founded last July, is the U.S. twist on " "human flesh search engines ." The site singles out neighbors for offenses ranging from sanitary to violent. Using Google Maps, Rotten Neighbors shows homes of the accused, represented by red Monopoly-style houses )for rotten( and green )for good(. Most of the postings are anonymous on Rotten Neighbors which averages several hundred thousand "hits" per day. Neighborhood ratings can be given for Noise, Safety,

In China, online vigilantes, or "netizens," use the Internet as a "human flesh search engine" to find and punish people who publish material they consider inappropriate. "Human Flesh Search Engine" is an imprecise translation of "ren'rou sou'suo," which can be translated as "human-assisted search engine." In China, though, the Internet is searched by people to hunt down other people and conduct muckraking campaigns.

Microsoft must have been putting on a good poker face a week ago when it said they weren't looking at any internet-based acquisitions in the wake of failed talks with Yahoo. Venture Beat is now reporting that Microsoft is poised to acquire semantic search company Powerset in the neighborhood of $100 million. Meanwhile, Carl Icahn is still living his proxy dreams. He's calling on Microsoft to not make an alternative deal with Yahoo unless a $33 per share guarantee is in place,

The value of any SEO effort lies in the keywords you choose. It's really that simple - you can't overestimate the importance of strong keyword research. In today's Search Marketing Crossfire column, " SEO Basics: Effective Iterative Keyword Research in 2008 ," Chris Boggs and Frank Watson share some methods for performing keyword research.

Should a company focus on building their messaging around their brand image, or on driving direct response via their Web site and online media? In today's Vertical Search column, " Creative Messaging in a Direct Response World ," local search expert Gregg Stewart shows that branding and direct response messaging can co-exist online, and local business profile pages are a good place to meld writing techniques for both.

This year, local advertisers are expected to shift $13.1 billion of their budgeted funds to the Internet, according to Borrell Associates. The number is up 50% over last year. In 2009, local online ad spending is projected to grow another 40% to $18.2 billion in 2009. By 2012, the growth in spending will eventually slow down and plateau at about $23 billion, but still average 15% growth over the next four years.

Two weeks after launching faster pages for mobile search , Google Mobile is announcing updates to search results pages for BlackBerry devices. Included in the update: Improved Comprehensive Results : Incorporates results from Product Search, Blog Search, News archives search, and more. Blended results : Web, image, local and news results are now combined. But, Google says they've made it easier for you to focus your search on any one of these categories,

Geoff Ramsey, the co-founder and CEO of eMarketer , recently shared 0.001% of the information that his team of researchers and analysts knows about Internet market trends during his morning keynote at Electronic Retailer's LiveEdit Lab . Why can I be so precise? He presented 60 slides out of the 54,000 charts available to eMarketer's subscribers. You do the math. Now, I'm not going to try recapping all 60 of his slides here. Instead,

Multilingual search is one of the growth areas of our industry and Google has added its own help in the space by launching its Latin American AdWords Blog . Written in Spanish, the launch today introduces itself and gives an overview of its intentions and direction. I used a machine translator to get the English version of the opening post - but its seems to be pretty good )guess the translators are improving(.

Apparently Chicago-based firm LimitNone is suing Google for misappropriating the trade secrets of its "gMove" application that Google allegedly used to develop its Email Uploader. The two-count lawsuit also claims Google violated Illinois' consumer fraud laws. The lawsuit was filed Tuesday by Kelley Drye & Warren LLP - "the same commercial litigation group which challenged Google over the company's online advertising system," SlashDot noted.

Set the date aside, July 8th, if you want to get the inside scoop on Google's website tools. As announced today over at the Official Google Blog , they will be holding a webinar about Google Analytics, Website Optimizer and Webmaster Tools. These Google products have become an invaluable set of tools for most serious web owners and marketers and it will be a great opportunity to see if there are any methods one is not using at the moment.

Google Maps features a very funny Google Easter Egg: If you ask for directions from an address in Australia to an address in the USA the ever helpful "Get directions" tool gives some great tips on how to cross the Pacific Ocean. Easter eggs are hidden surprises created by programmers. Tip of the hat to Michael Smith of Technocrat.net for uncovering the Google Maps egg. Now at least I know how Aussiewebmaster made his way to the USA .

Confirming recent rumors of another coming reorganization, Yahoo today announced its plans to centralize many of its product and engineering teams into one regional group in the U.S., rather than maintaining separate divisions for each set of products. Yahoo is creating three new teams that will report to President Sue Decker: An Audience Products Division will assume responsibility for companywide product strategy and product management.

The people who give us WebProNews have launched a search engine for Twitter members - Twellow . Smart move given the popularity of Twitter and one Twitter itself could have launched if it was not already trying to lift a whale with a bunch of small birds. The site has categories and will be interesting to see the breakdown of users by these categories. Something tells me the search space will be one of the leading categories.

Google has announced their replacement of outgoing CFO George Reyes. Former Bell Canada CFO Patrick Pichette has been offered the position along with an employment package as good as many first round draft picks in sports. As the San Jose Mercury News details , Pichette will get a $500,000 signing bonus and the rest of the package makes his first year's pay in the millions. Welcome to the team Patrick.

Visual search engine Searchme has announced the addition of two new features. The first is Media Search, which allows users to search for videos and images from YouTube and Flickr . The second is "Stacks," a visual bookmarking and sharing features that enables users to share what they find on blogs, social media profiles, email and web sites. "These visual search applications enhance our core search engine by allowing people to use Searchme in fresh,