We talked about what she’s doing with Zillow and their advertising platform for marketers that want to reach local audiences as well as what the future may hold in terms of social networking /community building features and laying search over user generated content.

In addition to her work at Zillow, Vanessa writes her own blog at Vanessa Fox Nude (sorry guys, only the cats are nude), contributes to the Zillow blog as well as a “People Search” column at Search Engine Land.

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I’ll be missing her Sandman t-shirts and Buffy references at the conferences, and I fear the subject matter will end up being a lot drier overall for her lack.

Though I don’t know that she’d need any SEO help, I must say that I happen to know a thing or two about local search optimization, if she would like to call me in for advice at Zillow!

In appreciation for Vanessa, with warmest regards, here’s a little list I composed of the Top Ten Reasons Vanessa Left Google:

10. Vanessa got tired of being stalked by all the odd SEO geeks out there, like the strange man in the long black coat who starts hovering around behind her three-quarters of the way through this video interview between her and Rand.

9. Vanessa began to realize that Google is actually The Borg, and she decided to go through the painful surgeries necessary to divest herself from the hive-mind.

8. Vanessa resigned after the Google Image Search team refused to give her top ranking for her blog’s keywords “Vanessa Fox Nude“. (WARNING: link into Google Image Search for “vanessa fox nude” is NOT work-safe unless you have Strict SafeSearch enabled in your Google preference settings!)

7. Though generally a secret, Vanessa’s moonlighting job kicking the butt of Black-Hat SEO Vampires was leaving her way too tired for the day job on Webmaster Central. Those Black-Hat SEO Vampires really suck the link-juice outta stuff! (Vanessa, was this why you didn’t make it to our morning panel session on Images & Search at the NYC SES this Spring?!? Also, btw – don’t we have Dave Naylor to thank for the name of Vanessa’s blog? Starting to think Dave may’ve played “Xander” to Vanessa’s “Buffy”… or maybe Dave as “Spike” would be more apt?)

6. A technically-challenged administrator within Google leapt to the incorrect conclusion that Vanessa was secretly assisting spammers when they came across her blog entry on “7 steps to writing better spam email (or what to do if you’ve got an overstock of viagra)“. That dorky bureaucrat within Google secretly campaigned to boot Vanessa out of the company. Some percentage of people are always misunderstanding satire.

5. Amanda Camp was refusing to play “Willow” to Vanessa’s “Buffy”. Sets of twins, separated at birth? Compare:

Amanda Camp and Vanessa Fox

Buffy and Willow

4. Despite moving to England, Danny Sullivan could never master the British accent sufficiently to play “Giles” to Vanessa’s “Buffy”. Vanessa’s angst at the failure drove her on to new pastures.

(photo by Lee Odden)

3. Google’s free food for employees obsession was ruining Vanessa’s new starvation diet.

2. Despite ernestly trying, Vanessa was unable to get the rest of the Webmaster Central team to start referring to her as “Vanessa, the SEO Black Hat Vampire Killer”.

And… last but not least:

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1. When invited to work elsewhere, Vanessa misunderstood and thought they offered for her to “work with Willow” instead of “Zillow“.

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Vanessa Fox Moves

Zillow is a real estate search engine, one that represents for Vanessa a new challenge in a new space. WebProNews (Mike) just about always manages to track her down at search conferences and pump her for information.

Hey. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Vanessa reveals the reason for her departure and her goodbyes at her blog:

Now I have an all-new opportunity to work on the unique challenges of the vertical and local search space at Zillow. I’m moving on from webmaster central knowing that there’s a great team who care as much about this audience as I do and they’ve got exciting plans in store for the coming year. I’ll really miss working with my team, but I’m happy they’ve been getting out and meeting more of you and I know they’ve had a great time drinking with you too. I mean talking. Did I say drinking?

Quit crying; you’ll see her at the bar. She promised. Until then, you can see Vanessa Fox Nude on a regular basis.

SearchEngineWatch’s Eric Enge provides a decent toast, so I’ll let let him tell it:

Google will miss her, because she developed into one of their public faces (ala Matt Cutts, and Adam Lasnik) that they could keep in the spotlight on a regular basis. Vanessa has done a great job of helping to humanize the search giant for webmasters.

And so, in a cheesy, melodramatic, Anna-Nicole kind of way, we’re going to end this little update with a look back at some of the good times we had with Vanessa on Video, and the way we were. Thanks for the memories.

Whether or not you believe Antonella should’ve been voted off American Idol already, there’s no denying the fact that she’s been a blazing hot topic of conversation (and observation) throughout the entirety of the Internet. As rumors have surfaced regarding her alleged nude photo spread, she has quickly risen to the top of the Google search rankings.

Google was also inundated with searches surrounding the post-Oscar buzz, with Jennifer Hudson, and Babel showing a strong presence in the rankings. Topping most of the other Oscar-related searches on the charts, however, was Helen Mirren, who was rewarded for her brilliant performance of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II with the Oscar for Best Actress.

An item of particular merit on the list shows that searchers have taken a keen interest in the discovery of a giant squid caught by New Zealand fisherman close to the waters of Antartica. The behemoth catch weighed in at a beefy 992 pounds and measured nearly 30 feet in length, which inspires eerie comparisons among gothic horror aficionados to the ancient creature-gods depicted in H.P Lovecraft’s classic work, The Call of Cthulu.

Oh, and Al Gore also snuck into the top ten rankings with the breaking news that he still has no comment on whether or not he will seek the Democratic nomination for the 2008 presidential election. Excuse me for a moment while I yawn.

Ok, then! Here’s the list in its entirety for the Zeitgeist covering the week ending March 2, 2007:

   1. antonella barba
   2. american idol
   3. oscars
   4. helen mirren
   5. jennifer hudson
   6. giant squid
   7. al gore
   8. national weather service
   9. babel
  10. Leelee Sobieski

Cecilia Barnes, 48, claims her ex-boyfriend created profiles of Ms. Barnes, featuring the images in question, as well as other personal information like her work phone number and email address. The plaintiff’s ex would then engage in chat sessions, pretending to be Ms. Barnes and directing people to her images.

Because of her ex-boyfriend’s exploits, people would show up at her work, expecting a sexual meeting. To combat this, Barnes requested Yahoo remove these profiles, to which she received no reply. Barnes continued her efforts, eventually getting a response from Mary Osako, the director of communications for Yahoo.

However, OregonLive.com speculates this was done because a local television station was preparing to run a story about the Barnes plight. According to Barnes’ attorney, Thomas R. Rask III, Osako called Barnes and informed her the offending images would be removed.

Until Yahoo agreed to remove the images, they were protected by federal law that prevents lawsuits over information posted by third parties. However, once Yahoo agreed to remove the images, Oregon law stipulates they are obligated to do so, according to her attorney.

However, Rask indicates the images are still there, hence the lawsuit filing. Keeping with company policy, Yahoo did not comment about the upcoming proceedings.

Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news.