Lisa Barone gives us a rundown of what she refers to as the "first cat fight of 2012" between search and social. It involves Google, Twitter and Facebook, and revolves around Search+ Your World, which the search engine announced this week. Barone points to an interesting thesis: Google didn't have its own social data to integrate with search targeting, so the company had to create its own data by building Google+ and streaming it into search query results. Barone sees several issues arising from this strategy, which she describes.

What impact could Facebook make in search? It's a question that Andreas Pouros ponders after Google's announcement to integrate Google+ posts into search engine query results. He looks at both companies' revenue, estimating Facebook's because it is still a privately held company. Pouros tells us why search is lucrative and how much of the search market Facebook could take. He also lays out the obstacles, and describes what Google might do if Facebook enters the search market.

In an effort to make paid-search ad testing a little easier, Sarah takes us through the implementation of ad tests. She tells us how to identify one element to test, offers effective ways to upload new and old ads, and provides tips on why it's important to wait for the ad to collect data. After identifying the success or failure of an ad, it's crucial to research and identify how the company's competitor ads perform.

Bill Slawski gets into the weeds a bit by examining the need for HTML heading elements in search engine query rankings and the importance for search engine optimization. He serves up insights related to semantic relationships and tells us how to weigh the importance of the connection between terms and headings.

Latency continues to become a real concern for content providers and advertisers as file sizes increase and ads take on a more complex structure. As Google puts it, "nanoseconds matter." It's not only about returning real-time search results, but rather the time it takes landing pages and display ads to serve up or video ads to run without having to buffer. This instant access to information across the Internet requires speed, so Google SVP of Engineering Urs Holzle explains, sharing the company's efforts to speed up the Internet and the ability to gain access to content. 

Statistical analysis gave "Moneyball," Oakland A's General Manager Billy Beane, the ability to field a winning baseball team while spending half as much on player salaries as their nearest rival, the New York Yankees, according to Howie Jacobson. He makes this analogy to introduce lessons in AdWords based on numbers, and takes us through how to gather content for use on multiple search engines, separating search traffic by network, match type, device and gender. 

Google launched extras in Hangouts Wednesday, giving the Google+ tool a new look. The highlights include Screensharing, which enables users to share the visuals on their computer screen with others -- similar to Skype, for example. The tool now provides a larger video image, placing more emphasis on the live video by optimizing white space and other screen elements. Cory Bergman gives us an example of how Google+ Hangouts will change traditional broadcast TV. He refers to the content in Google+ Hangouts as "News Buoys," directing users to traditional TV.

Among the 30 improvements made in December, Google makes a note of a project code name Megasitelinks. It's a project to improve the algorithm for picking sitelinks, which has proven to be beneficial to many online retailers. The project focuses on local searches. Aside from Megasitelinks, the updates include byline dates and tweaks to the appearance of the +1 button on results pages from queries. Spam protection also became a priority. In December, Google engineers improved spam detection in Image Search by extending algorithms already used for main search results.

Lori Weiman tells us how affiliate marketers use Twitter, and gives us an average number of tweets they collectively send per week. She asserts that between 60% and 70% of all affiliate marketers use social media, and 47% use Twitter. Along with these stats, Weiman provides tips for using social media and Twitter, identifies trends, and provides best practices.

Frank Reed points to an important Bing Maps update and identifies what he calls a "bigger issue." It all might boil down to marketing. He compares Bing's strategy with the rental car company Avis -- also an industry follower -- to make a point.