Google Local Search Improves Searcher Location Visibility

The Google blog has just announced a Search interface change that provides more transparency and control over the location set for the searcher. The left-hand panel of the search display now shows the automatically detected location and provides the opportunity for a searcher to control your location preferences.

Google has been featuring more of the search verticals in its general results.  This change is a further indication that e-marketing services need to pay more attention to optimization of all online media including news, social, video and local.

Google Update: Buzz, Tablet, Labs, Ads, TV, Jambool, Lawsuit

Current articles to keep you up to date on everything Google:

• Call Phones from Gmail ( Google Official Blog)
• Google Buzz Suggesting Accounts To Follow (by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land)
• Black Friday Launch for Google's New Tablet? (New York Post)
• New in Gmail Labs: Find docs and sites quickly with Apps Search (Google Docs Blog)
• The Problems With Google’s House Ads (by Professor Eric Goldman)
• Yahoo and Microsoft Creep Up on Search Leader Google (by Barry Levine, via NewsFactor)
• Video: Google’s social networking plans (via BBC)
• Google TV Is a Tough S+ell Among Would-Be Partners (by Jessica E. Vascellaro via WSJ)
• Google Buys Jambool: Social Networking Battle Begins (via PC World)
• Google calls Oracle lawsuit ‘baseless,’ vows to fight it (via IDG News Service)

Yahoo! Now Includes Search Results From Microsoft

Yahoo is on it's way to full integration of Microsoft's organic and paid search results. Starting July 20th, up to 25% of the Yahoo search listings for the U.S. are from Microsoft. While Yahoo maintains the same look and feel, the results appear exactly the same as found on Bing for many keyword searches.

By August or September Yahoo! anticipates that 100% of the organic search results will be provided by Microsoft. Paid search should be fully integrated by October.

According to ComScore,  Americans conducted 16.4 billion searches in June with Google sites having a 62.6% share and Yahoo and Microsoft sites combining for 31.6%.

It is even more important to take Bing into consideration for SEO and if you aren't using Microsoft adCenter for paid search you will now that Yahoo! is being added to the mix of Bing and MSN sites.

How Old Is That Web Page?

As the Web ages, old outdated pages collect like cobwebs. The problem is that you don't always know when the content was published or was last updated.

One method of for determining the last modified date uses Javascript. Type javascript:alert(document.lastModified) into the address bar and press Enter. A pop-up window will appear with the date and time of the page's last update.

To the left is an example result for an old Web page of mine from eleven years ago.

Unfortunately this does not work if the page has any dynamic elements that automaticly update on page load. Many modern pages are dynamic but for the true cobwebs this function will work.


Another way to filter out older Web pages is on Google.com. Under "Show options" you can choose to filter results as follows:

• Latest
• Past 24 hours
• Past week
• Past year
• Specific date range

If you search in the "Past 24 hours" the results will display how many hours ago the page was found by Google.  Of course this is accurate only for the major sites that are frequently indexed and can be very helpful when searching for current events.

This functionality can also be very useful for finding recent changes to competitor sites or for monitoring timely posting by your own content producers.

Put Your Business On The Map

The Google Local Business Center (LBC) allows you to put your business on the map, literally.

The LBC is a free tool that enables business owners to control the content of their business listing as it appears in Google Search and Google Maps.

When someone searches for your type of business along with a geographic tag, your business information can appear at the top of Google Maps or the Google Search page. The image above is what appears first when searching for e-marketing in Eden Prairie.

If you run a brick-and-mortar business or even if you have a mailing address and phone number for your virtual business, you should get started by claiming a new listing, or optimizing your existing business listing on the Local Business Center page. As usage of Google Maps increases on the desktop and on mobile devices it is important that you are listed and that the information describing your business is accurate.

On June 2 Google rolled out a new dashboard feature in the Local Business Center. Once you claim your listing in the LBC and go through a quick verification process you will gain access to the following kinds of data:

• Impressions: The number of times the business listing appeared as a result on a Google.com search or Google Maps search in a given period.
• Actions: The number of times people interacted with the listing; for example, the number of times they clicked through to the business' website or requested driving directions to the business.
• Top search queries: Which queries led customers to the business listing; for example, are they finding the listing for a cafe by searching for "tea" or "coffee"?
• ZIP codes where driving directions come from: Which ZIP codes customers are coming from when they request directions to your location.

The new dashboard will also let you dig into that data using all kinds of lists, maps, and graphs much as you can in Google Analytics for your Web traffic data. To learn more about accessing and using the dashboard, take a look at the video found on the Google Lat Long Blog.

Contact me for help with your local or national online marketing.

Data Trumps Design At Google - Good Or Bad?

On his last day at Google as the top visual designer, Douglas Bowman posted his complaints about Google on his blog about how data trumped design within the Google organization. This is very unusual and revealing for any current or former Googler.

"When a company is filled with engineers, it turns to engineering to solve problems. Reduce each decision to a simple logic problem. Remove all subjectivity and just look at the data. Data in your favor? Ok, launch it. Data shows negative effects? Back to the drawing board."

"And that data eventually becomes a crutch for every decision, paralyzing the company and preventing it from making any daring design decisions," Mr. Bowman wrote.

So Google, clearly the most successful Internet company, uses data to drive design decisions. Is this bad considering the success that they have experienced? Is it frustrating for a design professional like Bowman, surely.

On March 30th, Douglas Bowman became the creative director at Twitter.

Google Starts Tracking Browsers to Target Ads

Google is getting to know you a little better in order to send you ads you'll more likely like.

They are starting to gather information about the Web sites people visit using an individual Web browser in order to target ads to their interests, Google has announced on its blog.

"By making ads more relevant, and improving the connection between advertisers and our users, we can create more value for everyone," the company said. "Users get more useful ads, and these more relevant ads generate higher returns for advertisers and publishers."

"Interest-based" advertising was launched Wednesday as a beta test on third-party sites that carry Google ads, as well as the YouTube video site that Google owns.

Google Trends Tracks Searches and News

Currently in beta, Google Trends shows the relative trends in search and news story volume by date range and region/country/state. Search trends are now updated daily. See this example of a search for Obama, Clinton and McCain.

Tools for Translation and Language Detection

New Google AJAX Language API - This API helps developers automatically translate content in their applications. Users on these sites will have an easier time communicating across lingual boundaries. The Language API provides both translation and language detection. See examples of the translation tools in action.

Mahalo is a Human-Powered Search Engine

Mahalo is a search engine powered by people rather than algorithms. It is trying to create organized, comprehensive, and spam free search results for the most popular search terms. Think of it as a cross between a wiki and Google.

Also see the post on Wikia Search

According to Mahalo, "Our results contain everything you need to know about a topic and are organized into sections to help you quickly find what you need. For example, our travel pages for cities contain sections on basics (weather, current events, maps, history), flights, vacation packages, transportation, activities, attractions, events, tours, hotels, restaurants, shopping, nightlife, and local blogs. "

It was launched during the summer of 2007, with the initial goal of creating human-generated search results pages for the top 50,000 search terms on the Web. Not sure who determines what the top search terms are but Mahalo editors and users have already created over 25,000 pages.

One of the unique features of Mahalo is that you can enter comments into a discussion forum about an entry where editors can view, reply and/or react to your comments. the strength of Mahalo will be dependent on the diligence of the editors to prevent the problems that are more common on WikiPedia.

The Year of The Rat

How the major search engine acknowleded the Chinese New Year, 7-Feb-2008 to 25-Jan-2009.

Learn more about the Chinese Calendar.

Baidu leads China Web search market in Q4

Baidu.com Inc led China's search engine market in last year's fourth quarter with a 60.1 percent share, research firm Analysys International said on Friday.

Google Inc came second with a 25.9 percent share, followed by Yahoo China with 9.6 percent, it said in a statement. Read more....

Google Combats Domain Name Loophole

The online advertising leader Google Inc. said Friday it would help make it less lucrative to tie up millions of Internet addresses using a loophole and keep those domain names from legitimate individuals and businesses.

Over the next few weeks, Google will start looking for names that are repeatedly registered and dropped within a five-day grace period for full refunds.

Google's AdSense program would exclude those names so no one can generate advertising revenue from claiming them temporarily, a practice known as domain name tasting — the online equivalent of buying expensive clothes on a charge card only to return them for a full refund after wearing them to a party.

"We believe that this policy will have a positive impact for users and domain purchasers across the Web," Google spokesman Brandon McCormick said.

Read more...

Google and DoCoMo Hook Up - Mobile Web

Google Inc's search engine will feature on NTT DoCoMo handsets, giving it access to 48 million new mobile Internet users in Japan in its push for overseas growth.
DoCoMo, Japan's largest mobile operator, said on Thursday the tie-up on Internet searches, e-mail and other services, will help it retain users in a competitive market and raise advertisement revenue while cutting development costs.

Read more...

User Interface Testing At Google

Learn from Google. User Interface testing is the best way to make improvements to your site.


From Google: "From time to time, we run live experiments on Google — tests visible to a relatively few people -- to discover better ways to search. We do this because there’s no good substitute for understanding how real people, in real-world situations, actually operate. Theories are fine, but “improving the user experience” really happens best when we understand what people do online."


Official Google Blog: This is a test. This is only a test.: "Google comments on UI tests"