Instant feedback from paid search can let marketers make more informed organic search choices, as well as create internal and external link strategies. But Kevin Lee believes paid search can help hone messages on organic landing pages and improve the conversion rate, too. Lee serves up insights into whether marketers should buy paid placement listings when the ad places high in an organic ranking, and suggests ways to use a paid campaign to test organic campaigns.

When it comes to link acquisition, diversity is key, according to Rand Fishkin. The search engines tend to like diverse rather than similar link profiles, especially if the links in the profile come from sites with authority. Fishkin analyzes why a variety of linking domains sit better with engines than repeated links from the same site. Boosting authority for the content will raise the content ranking in the search engine.

Google will now personalize the search results of anyone who uses its search engine. Danny Sullivan explains that Google has put signals in place to safeguard privacy, but being an opt-out service, rather than opt-in, will likely raise concerns, which he details in the post.

Snippets play an important role in whether or not someone clicks through a link in search results, so it makes sense to fine-tune the meta description, according to Bill Slawski. Slawski discovered in a Yahoo patent how the search engine might make the experience of serving up results better when deciding the snippets to show searchers. He explains that the search engine considers each line of text that appears on a page as a possible choice, and comes up with a sort of quality score for each.

Ryan Singel explains that Google launched a DNS service Thursday in hope people will let the ad and search giant take over yet another part of their Internet experience. Browsers ask Domain Name Service servers (DNS) to translate URLs into the Web addresses where servers reside. This lets browsers retrieve pages and e-mail clients address e-mails to the right place. Singel writes, "Now I can use Google DNS to look up Google.com on my Google Chrome browser running on a Google Chrome OS. And Google DNS will get me to Gmail and Google Books and Google Voice and …

There are a "gazillion" ways to test landing pages that increase conversions, Amber writes. She tells us about a multivariate test that allows marketers to add in a piece of code to a landing page. Half the time users will see the update or changed landing page, and the other half of the time they will see the original landing page. Multivariate testing lets marketers test multiple iterations of landing page simultaneously. Amber provides a list of items that are important to test. Among these are call to action buttons, headlines, and copy. She also provides a list of things …

Marketers of local business listings have been waiting patiently for Google to get a handle on the onslaught of spam. Now something is finally getting done, according to Mary Bowling. Google has shaped a "fairly comprehensive blueprint" for Google Maps with a Business Listing Quality Guide. Most questions are clearly answered, which should eliminate speculation and debate. The guidelines include physical and multiple location spam, business name spam, and more.

Eric Papczun shares his video search holiday wish list: for more timely and relevant videos in the search results, more video channels for Google beyond YouTube, and more B2B and B2C online videos in the SERPs. In all, the list states 10 wishes. For example, he writes, "wouldn't it be great if you not only searched and found information on a preferred retailer's latest sales event, but you could also watch a live version of the event, including snapshots of available in-store merchandise?"

Tom Critchlow reviews one of the "bazillion SEO tools on the internet (literally!)" that he believes can help SEO professionals find broken links. The free tool, Xenu's Link Sleuth, runs on all versions of Windows, but not on Macs. Critchlow calls it a site crawler. Once you point it at a URL it will crawl around the site and spit out a report at the end. Aside from finding broken links, it can solve a host of different SEO-related issues that Critchlow explains.

SEO professionals looking for the perfect gift to give this holiday season might want to check out Chris Sherman's list of the best SEO books in 2009. He writes that this year there has been a significant increase in the number of search marketing books. In the first installment of this roundup, he reviews five books. For example, "Search User Interfaces," which Sherman describes as "an unusual book -- and I mean that as high praise." Author Marti Hearst has, in fact, "invented or participated in the development of many of the search interfaces that are now standard on the …