People perform one-third of U.S. searches -- about 33 million -- on alternative search engines other than Google, Miranda Miller reminds marketers. A study by New York search retargeting firm Magnetic shows that search activity overall rose this year, and those using alternative search sites are also searching longer. What does it all mean for marketers? Miller tells us about search retargeting, which Magnetics specializes in, as well as Wal-Mart Stores and eBay's site search engines that could pose a threat to Google.

It's about time that computer scientists at the University of Glasgow in Scotland develop an Internet search engine that uses sensors in the physical world to provide answers online in search queries. Sensors on cameras and microphones can cross-reference with results from social networks, such as Twitter. The European-funded project Search engine for MultimediA Environment geneRated content, or SMART, will be built on the open-source technology Terrier, which the university has been developing since 2004, according to Sophie Curtis. Engineers worldwide have been working for years to connect sensors in the physical world with search results. This is one reason why …

Xbox LIVE and media agency Maxus helped BT Infinity launch the Flat 6 campaign, an interactive experience featuring characters Anna, Joe and Simon. In a "branded destination experience" (BDE), the bedrooms in the campaign showcase core benefits of BT Infinity -- gaming, music and movies -- offering Kinect-enabled hotspots containing product information, competitions and interactive content. The Xbox will offer access to Internet Explorer, which means that brands will have easy access to integrate search campaigns with those running on the entertainment console.

Aaron Wall sat down with Bing's Duane Forrester to get the lowdown on Bing's new SEO tools and the product road map. The two talk about Bing's Link Explorer having a Web index comparable to Open Explorer, possibilities of adding achor text listings and TLD-based filters, and Bing features that SEM experts should try that he considers to be much stronger services compared with rivals.

Pinterest has hired Michael Yang, Google's former deputy general counsel, according to Business Insider. Yang serves his last day at Google on Friday. Nicholas Carlson gives us Yang's history with Google, and why Pinterest might need a powerhouse legal council. He writes: "This year, Yang was the guy Google sent to DC to explain a new privacy policy to congress people looking for headlines."

AdWords offers a variety of tools to help increase and restrict traffic flow to Web sites. For advertisers who don't have unlimited or limiting budgets, Dave Rosborough suggests an AdWords tactic offing a hybrid keyword match type known as modified broad. He guides us through how to use this match type, explains the drawbacks and benefits, and provides a table demonstrating how modified broad matches work in relation to broad and phrase match types.

Duane Forrester guides marketers through the newly released Bing Webmaster Tools. Along with Rand Fishkin, Forrester shares tips for gaining new links with Link Explorer, replacing Yahoo Site Explorer. The tools allow marketers to see the pages sending traffic to the site and the average position where the pages appear in search, and provide a view through filters to identify things like 404 errors.

Some 50% of the investment in SEO belongs in content creation, and 15% of the paid-search budget should go toward content creation, according to Kevin Lee, who cites a conversation with a colleague. Lee gives us five reasons to invest in content for search engine marketing, both paid and organic/social. For example, don't think about content creation purely from the perspective of SEO and visibility on your own site, but rather contributing content for other sites that might lead readers back to yours.

Finding the best route to quality links may not sound easy, but Christian Arno provides tips on how to define the value and where to find them. It starts with on-page optimization -- something most marketers can control -- and leads to what Arno deems quality offsite links. Looking into international markets like Russia? He suggests Vkontakte when considering social networks.

Apple will announce at its developers conference next week that it signed on Baidu in China to support search in the local market, Bloomberg reports. The agreement would give Apple an in to reach 78.5% of China's market. In Q1 2012, Google accounted for 16.6% of China's market. In February, Apple added support for the Chinese search engine in its latest upgrade for the Mac operating system, according to Bloomberg.