Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Impacted By Google’s Panda Update

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…

Amit Singhal, Google’s head of search, published a blog post on the Google Webmaster Central blog named More guidance on building high-quality sites.

We learned last year that site speed is a ranking factor .

Google is rolling out version 9 of its AdWords Editor software, a free desktop client for managing AdWords campaigns. The new release is said to enable users to manage campaigns over multiple accounts more efficiently.

Now on Google AdSense text ad units you can learn the URL of the advertiser by hovering your mouse pointer over the ad. It appears Google added a form of title or alt tag element to the ad which reveals the advertisers URL without having to click on the ad..

The Google I/O developers conference has turned into an event where people anticipate big announcements about forthcoming Google products. But at Google I/O 2011 next week, don’t expect Google to rollout a shiny new social network. Expect little to do with social at all.

Google has released Search Globe, a Chrome experiment that breaks down a 24-hour period of global searches. With a click of your mouse, you can spin the globe and see which countries have the most searches with protruding bars in a variety of colors, each color representing different languages (e.g., blue for English, orange for Spanish)

The Republic of South Sudan, a nation that will be officially born in July of this year, undoubtedly has a trying road ahead of it. Beyond the struggles of forging a new, stable nation, the country must face the shadows of its past, which will mean addressing its great need for infrastructure, humanitarian aid, and more. These struggles are and will be difficult, but tools like Google Map Maker may be making the path a little easier

This week, I recap the monthly Google Webmaster report. I also discuss how Google’s Matt Cutts wants the web to be like Apple packaging