Owen Hewitson tells us how to optimize the long tail of affiliate marketing programs, described as sites sharing the same distribution curve that typically rank below the top 10 or 20. He believes his strategy works because of the endless choices available online. Those choices create demand. Hewitson explains how to determine the problem --whether it's engagement or conversion -- and makes suggestions on to fix it.

Bing takes the "ing" from its name and ads it to "liv" in a campaign premiering this weekend that shows the power of getting out and "doing" what you love. The campaign features winter sports athletes doing "amazing things." The campaign debuts with American snowboarder, Kevin Pearce, who had to take another road while on the way to the 2010 Olympics after a snowboarding accident left him with a brain injury. Pearce did return to the slopes and Bing documented the journey.

Rimm-Kaufman Group released its RKG Digital Marketing Report for Q4 2011 this week. It offers insight and analysis for paid search, SEO and social marketing. For example, the report explains that paid-search ad spend rose 31% year-over-year in Q4 among Rimm-Kaufman clients -- a trend that most companies in the search industry experienced. The report highlights obvious and overlooked trends, such as an increased focus on automation capabilities in AdWords. Another interesting insight remains the decline of cost per click in Google AdWords. The report suggests a decline of CPCs on Google of 5.2%, something the search engine has not reported in …

Aaron Wall tells us about an investment report where the hedge fund's rating and valuation was largely based on the company's SEO strategy and its Google rankings. Wall saw the report -- which contained keyword ranking charts -- after reading an article in FT.com describing how Spain's second-largest bank by assets is teaming with Google to use its search engine results to provide advanced forecasts of hotel and tourism demand in the country. The data helps market real-time economic indicators to clients, according to the article.

The Bing Maps Global Ortho Project, announced in June 2011, collects and stores photos in Windows 7 Desktop Themes that rotate, so the viewer never knows the part of the world they will look at next. Downloaded more than a million times, the United States version shuffles through more than 200 images from across the U.S. The European version launched shortly after, and contains photos from 10 different countries in Western Europe.

Traffic analysis from security firm ZScaler suggests that more people than usual accessed Wikipedia Wednesday after the company's Web site went dark to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act. The company posted a special page explaining why it chose to block content on the site for 24 hours. The  Google+ post explains how Google engineers slowed Web crawlers, so Web sites participating in Wednesday's SOPA blackout are less likely to be affected.

Microsoft Bing will host a speaker series with independent filmmakers and musicians during the Sundance festival in Park City, Utah. The search engine will stream the content live from its Facebook page. The first event -- In Search of Incredible, featuring a performance by Jason Mraz -- takes place on Friday, Jan. 20, followed by a week of speakers and activities. The festival runs through Jan. 29. It will feature 117 films representing 30 countries.

Customer reviews on product pages help optimize sites in search engine queries, but Gareth Owen tells us that doesn't always work for insurance or other companies offering services rather than products. So he has charted a 10-step process to optimize Web site pages. Title tags, descriptions, header tags, URLs, video and content require different tactics today than they did in the past. Owen explains the differences and how optimization has changed.

After a 12-week social media marketing campaign targeting moms, the brand's audience grew 4,488% -- gaining 7,899 more Facebook Likes and 1,035 more Twitter followers, up 620%. The campaign also generated 3,395 more email subscribers, and 67% of visitors to the campaign landing page on Facebook either filled out the entry form or clicked to "Like" the association. Adam Sutton explains the challenges and how The Sugar Association produced these results by finding the correct target audience.

Internet Protocol version 6, or IPv6, has been a long time coming. This week Google announced -- along with the Internet Society and several major Internet companies -- plans for the launch of the next-generation Internet protocol on June 6, 2012. IPv6 will replace today's version of the Internet Protocol, IPv4, which is quickly running out of addresses. For Google it means that services such as search, Gmail, YouTube and others will run over IPv6 permanently. This is not a test.