Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google Maps Aggregates Midterm Election Forecasts Google has joined forces with a handful of political web sites to track forecasts for the upcoming U.S. mid-term elections.

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web….

Google has joined forces with a handful of political web sites to track forecasts for the upcoming U.S. mid-term elections. Those forecasts are available now at maps.google.com/elections2010.

Posted by randfish Ugh… Part of me just wants to link to this old blog post and leave it at that. But, since there’s actually a bit of data to share helping to show that (at least so far) Google Instant changes less than your average algorithmic rankings update, let’s share

Earlier this year Google launched an innovative “Government Requests map,” which showed how regularly governments around the world were asking Google to remove information or content from its index and services.

Bing Social yesterday announced a new feature called People Recommendations to help searchers discover new Twitterers. Based on a search query, the feature is designed to also return “recommended” users on Twitter. Those users receive rankings, such as “Influential” or “Popular.” So a Bing search for [ search engine ] returns @SEWatch as influential

Yesterday Google announced that they were going to be allowing users the capability to edit their Google Docs on iPads and Android. While this feature is already available through various third-party applications, like QuickOffice, Google users may find themselves more comfortable having a native component available to them.

There’s a funny and satirical 1989 British film called “How to Get Ahead in Advertising.” The movie focuses on an ad executive, played by actor Richard E. Grant, who experiences an ethical and mid-life crisis.

So we know that you do not want to use the word “google” in your Google Maps listing. Using google will lead to a manual review but so will using the word “sex.” A sex therapist is upset that his/her…

I had a meeting today with a prospective client and the account manager at one of my agency clients.  The prospect was coming in to talk about her need for a web site for a new product she wants to sell and where she had heard that SEO was something she needed.  I had almost no information going in – no previous site to refer to, no insight into the products, or the market.  Yet as soon as I heard the domain name she had chosen, I knew there was almost no chance I was going to recommend comprehensive SEO – because sometimes, SEO is just not the right solution… Don’t get me wrong – SEO should be integrated as part of a best practices plan for any web site, regardless of the market.  Except I’ve been there, done that too often as far as being presented with a web plan that comes at a time when there’s not enough capital to properly market a company’s offerings.  This is also sometimes exacerbated by the fact that the market is so “out there” that too much work needs to go into SEO early on that the cost at such a vital time in the business life cycle can actually harm the company’s chances at success. And above all else, I take great pride in the fact that I have an ethical responsibility to help new clients understand the right way to go about building a business, even if it means less money to my agency clients or to me.