This is one of a regular series of posts on search experience updates. Look for the label This week in search and subscribe to the series. - Ed.Here’s what’s happening this week in search:Site speed in web search rankingWe made an announcement today about site speed and how it effects our search ranking algorithms. Check out the Webmaster Central blog for more information, including a number of free tools that you can use to increase the speed of your website…
Today, scientists announced a new hominid fossil discovery in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa. The discovery is one of the most significant palaeoanthropological discoveries in recent times, revealing at least two partial hominid skeletons in remarkable condition, dating to between 1.78 and 1.95 million years. We are especially excited because Google Earth played a role in its discovery…
Let’s say that you have x different stocks, and the plots of their prices over time. You want to print them in newspaper, printing multiple plots on the same chart to save space. But here’s the catch: no two plots on the same chart can overlap, lest the readers be confused. Look at the plots and figure out the smallest number of charts required.Looking for a challenge like the riddle above? And I mean an exciting brain-twisting and turning kind of challenge…
Last year, we launched Ocean in Google Earth, expanding the scope of Earth to include 3D maps of the world’s oceans and videos, photos and narrative from the world’s leading scientists and media sources to bring them to life. We worked with more than 100 partners to begin to fill in the “blue” part of the planet, adding hundreds of placemarks in more than 20 ocean layers. Since then, we’ve added hundreds of new posts to the Ocean layer with the help of Sylvia Earle’s Mission Blue Foundation and dozens of committed individuals around the world…
This is the first in a series of posts about entrepreneurship and the resources that can help small businesses succeed. In the coming weeks, we’ll share the inspirational stories of real people — just like you — who’ve used various Google tools to start up, maintain and grow their businesses. To kick off the series, we’re starting with a post about a small business owner’s experience with Google AdWords — the program that helped level the marketing field for companies of all sizes…
The first-ever Google Model Your Town Competition has entered the public voting phase. It’s now up to you to help decide which of the five finalist towns should be the overall winner. Cast your vote before May 1.
These five teams used Google SketchUp and Google Building Maker to create beautifully detailed 3D models of their communities — and now they’re viewable in Google Earth by everyone in the world…
Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google. We’ve been wondering ever since how best to honor that moving gesture. Today we are pleased to announce that as of 1AM (Central Daylight Time) April 1st, Google has officially changed our name to Topeka.We didn’t reach this decision lightly; after all, we had a fair amount of brand equity tied up in our old name…
The principle behind the advertising products we build at Google is simple: ads are information. But the type of information that ads provide is getting more varied and inventive all the time, and as a result ads are getting more interesting, social and useful.As advertising evolves, we want to build the tools that make it possible for marketers to connect with customers in meaningful, creative ways…
The year was 1986. A gallon of gas cost 89 cents, Paul Simon’s Graceland won the Grammy for album of the year, and the federal Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), which governs how law enforcement can access electronic data, was signed into law.A lot has changed since 1986. Gas is now measured in dollars and Taylor Swift (born 1989) won album of the year. All the while, technology has moved at record pace…
One way we love to help you make iGoogle your own is with our artist and designer themes — ranging from food and fashion to games and comics. Today, we’re excited to announce a set of new themes, tailored to the world traveler in all of us. These new themes, focused on destinations all over the globe, allow you to experience beautiful landscapes, historic monuments, stunning beaches, iconic cities and other picturesque sites — right from your homepage…
Have you ever wanted to quickly send a file to a friend who’s online? Now you can share pictures, documents and other files directly with your friends while chatting in iGoogle and orkut, without having to switch to email to send the file as an attachment. File transfer works directly in the browser so you don’t need to install anything. Just start a conversation with a friend and click “Send a file…
(Cross-posted from the Official Google Reader Blog)Today, we’re launching two changes to Google Reader to help you discover more interesting content faster. Just as the launch of Personalized Search improved search results based on your search history, these changes use your Reader Trends to improve your reading experience.
A couple of weeks ago we introduced Artist Themes for Google Chrome. We asked leading designers, artists, illustrators and musicians to use the browser as their personal canvas for designing interesting themes.Since then, we’ve enjoyed hearing your thoughts on these designs and how you’ve used them to personalize your browser. We’ve also been intrigued by the ways in which these themes have had interesting and unusual cultural resonance with people around the world…
At Google, our goal is to create the most comprehensive, relevant and fast search in the world. In the past few years, an entirely new type of data has emerged — real-time updates like those on Twitter have appeared not only as a way for people to communicate their thoughts and feelings, but also as an interesting source of data about what is happening right now in regard to a particular topic.Given this new type of information and its value to search, we are very excited to announce that we have reached an agreement with Twitter to include their updates in our search results…
From time to time, our own T.V. Raman shares his tips on how to use Google from his perspective as a technologist who cannot see — tips that sighted people, among others, may also find useful.The most recent release of Android 1.6, a.k.a. Donut, introduces accessibility features designed to make Android apps more widely usable by blind and low-vision users. In brief, Android 1.6 includes a built-in screenreader and text-to-speech (TTS) engine which make it possible to use most Android applications, as well as all of Android’s default UI, when not looking at the screen…
People use all kinds of tools to help them get stuff done — paper to-do lists, messages with a certain label or stars in Gmail, notes in Google Calendar, a couple different iGoogle gadgets and so on. Late last year, we added a lightweight way to help you keep track of what you need to do in Gmail Labs — tasks.Since then, it’s graduated from Labs, and you can manage your tasks not only in Gmail, but also in Google Calendar, iGoogle and from your mobile phone (by going to gmail…
The Google Search Appliance (GSA) is getting an update today, with a bunch of new features aimed at making enterprise search easier for everyone inside a company. One of our favorites, the Self-learning Scorer, learns from employees’ searches to tune itself and improve over time. If employees repeatedly choose, say, the fourth result for a given query the GSA will learn that’s probably the most relevant one and bring it up to the top the next time the query is searched for…
As we’ve previously posted, one of our aims is to improve display advertising on the web. Three simple principles guide our approach: simplify the system for buying and selling display ads; deliver better performance that advertisers and agencies can measure; open up the ecosystem by making it accessible to more participants.So how can you better measure the impact of your display ad campaign? At the moment, you can measure how many clicks your display ads achieve, measure conversions that result from those clicks, compare results with industry benchmark data, and use “View-through conversion reporting” to measure visits to your website from users who saw your display ad in the past…
We know the holiday season seems to come earlier every year (sorry, Halloween), but before you make your final travel plans, we’re excited to let you know that we’re partnering with Virgin America to provide free WiFi on every Virgin America flight between November 10, 2009 and January 15, 2010.The holidays can be full of dates and details to remember, and it’s easy to get stressed out somewhere between planning a long distance, multi-generational family gathering and combing the Internet for the latest impossible-to-find furry contraption for your toddler…
Each day, thousands of companies choose to “go Google” — that is, switch to Google Apps. Over two million business and 20 million users in over 100 countries and more than 40 languages have adopted Apps for their workplace, and we’re happy to welcome companies around the world such as Konica Minolta, Rentokil Initial and TOTO that have just decided to go Google. These companies no longer have to deal with the hassles of managing email servers or rolling out software updates, and their employees now enjoy the convenience of shared documents and calendars, Gmail and more…
This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs on Fridays. Look for the label “This week in search” and subscribe to the series. - Ed.This week, we made a few improvements to help webmasters better understand how their pages interact with Google search. Here’s an overview:Fetch as GooglebotAs a webmaster, have you ever wondered what Google “sees” when we visit your site? Our understanding of your web page affects which searches your page is returned for and its relevance rank…
Information access is at the core of Google’s mission, which is why we work to make the world’s content available to people with disabilities, such as blindness, visual impairment, color deficiency, deafness, hearing loss and limited dexterity. Building accessible products isn’t only the right thing to do, it also opens up Google services to very significant populations of people. According to the United Nations, 650 million people live with a disability, which makes them the world’s largest minority…
With Street View on Google Maps, you can take a virtual drive over the Golden Gate Bridge or see the bustle of Times Square from the comfort of your own home. But some of the country’s most interesting and fun places aren’t accessible with our Street View car. What if you want to tour the campuses of prospective universities, scout a new running trial, or plan the most efficient route to your favorite roller coasters in a theme park?I first started thinking about this question around two years ago…
(Cross-posted on the Webmaster Central Blog)A few years ago I couldn’t wait to get married. Because I was in love, yeah, but more importantly, so that I could take my husband’s name and people would stop getting that ridiculous picture from college as a top result when they searched for me on Google.After a few years of working here, though, I’ve learned that you don’t have to change your name just because it brings up some embarrassing search results…
Today, we’ve added 285 new languages to Google Translator Toolkit, bringing the total number of languages supported by this product to 345 — and making it possible to translate between 10,664 language pairs. Google Translator Toolkit is a language translation service for professional and amateur translators that builds on Google Translate and makes translation faster and easier.In addition, we’ve made the Translator Toolkit interface available in 35 languages, so that more people can access the service in their own language…
We’re always delighted to introduce new design flair to our user experience, especially through the personal expression of iGoogle themes. As a canvas for artists to express themselves and reach Google users around the world, we’ve shared more than 125 iGoogle Artist themes since May 2008. Today, I’m excited to announce ten new artist themes, all from talented up-and-coming fashion designers you may not have already heard of…
We care about a clean energy future and that’s a commitment that starts at home. In honor of Blog Action Day 2009 and this year’s climate change theme, we wanted to walk you through some of the green features of our global headquarters here in sunny Mountain View, California.
We first launched Promoted Videos as a search advertising program on YouTube, allowing content creators to drive viewership of their videos by targeting the hundreds of millions of searches that happen on YouTube every day. But in the past year Promoted Videos has evolved into a much broader discovery vehicle, appearing on search, the YouTube homepage, video watch pages and recently across the AdSense network…
(Cross-posted from the Google Voice Blog)Since the debut of Google Voice, our early users have shared lots of feedback that has led to some exciting new features, like the ability to receive SMS messages via email and the option to change your Google Voice number. But one of the most frequent requests we’ve received is for the ability to share Google Voice with friends and family.Starting today, we’re beginning to give out invitations to Google Voice users…
(Cross-posted on the Google Lat Long Blog)Some of us here at Google spend almost all of our time thinking about one thing: How do we create a three-dimensional model of every built structure on Earth? How do we make sure it’s accurate, that it stays current and that it’s useful to everyone who might want to use it?One of the best ways to get a big project done — and done well — is to open it up to the world…
You're looking at my set of tools. The custom search engine helps me find the answers to questions more quickly. The RSS aggregator keeps me updated with industry news that matters. And, in the near future, I plan on documenting the major steps and considerations used in SEM as a check list (although it will also work well as a list of tutorials).
While I built (and am improving) the above tools for myself, it seemed like a waste to keep them to myself. After all, good will breeds good will, and perhaps you'll even help me find more great blogs to follow.
In the name of good karma, all my outgoing links on this site are followed. Treat others as you wish to be treated, right? Besides, I think the authors who we read daily deserve all the thanks (links) we can give.
I hope you find the SEM News feed and the free SEO search tool helpful.
- Brett at semdaily.com
