Henry Blodget has the inside scoop on comScore's paid click report for February, which "appears to be a slight--slight--improvement from the horrific January report" for Google, which showed flat click growth year-over-year. Paid click growth on Google was actually up 3% in February, but that's not enough, according to Blodget, as "our source believes Wall Street was looking for 5%-7% growth in Google's US paid clicks and that this report will likely cause the stock to trade down." The post sparked a major discussion in the comments stream, with some readers questioning why investors are clinging to comScore's …

Universal Search is to blame for Google's less-than-stellar click growth numbers--and for fewer clicks on paid and organic links across all the engines, actually, according to Aaron Goldman. Goldman piggybacks on a Top Rank Online Marketing recap of an SES NY session in which comScore (of all companies) released this nugget of insight on search behavior: "Overall when reviewing universal search results, the study found less clicks from the consumer because the information they were searching for is now appearing directly on the results page such as maps, stock quotes and weather." Fewer clicks on organic links …

"Your customers use online reviews to decide where to eat, shop, and do business. The feedback and ratings your customers give also help determine your rankings for your keywords." That's the message that greets small business owners on the sign-up page for LeaveFeedback.org, a new free service from Utah-based search firm Solo SEO. The review generation service makes it easy for business owners to accumulate reviews on sites like Yahoo and Google Local and Yelp, get them ranked and even provide customers with an incentive for writing the review. At LeaveFeedback.org, reviewers are taken directly to …

The Google Analytics Keyword Sleuth (developed by Michael Harrison) is a third-party tool that "captures and displays an ongoing list of new keywords and phrases straight from your customer's mind," says Mark Curtis. "We're often advised to 'imagine what your customers are typing before they see your ads, then bid on those keywords.' With the Keyword Sleuth in place, you don't have to imagine anything. They've already told you." Meanwhile, Google has its own makeshift query analysis report, the Search Query Performance Report (SQPR)--and while both tools were developed with the same purpose, search marketers get vastly …

It's not. So if the consultant you've hired to help out with your link-building strategy is focused on buying links, then you'll need to stop sending the checks. "Outsourcing isn't about buying links at all," says the Vertical Measures team. It means handing your link-building strategy over to someone (or a company) that will do "in-depth research about your industry, your competition and your company so that they can create dynamic links that aren't purchased. They'll be doing the kind of interactive link building that creates real buzz in your industry." The right link-building team will …

Critics from both inside and outside the EU have raised concerns about Quaero, the mammoth, European search intelligence research project that's finally getting off the ground. Most of the criticism stems from the fact that various EU governments are funding this push to create a "Google-killer"--France, for example, just got the OK to invest more than $150 million over five years--and that the efforts may actually just be too little, too late. Not so, say the project's research leaders. "Quaero participants say that their project has been misunderstood by the public, that it is not the recipient of …

Seems like the perfect solution to the inbound links problem, doesn't it? After all, microsites will be relevant and somewhat authoritative, and there won't be any worries about link-buying penalties. Not so fast, says Jody Nimetz. "The best thing to keep in mind when building your external link inventory is to do it in a natural manner. This means not trying to artificially inflate your link inventory." The overall quality of your inbound links--no matter where they're from--is more important than the quantity. A glut of irrelevant, spammy or otherwise low quality links will actually do more harm …

Susan Moskwa, a Google Webmaster Trends analyst, has posted some tips for leveraging Universal Search more effectively, covering personalization, video, images and even local search optimization. For local search, make sure to add accurate company info to the Local Business Center, and also ensure that Google's crawlers can find and index the same info on your Web site. Don't forget that you can add images and coupons to help stand out in the SERPs. When choosing images, be careful that they don't violate Google's SafeSearch guidelines, or your listing won't show up for searchers with the …