According to Szoka, even though FairSearch may raise some valid points, you have to be “skeptical” when dealing with policy and antitrust.

“We have to be skeptical any time that competitors are using a regulatory process to try to compete,” he said. “Moreoever, we should be worried not just about Google because, obviously, they are big boys and can take care of themselves, but really about the next Google.”

He went on to explain that FairSearch’s argument against Google is based mostly on bias. However, based on research from Josh Wright, also of TechFreedom, if bias is a problem, and it’s not been determined that it is, Microsoft’s Bing shows much more bias than Google does.

Szoka told us that, if bias is the only way that distinguishes what is and what isn’t competition, there is a problem. Instead, he thinks the analysis should look at whether or not consumers are harmed, and, at this point, he said the complainants have primarily been Microsoft and companies that are a part of FairSearch.

While TechFreedom defends Google on this matter, Szoka told us that the organization’s overall goal was to prevent government intervention.

“In general, competition [and] innovation do a much better job of protecting consumers than government does,” he said.

In response to FairSearch’s complaints against it, a Google spokesperson sent us this statement:

“Most people understand that Microsoft and our other competitors complain constantly about Google, but they also know that Google builds our search results for users, not websites, and that the laws are designed to protect consumers, not competitors.  The fundamental openness of the Internet means that consumers have infinite choices and can always switch to Bing, Facebook, Kayak, or Expedia with just one click.”

Does Google show a bias in its search results, or is FairSearch making inaccurate claims? What do you think?

As Ben Hammer explained to WebProNews, the organization is made up of several companies including Microsoft, Expedia, and TripAdvisor, and it believes that Google is a search monopoly.

“The question that our group is focused on is, now that authorities in the U.S., in the European Union, and around the world have already established that Google has monopoly power in search on the Internet, is Google violating the law by abusing that power in ways that sort of tilt the playing field to itself and basically restrict the options that consumers on the Internet have to find information, and then also get all the benefits that come with competition on the Internet?” he pointed out.

FairSearch began after Google announced that it was going to acquire ITA Software and make developments in the travel industry. Hammer told us that, because Google owns more than 60 percent of the search market share, it should be held to a “higher standard.”

“One of the sort of principles of competition and consumer law is that, once a company gains monopoly power in a market, they have undue influence over everything that happens in that market,” he said. “Only with that kind of power can you then do certain things that disadvantage everyone else in a way that competition and innovation and consumer benefits can be upended permanently.”

Hammer told us that, if authorities find its claims against Google to be true, FairSearch would like to see action taken that stops it.

WebProNews reached out to Google for its response to FairSearch and received the following statement from a spokesperson:

“Most people understand that Microsoft and our other competitors complain constantly about Google, but they also know that Google builds our search results for users, not websites, and that the laws are designed to protect consumers, not competitors.  The fundamental openness of the Internet means that consumers have infinite choices and can always switch to Bing, Facebook, Kayak, or Expedia with just one click.”

Do you agree with FairSearch’s claims? We’d love to know.

Aaron Wall, the author of SEO Book, first broke the news after discovering it in one of his forums. In short, Google apparently violated its own Webmaster Guidelines for paid links as part of a marketing campaign for Google Chrome.

“It was obviously paid exposure,” said Wall.

Shortly after this interview was conducted, Google responded to the incident and devalued its Chrome landing page for “at least 60 days,” according to the company’s Webspam Head Matt Cutts.

In a statement to WebProNews, a Google spokesperson said:

“Google never agreed to anything more than online ads. We have consistently avoided paid sponsorships, including paying bloggers to promote our products, because these kind of promotions are not transparent or in the best interests of users. We’re now looking at what changes we need to make to ensure that this never happens again.”

Wall did tell us that he hoped that, going forward, Google would be more “lenient” when dealing with others since mistakes can happen to anyone, even search giants.

As Bruce Clay explained to WebProNews, the changes Panda brought were significant to the search industry. However, overall, he thinks the quality of Google’s search results have improved. That said, Clay told us that we likely haven’t seen the end of Panda and that it has the potential to get bigger and meaner.

Social media and local search also played important roles in search over the year. Although the advent of Google+ is obviously noteworthy, Clay said that it would become more integrated with search over time, especially in regards to local search.

Going forward, he believes that SEO will become much harder. In addition, he said that SEO, social, conversion rate optimization, PPC, and other search marketing elements will, instead of being separate areas of expertise, will all fall under the broad title of Internet marketing. In other words, SEOs will also have be experts in social media and vice versa.

How have the search events of 2011 impacted you and your business? Let us know.

As Chris Boggs, the President of SEMPO, told WebProNews, the main goal of the letter was to promote a free market approach to the Internet that would allow search engines to provide the best results with limited or no regulation. The organization wrote the letter in response to its members’ needs and the continuing call for regulation of Google.

Although SEMPO has not received a response from the FTC, it hopes that its message was heard. Boggs told us that it is willing to work with government agencies such as the FTC to help them better understand how search engines operate.

Keep watching WebProNews for the latest news in this developing story.

Forrester told WebProNews that people should be concerned with producing quality content because good content attracts both people and search engines. The people that like this content will amplify it, thus allowing the search engines to give the publisher authority.

Social media comes into the equation because it provides information to the engines, which gives them the ability to return more relevant results. Since most people refer to friends or family for advice before they make a purchase, integrating social into search results helps users make decisions faster.

For 5 years, WebProNews has partnered with BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the world’s first and largest new media conference, in an effort to broadcast how new media can grow your business, brand, and audience. Stay tuned to WebProNews for much more exclusive coverage.

In a study that InboundWriter conducted over the summer, Jay Baer of Convince and Convert actually saw a 33 percent increase in traffic to blog posts that were written using the tool as opposed to the 30 days before the posts were rewritten.

The app is also available as a WordPress plugin.

For 5 years, WebProNews has partnered with BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the world’s first and largest new media conference, in an effort to broadcast how new media can grow your business, brand, and audience. Stay tuned to WebProNews for much more exclusive coverage.

For 5 years, WebProNews has partnered with BlogWorld and New Media Expo, the world’s first and largest new media conference, in an effort to broadcast how new media can grow your business, brand, and audience. Stay tuned to WebProNews for much more exclusive coverage.

Stefan Weitz, a director with Bing, told us that personalized search and search should not actually be classified separately. He believes that personalized search should be how search is thought of moving forward. He went on to say that Bing thinks this feature will continue to improve the overall user experience.

Adaptive Search is already being rolled out the U.S.

Dani Horowitz, who runs the site, told us that her US traffic was cut in half as a result of the Panda Update. After looking closely at the situation, she believes that her site was hit because so many other sites syndicate her site’s content. In other words, these sites were hit because they were classified as content farms, but DaniWeb felt the impact as well since its backlinks lost value from these sites.

Fortunately, Horowitz is seeing some improvements to her site. She said she went into complete SEO and programmer mode which involved updating the entire url structure, removing tag clouds, using noindex and nofollow meta tags, making social buttons more obvious, and more. Although DaniWeb is not back to the point it was prior to Panda’s roll out, it is continuing to see positive progress.

Malcolm Lewis, the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Social Buying, and Rajan Mohan, the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Owned and Operated, told WebProNews that these recent announcements are a natural extension of Local.com’s core mission, which is to connect local merchants and consumers.

In addition, Mohan, specifically, said the latest actions help to “close the last mile” for merchants to clearly equate online ad spend to offline sales.

At SXSW, WebProNews spoke with Stefan Weitz, a director with Bing, about this growth and what the search engine was doing to leverage it. According to him, the search industry is not a “zero-sum game.”

“For us to win, somebody else doesn’t have to lose,” he said.

In other words, he believes that all the search engines can expand on one idea and take it in new, and multiple, directions. Competition is tight, but as a result, it produces more new concepts and experiences. Bing, for example, has recently introduced several new projects. The search engine partnered with DealMap in order to bring great deals from popular sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial to users.

Bing has also launched Project Emporia that puts a new approach on personalization. The project is powered by its Matchbox technology and enables the engine to build profiles that offer better recommendations to users.

Weitz told us that Bing would continue to pursue these areas, along with social search, mobile search, and more, in order to provide a simpler and better user experience.

With all of its developments, do you think Bing will continue to gain Google’s market share?

WebProNews reporter Abby Johnson spoke with Rod Nicolson, VP User Experience Design & Workflow, PR Newswire about Google’s latest algorithm update.

Nicolson says the update effects up to 12 percent of sites and it may be a while before everyone can fully interpret what the algorithm change means.

PR Newswire has seen an impact because of the Google Panda update. Nicolson says PR Newswire has been hit with collateral damage in Google’s war against content farms. The algorithm update has not had a massive effect on PR Newswire but it has been larger than expected.

Nicolson says there is no way that PR Newswire could “ ever, ever” be considered a content farm. He does not see any reason why PR Newswire would be included in a drop in rankings.

PR Newswire has been in contact with Google about the algorithm update and reminded them who they are.

To avoid the situation in the future Nicolson says PR Newswire is doing what every “SEO on the planet is doing, and looking very closely at everything being published and the data about the farmer update.”

In the meantime, Wajam is a startup that hopes to fill the social search void for users. As Martin-Luc Archambault explained to WebProNews, Wajam is a browser extension that allows users to receive social results from Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, and more, while they are searching in Google, Bing, Yahoo, and even other places.

“Wajam gives you access to your friends’ knowledge everywhere that you search,” he said.

Archambault went on to say that Wajam extends the social search experience beyond even traditional search engines. For instance, the extension is also compatible with search engines such as Amazon. Wajam told us that it hopes to integrate with other nontraditional search engines as well.

Google currently has a partnership with Twitter to include Twitter information in its search results. Bing, on the other hand, has a partnership with Facebook, which was recently expanded, that incorporates Facebook results into its SERPs. If a user wants Facebook results in his search experience and is a Google user, Archambault believes that he shouldn’t have to switch to Bing in order to get the Facebook integration. He believes this same principle applies to Bing as well.

“I think really to nail social search, or to give users a good experience, you really have to tell the users, ‘Don’t change the way you do things…’ we let the user keep on doing what they’re doing and share the way they’re doing and search the way they like to search,” he said.

One of the biggest challenges for Wajam is the ability to process all the data and show it in a relevant way. However, Archambault said that the company tries to view challenges as opportunities to improve their service.

Wajam is also pursuing mobile efforts and hopes to have both iPhone and Android apps soon. Archambault did point out that Wajam works on Firefox 4 for Android and is just as seamless as it would be on a browser on a desktop.

Although Wajam is currently oversubscribed, Archambault said if users request an invitation by liking them on Facebook or by following them on Twitter, they would likely get in.