Sherice Jacob lays out seven hardly known conversion tactics that could give campaign conversion rates a "nice bump." The insights cover a lot of ground, from removing or changing the CAPTCHA, to offering a video option even if site visitors don't use it. Jacob also points to a few studies -- one from SEOmoz.org, and another from ReelSEO -- with ideas for lifting conversion rates.

David Harry has bundled in a very long post a list of patents from Microsoft, Yahoo and Google. Most are related to search engines, but also range from radar manipulation in video games to privacy through one-sided cookies. For example, a Google patent granted in September 2010, but filed in March 2005, describes "a method for transferring Web browser data between Web browsers." It includes collecting browser data from one browser, packaging the data into a format, and storing the packaged data for a subsequent import into a second Web browser.

Bill Slawski points to a patent filing explaining a method for integrating a digital map system with a source document, and replacing the detected location description with a hyperlink linking to a depiction of the location description.

Mike Pantoliano tells us how to track how Web sites rank in Google Analytics. Previously, marketers were able to determine the page from which a Google organic click came, but with tweaks to the Google referral URL it become much easier to track the site's exact ranking. So, Pantoliano details how tracking the rankings in Google Analytics becomes more useful thanks to custom variables and a change in Google's referring URLs.

Mike Ramsey tells us several major causes for duplications in Google Places listings. He claims that during the past two months about 99.3% of the phone calls he's received involved companies seeing duplicate listings. He also explains why duplicate listings are bad, and how to avoid them.

Melissa Mackey tells us about a little-known feature in AdWords, Segment, that can improve campaign performance. The Segment option allows marketers to review campaign performance data by Network, Click Type, Experiment, Day, Week, Month, Quarter, and Year. Mackey also explains under-performing campaigns, how to increase return on investments, and how to set up time-related segments.

Google engineers created a URL shortener for its own products, but decided to open it up to the public, according to Matt Cutts. The main feature allows people to use goo.gl by going to the Web page, but those who visit http://goo.gl and log in with their Google account can get analytics and history features for the URL they've shortened. Cutts provides examples.