The Yahoo features that Amber has been waiting for have arrived. She believes the features and the enhancements to its ad serving network will make a difference in campaigns running on the Yahoo network or partner networks. The tools could allow advertisers to better optimize bids and increase conversions, with less money invested in non-converting domains. Describing the benefits, Amber steps through how to use one of the new tools. Overall, the tools provide paid search professionals more control of data and where ads serve up.

If you don't have the time to listen to the replay of Yahoo's earnings call, run your eyes down this list of highlights from the call. It provides perspective on Yahoo's plans for paid, display and social search. The transcript weights toward information for investors, but it also touches on Yahoo's deal with Microsoft, and future Yahoo ad campaigns to promote the company. You also can find a complete transcript here.

In a Securities and Exchange Commissions filing revealed Friday, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page plan to sell roughly $5.5 billion worth of stock during the next five years. John Letzing writes that Brin and Page own about 57.7 million shares of Google common stock, or about 18% of its outstanding capital stock. Aside from the $2.75 billion that Letzing estimates each co-founder will get, the filing explains why the two will make this move.

Semantic challenges, understanding data and market share aspirations are some topics Gord Hotchkiss and Stefan Weitz discuss. Weitz, the Bing director of search, offers up some opinions and insights into reasons why Microsoft took the approach it did, such as calling Bing a "decision engine," and its push toward the semantic Web. Dig down a third of the way into the post, where Hotchkiss gets to the heart of some interesting insights.

If you want answers, Google's got them. Its new feature, based on Google Squared and Rich Snippets, two applications introduced last year, applies the research behind both to give people searching on questions the answers in search queries. Think Yahoo Answers, but unlike Yahoo Answers, where you have to go to a separate site, ask a question to members and hope they get it correctly, Google answers the question in search results.

After spending Sunday morning searching for Bill Gates' new blog and seeing it fall into fourth place in the search engine results, Danny Sullivan thinks Microsoft's founder needs a lesson in SEO. Sullivan says Gate's blog could rank much better, especially ahead of the parody sites. He provides some tips. The long post dissects the Web site, calling for improvements in title tag and description, among other items. Maybe Sullivan's just prepping Gates for Steve Ballmer's keynote at SMX West.

Rand Fishkin talks with Will Critchlow about best practices for keeping clients happy. The two agree to begin with good communication, and follow through on delivering the goods. Happy clients mean more business, improved reputation, higher demand and more success for you, according to Fishkin. Don't create expectations you can't meet, or hide anything in the formal contract you feel uneasy about.

Jennifer Laycock analyzes data released this week from HubSpot -- the Third Annual State of the Twittersphere report, which provides insight into marketing and social interaction. Not surprisingly, Layton points to the slowdown of Twitter's phenomenal growth during the past few months as having the biggest impact on the social media site. And while the number of new tweeters has slowed, it seems that more users are engaged with the service more often. Twitter is called a maturing service -- a description that could explain why more Twitter users have begun to pay more attention to building a following …

Dig into the SEO online chat rooms, or search for well-known blogs, and you might find folks talking about how someone is trying to trademark the acronym "SEO." Apparently, this is not the first time. While this time around it's Clinton Cimring, last time Jason Gambert tried. The community, up in arms about this move, went out to find the trademark filing. Search Engine Land's Barry located the document. Teamwork.

Marketing budget allocations for various media channels are screwy at nearly every company, writes Kevin Lee. In trying to save the jobs of many chief marketing officers, Lee explains why this problem continues. For starters, he writes, "little or no science and math" gets applied to figuring out the budget. But Lee has a plan to make it work. Of course, it involves paid search. He identifies certain patterns that emerge prior to large budget shifts into search -- and gives us some reasons that budgets haven't followed eyeballs and ears online.