Rand Fishkin explains some key results from a survey that Moz conducted about weighting the clusters of ranking factors in Google Analytics. The study looked at opinions of SEM experts based on thematic clusters of ranking data like domain-level link authorities. It asked what percentage they would assign given an overall assessment to the importance in Google's ranking factor. Read the article here.

Another search engine claiming to protect user privacy has launched. Zeekly.com is a search and shopping engine. The engine's CEO Jeffrey Sisk claims it doesn't store user metadata and uses 2048-bit SSL encryption to ensure that Internet providers and cell phone companies can't access it either. Zeekly aggregates content from Google, Yahoo, Bing, Amazon, iTunes and other sites.

Online activities are not private. Kim Zetter tells us how the NSA "covertly" undermines encryption standards that developers use to build secure products. "Undermining standards and installing backdoors don’t just allow the government to spy on data but create fundamental insecurities in systems that would allow others to spy on the data as well," she writes.

"All users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing," argue Google's attorneys in a recent court record, reports Martha Mendoza. A class action lawsuit filed in May accuses Google of unlawfully opening and reading the content of people's private email messages, violating California's privacy laws and federal wiretapping statutes. It "scans messages sent to any of the 425 million active Gmail users from non-Gmail users who never agreed to the company's terms." The key here is the "non-Gmail" users who never agree to the company's terms.

Micah Fisher-Kirshner wants to know if Google declares marketing links unnatural, then why doesn't the company declare all marketing content -- from press releases to blogger reviews -- forms of unnatural content that should never show up in Google's index, especially Google News? He ponders this question in a post titled "The Logical Extension of Unnatural Links," and wonders why any marketing content serves up in Google's results. Read the article here.

John Lee analyzes at how affiliate programs may affect paid-search marketing campaigns. He looks into the scenarios and circumstances that can alter affiliate relationship. Maintaining an effective and profitable affiliate program can take extra planning when brands integrate affiliate programs with paid-search campaigns. Here are some tips to make it all work smoothly. Read the article here.

A Yahoo!7 spokeswoman tells Caitlin Fitzsimmons that Microsoft made a decision to launch Bing in Australia without managing the migration of advertisers from the Panama platform, so the engine in Australia took measures that will see a majority of its search inventory transition to the Google Ad platform.

Marketers can expand their company's sales and marketing efficiencies through the Pareto Principle, focusing on the 80/20 rule, created by Perry Marshall. This theory analyzes Force Multiplication -- when marketers recognize that 60% of the business comes from 5% of the product line, which is bought by 5% of the customers. It provides insights on how the concept works, and what marketers need to make it work. Read the article here.

The cost per click for product listing ads continues to rise. In July 2013, CPC for PLAs reached $1.59, compared with $1.04 in the year-ago month. Rising prices will force advertisers to plan buys better, according to eMarketer, which points to numbers from Marin Software.

Jeremy Hull believes the future of search marketing resides in mobile. He starts by analyzing how and why traditional search marketing -- paid and organic -- works on non-mobile devices through real-time intent, and the ability to track actions. The mobile challenge becomes new secondary signals, along with tracking, formats, and voice search that marketers will need to address.