A lot is happening in the world of search and social and as you know State of Search is not a news-reporting site but a site that interprets the news and looks at why something is happening and what that means to you. That doesn’t mean however we are not interested in the news. In this post we will bring the top stories of what happened last week with links to articles around the web. So you will know what you’ve missed.  

Here’s what happened last week

Google Webmaster Tools Bug

A big glitch in Google Webmaster Tools last week when all of a sudden several webmasters were yesterday suddenly seeing sites to which their access was revoked show up again in Google Webmasters.

Related stories online: Searchengineland, Dave Naylor, Seroundtable, Searchenginewatch
Related stories on State of Search: Google Webmaster Tools Bug Re-verifies Old Accounts

Don’t Get Scroogled By Google says Bing

It’s a common and often successful way of advertising: slamming your competitors. And that is exactly what Microsoft Bing did when it launched another advertising campaign called “Don’t Get Scroogled By Google” on the domain scroogled.com. A very Christmassy thought…

Related stories online: Scroogled, Searchengineland, Searchengineroundtable, Mashable, Searchenginewatch

Google did NOT acquire ICOA

A bit of a strange news item about something that didn’t happen. What happened? PRWeb ran a press release saying that WiFi provider ICOA was being acquired by Google for $400 million. This however wasn’t true. Many however reported on the news.

Related stories online: Searchengineland, Marketingland, Webpronews, Searchenginewatch

Another Google Panda Update: #22

You can hardly call it ‘news’ anymore but Google indeed rolled out another Google Panda Update. On November 21. Last week that news was confirmed on different websites.

Related stories online: Seroundtable, Searchengineland, Dave Naylor

Google Adds Medications To Its Knowledge Graph

Looking for medical information? On Google you can now see detailed information on medications as part of Google’s Knowledge Graph product.

Related stories online: Searchengineland, TechCrunch, The Next Web, Endgadget

US, European Antitrust Regulators To Confer On Google Case

The top two US and European antitrust regulators will meet in Europe this week to talk about Google and regulations and discuss potential outcomes.

Related stories online: Wall Street Journal, Searchengineland, Searchenginejournal, Independent Ireland

Google flights notifications out of beta?

Since August you could take part in an experiment which allowed you to see your upcoming flights when doing a search in Google. That function now seems to be out of beta and available for all.

Related stories online: Google Operating System

YouTube Launches Associated Website Link Annotations

Linking to your own website was never possible within YouTube. Since last week this has changed when Google announced that partners can now put annotations on their videos that will link directly to their website.

Related stories online: ReelSEO, YouTube

Google (again) under fire in Germany

A German law seems in the making proposing to let publishers charge search engines for displaying newspaper articles. Google is opposing in a public campaign which is not appreciated by German lawmakers

Related stories online: Reuters, Searchenginewatch

Google Acquires BufferBox

Google has acquired BufferBox, an e-commerce shopping locker start-up. BufferBox will continue to offer its service, which is currently free.

Related stories online: AllthingsD, TechCrunch, Financial Post

Pakistani Google, Yahoo!, Apple, eBay, PayPal Sites Hacked

The Pakistani websites of Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Apple, Visa, HSBC, Coca Cola, Blogspot, Sony, HP, eBay and PayPal seem to have been hacked and defaced last week by a group of Turkish hackers.

Related stories online: Softpedia, Hackersmedia, Searchenginewatch

Bing Top Searches for 2012: Kardashians, Elections and Honey Boo Boo

Bing announced it top searches for 2012, a month before the year has ended. Not remarkably the Elections and the Kardashians played a big role.

Related stories online: Bing, Marketingpilgrim, CNet, Computerworld

Posted in News | Tags: Bing, Google, News, yahoo, YouTube