What used to be a tradition of secret, carefully guarded hand-me-down recipes is becoming more of an online social event.

While searches for inedible holiday items peak long before the holiday arrives, food preparation searches are a last minute activity, spiking heavily just before major masticatory (hee hee) events.

As Hitwise’s LeeAnn Prescott illustrates, a big part of this online side of the culinary arts has included Web 2.0 methods since long before the term “Web 2.0″ was coined:

“I examined the top 10 recipe sites for last week to see how many are offering reviews, videos and RSS Feeds. Eight of the top 10 offer user generated recipe reviews, five offer videos, and seven offer RSS feeds.”

The Top 10 Thanksgiving search terms, according to Hitwise:

1. thanksgiving

2. thanksgiving recipes

3. thanksgiving crafts

4. thanksgiving poems

5. thanksgiving coloring pages

6. thanksgiving wallpaper

7. thanksgiving 2006

8. thanksgiving dinner

9. thanksgiving pictures

10. thanksgiving crafts for kids

Number four above reminds me of a joke I recently heard.

How is a poet different from a pizza?

A pizza can feed a family of four.

It also inspired a poem of my own:

Turkey Day

Oh Turkey Day, you make me
So fat and happy
So sleepy and sluggish and full

On Turkey Day
No one minds
The barking spiders
The whole notes of
Satisfaction’s
Trumpeted call

Oh Turkey Day, you take the
Cake and eat it
Too, while football fans are dozing

On Turkey Day
No one cares
About undone waistlines
The yeast rolls of
Auntie Fattie’s
Favorite sprawl

Turkey Day, I love you

Almost most of all

I’m sure works like “Cathy,” “Garfield,” and “Mary Worth” have their devoted readerships in the comic sections of newspapers, but I’ve found more than adequate replacements for them in the form of original works by webcomic artists.

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But you don’t have to have them. Lots of great tips from this site on being more secure and productive with email.

Posted by David Utter

I sat down with Matt Cutts for a few minutes at the 2006 edition of PubCon in Las Vegas. We chatted for a few minutes about a variety topics ranging from spam to social media to Kentucky Basketball.

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In one of the more news-worthy points of the interview, Matt suggested that international spam - particularly from Europe and China, would be a big area of focus for Google in the next year.

read more | digg story

As a search marketer, if you’ve had situations where an expected AdWords ad didn’t appear and you’ve racked your brain wondering why, Google has heard your frustration and delivered a tool for you to investigate such events. Called the Ads Diagnostic Tool, the tool was designed to help members troubleshoot and investigate ad (under)performance.

The tool resides in the member’s Keywords tab in the Ad Group details control panel and is accessible by clicking the appropriate magnifying glass. Once hovered over, the tool pops up a bubble containing pertinent information about the particular keyword. If the related ad isn’t showing up, users can then click the “What can I do?” option, which also resides in the pop-up window.

The Google AdWords blog has more information:

We’ve also added some very useful features to the full Ads Diagnostic Tool on the Tools page. Now you can request diagnostics for ads running in a specific geographic location. Another new feature in the Ads Diagnostic Tool is a direct link to the ad preview page for specific keywords. By clicking on “Preview search results” link for each keyword, you can now view what your ad looks like and where it’s showing up on the search results page without creating an impression.

In order to access this tool, you must be logged into your AdWords account. The Ads Diagnostic Tool joins the Disapproved Ads tool in making Google’s advertising service more robust for their members.

Chris Richardson
Staff Writer | WebProNews Blog

As of this weekend, he is Yahoo’s best known senior vice president. Digging a little deeper into the mysteries of the spreader of the Peanut Butter Manifesto turns up someone whose background is something of a house of cards.

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Using search engines to find recipes is not a new concept. In fact, Danny Sullivan referenced this very thing during his keynote speech at PubCon last week (in relation to the Martha Stewart Apprentice contest). However, thanks to Yahoo’s Buzz blog, we now know just what kind of recipes people are seeking out for this year’s Thanksgiving celebration:

As you can see, there are a couple of posts dealing with Thursday’s mastication and the first one deals with different methods to cook Thanksgiving’s centerpiece: the turkey. What follows are the top ten searches related to the delicious bird:

Turducken
Fried Turkey
Smoked Turkey
Roast Turkey
Turkey Cookies
Turkey Cakes
Turkey Chili
Turkey Meatloaf
Turkey Soup
Turkey Burger

In case you are wondering what a Turducken is, its turkey stuffed with duck and chicken. Thanksgiving stuffing (perhaps the best side dish) acts as a buffer between each level of bird. The linked Wikipedia article also has some good pictures of this incredible creation.

Besides the popular main dish, Yahoo’s Buzz blog also has the most popular side dish searches as well… because what, exactly, is Thanksgiving dinner without a ton of side dishes? Isn’t that what helps make up the leftover menu? However, there is a slight difference between the side dish list and the top turkey searches list - the side dish list is broken down a little further into region and buzz rank. For instance, the search Green Bean Casserole is really popular Oklahoma and its buzz index is in the Top 3000. Here are some more listings:

It all sounds very good and it’s making me salivate. I cannot wait until Thursday… Anyway, if you are having some difficulty deciding what you want with your meal, Yahoo’s Buzz index can probably ease this decision a little.

Chris Richardson
Staff Writer | WebProNews Blog

…Stays in Vegas? That’s the tagline for Sin City, but I don’t think it applies to last week’s PubCon. A lot went on in Vegas and a great deal of it was captured for its prosperity. Here’s a little cross section:

DrinkBait: Doing It For The Buzz! (Flickr)

Apparently, not everyone enjoyed Matt Cutts…

Lee Odden made an interesting discovery… (Lee has more photos)

Speaking of, here’s Evil Lee Odden

Barry Schwartz’s Recap

There’s much more, of that, I’m sure. As I mentioned, the prevailing theme of Vegas PubCon was link bait. What is considered good link bait? Well, the above list is a good example. Anything that can make someone throw a link your way is a good definition of what this phenomenon is. And remember, link exchanges aren’t doing aren’t doing much good anymore because the engines have been taking steps to deal with a link they determine to be non-relevant. Some more severe than others.

Chris Richardson
Staff Writer | WebProNews Blog

I have not the words. You haven’t seen anything this scary since Al Gore’s last movie. Click through at your own risk. And welcome back CSR.

The popular site-tracking service has been bouncing up and down all weekend. This morning Alexa.com still cannot be reached.

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