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Here are the latest news headlines and articles from Pandia Search World. Go to www.pandia.com/sew/ for the online version of this news service.

Google and Yahoo! improve web search

Google has made a few interesting tweaks to its web search offering and adds “deep links” directly to subsections of result pages.

Snippets with direct links to relevant content.

Google (NSDQ:GOOG) has always added a short “snippet” containing information on what the relevant web page is about. This text is normally extracted from the page itself. Google “snips” out a paragraph that seems relevant to your query. Alternatively they make use of the Description tag found on the page or a description found in the Open Directory.

Now Google may add “deep” links to relevant sections on the page, making it possible to go directly to the information you are looking for.

The Google Blog gives the query “trans fat” as an example.

One of the results is from the Wikipedia. Google will now add links to sections of the Wikipedia page, sections on sub topics like Chemistry and Nutritional Guidelines.

These links are normally given as a list of keywords below the snippet, although Google may also include a clickable phrase within the snippet itself.

As Search Engine Land points out, Google has been testing both anchor based links (i.e. links in the snippet itself) and snippet based links (links in keywords below snippet) for some time now.

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Google Sidewiki, pros and cons

This week Google launched Sidewiki, a browser sidebar that lets you contribute and read information alongside any web page. This tool has some interesting uses. It also has some serious implications that have web masters worried.

If it succeeds, Google Sidewiki could be a useful tool to add perspective to any web site, a channel for independent commentaries on any content, commentaries that cannot be deleted by e.g. a blog editor.

Annotating the Web adds a dimension to web surfing that has already proven useful in research and teaching — collaborative browsing. There are many tools available that enable you to comment on or annotate web pages.

So what Google Sidewiki does is not new.

You have to have Google Toolbar installed to use the Sidewiki. Still, none of the existing competitors to Google Sidewiki have a pre-established user base anywhere in the vicinity of the Google Toolbar’s. Sidewiki is the first of these tools that has a chance of reaching critical mass: With enough users, enough content could be produced and there could be educating discussions in the Sidewikis of many of the most visited sites on the web and for many of the most contested subjects.

The dark side of Sidewiki

If it doesn’t reach critical mass, Google Sidewiki is likely to become the domain of spammers, as was the case with Third Voice ten years ago.

According to Danny Sullivan, Google (NSDQ:GOOG) has set up counter measures: A quality threshold will (hopefully) make comments of little value disappear.

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The PageRank Rap and the latest search engine news (September 27)

It is time for the Pandia Search Engine News Weekend Wrap-up again, and this time we have decided to open the show with a search engine rap. No, serioulsy…

Mo Serious TV is a collection of videos based on the thoughts of Chuck, aka the Poetic Prophet, aka The SEO Rapper. Mo Serious is his entertainment company based in Missouri City, Texas.

View the video here!

The latest search engine news

Below find the search engine news headlines we have found interesting this week.

SMX New York October 5 - 7

We would also like to use this opportunity to remind you that you still have time to sign up for the Search Engine Marketing Expo in New York City on October 5 to 7. This is a great place to get updated on the latest developments in the search engine field.

Click here to register for the SMX New York conference with the US$ 100 Pandia discount! (The Pandia partner discount code is smx100pandia).

Disclosure: Pandia and SMX have a promotion agreement.

Steve Ballmer on search

TechCrunch has interviewed Steve Ballmer of Microsoft. He makes a very interesting comment on search:

“I think the first five years there was innovation in business model, there was innovation in approach, give credit to competition, the last 5 years there’s been some, quote, innovation, which is really things like digitizing, maps and books, or whatever the case may be, adding the larger content base to the corpus of information. But in some senses the UI, the approach, the algorithms have changed less in the last five years, than more ... so I think if you look out the next 10 years we’re going to see more innovation in search. And, of course, that’ll be best served by good competition in the market and, y’know, at this stage, hopefully with the government approval of our deal with Yahoo, the good competition better come from us. Otherwise I don’t think we’ll see some of that innovation. But whether it’s natural language, visualization, change in the UI, change in the business model... Business model on search is making life tough for other content providers, makes life tough for some of the merchants...”

He is right. Recently search has been more about incremental innovation, step by step improvement of the search experience, rather than radical changes of the underpinning search algorithm. Radical innovation requires competition.

An interesting parallell would be Microsoft vs. Apple. Most of the improvements in Windows are the result of the pressure from Apple and its Mac OS. It would be ironic if Microsoft ends up as the company playing the role of an innovative Apple vis-à-vis a slumbering Google in the search arena.

Watch a TechCrunch video with Steve Ballmer on this subject and the Microsoft Bing team interviewed by Rand Fishkin of SEOMOz at the end of this post.