Howie Jacobson provides us with an AdWords Fable to determine how to test the message in your AdWords campaigns to reap the highest return on investment. He provides steps to test the campaign. For example, he explains that when testing a campaign begin by asking yourself "who" -- who will search for the keywords? Who are your ideal customers?

Confused about Facebook's new features and focus to make the Web a more "social" place? Alex Green describes in details the Facebook applications and features announced at the company's third annual developers' conference, f8, in San Francisco. He points specifically to Social Plug-ins and Open Graph Protocol designed to bridge the gap between Facebook users and web publishers. Green explains that the Open Graph Protocol enables any Web site to register as a unique object in the social graph. Markup tags for the Open Graph protocol lets a Web site perform with all the functions of a traditional Facebook page.

David Harry, with help from the SEO dojo community, set out to find the metrics for measuring SEO success. While the group determines there's no "cookie cutter approach," the notes in the post provide interesting insights into ways to approach measurement. Harry begins by defining KPI and benchmarks before helping to determine what constitutes success. He provides examples of conversion points, metrics to watch and more.

Google has become more aggressive in assigning an accurate date to content indexed and served up in query results, explains Michael Gray. He says that initially Google only looked at the date near the H1/Title of the page and, if it found something, used that as the date in the results. Gray tells MediaPost that when Google shows a date in the SERPs people are more likely to click the newer date, as opposed to the older one. So old articles, which are still valid, get less traffic. So, he describes a workaround method to keep people coming back to …

After returning from a business trip to Australia, Marty Weintraub provides a breakout of basic demographics and fun paid search samples from categories, brands, places of employments and other segments from Australian and New Zealand markets to demonstrate the value of marketing on Facebook. He took the initiative after being approached by a number of "zealous attendees (prior to my Facebook PPC presentation)" who mentioned they didn't think enough Australian or New Zealand citizens participate on Facebook to make marketing on the site worthwhile.

Could a search engine effectively rely on searchers to help clean up Web spam in search results? asks Bill Slawski, pointing to a patent filed by Microsoft. The patent describes a way a search engine could identify Web spam by combining information from searchers about pages with information gathered from an automated system for identifying web spam. Slawski looks at how Google, Microsoft and Yahoo allow searchers to identify pages each might consider Web spam. He also tells us how the engines might use crowdsourcing and the signals Microsoft might use to identify spam in search results.

Perhaps it's obvious, but Dunrie Greiling reminds us to know your audience before writing for the Web, which means using their language and terminology. Aside from providing insights on how to write copy people will read on a screen, Greiling tells us ways to check for readability, pointing to online tests that allow you to get feedback on the grade level of your web copy.

SEO professionals need to track their rankings, according to Rand Fishkin. Sometimes SEO are too quick to blame a penalty on sudden changes in rankings, so he steps through several other issues that could cause fluctuations. Fishkin shows you how to identify whether or not you've been penalized, and what to do if you have.

Ken Lyons walks through a case study using Google Trends to discover PPC opportunities. Google Trends identifies the hottest searches and rising trends on Google's engine, similar to the way Twitter identifies hot topics on its Web site. Lyons also tells us about a few different keyword analysis features and ways to predict seasonal traffic patterns that can lead to new keyword opportunities.

Michael Gray describes four Web directories that every Web site should have a listing in, and tells us why. Three, however, charge an annual fee. He also mentions additional directories you should consider.