Last week Google hosted an online presentation of their search engine optimization tools, Google Webmaster Tools, Google Analytics, and Google Website Optimizer, and how you can use them together. They have provided a video of the presentation on the official Google Webmaster Central blog . For search engine optimization old hands there is nothing new in the video. For novices or those contemplating DIY search engine optimization then it is a good place start.

- We frequently get questions in the adCenter Community about our plans for a publisher program. We started a private pilot program earlier this year and are now inviting more publishers. Microsoft's self-serve advertising offering for publishers is still.

Ever wonder how the Federal Trade Commission arrives at its decisions regarding whether to approve acquisitions such as Google's earth-shattering DoubleClick buy? No worries: The commish has put together a resource with 25 fact sheets on stuff like antitrust and price discrimination. With some huge Yahoo deal still looming, this could come in handy.

Yahoo's letter to shareholders yesterday was just the first step in their latest defense against Carl Icahn's attempts to elect a proxy board at the shareholder meeting in two weeks. Today, Yahoo and its allies strike two more blows. First, Yahoo has begun leveraging one of its biggest assestsone of (if not the ) most popular home pages on the Internet. Yahoo has put a notice about the pending board election below the fold. TechCrunch spotted this earlier today,

In case you haven't noticed, it's Friday. Woot. German Google Webmaster Central blog has a fun interview with Matt Cutts on porn, big feet and spam . The post has a German translation of the transcript, but the video itself is in English. Need help with Google Webmaster Toots, Google Analytics and/or Google Website Optimizer? An hour-long YouTube webinar covering all three is now live ( via ).

The news that Starbucks will be closing 600 locations across the U.S. caused a legion of coffee drinkers to look up from their venti soy lattes and hit the Web. Since the notification went out, thousands of jittery patrons have driven queries for " starbucks closing ," " starbucks closures ," and " starbucks locations " up the Search charts. Local papers immediately sprang into action,

Posted by rebecca VanessaH , an SEOmoz member who does SEO work for PlumberSurplus.com , recently contacted me about an interesting link bait campaign her company is attempting. Basically, the SEOs over at Plumber Surplus are trying to build more links to the site and hopefully bump the Page Rank up from a 5 to a 6. They had been trying various methods and campaigns and were brainstorming additional ways to attract more links. By happenstance, the site/property group owner,

Digg Kicking it Old School ??" De-Nerdification of the Net Continues A recent report shows that Digg is sending more traffic to traditional newsites, rather than the once prevalent techie sites. Listen up newsers ??" write headlines for the web when you're online ??" heed Dr. Naveel ! You'll get more Diggs that way. This also suggests that Digg has entered the mainstream where they can either ascend to Google-like dominance or age to elderly AOL-esque irrelevance.

In addition to participating in the AdSense network, you may also be interested in having your site ranked in organic Google search. In this post, I'll highlight some important points for search optimization. While there's no a magic formula to make your site show up first on a search results page, there are some good practices when it comes to links, design, content, and the structure of your site. First of all, as a reminder,

Swedish pop counterprogramming sounds like a good idea, but it's safe to say that " Mamma Mia! " (PG-13)??"and the " DVD-destined " Space Chimps " (G) combined??"won't have the throngs that a long-awaited, much-searched comic-book thriller will amass. In any other week, making the top 2,000 searches would be respectable, but a singing Meryl Streep ?probably won't attract the disappointed dregs who couldn't score Batman tickets. Then again,