Happy Birthday Google (Small Business E-commerce Link Digest – 9/12/2008)

In honor of Google’s 10th Anniversary, today’s list of links looks exclusively at search. Maybe Google’s only having a birthday as some major link-building campaign? Nah… Anyway, on with the link love.

• The Rimm-Kaufman Group are among the smartest folks in the search marketing field. Their “How To Compute Smart PPC Bids” is a great 3-minute video providing valuable lessons for just about anyone doing search marketing.
• Alan Rimm-Kaufman also has a quick overview of Google’s Quality Score Update. Alan believes Google’s first-page-bid guidance will drive CPCs higher. Fortunately, he’s also got advice for what to do about it.
• One Degree takes a look at SEO with their post “Spark Your SEO With Synonyms”.
• Longtime FOT (that’s Friend of thinks for the uninitiated) Linda Bustos and the folks at over at Get Elastic help you get more mileage from your PR efforts with a video called, fittingly, “How to Use PR for SEO”. Clever, that Linda.
• Google’s tools for online marketing, of course, extend beyond just search. While not new, a couple months ago GrokDotCom provided an excellent webinar for Google Website Optimizer, examining what you should test. Good stuff, as always.
• Not everyone is happy with everything Google does these days. Among its most notable critics? Nicholas Carr, who examines how Google has become “The Omnigoogle”. While I don’t agree with everything he says, Nick’s point of view is thought-provoking. For instance, Nick really gets the company, as thinks pointed out earlier this week in our look at Google and antitrust.
• And finally, for all this talk about Google, its category of business is badly named. Search engine? consumers don’t want a search engine. They want a find engine. Seth Godin gives a, well, Godin-esque view of one unusual thing to find.

Happy Birthday, Google! And Happy Friday, BIg Thinkers. See you all right here next week.

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