Jessica Cates tells us how to transition a paid-search campaign from one manager to another. Since each campaign might have many nuances, the issues surrounding that transition can differ, but Cates provides tips to make it easier. Among them she tells us how to take into account the client's key performance indicators and sales cycles. It will also help to smooth the transition by developing goals and strategies from the beginning, and taking a snapshot of the quality score, so the new team can have guidelines to refer to.

Do phone numbers listed on Web sites increase conversions? An A/B test provides insight. One test included a phone number and call to action, while the other did not. Sean Work tells us about the pages and provides screen shots of variants and results. Work describes the pages and the conditions, results, statistical significance, and conclusion.

Google Tuesday said it will continue to shut down several apps that didn't have the expected impact. Among those, Google Bookmarks List, Friend Connect, Search Timeline, and Google Wave. The company calls it an out of season Spring cleaning. Some might consider one of the apps a project as far away from search as a company could get. It's known as Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal -- not really that obsure when considering the energy it takes to run server farms that power Internet searches. 

The first version of SEOmoz's Social Analytics supports Facebook and Twitter, but the plan is to add other social applications, such as Google+ and LinkedIn, in future versions. The platform also allows marketers to see what Twitter followers have tweeted and identifies the ones with the most influence, based on network size and Klout score. Miranda Rensch tells us how to connect accounts, describes the social dashboard, takes us through the process to monitor the network and interactions, and provides insight into reporting features. 

Microsoft has added exact match negative keywords functions. The tool is designed to help simplify account management and performance, and to help advertisers have more control over targeting and campaigns. It works similar to Google AdWords. John Rampton explains the adCenter feature and provides an example of the results he has seen in his own accounts. 

Google has launched the Ads Developer blog, a one-stop shop for all ad developer-related news, tips, and tricks. Stan Grinberg tells us that Google combined several blogs to create this central hub containing information on AdWords, AdSense, DoubleClick and AdMob APIs and SDKs. Subscribers to the Google AdWords API blog will automatically be redirected.

Daniel Bianchini gives us 10 stats to justify increasing budgets for search engine optimization projects. He tells us there are two billion people online -- 38 billion in the United Kingdom, and 31 million who actively shop online. Those who operate a niche market potentially already appear on the first page of the search results for the major keywords, which might make marketers think they don't need to invest in SEO. Wrong, Bianchini says. A study by Optify shows the top-ranking Web site has an average click-through rate of 37%, while 60% of the clicks belong to the top three results. Bianchini provides …

A Google patent granted last week describes how the search engine might enable people to experiment with changing the weight and value of ranking signals for Web pages, according to Bill Slawski. It would gauge how changes might influence the quality of search results. Slawski gives some examples from other posts, and tells us the patent appears to contain hints for those who are interested in helping to improve the quality of search results at Google.

Yes, Google has a search app for that. The Mountain View, Calif. company introduced its search app for iPad Monday. Rachel King shows us a promo, describes features in the app, and tells us we can download it from iTunes. While it's a move in the correct direction, she writes that it lacks the "bounty of features and attractive graphics" on Bing's app for iPad. 

It took ongoing user requests for Google to add a tool that specifically searches for the exact search term entered into the search box. The engine calls it Verbatim search. And it's about time. The verbatim search eliminates personalized, corrected, suggested, related, and non-inclusive results after conducting a standard search. It replaced the "+" function in search queries. Nicole Cozma tells us how to access the search tool.