At one point search industry insiders suggested Google and Microsoft would invest in Yahoo to support search efforts and save the company from bankruptcy. Rather than make that financial investment by buying the company's services, one of Google's influential leaders took the helm as Yahoo CEO.

Can a partnership with Facebook turn around an ailing Internet giant? The ad industry may not see it in Yahoo's Q2 2012 earnings, but it will likely become a positive step in an uphill direction. Yahoo signed an advertising partnership with Facebook after settling pending patent lawsuits. Insiders will look for Yahoo interim CEO Ross Levinsohn to provide clues about Yahoo's future when the company reports earnings Tuesday.

Terrorists use our openness on the Internet and in social networks against us. Marc Goodman, who has spent a lifetime in law enforcement, explains how during a TED conference presentation. "A search engine can determine who shall live and who shall die," he said, explaining events that took place during the attack on Mumbai.

Can't help it, but I keep coming back to this multibillion mobile commerce number published earlier this week by Needham & Co., and the influence from search engine marketing. The research led by Laura Martin puts U.S mobile commerce spending at $36 billion by 2015. Global revenue from mobile advertising and content should reach $67 billion this year.

Tracking online marketers' budgets and costs per click can help marketers understand how to allocate budgets. Paid-search spending rose 29% in Q2 2012, compared with the year-ago quarter -- down from 32% sequentially, according to Rimm-Kaufman Group (RKG). Marketers spent 32% more in the quarter, compared with a year ago, but investments fell sequentially from 36%.

How will the online advertising industry support search engine optimization and paid-search ads when the act of typing keywords into a search box to create a query becomes invisible? The act of searching for information will blend into voice-assisted programs, with geolocation targeting supported by data. If you view the concept as a next-generation technology, think again. Then think about Google's Glass Project, Google Now, and Bing and Yahoo's quest to eliminate blue links.

Holidays are a good time for companies to disclose huge fiscal year write-downs they would rather sweep under the rug. Some have suggested that Microsoft's failed aQuantive acquisition proves it should exit the online ad business and sell its search engine Bing. One big problem behind that thinking: It's no longer about search rankings and paid-search ads, but rather the data behind the service.

Worthless links drag down a Web site's ranking. Strong link profiles help a site build authority. Having a tool to find the links requires marketers to walk a fine line between black and white search engine optimization (SCO).

Marketers have made improvements in attribution modeling to determine how online video, search, social, display ads, mobile and other media contribute to sales or the awareness of a brand. A lack in continuous innovations could have platform providers, search engines, publishers and social sites fighting for ad dollars. Not to bring those offline ad dollars online, but among online media, publisher sites, and social networks.

Companies have begun to phase out Flash in exchange for HTML5 because Apple products don't support Flash, Google cannot index interior pages, some browsers don't display Flash objects, and Yahoo and Bing struggle to read the content. Search engines like Google go to great lengths to explain the shift.