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Posts Tagged ‘Google’
Report Puts Facebook, Google Ad Values on Display
posted by Linc Wonham @ 9:30 AM
Monday, May 21, 2012
SEO software provider WordStream has released new research comparing the value of Facebook advertising to Google’s Display Network – the portion of Google’s advertising business that allows advertisers to place display ads on Google sites such as YouTube, Gmail and Blogger and over 2 million other websites rather than alongside search results.
The results are compiled in an infographic that evaluates the two models on criteria such as advertising reach, ad performance, revenues and growth, ad formats and targeting options, and highlights of the study appear below:
• Facebook and Google both have huge potential reach, with Facebook boasting 845 million monthly active users and Google owning the world’s largest online display advertising network.
• The average click-through rate (CTR) of an ad on the Google Display Network is 0.4 percent – almost 10 times as high as the typical Facebook ad. Average CTR on Facebook is under 0.05 percent, about half the industry average for online banner ads. At the same time, costs per thousand impressions on Facebook are climbing.
• The Google Display Network offers twice as many ad formats as Facebook, including in-video ads, mobile-game ads, support for industry-standard image ads and more.
• Facebook does not yet support mobile advertising and has more limited targeting options than Google.
The comparison clearly suggests that Google currently offers advertisers more value in terms of both options and results for advertisers, and that Facebook has a lot of catching up to do to provide advertisers with the best possible advertising solutions.
“So far, Facebook’s advertising platform hasn’t kept pace with the explosive growth of its social network, and it remains to be seen if CEO Mark Zuckerberg even wants to focus on advertising as a source of revenue,” says Larry Kim, founder and CTO of WordStream. “In his 2,500+ word letter to shareholders this month, he mentioned advertising just once.”
WordStream provides search marketing software and PPC services aimed at helping marketers get better results from their PPC and SEO efforts.
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Measure Website Performance with User Timings
posted by Michael Garrity @ 10:30 AM
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
When it comes to a
website’s productivity, every little detail is important. For some time now,
Google Analytics has provided its users with Site Speed reports to study their
site’s page load times, and now the company has developed User Timings, so
users can measure and diagnose page speeds with more refined accuracy.
User Timings will allow Web workers to track and visualize user-defined custom timings about websites, which will show the execution speed or load time of a discrete hit, or even user interaction, depending on what the Google Analytics user decides to track. Included in these metrics are the load speeds of specific images and resources, the response times of select button clicks, AJAX actions timings both before and after onLoad events and more.
Plus, these User Timings are the preferred method for tracking various action timing metrics, as they won’t alter page view counts.
Google Analytics users wanting to collect and take advantage of User Timings data will have to add a JavaScript timing code to the interactions they want to track by using the trackTiming API included in ga.js (version 5.2.6+), which lets site owners track visitor action timings related to events that don’t directly correspond to page views. To enhance organization, these can be defined using categories, variables and optional labels.
User Timings reports can be accessed by going to the Content tab of a Google Analytics dashboard and clicking on the “User Timings” section, where there are three tabs to review. Explorer, Performance and Map Overlay each provide different views of user timings.
Explorer shows information about average user timing and user timing sample by Timing Category, Timing Variable or Timing Label. The Performance tab tells site owners which timings are the most common for user timings. And Map Overlay gives owners a view of how users in different geographical regions experience site speed.
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Google has released a long list of changes that the search engine made in April 2012, and many are directly related to how search engine optimization professionals will engage in their profession post Penguin.
Website Magazine has listed some of the most important changes related to Google SEO below by generalized category, but do review the full list which focuses on the search experience for consumers as much as anything of note for SEO professionals. In line with previous search quality change reports, Google has assigned codenames for each change which does make it easy to keep track of the impact of the changes in the future.
For the first time in my recent memory, Google noted that it increased the size of its base index by 15%. The base search index is Google’s main index for serving search results. Google also introduced a new “index tier”. Google keeps its index in tier where “where different documents are indexed at different rates depending on how relevant they are likely to be to users.”
And now, on with the Google SEO changes to know!
LOCAL RELATED: Google made some significant modifications related to language relevance and country identification for Web pages. The “Raquel” update takes into account language to help return relevant navigational results, while Sudoku improves the systems currently in place to detect when a website, subdomain or directory is relevant to a set of countries and does so down to the page level. The “ImpOrgMap2” change is likely the most important local related change in this set, which makes it more likely users will find a website from a specific country – e.g. mexico.cnn.com over cnn.com – in the search results pages.
SNIPPET RELATED: Several changes were also made to snippets in April 2012. Google updated its system for generating snippets with the project codename “DSS” to keep it consistent with other infrastructure improvements and is now more likely to show text from the beginning of a page in snippets when the text is particularly relevant - codename Solar.
FRESHNESS RELATED: Perhaps the most noteworthy and actionable of all changes released in this round are related to freshness. Google indicated that its “Citron” update enables the search engine to better identify fresh documents, but its “NoRot” update modified a classifier to ensure content that is identified as low-quality” will be excluded – even though its fresh.
SPELLING RELATED: Google released a set of changes related to spelling corrections. The “Potage” update internationalizes one of Google’s algorithms to prevent bad spell corrections; the “Pita” update extends spelling corrections to more than 60 languages, and the “Spelling” update is a change which makes it more likely that queries get a spell correction even if it’s longer than ten terms.
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Microsoft gave the Bing search results page a facelift yesterday, going for “a fresh, de-cluttered experience designed to help you find the results you want faster”, according to the Bing Search Blog.
The redesign was based on dozens of experiments conducted over several months, and involved removing the left rail, minimizing the header, increasing the space between lines, consistently placing all results annotations and social data in one spot, among other things. Bing also claims that page-load times are faster and relevance is higher, and that more changes are on the way.
The redesign is noteworthy on a couple of different levels. First, it represents a clear commitment to simpler, cleaner Web design, which has been one of the most important trends of the past year. Secondly, as part of its ongoing competition with the undisputed search leader, Bing not only took a page from the Google playbook, but it out-Googled Google. The new design is actually cleaner than Google’s search results page, which was once the poster child for simplicity.
That very fact is an important one for anyone associated with Web design. When Bing first came onto the scene, it tried to compete with Google’s simplistic look by dressing itself up and over-accessorizing. After that strategy failed, now Bing is trying to add by subtraction. And when you put the two sites together, Google looks amazingly cluttered today by comparison (see below).
Who really needs all of those additional features when you’re making a simple search query? Do the extra elements on the page help or hurt the user’s end goal? I say they are a hindrance in the long run, and most of today’s website designs could stand to strip out similar unnecessary features that play little to no part in the ultimate goal of conversion.
However, judging from the comments on Bing’s blog, the early opinions are mixed – and some of the remarks bring up some very intriguing questions about what makes for the best, most user-friendly Web designs in the search field. WM urges you to go check out those comments, but before you do, take a look at the examples below and leave your overall opinions in our own comments section below.
What follows are Bing’s old search results page design, followed by the new redesign, followed by current examples from other engines including Google, DuckDuckGo and Blekko.
Please tell us which one is best, which is worst, and why.
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More Top Search Queries in Google Webmaster Tools
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 8:50 AM
Monday, April 30, 2012
While Google is putting the virtual smack down on some SEOs, the search engine is also playing nice by providing a set of terrific presents to those donning their white hats in the form of additional search query data in Google Webmaster Tools.
Webmasters and SEOs can now access up to 90 days (three months) of historical data on search queries. The top search query data was previously restricted to just 35 days.
There are two other improvement to Google Webmaster Tools that were just announced and are also worthy of note. Google indicated that basic search query data will be accessible as soon as site ownership is verified, and that it will be collecting data for the top 2,000 queries for which verified sites get clicks.
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Google Crushes Spinners and Spammers
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 7:05 AM
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
The much anticipated over-optimization penalty has arrived, and the most roguish (or simply the most uninformed) SEO's are in full-on panic mode.
Google announced that it has taken a step to reward high-quality sites, but what it has really done is punish those engaged in techniques and tactics that don't provide a good user experience. Sounds Ok to me.
Google has been very vocal about its anti-webspam efforts the past few months, rolling out some serious Panda changes as well as a page layout algorithm which lowered the ranking of sites that emphasized advertising over content clarity particularly above the web design fold. But this algorithm change is different.
This change takes a direct shot at webspam and will (very likely) decrease rankings for sites that Google believes are knowingly violating its existing quality guidelines. While no mention of specific signals that would warrant a ranking drop were made, Google made it clear in the announcement exactly the type of behaviors that would be deemed black hat and jeopardize a high ranking. At least it’s a start.
Google referenced two web spam tactics in particular, the first being keyword stuffing - which has long been discredited as a reasonable means to optimize a page for higher rankings. The second example is a little more complex and something that Google has long struggled with in my opinion - article spinning.
The example provided by Google (see image below) showed "unusual linking patterns" - call it link spam - within the content. The links within that content were completely unrelated to the content itself – giving Google an indication that something was amiss. The article was spun, or created automatically with the help of software.
Article spinning essentially takes a piece of content and replaces different parts or elements of the article with “spintax” (a play on the word syntax) which is really just a list of text, but most often keyword-laden links used in an attempt to game the search engine. Many of the algorithm changes we’ve covered here at Website Magazine were focused on the use of anchor text and this may be one manifestation of those changes.
Google indicated that this change in particular will go live for all languages at the same time. While the recent Panda change affected about 12 percent of search queries to a “significant degree”, this change affects 3 percent of search queries in English to a degree that a “regular user might notice.” This algorithm change will affect other languages to varying degrees.
Link Spam Example Provided By Google:
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Last week, the news
came out that the popular Google Analytics platform is currently installed
on over 10 million websites worldwide, and according to BuiltWith, that number is
actually a lot closer to 15 million.
Maybe this doesn’t come as a huge shock to most of you (in fact, some had estimated that the number was much higher), but that doesn’t change the fact that Google is on top in the world of Web analytics.
The product was referred to as Google’s “unsung hero” by the company’s CBO, Nikesh Arora, which makes sense, since some of the ‘Net’s biggest, and smallest, websites leverage the solution. Ultimately, some 56 percent of all sites are using Google Analytics for at least some of their needs.
But does that mean it’s actually the best?
Hey, it's free!
Some sources online (of varying degrees of credibility) will gladly tell you that Google
Analytics is, at best, a lackluster solution, while others go so far as to
proclaim that it will usher in the death of your Web business (uh, not quite). Are
these criticisms really justified, though? After all, millions of websites
utilize the solution and most of them don’t seem to complain too much. Then
again, maybe that’s because they don’t know they should be complaining.
When it comes down to it, there are really two major issues with Google Analytics. The first is that it’s free. (Wait, did I just say that?) Of course, everyone likes to pay literally nothing for a tool as competent as Google Analytics, but that also means that a lot of people are going to leverage the solution. With a paid service, users are often going to be more serious, and they’re also going to have more influence with regard to petitioning for changes and improvements to the solution.
Think of it like the equivalent of a sports team's training camp: Paid solutions help to weed out the less committed players, leaving a user base that is (mostly) serious about its analytics.
The other, and more detrimental issue with Google Analytics is basically that it’s too robust. Okay, I know it probably sounds like I’m just complaining about all of the great things about Google Analytics, but hear me out.
But does it cause inefficiency?
There are, generally speaking, two types of people who use
Google Analytics to track website statistics: those who run an entire website
by themselves (small business owners) and those who work for a
larger organization and are in charge of a specific area of interest. And in a lot of ways, neither of these
groups really benefits all that much from using Google Analytics.
See, problems arise because Google Analytics seems to want to be entirely comprehensive, measuring almost everything and reporting on all of it. In theory, this is great, but what usually ends up happening is users are bombarded with scores of statistics and data, many of which aren’t directly actionable and, in some cases, are entirely useless.
For some individual website owners, they’ll find that most of the measurements provided by the solution will have little to no direct impact on how they can improve their website’s performance and user experience, and all of that superfluous information just makes it harder to parse out valuable data. And it’s a similar issue for employees of larger enterprises.
When users are segmented into different divisions, each with specific objectives and goals, they’re obviously going to be looking for statistics and information that is pertinent to them. For example, someone in charge of a business’ social media will probably be interested in looking at referral traffic, but stats like unique visitors or bounce rates will probably have little use for them.
And while on the surface it may not seem like that big of a deal (after all, better too much information than not enough, right?), it can certainly be overwhelming for those tasked with making sense of all that data. An overflow of statistical information can often have an effect that is the opposite of productivity, because when people have too much data to properly manage, and when much if it isn’t directly related to the task at hand, it can lead to performance paralysis, leaving Web workers with fields of information and no idea how to even begin making sense of it all.
We all have choices
Now, this doesn’t necessarily make Google Analytics a bad
solution, because it can provide a plethora of useful information and
actionable insights that can help a Web business get ahead, and stay there. And
it really can’t be beat for the price. The real issue with Google Analytics is
that the majority of sites that use it to track their performance simply aren’t
able to utilize it to its fullest potential, certainly not the way they’d be
able to if it were scaled back a bit.
At present, the large amount of data generated by the service could easily lead to an inordinate and inefficient use of time and resources, and that usually doesn’t help anyone in the long run. Google Analytics is a very popular service, and for a good reason, but there’s a good chance that there’s a better solution out there for your Web business.
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Rich Snippet Updates Support HTML Testing
posted by Michael Garrity @ 12:00 PM
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Google
has blogged about two big updates to the types of rich snippets the search engine will be
crawling. The news is especially useful to online merchants, SEO professionals
and, well, pretty much anyone that runs a website.
Rich snippets, of course, are microformats that can be added into a Web page’s code by including special tags to enhance search results with more detailed data.
The first major change has to do specifically with product rich snippets. Up until now, these were only available as a limited set of locales, meaning products could only be previewed by specific users (based on their locations) viewing your site’s results in Google Search. Now, however, product rich snippets will be supported globally, meaning that users can preview site information about products from basically anywhere in the world.
Take a look at global product rich snippets (from Google's blog):
At the request of many webmasters, Google also announced HTML input support for its rich snippets testing tool. This change will allow users to test their HTML source without having to publish it on the Web. An update like this is a pretty huge deal because webmasters can simply test a selection of HTML code to make sure that it will appear as intended for users, even while it’s still a work in progress.
Here's what HTML input for the rich snippets testing tool looks like:
These changes will help webmasters and SEO professionals to streamline the optimization process since they’ll be able to test their rich snippet coding before a page goes live, which alleviates a lot of the headaches that can come with publishing defective code. It also aids online merchants by helping them promote more detailed information about specific products to a more global audience.
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Monetize Content with Microsurvey Tool from Google
posted by AllisonH @ 5:00 AM
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Google’s new microsurvey tool, Google Consumer Surveys, is not only bringing in valuable consumer feedback to brands, but also helping website owners monetize their content.
Google Consumer Surveys enables companies to ask question and get results back from their audience quickly, accurately and cost effectively. However, the platform is also good for publishers, who get paid for obtaining responses for the surveys.
For example, a publisher can offer premium content to their audience – such as news articles or videos – in exchange for answers on these quick surveys. Then, the businesses that created the surveys receive fully analyzed reports, which start at 10 cents per response.
This platform has already been used by top brands that have researched topics ranging from online shopping behavior to brand-awareness assessments. The surveys also present a simple way for brands to receive feedback, especially because traditional market research can be slow and expensive.
Additionally, offering premium content in exchange for answers to surveys is not only a good move for publishers because they are paid for the survey responses, but also good because they are spreading more of their content throughout the Web, which leads to an increase in visibility and brand awareness. Publishers that are interested in running microsurveys on their sites can sign up for it here.
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Facebook, Google, other firms team to fight email phishing scams
posted by Technology @ 12:20 PM
Monday, January 30, 2012
Major tech firms including Google, Facebook and Microsoft have teamed together to fight email phishing scams. Members say the partnership will lead to better email security and protect users and tech brands from fraudulent messages.
The group, which calls itself DMARC – for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance — says it wants to help reduce email abuse by standardizing how email receivers perform authentication. Now, email senders will get consistent authentication results for their messages at Gmail, Hotmail, AOL and any other email receiver using DMARC.
Email phishing scams are messages designed to trick recipients into providing personal information by replying to the messages or clicking on links. The emails look like they come from a legitimate sender, often featuring brand logos and mimicking the format and language of authentic messages.
With the rise of social media and e-commerce sites, spammers and phishers have "a tremendous financial incentive" to compromise user accounts, leading to theft of passwords, bank account information and credit card numbers, DMARC said.
"Email is easy to spoof and criminals have found spoofing to be a proven way to exploit user trust of well-known brands," the group said. "Simply inserting the logo of a well-known brand into an email gives it instant legitimacy with many users."
Other companies involved in DMARC include Bank of America, LinkedIn, PayPal and Yahoo.
RELATED:
Shopping tips for protecting personal information
Hackers infiltrated personal Gmail accounts, Google says
New Justice Department unit to fight tech crimes, identity theft
– Andrea Chang
Image: Screen shot of the companies involved in DMARC. Credit: DMARC
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Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet review [Video]
posted by Technology @ 6:59 PM
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Motorola’s Xyboard tablet line is just about everything I wished the Motorola Xoom had been when it was released not even a year ago.
The Xoom, Motorola’s first attempt to build an iPad-competing tablet, was critically acclaimed when it launched last February. It even won the Best of Show award at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
But the Xoom, which sported a 10.1-inch screen, was a bit too heavy (1.6 pounds) and much too expensive (launching with an $800 price tag), and the 3G and 4G models were available only through Verizon. The 4G capabilities were also delayed about seven months, and when they did arrive, Xoom owners had to mail in their tablets to get a 4G hardware upgrade.
Thankfully, in the Xyboard, it seems Motorola has made up for most (but not all) of its missteps with the Xoom.
For one thing, the Xyboard prices are more acceptable.
The Wi-Fi-only version of the Xyboard starts at $399.99 for the 8.2-inch model and at $499.99 for the 10.1-inch model. The Verizon-exclusive 4G version, known as the Droid Xyboard, starts at $429.99 for the 8.2-inch model and at $529.99 for the 10.1-inch model — that is, as long as you sign a two-year data plan along with the tablet. (All four of the prices named are for tablets with 16 gigabytes of storage.)
Both the 8.2-inch and 10.1-inch Xyboards have touch screens with a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels.
The Xyboard 10.1 is thin and light, and physically felt much more competitive with Apple’s iPad and Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1, the two high-end tablets against which I think the Xyboard 10.1 will be competing most for consumer dollars. The Asus Transformer Prime tablet, a tablet I haven’t yet tried, is likely be in this category as well.
In my time testing the 4G-equipped Droid Xyboard 10.1, it was clear more than just the pricing strategy was different with Motorola’s new tablets.
Inside, the Xyboard 10.1 is fitted with a 1.2-gigahertz dual core processor and 1 gigabyte of RAM, which powers the tablet to speedy performance that lived up to its price tag.
In the front and rear are 5-megapixel cameras, which shoot detailed photos and 720p video out back too. They aren’t as sharp as some 5-megapixel cameras I’ve seen on smartphones like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Apple iPhone 4 and Nokia Lumia 710, but they’re far better than the lackluster cameras in the iPad 2 and the Galaxy Tab.
The Xyboard 10.1 is just 0.35 inches thick and weighs 1.32 pounds, making the inclusion of such high-resolution cameras and a rear LEG flash all the more impressive. It also has dual stereo speakers in the back, which sound good for a tablet (better than speakers on the iPad and the Galaxy Tab 10.1) but don’t replace a good set of headphones.
The displays on the Xyboard 10.1 were another high point, responding to touch input quickly and rendering websites, apps and videos sharply, clearly and brightly. Unlike the iPad or the Galaxy Tab 10.1, the Xyboard has a mini-HDMI port built in, so it’s easy to hook the tablet up to a TV set.
The Xyboard 10.1 is also compatible with a stylus (sold separately) that works well for taking notes and simple sketching. Motorola has preloaded the tablet with is own Floating Note and Evernote apps, which both work well.
I do have a major complaint with the Xyboard’s inability to let a user rest his or her palm on the tablet while using the stylus. Anyone who draws regularly knows that your hand often rests on the surface you’re drawing on. The need to raise your hand above the screen makes the Xyboard basically unusable as a drawing tool for long periods of time. The Xyboard isn’t going to replace artist tablets such as Wacom’s products.
The Xyboard 10.1 is covered in a water-resistant nano coating. For the sake of testing, I poured liquids on the tablet and easily whipped the device on, and it worked with no problems. I still wouldn’t recommend dropping the Xyboard into a bucket of water to see how it holds up, but the water resistance makes a lot of sense. I would love to see this feature on more tablets and hopefully phones too.
The edges of the Xyboard 10.1 and 8.2 are coated in a grippy rubberized material that is comfortable to hold while surfing the Web, watching videos or reading an ebook for a long period of time.
But this thoughtfulness of design didn’t carry over to the power and volume buttons, which are on the back of the tablet and nearly flush with the surface. The result: I frequently flipped around the Xyboard to see the buttons I wanted to use. After a while, I did get somewhat used to this, but the buttons are among the least convenient I’ve found on a tablet. This was a problem on the Xoom as well.
I averaged about seven to eight hours of battery life out of the Xyboard 10.1, which is good for a 4G tablet. But charging from an almost depleted battery took about three or four hours, which is much longer than I would like.
Verizon’s 4G service was fast, but unless you plan to use the Xyboard outside with no nearby Wi-Fi signal, opting for the Wi-Fi-only version makes a lot more sense to me, and it would save you from having to pay at least $30 a month in data-plan charges for the next two years.
All in all, the Xyboard has some quirks and some forward-thinking features that, in my opinion, place it ahead of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as a daily-use tablet running Google’s Android Honeycomb operating system. THe Xyboard is due for an upgrade to Android Ice Cream Sandwich, which I’m excited about. But for now, Honeycomb is a solid OS for a tablet.
If I had to choose an Android tablet to own, I’d choose the Xyboard 10.1 over the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which is a fine piece of hardware in its own right. The Xyboard 10.1 feels as though it’s made with better materials — the Galaxy Tab has a plasticky feel, and the Xyboard’s speakers and cameras are higher quality as well.
What really prevents the Xyboard from topping the iPad 2 as my favorite tablet is the app selection found on Android. This isn’t Motorola’s fault — it seems to be a side effect of Android tablet sales being much smaller than iPad sales. With low Android tablet sales across the board (in the last three months of last year, Motorola sold 200,000 tablets while Apple sold 15.43 million iPads), developers largely have not designed apps specifically for Android tablets.
It’s a shame because even apps that could be considered essential, such as Twitter’s own Twitter app, don’t work as well on Android tablets as on iPads. On the Xyboard and the Galaxy Tab, the Twitter app is simply a stretched-out version of the Android phone app. The experience is far from ideal and it sure isn’t pretty.
Other apps designed for the large screen, such as news reading app Pulse and Amazon’s Kindle reading app, look and work great on Android tablets, but these experiences are few and far between.
Until developers start treating Android with the same attention and care that they do iOS, great hardware like the Xyboard 10.1 will be hamstrung by inadequate apps.
ALSO:
Amazon Kindle Fire review [Video]
Motorola Droid Razr, from Verizon, review [Video]
Galaxy Nexus, on Android Ice Cream Sandwich, review [Video]
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Pouring water on the water-resistant Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Motorola sells 200,000 tablets, reports $80-million loss
posted by Technology @ 11:19 PM
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Motorola Mobility sold 1 million tablets in 2011 – with only 200,000 Xooms and Xyboards sold in the fourth quarter of the year, a quarter in which the company also reported an $80-million loss.
The consumer electronics maker reported the low tablet sales and negative earnings on Thursday in its quarterly earnings report. The loss came on revenue of $3.44 billion in the fourth quarter. A year earlier, the company reported a fourth-quarter profit of $80 million on $3.43 billion in revenue.
For the full year, Motorola reported a loss of $249 million on $13 billion in revenue, up from an $86-million loss on $11.5 billion in revenue in 2010.
Product shipments are also down year over year for the fourth quarter. Motorola shipped 10.5 million phones and tablets (all of which run Google's Android operating system) in the last three months of 2011, down from 11.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.
In 2011 as a whole, Motorola shipped 42.4 million mobile devices, up from 37.3 million devices shipped in 2010.
Motorola also said it remains "energized by the proposed merger with Google and continue to focus on creating innovative technologies." The Google takeover is still awaiting approval from regulators in a number of countries, but Motorola said it expects the $12.5-billion deal to "close in early 2012 once all conditions have been satisfied."
ALSO:
Google agrees to buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion
Apple earnings: $97.6 billion in the bank, and other highlights
Motorola Mobility sues Apple over patents, probably with Google's blessing
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Motorola's Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet on display at Motorola Mobility's booth at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Credit: David Becker/Getty Images
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Google+ now open to teens, with a few security tweaks too
posted by Technology @ 2:52 PM
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Google+ opened up to teenagers on Thursday, a move that Google no doubt hopes will help it challenge Facebook as the social network of choice.
"Teens and young adults are the most active Internet users on the planet," said Bradley Horowitz, Google's vice president of products, in a post on his Google+ page. "And surprise, surprise: they're also human beings who enjoy spending time with friends and family. Put these two things together and it's clear that teens will increasingly connect online."
While minors will now be able to use Google+, the experience on the social network won't be exactly the same for them as the 18-and-older crowd. Google has made a few privacy and security changes with teens in mind that Horowitz said will make Google+ a more ideal network to use for sharing and connecting with friends than other services.
"Unfortunately, online sharing is still second-rate for this age group," he said of teenagers. "In life, for instance, teens can share the right things with just the right people (like classmates, parents or close ties). Over time, the nuance and richness of selective sharing even promotes authenticity and accountability. Sadly, today's most popular online tools are rigid and brittle by comparison, so teens end up over-sharing with all of their so-called "friends.' "
The ability to share on Google+ to specific "circles" of friends is a start Horowitz said, but the social network is also giving users "control over who can contact them online. By default, only those in teens' circles can say hello, and blocking someone is always just a click or two away."
Google+'s Hangout video chats will also be tweaked for teens. "If a stranger outside a teen's circles joins the hangout, we temporarily remove the young adult, and give them a chance to rejoin," he said.
Previously, Google+ was only open to users who were 18 years old and up. Now, Horowitz said, anyone who is old enough for a Google account of any sort is old enough for Google+. And in all but Spain (14), South Korea (14) and the Netherlands (16), that age is 13.
Facebook, which boasts more than 800 million users, is open to anyone 13 and older. Google+ has about 90 million users, the tech giant said earlier this month.
RELATED:
Google plans to merge more user data across its products
Google+ continues battle with fading user interest, data say
Google engineer goofs, tells whole world that Google doesn't get it
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: An example of the prompt a teenage Google+ user under age 18 will receive whenever someone they don't have included in a contact "circle" on the social network joins in on a Hangout video chat session. Credit: Google
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Motorola sues Apple over patents, probably with Google’s blessing
posted by Technology @ 7:08 PM
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
The power of mobile technology: Never before have consumers been able to hold so many lawsuits in their hand.
Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. has just thrown another baton in the smartphone lawsuit parade that has stretched to courtrooms across the globe, as phone-makers sue one another over similarities in their mobile devices, which are packed with patent-protected circuits and widgets from dozens of companies.
Motorola has filed suit against Apple Inc., purveyor of the mega-blockbuster iPhone (the device lifted Apple to $46 billion in sales in its most recent quarter). Apple is an increasingly bitter rival of Google Inc., which agreed to buy Motorola in August, a deal that is still awaiting regulatory clearance.
As patent observer Florian Mueller noted, Google probably had to approve Motorola's lawsuit, given that part of the buyout terms appear to forbid Motorola from filing lawsuits without Google's explicit permission. Google has not directly sued or been sued by Apple in this matter — the two compaies are fighting their legal war by proxy.
Phones that run Google's Android operating system have collectively outsold the iPhone, and Apple is none too happy about that. The Cupertino electronics maker has initiated a flurry of lawsuits against Android phone manufacturers, including Samsung Electronics and HTC Corp., alleging that the companies "slavishly copied" the iPhone's signature look.
But Apple is finding that big legal wins are hard to come by.
Now Motorola is trying to make things even more difficult for its rival. In its second action against Apple in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of Florida, the company wants the court to ban iPhone sales. Motorola alleges that Apple devices infringe on six of its patents, including one for a phone with a "concealed antenna," and another about keeping data on "multiple pagers" synchronized. Motorola, as children of the 1990s will recall, made a lot of pagers — they still do.
For updates in this saga, make sure to keep your pagers on.
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ITC sides with Apple over HTC in initial ruling on patent suit
– David Sarno
Image: "Hungry Evil Android". Credit: asgw / Flickr
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Microsoft releases Hotmail app for Amazon’s Kindle Fire
posted by Technology @ 10:03 AM
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Microsoft's Hotmail service now has a Kindle Fire app.
OK, this may not be as exciting as Google releasing a Gmail app for Apple's iPhone, and there is still no native Gmail app for the Fire. But the Hotmail app for the Fire should be a worthwhile release for many owners of Amazon's popular 7-inch tablet due to the addition of Exchange Active Sync.
Unlike Amazon's included email app on the FIre, which merely downloads your messages via POP3, Microsoft's Hotmail app will synch emails, contacts, folders and subfolders, said David Law, Microsoft's director of Hotmail product management, in a blog post.
While the free Hotmail app for the Fire is technically an Android app, the version for Amazon's tablet is different from the standard Hotmail Android app used by more than 3 million people, Law said.
The differences between the Fire Hotmail app and the standard Android Hotmail app have to do with the changes Amazon made to Android to create the Fire-specific operating system it runs on its tablet, which as we've noted before is unlike any other version of Android out there.
"Because the Kindle Fire uses a different implementation of Android, we needed to make some updates to our previous Hotmail app for Android to ensure it worked well," Law said. "Now that we've finished the work and the app is ready, we're excited to give customers a great Hotmail experience on the Kindle Fire."
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Kindle Fire still Amazon's top-selling item
Amazon Kindle Fire software and Kindle iOS apps updated
Tablet, e-reader ownership in U.S. jumps to 19% over the holidays
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of the Hotmail app listing in Amazon's Appstore for Android. Credit: Microsoft / Amazon
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Droid Razr Maxx with bigger battery to launch on Verizon
posted by Technology @ 7:40 PM
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
When I reviewed the Motorola Droid Razr in November, I had a lot of good things to say about the Verizon-exclusive handset, but I also had a complaint when it came to battery life.
"Daily charging would be a part of life with the Razr and anyone considering buying this phone should have a charger at home, work and in the car," I wrote.
And evidently, I wasn't the only one who thought the Razr could do better when it came to holding a charge — lots of other tech critics complained too. Motorola seems to have agreed also, which is why the company is releasing the Droid Razr Maxx through Verizon on Thursday.
The Razr Maxx, as I reported before, is the same fantastic phone as the Razr, but it features a bigger battery.
With a bigger battery comes a thicker phone, so the Razr Maxx will be 0.35-inches thick compared with the Razr, which is just 0.28-inches thick. Yeah, they're both pretty thin, but the Razr Maxx won't be able to claim its place as the thinnest 4G phone on the market the way the original Razr does.
Other specs included a 4.3-inch screen, 1.2-gigahertz processor, an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera that can shoot 1080-pixel video, a front-facing camera for video chat and 32 gigabytes of storage (16 gigabytes of storage built into the phone and the rest coming on a 16-gigabyte microSD card).
The price for the Droid Maxx will be the same as the skinnier Razr when it launched — $299.99 on a two-year Verizon data plan. The first Razr was dropped to $199.99 earlier this month. Both run on Google's Android Gingerbread operating system.
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Verizon cuts price and memory storage of Droid Razr, as expected
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: The Motorola Droid Razr Maxx. Credit: Verizon Wireless/Motorola
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Google plans to merge more user data across its products
posted by Technology @ 3:05 PM
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Google is alerting hundreds of millions of users of its products that it's changing the way it treats users' data, combining even more information it knows about them from all of its products, from Gmail to YouTube.
The Internet search giant is putting a notice on its home page and sending emails to users starting Tuesday. Google says the changes will give users a better, more consistent experience on Google products and will help advertisers better reach users who are interested in their products and services.
The changes to Google's privacy policy and terms of service take effect March 1. They remove legal hurdles Google had faced in combining information from certain properties such as YouTube or search history.
Google said the new privacy policy responds to demands from regulators around the globe that users have a simpler, more concise way to understand what Google does with their information. Right now users have to navigate a complex web of privacy policies and terms of service for different Google products.
Google says it's been combining information it gleans about users logged into Google for years to tailor search results and ads to their interests. Now it will be able to do that even more broadly. For example, if you search for skateboard tricks on Google and then hop over to YouTube, the video sharing site will recommend offerings from skateboard pro Tony Hawk.
Google says users can still control their information through the privacy dashboard and the Ads Preferences Manager.
Google says it's helping users. But it’s also clearly helping itself, said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLand.com.
"This may cause more critics to complain that there is no escaping the clutches of Google," Sullivan said.
And it could throw more fuel on the already heated controversy over Google's recently launched Google Search plus Your World feature which combined information from Google+ into search results.
Under the leadership of Chief Executive Larry Page, Google has moved more aggressively to use its position as the dominant Internet company to promote its Google+ social network.
It's looking to slow the momentum of Facebook and to use personal data from Google+ and other Google products to improve search, maps and ads.
It’s a battle of the Web superpowers. Facebook, which is on the verge of an initial public offering that could raise $10 billion and value the Menlo Park, Calif., company at $100 billion, aims to own everyone’s online identity and already has a rich hoard of information about its users and deep insights into their connections and interests.
To counter Facebook's growing influence, Google is pouring massive resources into reengineering its approach to the Web and make it more social.
Like other major Internet players, it’s walking a fine line between respecting the privacy of users and mining as much information about them as possible.
Google has stumbled when it comes to privacy. Last year it reached a settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that subjects the company to 20 years of privacy audits. It also has drawn heavy regulatory scrutiny in Europe.
Google recently launched a privacy campaign to educate consumers about how it uses their information and how to protect themselves on the Web.
Privacy advocate Ryan Calo, who was given a sneak peek at Google's new privacy policy, says it's unlikely users will read it. Privacy policies are required by law, but few people pay attention to them, even when they are like Google's latest one: short, concise and written in plain English, he said.
"Sounds like Google's overall practices won't be that different; it's more that Google is owning up to how it thinks and what it does," said Calo, who’s with Stanford Law School's Center for Internet & Society, which gets some funding from Google.
But he’s less sure if Google isn’t risking turning off some users with what he calls the "creepiness" factor.
For example, Google says someday it may be able to alert you based on your location, your calendar and local traffic conditions when you are going to be late for a meeting. According to Google: "Google users still have to do too much heavy lifting, and we want to do a better job of helping them."
Do users want Google to do that? It depends, Calo said.
"It's different if I am going to a business meeting or to a strip club,” he said.
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Google aims ad campaign at privacy concerns
Privacy watchdog urges investigation of Google search
New Google feature adds a personal touch to search results
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: A sign for Google is displayed behind the Google android robot, at the National Retail Federation, in New York on Jan. 17, 2012. Credit: Mark Lennihan/AP Photo
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Apple loses bid to ban Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Netherlands
posted by Technology @ 11:42 AM
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
For the second time, a Netherlands court has denied Apple its request for a ban on sales of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, whose design Apple says illegally copies the iPad's.
The Samsung victory, first reported on the blog Foss Patents run by patent expert Florian Mueller, came Tuesday in The Hague, where an appeals court ruled that the Samsung device — which runs on Google's Android operating system – doesn't steal from the iPad's patented design.
The Dutch court's decision, which upheld a lower-court ruling made in August, is another setback for Apple in its worldwide patent battle against South Korea-based Samsung.
Last month, a U.S. district court in San Jose denied Apple's request for a ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 before a July trial on Apple's lawsuit in that court. Also in December, a temporary ban on the Samsung tablet in Australia expired. The dispute is set to go to trial in Australia in March.
Apple last week filed two new patent suits against Samsung in Germany, seeking a ban on 10 Samsung phones and five tablets.
RELATED:
Apple loses bid to block U.S. sales of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
Apple vs. Samsung: Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales ban lifted in Australia
Apple sues Samsung again in Germany, calls for ban on 10 phones
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: An Apple iPad 2, left, and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 at a store in the Netherlands. Credit: Robert Vos / EPA
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YouTube reports 4 billion video downloads — a day
posted by Technology @ 5:52 PM
Monday, January 23, 2012
People of the Internet, you love your YouTube.
On an average day, you watch 4 billion videos on YouTube. And the next day? You watch 4 billion videos on YouTube. That’s a 25% increase over the number of daily video views just eight months ago, and it shows what kind of immense numbers we can see when a popular Web destination becomes even more popular.
It’s kind of amazing — and kind of frightening.
When it comes to how much video people are uploading to the site, the numbers are also mind-boggling: YouTube reports that 60 hours of video is uploaded to the site every minute, compared with 48 hours eight months ago.
What’s behind this growth of activity? Reuters points out that parent company Google is pushing the video-sharing service beyond the personal computer, with versions of the site now compatible with smartphones and televisions. The company also has been making an effort to get more professional-grade content on the site.
Does all of this translate to money? Well, some of it does. But, Reuters reports, Google said only about 3 billion videos a week are monetized.
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President Obama to answer questions in Google+ Hangout on Jan. 30
– Deborah Netburn
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‘Don’t Be Evil’ tool alters new Google search results
posted by Technology @ 4:44 PM
Monday, January 23, 2012
When Google changed the rankings of its search results this month, items from its Google+ social network — such as photos, videos, comments and links — got a boost at the expense of other social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Twitter wasn't happy about the changes, which Google called Search Plus Your World, and made its dissatisfaction known. Privacy groups called on the Federal Trade Commission to investigate the changes.
But merely complaining about the new search results wasn't enough for a few engineers from Facebook, Twitter and Myspace. On Monday, the backlash against Search Plus Your World hit another level with the release of their Don't Be Evil bookmarklet, available on the new website Focus on the User.
The bookmarklet, which is a browser plug-in of code that alters Google search results to make them more like they were before Search Plus Your World, was built over the weekend by a small team that included Facebook's director of product, Blake Ross, and Facebook software engineers Tom Occhino and Marshall Roch.
The bookmarklet's Don't Be Evil name is a nod to Google's company mantra.
A statement posted on Focus on the User says:
When you search for "cooking" today, Google decides that renowned chef Jamie Oliver is a relevant social result. That makes sense," reads a statement on Focus on the User. "But rather than linking to Jamie's Twitter profile, which is updated daily, Google links to his Google+ profile, which was last updated nearly two months ago. Is Google's relevance algorithm simply misguided?
No. If you search Google for Jamie Oliver directly, his Twitter profile is the first social result that appears. His abandoned Google+ profile doesn't even appear on the first page of results. When Google's engineers are allowed to focus purely on relevancy, they get it right.
So that's what our "bookmarklet" does. It looks at the three places where Google only shows Google+ results and then automatically googles Google to see if Google finds a result more relevant than Google+.
Google officials were unavailable for comment on the bookmarklet Monday afternoon.
Facebook's Ross, who is also one of the three co-founders of Mozilla's Firefox Web browser and was spreading the word about the bookmarklet on his Twitter and Facebook accounts, has had a run-in with Google+ before: In August, Ross' Google+ profile page was temporarily suspended. Google never commented on why that happened, but Ross has said it was because Google didn't think the page really belonged to him.
Along with the launch of the bookmarklet and the Focus on the User site, a video (which can be seen below) explaining how the bookmarklet works, narrated by Ross, was posted to YouTube.
The bookmarklet isn't an official product of Facebook, Twitter or Myspace, but nobody seems to be shying away from the connection to those companies.
Where will this beef go from here? That's up to the involved engineers and anyone else around the Web who wants to dig in and write some code.
"This proof of concept was built by some engineers at Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, in consultation with several other social networking companies," Focus on the User says. "We are open-sourcing the code so that anyone may use it or make it even better."
RELATED:
Twitter blasts prominence of Google+ content in search results
Google likely to face FTC complaint over 'Search Plus Your World'
Facebook Product Director Blake Ross temporarily kicked off Google+
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of FocusOnTheUser.org.
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President Obama to answer questions in Google+ Hangout on Jan. 30
posted by Technology @ 11:17 AM
Monday, January 23, 2012
President Obama is back on social media like it's 2008 — when the Technology blog described him as "the first social media president."
The president has a presence on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram and Google+ — both for his reelection bid and for official White House communications. You can even download a ringtone for your smartphone of Obama singing Al Green's "Let's Stay Together" from a recent New York campaign fundraiser.
Next up is the first Presidential Google+ Hangout.
Obama will take part in a hangout video chat with up to nine other Google+ users on Jan. 30.
The hangout will cap a week of White House officials' fielding questions across Facebook, Twitter and Google+ about the president's annual State of the Union speech, to be delivered Tuesday.
And while the focus of the conversation is likely to be on the State of the Union, anyone can submit a question on just about any topic to Obama this week on Google+ and YouTube, the White House and YouTube said in separate blog posts.
YouTube posted even published a video promoting the event Monday showing scenes of tea party, Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring protests, coverage of the death of Osama Bin Laden and the end of the Iraq War, as well as a brief voiceover from a gay Air Force lieutenant.
"If you could hang out with President Obama, what would you ask him? Would your question be about jobs or unemployment? The threat of nuclear weapons? Immigration reform? Whatever your question is, submit it on YouTube for the opportunity to ask the president directly in a special interview over a Google+ Hangout from the White House," YouTube said.
Of course, Obama won't answer all the questions submitted through the White House YouTube channel, but he will answer "several of the most popular questions" the White House said, and a small number of those who submit questions will be invited to join the president in the video chat.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: Screen shot of the White House on Google+. Credit: Google
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White House joins Google+ ahead of State of the Union speech
posted by Technology @ 5:34 PM
Sunday, January 22, 2012
The White House is now on Google+ and no, it's not technically a move to help President Obama get reelected — there is a separate Obama 2012 page for that.
So why is the Obama administration now on Google's social network? The State of the Union speech on Tuesday is at least one reason to join Google+.
The annual speech will be broadcast across major TV networks and an enhanced version will be streamed online to the White House's mobile apps and at whitehouse.gov/sotu, with "charts, stats and data that helped inform President Obama's policy decisions as he delivers his speech to the nation," the White House said.
After the speech, which starts at 6 p.m. Pacific time, White House officials will field questions throughout the week regarding the speech, the president's policies, and the direction in which the country and economy is headed. Those questions will be taken from Twitter, Facebook and (as of this week) Google+.
Down the road, the White House may use Google+ Hangouts, the social network's group video-chatting feature, to reach constituents.
"The President and First Lady often call the White House 'The People’s House.' Well, this is another way we're opening our doors (virtually) to citizens around the country," said Kori Schulman, the deputy director of outreach at the White House Office of Digital Strategy, in a blog post. "On our Google+ page, we'll host regular 'White House Hangouts' with administration officials on a range of issues and topics.
"Some Google+ users will be invited to join the Hangout with the White House and have a conversation with policy experts. But the best part is that even if you're not 'in' the Hangout, you can watch the whole thing live on WhiteHouse.gov, on our Google+ page or on the White House YouTube channel."
The White House currently has no Google+ Hangouts planned.
Although the White House's Google+ page isn't an official campaign tool, there is no doubt that the Obama administration and his reelection campaign staff are looking to use every tool possible to reach voters this year.
After all, the president's use of social media in his winning of the 2008 election is often cited as one of the reasons he was able to build up support among voters. The Technology blog even described Obama as "the first social media president."
One other reason the White House might want to be on Google+ — Republican rivals looking to knock Obama out of office are there too.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of the White House page on Google+. Credit: Google
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Five Productivity Apps for the Chrome Browser
posted by AllisonH @ 4:00 PM
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Apps are hard to escape these days.
Not only do they take up the screens of our smartphones and tablets, but they can also be downloaded on social networks and browsers too.
And finding really useful apps can be like digging for gold. So we decided to do the digging for you.
Check out this list of productivity apps for your Google Chrome browser:
BookedIN Appointment Scheduler
This is an appointment scheduling app for small businesses. Users just need to sign up for a free account and list their business' services. Then, BookedIn advertises the services on a public webpage that is created for the participating business. Clients can then book their appointments online. Features include a free public webpage for booking appointments, an online calendar, a client database, appointment reminders, a BookedIN button that can be added to websites, and more.
The name of this app pretty much says it all. It can capture visible content from a tab, a region of a webpage or a whole page, and save it as a PNG image. Users can also edit the captured image before saving it, by adding highlights or text. Furthermore, the app recognizes horizontal scrolls and detects floating objects so it can avoid capturing them multiple times if the whole page capture requires scrolling.
This app allows Chrome browser users to make presentations. The presentations can be accessed anywhere, including from iPhones and iPads because the software includes an HTML5 viewer. Slides can include audio and videos, and can be shared through links or embedded on a website or a blog. Additionally, users can measure impact and audience engagement through presentation analytics.
This photo editor allows anyone to change-up photos, from basic edits to complex effects. It includes more than 30 rich editing tools, a large database of image effects, blend mode, layers and more. Users can utilize this tool to create business cards and letterheads, build a PowerPoint slide background, create unique labels, crop photos or craft designs.
This app allows its users to critique their own, or someone else’s Web pages. It features tools for analyzing the gray scale of a site, intersections of a site, the color contrast of a site and more. Although this tool isn’t nearly as effective as testing different design elements on your page through A and B or multivariate testing solutions, it can, however, provide some insight into classic design principles.
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How Your Business Can Get an A+ on Google+
posted by Michael Garrity @ 2:30 PM
Friday, January 20, 2012
Google's social network hasn’t provided Facebook with the competition that
many thought it would when Google+ was first announced, but its importance as a social media
avenue towards Web success cannot be denied. Fortunately, some best practices have begun to emerge in recent months.
Below are some of the strategies that may give your Web enterprise an advantage over the competition when utilizing Google+, which should be a priority for any online company that is not yet doing so.
Circles
Perhaps the biggest difference between Google+ and competing social networks is the Circles feature, and the most successful brands have been
able to optimize the management of their Circles. The purpose of Circles is to organize contacts
into helpful groups based on different characteristics, and by segmenting a company's contacts into Circles, that business is able to manage who sees what messages. This provides one way to establish trust and loyalty with
users, and you will most likely find
them more involved with your content and engaging with your company's G+ page more often as a result.
Segmentation can be
done by location, interest, relation to your business or any number of other criteria. The important thing is to make sure that you manage your circles in such a way
that content will be relevant to one or more
of these groups.
Connections
Social media is an important part of every business' Web presence in 2012, but the ultimate goal is to get users back onto your company's website. This is especially important if you’re
connecting with users on Google+ because the site doesn’t yet allow
vanity URLs, making certain sites difficult to find through this channel if
the user is not yet familiar with a company.
Google+ does provide a simple set of codes and
buttons so that users can link to your site through G+, and you can easily access this
information by going to the “Get Started” option beneath your company's name and/or avatar on
the Google+ home page.
Links
One underrated feature of Google+ is the
ability to add links to your “About” page and that they are highly customizable. Business owners can add links by clicking the “Edit Profile” option and going to the "About" tab.
When
you add a link to the “Recommended Links” option, you will be able to also include a title that tells the user
where they will be directed. You can use this space to send users to your other
social media profiles, your primary website or other relevant sites that they
may find useful, and you can tag these links however you’d like.
Scrapbooks
The only design elements that companies control over their
brand pages on Google+ are profile pictures and the five Scrapbook Photos at the top of the page. This allows brands to express their creativity, share a little about the company and, most importantly, build an online identity.
Some good examples of companies that take full advantage of
this feature are Starbucks, BMW, Pepsi and Google’s own Android.
Engagement
The
most important thing a business can do with any social media campaign is to provide
meaningful information to users by inviting interaction. This means posting engaging content
that will both interest and inform users while creating a sense of trust and familiarity
with the brand or company. Website owners should also be interacting with users and
responding to their comments, good and bad.
Another way to invite engagement is by establishing a voice as an expert in a particular industry. Share your own content and other valuable information via links, photos and videos on Google+. With Circles, website owners can create a “Suggested”
group of important people and companies around their industries to share with
users. Whether these methods garner attention from colleagues or customers, they will likely provide business owners with insightful feedback and
information.
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Larry Page's honeymoon at the helm of Google may be officially over.
Google reported strong fourth-quarter revenue and profit results after the market closed Thursday (including quarterly revenue of $10.58 billion, its highest for a single quarter) but they missed analyst expectations.
Revenue in the three months ended in December rose to $8.13 billion, with earnings per share of $9.50. Analysts had expected $8.43 billion and $10.51.
Google shares plunged $59.08, or 9%, to $579.30 in after-hours trading.
Page, the chief executive, did not acknowledge the shortfalls in a statement: "Google had a really strong quarter ending a great year."
He added that the company's Google+ social network has grown to 90 million users, more than double the number it announced in October.
Google is also continuing its hiring spree. It hired more than 1,000 people in the last three months of the year. It now has 32,467 full-time staffers.
Despite concerns that Google is spending loads of money, Wall Street had seemed more confident that Page was the right steward to keep Google's moneymaking machine on track. The stock had gained 7% since Page took over as CEO last April.
RELATED:
Google sales, profit crush Wall Street estimates
Larry Page, back as Google CEO, shakes up top ranks
Google+ may reach 400 million users by end of 2012
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Google co-founder Larry Page looks on during a product launch on February 24, 2010. Photo credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
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Apple’s iBooks 2, iBooks Author: Bids to own publishing’s future
posted by Technology @ 12:43 PM
Thursday, January 19, 2012
NEWS ANALYSIS: Alongside Apple stating that iBooks 2 and textbooks on the iPad would reinvent the textbook as we know it, the iPad-maker announced Thursday that it would also attempt to reinvent book-making by way of an app called iBooks Author.
The Apple-developed app, available as a free download from the Mac App Store, (ideally) makes it easy to make books for the iPad. But together, iBooks 2 and iBooks Author are moves to capture the future of education and self-publishing, and to continue to build on the success Apple had under the late Steve Jobs.
If you've ever used Apple's Keynote or Pages (or Microsoft's PowerPoint or Word) apps, then you should be able to hit the ground running in iBooks Author. There are templates for different types of book layouts, and adding the interactive 3-D models, photos, videos and diagrams that Apple demoed iBooks 2 textbooks on Thursday is as easy as clicking and dragging a built-in widget — provided you've already produced the video, photos, diagrams and models you want to use.
Apple has even built into iBook Author HTML5 and Javascript support for programmers looking to take their books beyond what the app can do itself; multi-touch interactions for pinch and zoom views of photos and swiping gestures are also included.
Want to see what your book looks like before you publish it to iBooks? Just connect your Mac to an iPad by way of a USB cable and you can preview the book on the tablet.
The aim of the iBooks Author app is to make it easy to get these impressive multimedia elements, as well as questionnaires and other educational materials, into a page of text and published as a book on the iPad as easy as possible — whether you're a self-publisher looking to write your first book, a teacher whipping up something quick for a special class, or a publishing powerhouse like the textbook trifecta of McGraw-Hill, Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Before his death, Jobs told biographer Walter Isaacson that he believed Apple could disrupt the $8-billion-a-year textbook industry. Jobs said in Isaacson's book, titled simply "Steve Jobs," that the iPad was the tool to make transformation in the textbook business a reality.
According to the book, Jobs' idea "was to hire great textbook writers to create digital versions, and make them a feature of the iPad. In addition, he held meetings with the major publishers, such as Pearson Education, about partnering with Apple."
Jobs told Isaacson "the process by which states certify textbooks is corrupt … but if we can make the textbooks free, and they come with the iPad, then they don't have to be certified. The crappy economy at the state level will last for a decade, and we can give them an opportunity to circumvent that whole process and save money."
In announcing the iBooks 2 and iBooks Author products, Apple is beginning to bring a piece of Jobs' long-term vision to fruition. The company also noted Thursday that there are currently about 1.5 million iPads being used in schools and more than 20,000 education apps sitting in its iOS App Store.
But make no mistake, iBooks 2 and iBooks Author aren't just about textbooks. The two new apps are working together to entice students, teachers, educational institutions to embrace and buy the iPad in bigger numbers than they already have.
On Thursday, in announcing the new products, Apple made no mention of new discounts on iPads for students or schools — though Apple has offered such discounts in the past on Macs and even created special versions of the iMac for schools. Apple even built the now-defunct eMac line specifically to sell to schools.
Apple wants us to ditch the paperback and hardcover textbooks in favor of an iPad and digital downloads, that much is obvious. But the company also wants the iPad and Macs to become to go-to devices for educational institutions and publishing houses.
Although Apple's iTunes is the world's most popular online music storefront, Amazon is the world's largest seller of e-books. By adding a level of interactivity to books that Amazon and others simply can't match, and by making it easier to publish a book and sell it in the iBooks app directly from iBooks Author, Apple has made a move to challenge Amazon and its Kindle e-reader and Kindle Touch tablet as the preferred platform for self-publishers and digital textbooks.
In a statement announcing iBooks 2 and iBooks Author, Apple said as much (without naming Amazon and other e-book rivals such as Google and Barnes & Noble).
"iBooks Author is also available today as a free download from the Mac App Store and lets anyone with a Mac create stunning iBooks textbooks, cookbooks, history books, picture books and more, and publish them to Apple's iBookstore," Apple said.
The apps are also a challenge to Adobe, a company Apple has been known to partner with and feud with from time to time. Adobe's Creative Suite, Digital Publishing Suite and Touch Apps, available on both Windows PCs and Macs, are some of the most popular tools used by publishing houses and self-publishers looking to create a book, whether an e-book or a book before it heads to print.
Though capable of producing many different types of content for a broader range of devices, Adobe's software can cost thousands of dollars, while Apple's iBooks Author app is free.
Apple on Thursday also released an iTunes U app, which allows teachers from kindergarten to the university level to stream video of their lectures and post class notes, handouts, reading lists, etc., all within the app.
Previously, iTunes U was a podcasting service for college professors who wanted to put up video or audio of their lectures. Now it is one more reason for a teacher to consider an iPad and a Mac as tools to reach students at any grade level. And like iBooks Author, the app is free.
In my opinion, Apple is one of the best companies out there at providing lower-cost products that pull consumers into an ecosystem of apps and gadgets. It's one of the reason the company has so many cult-like followers.
For many Apple fans, their first purchase was an iPod or iPhone. With those purchases comes buying apps, music, movies and TV shows from iTunes. And for many, later comes a MacBook or an iMac computer. This strategy is repeating itself with iBooks 2 and iBooks Author.
First, get students and teachers to use more iPads in school by offering affordable and engaging digital textbooks. With iBook textbooks capped at a price of $14.99, I have to wonder whether or not textbooks will become shorter and more narrow, and thus students and teachers we'll have to buy more of them. Second, make it easy for anybody to produce their own iBooks (textbooks or otherwise) and then sell those books in the iBooks app, luring in aspiring authors. When those students, teachers and authors go to download music or a movie, set up a cloud storage service or buy a laptop, a phone, a new tablet — maybe someday a TV — what brand will be at the top of minds? Apple.
iBooks, iBooks Author and iTunes U, together are a move to fend off Google, Amazon, Adobe and other competitors in determining the future of education, publishing and book reading. Together, the launch of these apps is an attempt to not only maintain but also expand Apple's current success into the company's post-Jobs future.
RELATED:
Apple says iBooks 2 app reinvents textbooks
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Apple's iBook Author app on an iMac, and an iBook and an iPad. Credit: Apple
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Wikipedia: SOPA protest led 8 million to look up reps in Congress
posted by Technology @ 11:42 AM
Thursday, January 19, 2012
On Wednesday, some of the Internet's largest entities blacked out their websites — or their logos or some of their content — in a protest against the SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills making their way through Congress.
If you're wondering whether all of this had an effect, the answer is yes. Big time.
Wikipedia, the largest Web player to block access to its pages for a full 24 hours, reports that a whopping 162 million people experienced the blackout on the online encyclopedia's landing page. In addition, 8 million U.S. readers took Wikipedia's suggestion and looked up their congressional reps from the site.
Google reported Wednesday that as of 1:30 PM PST, 4.5 million people had signed its petition asking lawmakers to reject the Stop Online Piracy Act in the House and the Protect Intellectual Property Act in the Senate.
Twitter said 2.4 million SOPA-related tweets were sent in the first 16 hours of the day Wednesday. The top five terms were SOPA, Stop SOPA, PIPA, Tell Congress, #factswithoutwikipedia.
WordPress reports that at least 25,000 WordPress blogs had joined the SOPA and PIPA protest by blacking out their blogs entirely, and an additional 12,500 had posted a "Stop Censorship" ribbon.
“The Wikipedia blackout is over and the public has spoken,” Sue Gardner, executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation, said in a statement. “162 million of you saw our blackout page asking if you could imagine a world without free knowledge. You said no. You shut down the congressional switchboards, and you melted their servers. Your voice was loud and strong.”
RELATED:
Bloggers in China sound off on SOPA blackout
SOPA blackout: Bills lose three co-sponsors amid protests
SOPA blackout: Who’s gone dark to protest anti-piracy bills? [Updated]
– Deborah Netburn
Photo: A laptop in London shows Wikipedia's protest page on Wednesday. Credit: Peter Macdiarmid / Getty Images
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Bloggers in China sound off on SOPA blackout
posted by Technology @ 2:44 AM
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Watching from China, where Web censorship is practically a national hallmark, some can't help but smirk and crack jokes about the controversy raging over Internet freedom in the U.S.
"Now the U.S. government is copying us and starting to build their own firewall," wrote one micro-blogger, relating China's chief censorship tool to the U.S. plan to block sites that trade in pirated material.
The Relevant Organs, an anonymous Twitter account (presumably) pretending to be the voice of the Chinese communist leadership, quipped: "Don't understand the hoopla over Wikipedia blackout in the U.S. today. We blacked it out here years ago. Where are OUR hugs?"
PHOTO: Sites gone dark to protest anti-piracy bills
Humor aside, the brouhaha has generated some strong opinions in the country that Google fled, not the least because opponents of the SOPA and PIPA anti-piracy bills are conjuring Chinese Web censorship to promote their case.
The consensus here, however, appears to be this: Americans should try a minute in our shoes before invoking online Armageddon.
If anything, Chinese bloggers say, the debate underscores how privileged U.S. Web users and Internet companies are, even in times of duress.
"Only an American company could protest the way Wikipedia or Google has to the government," said Zhao Jing, a closely followed blogger in Beijing who uses the pen name Michael Anti. "A Chinese company would never get away with that."
Indeed, China's Internet sector has no choice but to submit to government pressure -– be it by censoring its own users or implementing whatever happens to be the state initiative of the moment (the latest may require the real-ID registration of 250 million micro-blog accounts despite threats to privacy and the cost burden on Web firms).
Another distinction Chinese activists note is that the proposed legislation in Washington is being debated openly in public and ultimately has to adhere to U.S. law. Chinese censorship, on the other hand, operates in an opaque space where no one really knows what's banned, what isn't and who is calling the shots.
"It's hard for people in the U.S. to understand Internet censorship in China," said Wen Yunchao, a prominent blogger and outspoken government critic who left mainland China recently for Hong Kong. "In China, all the government decisions are done in a dark box. No one knows what's going on. There's never any legal reason cited. If these laws are passed in the U.S., every step of the way it will be more transparent. People can challenge it. There's no comparison when it comes to censorship in China and in the U.S."
Still, Wen supports U.S. activists challenging the bills, saying it's a slippery slope to lesser Web access. He said China's so-called Great Firewall, which blocks access to many foreign sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, was first billed as a strategy to stop piracy and pornography.
"Now it's being abused and extended to thousands of websites," he said.
Ironically, China's 513 million Web users have relatively free access when it comes to the very sites targeted by the proposed Protect Intellectual Property Act and Stop Online Piracy Act. Those include BitTorrent sites such as Extratorrent and sellers of counterfeit goods such as Taobao.
"The Chinese Great Firewall is not targeting pirated material," said Beijing-based Jason Ng, another popular blogger who has 29,000 Twitter followers. "Look at the Chinese Internet space and it's all about pirated movies, TV and porn. Everyone just wants to enjoy and be entertained. If the government cut all that off, they'd have a serious problem on their hands."
RELATED:
Number of Web users in China hits 513 million
SOPA blackout: How many have joined the fight?
Google says 4.5 million people signed anti-SOPA petition today
– David Pierson
twitter.com/dhpierson
Photo: A Google search page awaits input from a user at an Internet cafe in Beijing. Credit: Alexander F. Yuan / Associated Press
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Facebook encourages users to share more by adding new apps
posted by Technology @ 8:27 PM
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Facebook wants its more than 800 million users to share everything they do with their friends on Facebook and off of it.
So Facebook has teamed with more than 60 partners to roll out apps that encourage users to tell their friends what they're doing: buying a merino wool scarf at Fab.com, researching a new travel destination on TripAdvisor, donating to a favorite charity on Causes or highlighting a new hobby on Pinterest.
The most popular social networking service is working with new applications so that users can publish their activities on their Facebook pages, Carl Sjogreen, director of platform products, said at an event in San Francisco on Wednesday night (and in a blog post).
Facebook is looking for new ways to get people to spend more time on the site and advertisers to spend more money reaching them. The activities will show up in users' Ticker, News Feed and Timeline.
The announcement comes as Facebook tees up a $100-billion initial public offering, the biggest the tech world has ever seen.
Facebook Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor said in an interview that the new profile page called Timeline is increasingly becoming Facebook users' de facto online identity and that the new apps would help users personalize their profiles with just a few clicks. He said that expanding the Facebook platform would generate revenue in the "grand scheme" but that the announcement was not "overtly" about making money. He said Timeline has deepened users' relationship with Facebook and increased the amount of time users spend on the site.
Facebook is taking on Google, Apple and other technology giants in competition for eyeballs and ad dollars. It first launched the new wave of apps last year at the company's annual developer conference, allowing Spotify to show songs that users play and the Washington Post to display articles users read. At the time, Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said the new apps created "real-time serendipity" beyond users just telling their friends they "like" something. The apps move beyond the "like" button which has become a universal means of expression on the Web but isn't adequate to communicate the full spectrum of human emotion and activity.
Millions are already using the apps, and Taylor said Facebook was "thrilled" with the response.
Now Facebook is opening up the platform to all developers (not just the 60 launching Wednesday) to help Facebook's users let their friends know when they go for a run or design a new outfit, Taylor said.
That not only gives users a way to express themselves and broadcast to their friends, it gives advertisers and marketers even more insight into their interests and habits. That in turn could give Facebook even more of an edge over Google's social network Google+, which has about 40 million users.
Some privacy advocates are concerned about Facebook's growing knowledge of its users and its reach into their lives.
"Facebook now has more ways to track and target us, as it enables dozens of apps designed to drive user and network behavior," said Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy. "Facebook now has more profile information it can monetize on its massive base of consumers. While giving the appearance of greater privacy control, Facebook knows that for the most part the default will be that they and their business partners can easily harvest our data."
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– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook's Menlo Park campus Photo credit: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
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Google says 4.5 million people signed anti-SOPA petition today
posted by Technology @ 5:00 PM
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
When Google speaks, the world listens.
And today, when Google asked its users to sign a petition protesting two anti-piracy laws circulating in Congress, millions responded.
A spokeswoman for Google confirmed that 4.5 million people added their names to the company's anti-SOPA petition today.
Not too shabby.
The petition, which was available via a link from Google's homepage, states that although fighting online piracy is important, the plan of attack described in the SOPA and PIPA bills would be ineffective.
"There’s no need to make American social networks, blogs and search engines censor the Internet or undermine the existing laws that have enabled the Web to thrive, creating millions of U.S. jobs," the petition reads. "Too much is at stake -– please vote NO on PIPA and SOPA."
The search engine frequently delights users by toying with its homepage logo, but on Wednesday it did something it had never done before: it blocked out its logo completely.
A link below the blackout read "Tell Congress: Please don't censor the web!" and lead to a page with the petition.
Of course, Google's anti-SOPA and PIPA petition is not the only one out there on this day of mass online protest. As of this writing 1.458 million people signed a similar petition at the activist website Avaaz.org, and Fight for the Future said that between its two sites, Sopastrike.com and AmericanCensorship.org, at least 350,000 people have sent emails to representatives in the House and Senate.
A graphic put out by Google shows that before today's coordinated protests, 3 million Americans had signed various petitions against the two bills.
In other SOPA number news, a spokeswoman from the popular blogging platform WordPress, said that at last count, 25,000 WordPress blogs had joined the SOPA and PIPA protest by blacking out their blogs entirely, and another 12,500 used the "Stop Censorship" ribbon.
Today, the White House Blog reports that 103,785 people signed petitions through the We The People website asking the president to protect a free and open Internet.
ALSO:
SOPA blackout: How many have joined the fight?
SOPA blackout: Bills lose three co-sponsors amid protests
SOPA blackout: Who’s gone dark to protest anti-piracy bills? [Updated]
– Deborah Netburn
Image: Google's infographic on the fight against SOPA. Credit: Google
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SOPA blackout: Who’s gone dark to protest anti-piracy bills? [Updated]
posted by Technology @ 11:23 AM
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Wednesday, Jan. 18: the day of the SOPA "blackout" protest. As you may have seen from our coverage, major names in the online world such as Google, Wikipedia, Mozilla and Reddit are censoring their own websites with black bars and blacked-out pages in protest of SOPA and PIPA, two online anti-piracy bills currently under consideration on Capitol Hill.
Lawmakers who support the bills say the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect Intellectual Property Act will protect the intellectual property rights of music, movie and TV studios. But the websites and tech giants taking part in the Wednesday blackout argue that SOPA and PIPA would allow for a censoring of the Internet that would forever alter the Web and what we can do, say and publish online.
And it's not just Silicon Valley that's protesting SOPA and PIPA in the day-long blackout — a few publications that cover the tech world are taking part as well, including Wired and ArsTechnica.
Here's a list of more than 30 websites (and screen shots of each) we've spotted that are protesting today in the form of full-on blackouts or even just making their anti-SOPA and anti-PIPA stances known publicly. If there are a few we've missed, feel free to let us know in the comments.
Wikipedia.org
Google.com
Craigslist.org
Mozilla Firefox's start page
BoingBoing.net
Reddit.com
ArsTechnica.com
Wired.com
TheVerge.com
OReilly.com
TechCrunch.com
MoveOn.org
WordPress.com
Xkcd.com
Fark.com
4Chan.com
GigaOm.com
FunnyOrDie.com
PerezHilton.com
GoDaddy.com
KnowYourMeme.com
Imgur.com
BoardgameGeek.com
Newgrounds.com
UrbanSpoon.com
DemocraticUnderground.com
JoinDiaspora.com
Heritage.org
GameBreaker.tv
Pocho.com
RateYourMusic.com
SparkFun.com
DayTrader.com
TextsFromLastNight.com
[Updated 12:29 p.m.: GigaOm.com is also against SOPA and PIPA, and on Wednesday the news site let that stance be known.]
[Updated 2:49 p.m.: Added the Jan. 18 anti-SOPA and PIPA protests on FunnyOrDie.com, PerezHilton.com, GoDaddy.com, KnowYourMeme.com, Imgur.com, BoardgameGeek.com, Newgrounds.com, UrbanSpoon.com, DemocraticUnderground.com and JoinDiaspora.com.]
[Updated 3:15 p.m.: Added the anti-SOPA and PIPA Jan. 18 stances seen on Heritage.org, GameBreaker.tv, Pocho.com, RateYourMusic.com and SparkFun.com.]
[Updated 4:51 p.m.: Added DayTrader.com's blacked-out Jan. 18 homepage.]
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SOPA blackout: Bills lose three co-sponsors amid protests
SOPA anti-piracy bill markup to resume next month, lawmaker says
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Images: Screenshots (made using the Mac app LittleSnapper) of websites taking part in the Jan. 18, 2011 protests against SOPA and PIPA by either blacking out their websites, or publishing statements condemning the controversial anti-piracy bills.
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Internet strike: Wikipedia, Mozilla, Reddit to go dark tonight
posted by Technology @ 1:56 PM
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
What does an Internet strike look like? You're about to find out.
Wikipedia, Reddit, BoingBoing and hundreds of other websites have pledged to go dark Tuesday night to protest the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) — two anti-piracy bills that are currently making their way through Congress.
"This is an extraordinary action for our community to take," said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales in a statement Monday announcing Wikipedia's decision to go dark. "While we regret having to prevent the world from having access to Wikipedia for even a second, we simply cannot ignore the fact that SOPA and PIPA endanger free speech both in the United States and abroad, and set a frightening precedent of Internet censorship for the world."
Wikipedia — the Web's fifth-most popular property with 470 million monthly users — is the largest Web entity to declare its intent to go dark, but it joins many other websites that have already pledged to shut down for 12 to 24 hours to draw attention to legislation that they say will hasten the end of the free Internet.
Reddit was one of the trailblazers of the blackout movement, declaring its intent to go dark on Jan. 10. Two days later, Ben Huh, chief executive of Cheezburger, which has a network of 50 sites including the seminal ICanHasCheezburger as well as Fail Blog, Know Your Meme and the Daily What, said his sites would be joining the strike.
Blackouts are not the only types of protest you'll find online Wednesday. Google announced Tuesday that, while its search engine will continue to function, the company will place a link on its home page to highlight its opposition to the bills.
“Like many businesses, entrepreneurs and Web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet,” Samantha Smith, a Google spokeswoman, said in an email Tuesday. “So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our U.S. home page.”
And Scribd, which claims to be the world's largest online repository of documents, said visitors to its website would find a pop-up roadblock Wednesday in protest of SOPA and PIPA that will lead to a call to action and an online petition.
Craigslist started its protest early. A starred section at the top of the site urges users to "help put a stop to this madness" and links to a page dedicated to the topic.
ALSO:
Waterproof smartphones up next?
Where's my Wikipedia? SOPA, PIPA blackout coming
– Deborah Netburn
Image: The Wikipedia home page.
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Google Knows Best – Page Titles and CTRs
posted by Michael Garrity @ 12:30 PM
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
It wouldn’t
be outrageous to assert that page titles are the most important information
that most searchers take into consideration when skimming SERPs. Their
significance is underscored by the fact that on all major search engines, these
titles aren’t just descriptions but are actually the links that users click to go to a website.
With over a decade of SEO practices now under our collective
Web belt, website owners and Internet marketers have come to understand a few
key generalities about what makes a good headline and helps a site stand out amongst
its competitors, and thus, what drives higher click-through rates (CTR). For
example, we know that titles need to be descriptive of the page content; they
need to be unique and not repeated elsewhere on a site; they need to avoid
keyword stuffing, and it doesn’t hurt to add some branding, either.
But just because we know about some of these best practices for page-title generation, that doesn't mean that everyone follows them — or that they work in every situation.
Google recently came out
and dropped a not-entirely-shocking bombshell: Sometimes its algorithms may change the page title that webmasters designate for a
site.
While Google asserts that it has always advised
people “to write unique, descriptive page titles,” they’re apparently treated
like meta descriptions, that is to say, more as suggestions than anything else. This is because the company has found that
some titles generated by webmasters may not be the best options (the “most
optimized,” if you will), and in these cases the algorithm will “generate
alternative titles to make it easier for our users to recognize relevant
pages.”
Despite the fact that Google primarily looks at the
<title> tags specified in a site’s HTML markup when deciding on the best
title, the given title is not always used, and, theoretically, the
webmaster/site owner may never even know; although, Google does say that it
tries to notify webmasters when it discovers “titles that can be improved on
their websites.”
To be fair, Google has the best of intentions at heart, and
the alternative titles that are selected are done so based on testing to
determine the title most relevant to the query. In the end, this “can
substantially improve the clickthrough rate to the result,” according to
Google.
However, relevancy is only the reason for alternative titles
“about half of the time.” The other half is for pages that (A) don’t have
titles, (B) specify non-descriptive titles (such as simply, “Home”), (C) use
the same title (or just minor variations) on most or all of a website’s pages
or (D) are unnecessarily long or hard to read. In these instances, Google is essentially
cleaning up poorly concocted titles and replacing them with algorithmically
approved alternatives that are more informative and helpful to searchers based
on their queries.
Unfortunately, as
with most information about Google’s algorithm, there isn’t much available when
it comes to how the company determines the best alternative titles for a site.
Typically these new Google-created titles originate from words pulled out of
the content on the page, which is much the same tactic the algorithm uses when
it crafts its own page descriptions for SERPs.
Though this may come across as somewhat convoluted, the goal
on Google’s part is simple: to help users by providing them with the most
relevant information about the content of a Web page and, in turn, increase
CTRs for the sites listed on SERPs. By helping to optimize your titles for better results, Google is creating a win-win situation for
site owners/webmasters and searchers alike.
And it’s important to remember that Google reserves the
right to change titles as it sees fit, so if you don’t like the idea of the company
toying with the information you present, your only option is to optimize page
titles yourself. The good news is that Google tells you how to best do that in
its Help Center.
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Apple sues Samsung again in Germany, calls for ban on 10 phones
posted by Technology @ 10:34 AM
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Apple has reportedly filed another patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung in Germany, this time calling for a sales ban on 10 smartphones it says violate its design rights.
Filed in Dusseldorf Regional Court, Apple's suit — which calls for a ban on the Galaxy S II, Galaxy S Plus and eight other models — isn't the only front in the ongoing international patent battle between the two firms, reports said Tuesday. Apple also filed a suit against five Samsung tablets "related to a September ruling" that imposes a sales ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1, according to a Bloomberg report.
Apple alleges that Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 copied the design of the Apple iPad in a way intended to confuse customers. After sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 were halted in Germany, Samsung released the re-designed Galaxy Tab 10.1N, which the Dusseldorf court said in December is different enough from the iPad that "it is unlikely to grant an injunction" against the new design, Bloomberg said.
"An appeals court also voiced doubts about the reach of Apple's European Union design right that won the company the injunction against the Galaxy 10.1," the report said.
For now, Apple's new smartphone suit against Samsung is set to "come before the court in August and the case against Samsung's tablets will follow in September," according to PCWorld.
If this all sounds a bit familiar, it is. Apple and Samsung have been suing and counter-suing each another across Europe, Asia, the U.S. and Australia for months, each alleging patent infringement over the design and operation of their respective phones and tablets.
In December, Apple failed to win an extension of a temporary sales ban against the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia, where the dispute between the two tech giants is set to go to trial in March.
According to the news site ArsTechnica, the ongoing patent battle between Apple and Samsung has caught the attention of the European Commission, which is conducting an antitrust investigation with the two companies regarding the suits.
RELATED:
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: An Apple iPad 2, left, and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 at a store in The Hague, Netherlands, in August. Credit: Robert Vos / European Pressphoto Agency
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Threaded Comments (and more) at Blogger
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 6:00 PM
Monday, January 16, 2012
Google’s Blogger platform announced recently that it is now offering threaded comments.
While other popular blogging platforms (most that I've come across recently in fact) already have threaded commenting as a core feature – or at least offer plugins to support it – it's a neccessary addition with such a heavy emphasis on social these days.
Threaded commenting, for those unfamiliar, makes it easy for users, and the blog owner themselves, to tell the difference between whether a reader is making a general comment about the post content iteself or if they are replying to another comment in the comment thread. Threaded comments are a great way to let users socialize amongst themselves and discuss the content. For many weblog owners it has done wonders in the "community building" department.
Google has actually made several enhancements to Blogger over the past few months including improvements to Adsense, custom domains and of course integration with the Google+ platform. In early December, Blogger made it possible for users to link a blog to their Google+ account and access a prefilled Google+ share box after publishing a post.
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CES 2012: Ford’s Sync AppLink adds NPR, Slacker Radio to lineup [Video]
posted by Technology @ 7:52 PM
Friday, January 13, 2012
As General Motors introduced its first efforts to bring apps from your smartphone into your dashboard at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show, Ford expanded its Sync AppLink system — which does just that and launched about a year ago.
When AppLink made its debut, Pandora was the only app a Sync user could operate via in-dash touch screen. Later, Stitcher radio gained Sync compatibility, which includes voice control as well.
Ford announced at CES in Las Vegas this week that apps for iPhones, BlackBerrys and phones that Google's Android would be added to the AppLink-friendly list, including NPR News, Slacker Radio, iHeartRadio, TuneIn Radio and Ford's own Sync Destinations turn-by-turn navigation app.
To see NPR News and Slacker Radio in action in a new Ford Mustang GT, check out our video from CES above.
Ford says that more apps that work with Sync's voice recogniton software are on the way. Oddly enough, Sync (which was developed through a partnership between Ford and Microsoft) has no AppLink compatibility with Windows Phone apps.
Just as with GM's in-car-app systems — Chevrolet MyLink and Cadillac CUE — AppLink can use apps only if it’s connected to a smartphone with the app installed, and it accesses data through the phone. Ford isn't selling any AppLink data plans.
For now, AppLink is available only in Sync-equipped Fiestas, Mustangs, Fusions, F-150s and Econoline vans, but the U.S. automaker is considering pushing AppLink out to other Ford brands, such as Lincoln, as well as to vehicles running older versions of Sync.
RELATED:
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CES 2012: The bumps on the road for connected cars
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of Ford's Sync Destinations app. Credit: Ford
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New televisions, laptops, all-in-one desktops and a "Stream Player" set-top box that can add Google TV software to any HDMI-equipped television set — Vizio had a lot of announcements to make at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show.
A bit more quietly, the Irvine company also previewed a new tablet that it says will launch this year as a follow-up to the 8-inch Vizio Tablet that launched late last year.
Vizio let us get a few minutes of hands-on time with its new tablet, but details on what the device would be made up of were few and far between.
VIDEOS: 2012 Consumer Electronics Show
The new tablet sports a 10-inch touch screen and front and rear cameras, and it felt a bit lighter than the current 8-inch model.
Rob Kermode, a senior product manager at Vizio, said the company was declining to say anything about the tablet's price or release dates or about what processor, how much RAM, how much storage or what screen resolution the tablet would be.
In my short time using the tablet, I felt a step up in performance compared with its 8-inch predecessor. The device reacted faster to my touch, launched apps more quickly and seemed not to stutter as much when it handled simple tasks such as playing animations Vizio has programmed into the operating system.
The prototype tablet was running Google's Android Honeycomb software with Vizio's VIA Plus user interface over the top of it, which looks very similar to the version of Android Gingerbread found on the 8-inch tablet. Kermode said Vizio was looking into Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Android, but wouldn't promise that the new tablet would ship running that OS.
To see the new tablet in action, check out our video from CES in Las Vegas above.
RELATED:
CES 2012: Hands on with Vizio's new laptop and desktop PCs [Video]
CES 2012: Vizio introduces all-in-one desktop, laptop PC line [Photos]
Vizio Tablet mixes high- and low-end features, but can it compete? [Video]
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles in Las Vegas
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Vizio's 10-inch tablet. Credit: Vizio
Vizio's 10-inch tablet. Credit: Vizio
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Privacy watchdog urges investigation of Google search feature
posted by Technology @ 8:01 PM
Thursday, January 12, 2012
An influential Washington privacy group is urging government regulators to probe a new search feature from Google, saying it invades the privacy of users and shuts out competitors.
The Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission on Thursday over the new feature called Search plus Your World. The feature started getting attention this week as it rolled out to users who began to see personal photos and updates from the Google+ social network show up in their search results.
Twitter, a competitor to Google+, complained that its content was being pushed down in search rankings.
EPIC’s executive director, Marc Rotenberg, says Google is using its dominance in Internet search to promote its own products at the expense of its rivals. He also said the new feature violates the privacy settlement that Google reached last year with the FTC over its defunct social network Buzz.
"We believe this is something that the FTC needs to look at," Rotenberg told the Los Angeles Times on Wednesday.
A spokeswoman for the FTC declined to comment.
Google says it’s trying to make its search engine more useful by highlighting personal information from its social network. Google rolled out Google+ six months ago as Facebook and Twitter increased in popularity.
"For years we’ve been working on social search features to help you find the most relevant information from your social connections no matter what site it's on," a Google spokesman said. "Search plus Your World doesn't change who has access to content, it simply helps people rediscover information they already have access to. We've taken special care with our new features to provide robust security protections, transparency and control for our users."
The new feature mostly affects the up to 1 in 4 people who are logged in to Google or Google+ while searching the Web. Those users now have the option of seeing search results that are customized to their interests and connections. If they search for a vacation spot such as Mexico or Hawaii, they may see photos from previous trips or posts from friends.
Google has been working a long time to create a search engine that delivers results tailored to its users. It's also trying to catch up to social networking giant Facebook, which, with more than 800 million users, knows its users far better than Google does.
Google was already facing broad scrutiny of its search and advertising businesses in Washington and Brussels. Critics allege that Google exploits its dominant position in search to promote its own services.
The Federal Trade Commission, attorneys general in six states and the European Commission are looking into complaints. Google handles about two-thirds of Web searches in the U.S. and more than 80% in much of Europe.
Google also faces rising scrutiny on privacy matters. In April, it agreed to submit to 20 years of privacy audits as part of the privacy settlement with the FTC.
In an interview this week, Google Fellow Amit Singhal said Google has taken significant steps to make its new feature private and secure. He also said Google was open to including information from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.
"However," he said, "it has to be done in a way that the user experience doesn't deteriorate over time and that users are in control over what they see from whom and not some third party."
But Google is facing uncomfortable questions about whether it's looking out for its users or itself, said Danny Sullivan, editor of the website Search Engine Land, who has been tracking Google since the 1990s.
Facebook, which generated billions of dollars in revenue last year and is weeks away from filing plans for a $100-billion initial public offering, poses the biggest threat to Google's online advertising business.
Facebook formed an alliance with Microsoft's Bing, a rival to Google, which has been showing information mined from Facebook in its search engine’s results since May.
Facebook declined to comment.
Washington antitrust lawyer David Balto said Google has little to worry about because EPIC does not have a case.
"You would need a super-powered microscope to be able to find any significant competition or privacy concerns from Google's conduct," Balto said.
Users are split on whether they want their search engine to deliver results customized to them.
Dave Mora, 31, an analyst for a Los Angeles entertainment company, said he now gets more relevant search results and consequently is using more Google services.
"Your experience is even that much richer," he said. "How many times have you asked a friend that knows about computers a tech question, you car enthusiasts friend a car question, or even that doctor friend a medical question? It is the same idea, just presented differently.”
But Melissa Cleaver, a 35-year-old blogger from Houston, said that she would turn off the feature and that she's getting increasingly wary of how powerful Google has become on the Web.
"It just seems to me that Google is pulling out all the stops to force you to use Google+," said Cleaver, who has 40% of her investment portfolio in Google stock. "I don't think Facebook or Twitter have anything to worry about. Just another reason that Mark Zuckerberg can sleep soundly tonight."
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Google likely to face FTC complaint over 'Search Plus Your World'
New Google feature adds a personal touch to search results
Twitter blasts prominence of Google+ content in search results
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Google office in Brussels. Credit: Virginia Mayo / Associated Press
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Sesame Street Kinect shows promise of TV voice, gesture control [Video]
posted by Technology @ 12:41 PM
Thursday, January 12, 2012
At the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, we saw a bit of a scramble by TV makers such as Samsung and LG to show off what they working on or releasing in the coming year that would allow us to control our TVs using voice, gesture and facial recognition.
Many technology pundits and analysts have said these sorts of announcements, which also took place at last year's CES, are in response to rumors that Apple is working on an "iTV" that will offer a new way of controlling a TV and maybe even how we pay for or watch channels and TV shows.
But as many video-game lovers out there know, TV voice recognition, gesture controls and facial recognition are already here in the form of Microsoft's Kinect motion-sensing camera, which is an accessory to the Xbox 360 home gaming console.
However, Kinect is just getting started, and currently has a small number of apps. And it's still a device that sells for about $150 and requires an Xbox 360, which starts at $200. Make no mistake, there will be a cost of entry to the future of TV.
At CES 2012, Microsoft showed off a bit of what the future may hold for Kinect, the Xbox and TV with demonstrations of its latest Kinect-enabled app for the Xbox, called Sesame Street Kinect (you can see our demonstration of the app in a video atop this article).
Sesame Street Kinect is what it sounds like, episodes of the long-running children's program tailored to use the Kinect camera. And what Kinect can do is really impressive.
Since 1969, children around the world have sat in front of TVs repeating back the alphabet, colors, words and numbers to characters on Sesame Street (I did it when I was a child). Until Sesame Street Kinect, which is set to release later this year at an unannounced price, the characters on the screen couldn't respond to the viewer's actions. Now, to a limited extent, they can.
The demonstration we saw featured the Grover, Elmo and Cookie Monster characters prompting viewers to interact by either saying certain words or moving in certain ways.
For example, we took part in a demonstration in which Grover drops a box of coconuts and asks that the viewer pick them up and throw them back to him.
I f the viewer stands up and moves in the way that they would throw an imaginary coconut (don't throw a real coconut unless your trying to break your TV) then Grover catches each one in his box, even reacting to how hard the Kinect interprets the viewer's throw to be.
The experience was a lot of fun for a room of four adults, and I imagine kids will enjoy this sort of thing too. Jose Pinero, am Xbox spokesman, said a similarly interactive app from National Geographic is coming this year as well.
Although Microsoft has sold more than 66 million Xbox consoles and more than 18 million Kinect cameras, the tech giant realizes it has something bigger than just video games on its hands with Kinect.
Both Kinect and Xbox Live are headed to Windows 8 later this year. Hopefully, that will mean more interactive "two-way TV" apps like Sesame Street Kinect, and more apps related to media outlets such as ESPN and National Geographic.
There are also rumors that the company is working to get Kinect built directly into TVs, which would very likely place Xbox Live and Kinect in direct competition with Google TV and Apple's expected entry into the TV market. That's a living-room showdown I'd like to see.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles in Las Vegas
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photos: Sesame Street Kinect in action. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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What's more you? The breezy Spanish style architecture of Stanford University or the gothic buildings dripping with history at the University of Glasgow?
Now high school seniors can get that all important "feel" for a college campus without having to embark on the traditional time-consuming and expensive multi-stop college tour. On Wednesday, Google announced it has more than tripled the number of university partners that participate in its Street View Program, allowing parents and students to imagine strolling along the Charles River at Boston University or enjoying the sunshine at Wesleyan University's Foss Hill, right on the computer.
The number of colleges and universities that have participated in Google's Street View Program is still fairly limited — Google's updated list includes 27 colleges and universities in the U.S., 40 in Japan, two in Canada, two in Denmark, 10 in Great Britain and 11 in Taiwan.
"As for adding additional campuses to Street View in the future, we hope to continue to make this type of imagery available on an ongoing basis," said a Google spokeswoman. "Since beginning this project, we've gotten a great deal of interest from potential partners."
In order to virtually tour the colleges that have participated in Google's Partner program, you go to maps.google.com and put the name of the college or university in the search bar. Grab the little orange man on the left side of the screen and drag him to the university destination and start exploring.
To see how Google got the imagery in the first place, check out the video below.
ALSO:
New Google feature adds a personal touch to search results
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Google likely to face FTC complaint over 'Search Plus Your World'
– Deborah Netburn
Image: A screen grab from Google's street view tour of Stanford University.
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Motorola is building Android phone with Intel CPU for late 2012
posted by Technology @ 2:10 PM
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
A Motorola smartphone with Intel inside is due to arrive in the second half of 2012, the two companies announced at the Consumer Electronics Show.
The phone will be the first product of a multi-year agreement that will extend to not only smartphones but tablets too, Intel said.
Although the firms didn't disclose much about what the device would look like, how much it would cost or what it wouldd be called, Intel did say that the first of its processors used by Motorola would be the new Atom Z2460.
No word yet on which carrier the handset will make its way to either, but in a meeting Tuesday night, Motorola Chairman and Chief Executive Sanjay Jha said the new phone would run Google's Android operating system.
Hopefully that means the first Motorola and Intel smartphone will be running Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
The Atom Z2640 is a 1.6-gigahertz processor with integrated graphics capabilities and low power consumption, Intel said in a statement.
The partnership is an important one for both companies, especially Intel. Motorola currently uses processors from both Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, two chip suppliers that have found a lot of success in the smartphone and tablet market. Intel's mobile chips, meanwhile, have had a tough time catching on with hardware makers as many have chosen processors from rivals.
Though Intel, the world's largest processor maker, has so far failed to match its dominant positon in the laptop and desktop market on the mobile side, a deal with Motorola might help boost its influence in smartphones and tablets — particularly if Google's $12.5-billion purchase of Motorola Mobility is approved by federal regulators.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles in Las Vegas
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Images: (Top) Intel's smartphone reference design and (bottom) its Atom Z2460 processor. Credit: Intel
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Google likely to face FTC complaint over ‘Search Plus Your World’
posted by Technology @ 11:14 AM
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
A privacy watchdog group probably will complain to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that a new Google search feature raises privacy and antitrust concerns.
Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said his group is considering filing a letter with the FTC.
EPIC made the complaint that resulted in Google's settlement with the FTC that requires the Internet search giant to submit to external audits of their privacy practices every other year.
"We believe this is something that the FTC needs to look at," Rotenberg said.
Google calls the new feature rolling out to users of its English-language search engine "Search Plus Your World." It blends information such as photos, comments and news posted on its Google+ social network into users' search results.
It mostly affects the one in four people who log into Google or Google+ while searching the Web. Those users will have the option of seeing search results that are customized to their interests and connections, say, a photo of the family dog or a friend's recommendation for a restaurant.
Google has been working for years to create a personal search engine that knows its users so well it delivers results tailored to them. It's also trying to catch up to social networking giant Facebook, which, with more than 800 million users, knows its users far better than Google does.
But critics contend Google, a laggard in social networking, is using its dominance in Internet search to favor its own products and take on its chief competitor.
"Google is an entrenched player trying to fight off its challenger Facebook by using its market dominance in a separate sector," Rotenberg said. "I think that should trouble people."
Critics also say the move raises alarm bells for consumer privacy.
"Although data from a user’s Google+ contacts is not displayed publicly, Google's changes make the personal data of users more accessible," EPIC said in a note on his website.
The effect of Google's latest search feature may be fairly limited — at least for now. The 6-month-old Google+ has 40 million users.
Google is not the first search engine to do this. Microsoft's Bing, which has an alliance with Facebook, has been tapping some information shared on Facebook since May. But Google is attracting more attention because of its dominance in search. It handles as many as two-thirds of all search queries in the U.S.
Twitter has also complained about the new Google search feature. So far Facebook has stayed out of the fray, declining to comment.
When a user is logged into Google or Google+, Google will now tap information from Google+ and photos from its photo-sharing service Picasa, to deliver personalized search results. In the future it will also incorporate other Google services.
Seeing how much information Google gathers could make some people uneasy, said Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLand.com. Google has tried to assuage privacy concerns by switching to technology that encrypts all of its search results.
Rotenberg says the FTC needs to go further to protect consumer privacy on the Web.
"This is a problem the FTC needs to look at closely," he said.
In an interview this week, Google Fellow Amit Singhal said Google has taken significant steps to make its new feature private and secure. He also said Google was open to including information from Facebook, Twitter and other social networks.
"However," he said. "It has to be done in a way that the user experience doesn't deteriorate over time and that users are in control over what they see from whom and not some third party."
RELATED:
New Google feature adds a personal touch to search results
Twitter blasts prominence of Google+ content in search results
Google gets personal, searches your world, not just the Web
– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Google's new search feature has raised concerns. Credit: Virginia Mayo / Associated Press
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Compressed Web Fonts from Google
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 9:30 AM
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Google’s affinity for all things speedy is no secret. That is why it should come as no surprise that it has made yet another foray into making the Web even faster – at least as it relates to fonts.
On its official Code blog, Google announced this week a new way to make web fonts smaller (and faster) through collaboration with the Monotype Imaging Fonts.com Web Fonts team.
Google Web fonts now implements Monotype Imaging’s MicroType Express compression format. Using gzip alone, the format should yield approximately 15 percent savings in file size.
Designers won’t need to update their integrations as Google is upgrading the CSS snippet and font files which it has done for previous speed optimizations.
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Twitter blasts prominence of Google+ content in search results
posted by Technology @ 4:09 PM
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Twitter came out swinging after Google said Tuesday it would display content from Google+ more prominently in search results than content from rival social networks.
"As we've seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter; as a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant results," Twitter spokesman Matt Graves said in a statement. "We're concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that's bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users."
Twitter General Counsel Alex Macgillivray, who used to work at Google, on — where else? — Twitter called the launch of the new search feature a "bad day for the Internet." He commented that search was "being warped."
Google responded on Google+: "We are a bit surprised by Twitter's comments about Search plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer, and since then we have observed their rel=nofollow instructions."
Google's new feature enables users to search for "personal results" that include posts, comments and photos from Google+ and photos from Picasa. But it will not promote results from rivals Facebook or Twitter.
Facebook declined to comment.
Google, which handles about two out of three Web searches in the U.S., is already under antitrust scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission. And lawmakers have questioned whether Google uses its dominant position in search to promote its own services at the expense of competitors and consumers.
Google and Twitter have history. Twitter gets traffic from Google, and Google used to pay Twitter for access to its "firehose" of tweets. It no longer does (although Microsoft's Bing still does). Google can still show tweets in search results because most of the 250 million of them a day are public.
Google has also tangled with Facebook, which does not let Google crawl its site. Facebook poses the biggest threat to Google in the battle for eyeballs and ad dollars. It's on the verge of a $100-billion initial public offering more highly anticipated than any tech offering since Google in 2004.
John Perry Barlow, co-founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, took to Twitter to express his dismay.
“We are becoming helpless collateral casualties in the war between Google and Facebook,” Barlow wrote.
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– Jessica Guynn
Image: Screenshot of Google's new personalized search results. Credit: Google
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Google gets personal, searches your world, not just the Web
posted by Technology @ 7:30 AM
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
For Google, it's personal. The Internet search giant is no longer going to roll out the same search results to everyone.
Starting Tuesday, Google will pluck only the results most relevant to you — and not just from billions of Web pages but from the personal stuff that you and your connections privately share.
The idea, says Google Fellow Amit Singhal, is that Google now searches your world, not just the Web, and serves up results that combine both for your eyes only.
"Your world was missing from search until now," he said. "We are bringing your world into search."
It's not just a radical departure for Google. It's a major salvo in the Internet search giant's rivalry with Facebook for eyeballs and ad dollars.
Google, with founder Larry Page at the helm, has been looking to blunt the growing influence of Facebook, which is on the verge of a $100-billion initial public stock offering.
Google has been adding more personal touches to its search engine as people flock to Facebook, the Web's most popular hangout with more than 800 million users who share personal photos, updates and recommendations. Now it's looking to combine its dominant search engine with its nascent social networking service, Google+.
"It's one of the most significant things Google has ever done in search," said longtime Google observer Danny Sullivan, editor of SearchEngineLand.com.
Singhal explained the new feature called Search plus Your World through a personal anecdote.
As a child, his favorite fruit was the sweet brown chikoo. Singhal was reminded of the fruit a few years ago when his wife held a tiny brown fur ball in the palm of her hand. They decided to name their 4-week-old miniature schnauzer Chikoo and privately shared photos of him as he grew with family members. Now both meanings of Chikoo show up when Singhal is logged into Google and searches the word.
Google, like rival Microsoft's Bing, has been working for years to make search more personal and more social. Google says with this move it's transforming into a search engine that understands not only content but also people and their relationships.
It's doing this in three ways. First, it's expanding search beyond public Web pages to the photos and posts you and others have shared privately. Second, as you type a person's name into Google, it will automatically suggest people you are close to or may be interested in. Third, Google is guiding users to profiles and Google+ pages related to the topic of interest.
But how will users react?
"Until now we have not had the mixture of our personal information with our Web search results, and that makes even me a bit nervous," Sullivan said.
Some users may not want or understand why their personal information is appearing in its search results. Google said it would explain the change to users at the top of Web pages.
Even though Google is just making information more visible and easier to find, it may encounter the same kind of resistance that Facebook did when it rolled out its new feature Timeline, Sullivan said.
Like Facebook, Google isn't asking users whether they want the new feature, it's just turning it on for all English-speaking users over the next few days. If you don't want the feature, you have to turn it off.
Google may also be seen as favoring its own products in search results, an allegation that already has made Google a target of an antitrust investigation, Sullivan said. For example, instead of sending someone searching for Britney Spears to her website, Facebook page or Twitter account, Google will suggest her Google+ page, giving the service a "huge advantage," he said.
"It makes you question if Google is doing the best thing for the searcher or the best thing for Google," Sullivan said.
Google says it's hamstrung because Facebook fences off its website from Google's search engine.
"We want users to have control over what personal content they can search for at Google. We don't want third parties dictating to users what they can or can't search for in Google," Singhal said. "Based on the current policies at many social networks, users don't have that control."
That could put pressure on Facebook, Sullivan said.
"This is a really big gun pointed back at Facebook," he said. "This may cause Facebook to say that now that Google has merged social and search, that's what it needs to do as well."
Facebook has an alliance with Microsoft's Bing to lure traffic away from Google, which handles about two of every three Internet search requests. Microsoft owns a 1.6% stake in Facebook. But the partnership has not yielded much, Sullivan said.
Google's new personal approach also raises a broader societal issue, Sullivan said.
"Until now, search has largely been a common experience," Sullivan said. Jon Stewart gets a lot of laughs over Rick Santorum's "Google problem" (a search for his last name brings up a graphically sexual definition of "santorum"). But if search results are tailored to the beliefs we hold and the people we know, chances are "we might not actually see the same thing Jon Stewart sees anymore," Sullivan said.
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FTC launches investigation of Google
– Jessica Guynn
Photos: Google's new "personal" search results. Credit: Google.
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LG introduced the Spectrum, a new high-end smartphone coming this month to Verizon, at the 2012 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Monday morning.
The new handset checks nearly all (but not all) the boxes a consumer might want from a current top-of-the-line smartphone.
The Spectrum features a 4.5-inch scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass touchscreen with a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (yes, that's a high-definition display) and a pixel density of 329 pixels per inch.
That pixel density is important because it could offer something similar in look to Apple's retina display on the iPhone 4 and 4S, which both feature a pixel density of more than 300 per inch. Any display with a ppi of 300 or greater is said be so dense that pixels are indistinguishable from one another to the human eye at a distance of 10 to 12 inches.
LG is capable of producing some impressive screens for mobile devices, as we've seen on the recently released LG Nitro HD for AT&T and the Barnes & Noble Nook Color and Nook Tablet slates.
Inside, the Spectrum will come with 16 gigabytes of storage on a microSD card, and run on a 1.5-gigahertz dual core processor from Qualcomm.
The Spectrum will run Google's Android Gingerbread operating system which is, for now, the one area on paper where the Spectrum is a bit behind as it's not running the newer Android Ice Cream Sandwich software out of the box. But LG did say on Monday that an upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich would arrive sometime after the Spectrum's release Jan. 19.
For $199.99 on a two-year contract, the Spectrum will also offer up an 8-megapixel camera that can shoot up to 1080p video, paired with a single LED flash. Up front is a 1.3-megapixel camera for video chatting.
ESPN will also provide high-definition streaming video to its Score Center app, which will come preloaded on the Spectrum, so sports fans can take advantage of the phones' HD display.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles in Las Vegas
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Images: The LG Spectrum smartphone. Credit: LG
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Google Search: More Quality Changes & Codenames!
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 12:05 PM
Saturday, January 7, 2012
December's list of Google search quality highlights is out and there are quite a few that you may want and pay close attention to you. Google has even added some codenames to the individual changes – which certainly makes it easier to track (and recognize).
Website Magazine's February 2012 issue recently covered several of the changes in an article titled Inside the Black Box. One of the most important improvements made last month (which Google reiterated this announcement) are about related queries. Sometimes Google fetches results for queries that are related but have fewer words. Google has changed its algorithms (codename "Lyndsy") to make results more conservative and less likely to introduce results without query words.
The recently published list is lengthy (30 total items) but really only a handful are going to make any significant impact to search optimization professionals as many are related to auto-suggest, etc. Some of the most noteworthy improvements and modifications include:
- Codename "Simple": An improvement that analyzes various landing page signals within image search. Google also made improvements to image size signal (codename "matter") which will result in users seeing images with larger full-size versions.
- Codename "Concepts": More relevant sitelinks may mean Google will show sitelinks specific to a metropolitan region (which can be controlled with location settings within Webmaster Tools).
- Codename "Greencr": Country-restricted search has arrived. Now, on domains other than .com, users have the option to see results from one particular country.
- Codename "Foby": More accurate byline dates were announced, which improves how Google handles what data to associate with a document. The result shoul dbe more accurate dates annotating search results.
A whole host of other changes were also announced including live results for NFL and college football, better lyric results, improved Hebrew synonyms and more. Perhaps most noteworthy of all the announcements is that the much discussed encrypted search feature is expanding into the UK, Germany and France.
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CES Preview: Google TV items on tap from Sony, Samsung, Vizio, LG
posted by Technology @ 7:51 PM
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Google is trying again with Google TV, and on Thursday it announced its partners for the television effort before hardware is unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas next week.
The lineup is mostly familiar, with LG, Samsung, Sony and Vizio producing Google TV products. Sony has released Google TV television sets and set-top boxes, and Samsung and Vizio both showed off prototype Google TV products at CES last year that never made it to market.
Absent from the Google TV hardware lineup this year is Logitech, which gave up on the Internet-connected TV software after its Google TV products failed to catch on with consumers, resulting in more returns than sales in the second quarter of 2011.
Marvell and MediaTek will produce chipsets for Google TV products.
LG "will showcase a new line of TVs powered by Google TV running on their own L9 chipset at CES," Google said, also noting that Samsung and Sony will have new Google TV devices on the market this year. LG said in its own statement that some of its Google TV sets will be 3-D.
Vizio will hold "private demos at CES showcasing their new line of Google TV-powered products," Google said.
The Technology blog will be at CES next week looking at Google TV products and other new gadgets, games and technologies, so stay tuned.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Sony's first-generation Internet-connected LCD television powered by Google's Android-based Google TV platform. Credit: Kiyoshi Ota / Bloomberg
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Yahoo names PayPal’s Scott Thompson new chief executive
posted by Technology @ 10:08 AM
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Four months after it fired Carol Bartz for failing to engineer a turnaround, struggling Internet company Yahoo has named Scott Thompson as her successor.
Thompson, who ran EBay's PayPal unit, could "refocus" Yahoo's business, which has deteriorated without a permanent chief executive officer, analysts said.
Thompson will focus on turning around Yahoo's “core business,” its media and advertising assets, and work closely with the board on a review of the company's strategy, Chairman Roy Bostock said.
Thompson starts Jan. 9. His appointment will not slow down the company's strategic review, which includes the possibility of unloading valuable stakes in Asian Internet companies and selling a minority stake to private equity investors.
Yahoo is still considering "a wide range of opportunities for the company's business as well as specific investments or dispositions of assets," Bostock said.
Thompson must boost Yahoo as it loses eyeballs and ad dollars to Google and Facebook. Yahoo still has an online audience of more than 700 million visitors a month. But it's quickly losing market share to Google and Facebook. Facebook catapulted over Yahoo in U.S. display ad revenue last year while Google remains the third-largest purveyor of display ads, according to research firm EMarketer.
Thompson, who ran PayPal since January 2008, is credited with increasing revenue to more than $4 billion from $1.8 billion. He helped the payments company expand into online daily deals and mobile payments. He also helped PayPal expand its number of users to more than 104 million from 50 million. But he lacks experience on the media content side of Yahoo's business.
Thompson is betting that Yahoo's business is stronger than people think.
That was also the opinion of Bartz, who during her tenure reduced costs and formed a search partnership with Microsoft, but could not help Yahoo regain its sales growth in advertising and search. Bostock fired Bartz over the phone. Tim Morse, who had been chief financial officer, became the interim chief executive in September. He will return to his post as chief financial officer.
Thompson's selection could signal that Yahoo is preparing to reclaim its mantle as a technology company.
"We believe the appointment of Scott Thompson as CEO is a slight positive for Yahoo as he will likely act quickly to provide direction to the company that it has lacked in the past few months," said Piper Jaffray & Co. analyst Gene Munster. "Thompson's background is strong in technology, but he lacks media experience. We believe this could suggest that Thompson will focus Yahoo more on technology than Carol Bartz or Terry Semel in the past."
Analysts cautioned that Yahoo faces significant challenges.
"As always execution will be key," Macquarie Capital analyst Ben Schachter said. "As much as we respect what Scott has done at PayPal, Yahoo faces significant challenges in terms of brand identity, technology infrastructure, employee morale, competitive challenges, the transition to mobile etc. To say that Scott has his work cut out for himself is an understatement."
Yahoo shares fell 34 cents, or 2%, to $15.91 in trading Wednesday. Shares of EBay fell $1.09 or 3% to $30.25.
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– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Carol Bartz, who was fired in September as CEO of Yahoo, has been replaced by PayPal's Scott Thompson. Photo credit: Paul Sakuma / Associated Press
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Sony has cut $100 off the price of its first tablet, the Tablet S, in a move to entice consumers to its Android slate.
Those who buy a Tablet S also receive a free 180-day trial of Sony's Music Unlimited service, as well as five free rentals from Sony's Video Unlimited Service.
Through the end of January, the company is offering up five free downloadable "Classic PlayStation" games in its PlayStation Store app for new Tablet S owners as well.
The price drop, as listed in Sony's online store, pushes the Tablet S down to $399.99 with 16 gigabytes of built-in storage or $499.99 for 32 gigabytes of storage.
The dual-screen Sony Tablet P, which made its debut alongside the Tablet S as a prototype in April, still hasn't been released or given a launch date, although the tech giant promises it is on the way.
The Tablet S features a 9.4-inch touchscreen with 1280 x 800 resolution and a wedge-like shape that makes the slate feel something like a rolled magazine in the hand. A Wi-Fi Internet connection is needed for use.
The device also has a 5-megapixel camera in the rear and a 0.3-megapixel camera up front, 1-gigabyte of RAM and a dual-core Nvidia Tegra2 processor. The tablet runs on Google's Android Honeycomb operating system, but Sony has promised an update to the newer Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A Sony Tablet S running Sony's Video Unlimited service. Credit: Sony
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Galaxy Nexus, on Android Ice Cream Sandwich, review [Video]
posted by Technology @ 3:51 PM
Saturday, December 31, 2011
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is one of the best smartphones on the market and in my opinion, it's the best all-around Android phone out there.
Just about everything you could want from a smartphone, the Galaxy Nexus has — and that's a really good thing considering that the phone is selling in the U.S. for $299 on a two-year 4G LTE data plan from Verizon.
Hardware
The phone, which Google and Samsung teamed up on to design, is just .37-inches thick, which is about the same thickness as Apple's iPhone. Inside, the Galaxy Nexus is packed with a 1.2-gigahertz dual-core processor, 1-gigabyte of RAM, 32-gigabytes of built-in storage and near field communications technology.
On the outside, you'll find a gigantic 4.65-inch touchscreen, which may be a bit too large for some. But, in use, the screen doesn't feel as massive as it is thanks to a thin bezel around the display.
The resolution of that screen is an impressive 1,280-by-720 pixels, which is high enough to be classified as high-definition. This provides a big, beautiful, bright canvas on which to watch videos, browse websites and read e-books.
The display is one of the best I've seen on just about any smartphone. It's a pentile display, which can lead to some pixelization from time to time, but the high resolution of the screen allows for smoother images than I've seen on low-resolution pentile screens.
Battery life on the Galaxy Nexus is pretty good for a 4G phone with such a large display. Over about a week and a half of testing, I regularly found that I could make it through an entire workday before I had to recharge the phone. Of course, the more you use the phone, the faster the battery life goes, and 3G phones still have better battery life. But as far as 4G phones go, the Galaxy Nexus is among the best I've used battery wise.
Phone calls were clear and reception on the Galaxy Nexus was also solid with Verizon's 4G service being fast and plentiful around Los Angeles during my testing.
Cameras
The Galaxy Nexus sports a 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera above the display, which works well for video chatting in a Google+ Hangout or with other video calling services. On the back is a 5-megapixel camera that can shoot up to 1080p video, paired with an LED flash.
Video shot on the phone looks good, but in the rear camera's still photos is where I found one of my few complaints with the Galaxy Nexus. By no means is 5-megapixels a weak camera, but the sharpness and color reproduction of photos I shot on the Galaxy Nexus wasn't at the level of 8-megapixel shooters I've seen on other top handsets such as the iPhone, the Motorola Droid Bionic and Razr and the Samsung Galaxy S II.
One huge plus on the Galaxy Nexus for still photos is the ability to take photos with almost no shutter lag at all. Snapping a picture is nearly instantaneous and while this results in taking some blurry photos from time to time, it should also allow Galaxy Nexus owners to miss fewer moments with their phones than with many other handsets.
Design
The look of the Galaxy Nexus is clean and simple. If you've seen the Galaxy S II, then you won't be too surprised style-wise with the Galaxy Nexus. It's thin and even has a slight bump at the bottom, housing a speaker and microphone, just as the Galaxy S II does.
The front of the phone is thankfully devoid of any Samsung, Google or Verizon logos, which is something I'd like to see from more smartphones. On the right side, toward the top is a power button that also wakes the phone or puts it to sleep. On the left is a volume rocker. A mini-USB port for charging the phone is on the bottom, as is a headphone jack.
The whole of the device, except for the screen, is covered in a dark gray plastic which offers an understated look. The back of the Galaxy Nexus has a removable plastic cover, which conceals the SIM-card slot and battery. Unfortunately, this panel has a thin, flimsy feel to it that is also reminiscent of the Galaxy S II.
You won't find any premium materials on the Galaxy Nexus as you may find on other rival high-end handsets. But while the phone doesn't feel luxurious, it's still durable and well-built.
Android Ice Cream Sandwich
Though the hardware offered is mighty by current standards, the best part of the Galaxy Nexus is undoubtedly its software — Google's Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.
The Galaxy Nexus is the first device on the market to run Ice Cream Sandwich, which is the biggest overhaul of Android since its debut in 2008. Ice Cream Sandwich is also the first version of Android designed to run on phones and tablets.
Ice Cream Sandwich feels like a turning point for Android. Sure it's the most widely used mobile operating system in the world, but Android has never felt as polished, easy to use, fast or efficient as Apple's iOS. It lacked the design cohesiveness seen in both iOS and Microsoft's Windows Phone too.
Things now are a bit different thanks to Ice Cream Sandwich. Nearly everything has been redesigned and given a new look. This is the first version of Android that I truly enjoyed using — every tap, touch, pinch and swipe. And that can be attributed to its clean style and the fact that Ice Cream Sandwich is simpler and easier to use than any Android before it.
Gone are the four physical buttons built into the front of Android phones. In Ice Cream Sandwich, all the buttons used for the OS and apps are on-screen and can appear or disappear as needed. The OS makes use of three buttons instead of four: a back button, to get you out of whatever you're doing at the time; a home button, which takes you to your default home screen, and a recent apps button for easy efficient multitasking.
Hit the recent apps button, and a column of screenshots of recent apps will show up (similar to multitasking in Android Honeycomb, the previous version of Android built specifically for tablets). But now, closing down an app running in the background is much easier to do. To close an app, just swipe it to the right or left and it will smoothly roll off screen and out of your queue.
In the pull-down notification center, to discard a notification, just swipe it left or right. If you're in Ice Cream Sandwich's Gmail app, reading an newer or older email requires a left or right swipe as well. This repeated gesture feels like one more example of a new level of thoughtfulness brought to Android in Ice Cream Sandwich.
Other improvements include a contacts app that pulls in contact information from Facebook, Twitter and Google+. For Google+ users, contacts can be viewed by circles of friends, co-workers or whatever groups you set up. The Google search bar now follows you as you swipe across the five home screens of Android.
Virtual buttons rotate to different sides of the screen as you rotate the phone from portrait to landscape orientation. And now, finally, Android has app folders — just move one app icon onto another to create a folder, it's that simple.
A new font designed for Ice Cream Sandwich called Roboto is used throughout the new OS, adding to the feeling that Android finally has an identifiable style, which it previously lacked.
Google also built tools into Ice Cream Sandwich's settings menu that detail how much data has been consumed by your phone toward the 2.0-gigabyte cap Verizon puts on its users. You can also view how much data is used by each specific app and set a data usage limit to keep from using so much data that overage charges rack up.
Of course, there are some downsides as not all apps are optimized for Ice Cream Sandwich or the Galaxy Nexus' huge screen and iOS still has a superior app selection.
Also, Ice Cream Sandwich offers users the option of a "Face Unlock" feature that uses facial recognition technology to open the phone from its lock screen. It works fast and is an alternative to not locking the phone, or locking it with a passcode or gesture. But the phone doesn't just recognize actual faces, it also recognizes picutures of faces. With Face Unlock turned on, I was able to unlock the Galaxy Nexus with an iPhone displaying a photo of myself — not exactly the most secure option.
The bottom line
Android Ice Cream Sandwich is without question the best version of Android thus far. When combined with such fantastic hardware, its hard not to pick the Galaxy Nexus as the best overall Android phone on the market.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Motorola Droid Xyboard tablet prices drop $50, with Verizon plan
posted by Technology @ 11:03 AM
Friday, December 30, 2011
Like the Xoom tablets before them, Motorola's two latest Android tablets, known as the Droid Xyboard 8.2 and Droid Xyboard 10.1, sit on the high side of tablet prices.
Thankfully, Verizon has dropped the price of the Xyboards by $50 — as long as you sign up for a two-year data plan for your device as well.
When the Xyboard line launched earlier this month, the Xyboard 8.2 (with an 8.2-inch display) was priced at $430 with 16 gigabytes of built-in storage or $530 for 32 gigabytes of storage, on a 4G LTE contract.
At launch, the Xyboard 10.1 (with a 10.1-inch screen) rolled out in three storage options and three different prices on contract. A Xyboard 10.1 with 16 gigabytes of storage fetched $530, a 32-gigabyte model sold for $630 and a 64-gigabyte unit ran $730.
With the $50 across-the-board price cut, the Xyboard 8.2 starts at $380 and the Xyboard 10.1 starts at $480, each with a two-year data plan.
While the price is lower and undercuts the Apple iPad (which is the best selling tablet on the market), it's still on the higher end of current tablet prices.
As noted by The Verge, which first reported on the price drop, it isn't clear whether or not this price drop is a permanent move or a temporary cut. Verizon is currently running a $50-off 4G LTE tablet promotion that ends Saturday. Verizon officials weren't available for comment on Friday morning.
If you're looking for a Xyboard and don't want to take on the two-year contract, the price of the tablets won't be receiving a price drop. Instead, the Xyboard 8.2 starts at $599.99 and Xyboard 10.1 starts at $699.99 free of contract.
Aside from the different prices, screen sizes and storage options, the Xyboards are largely the same. The tablet line runs on Google's Android Honeycomb operating system, although an upgrade to the Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system is said to be in the works.
Regardless of screen size, the Xyboards feature a resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, a 1.2-gigahertz dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, a 5-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash, a front-facing camera for video chatting, and micro USB and HDMI ports. Unlike the Xyboard 8.2, the Xyboard 10.1 can also make use of a stylus.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: The Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet. Credit: Motorola/Verizon Wireless
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Google, Facebook, YouTube are most visited websites in 2011
posted by Technology @ 8:00 PM
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Google, Facebook and YouTube racked up the most unique visitors among U.S. websites in 2011, according to new data from the research group Nielsen.
Not necessarily the most surprising news is it? What may be a bit more interesting is that, despite its rapid growth, Google+ was on average visited by fewer users than Myspace this year, according to Nielsen. Google+ was released in beta in July and opened to the public in September.
The Nielsen data also doesn't cover the entire year, only January to October.
According to Nielsen, the top 10 U.S. social networks and blogs, by page views, in 2011 were:
1. Facebook — 137.6 million average page views per month
2. Blogger — 45.5 million average page views per month
3. Twitter.com — 23.6 million average page views per month
4. WordPress.com — 20.4 million average page views per month
5. Myspace.com — 17.9 million average page views per month
6. LinkedIn — 17 million average page views per month
7. Tumblr — 10.9 million average page views per month
8. Google+ — 8.2 million average page views per month
9. Yahoo! Pulse — 8 million average page views per month
10. Six Apart/TypePad — 7 million average page views per month
Nielsen also reported that the 10 most visited overall U.S. Web brands in 2011 were:
1. Google — 153.4 million average page views per month
2. Facebook — 137.6 million average page views per month
3. Yahoo! — 130.1 million average page views per month
4. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing – 115.9 million average page views per month
5. YouTube — 106.7 million average page views per month
6. Microsoft — 83.8 million average page views per month
7. AOL Media Network — 74.6 million average page views per month
8. Wikipedia — 62 million average page views per month
9. Apple — 61.6 million average page views per month
10. Ask Search Network — 60.5 million average page views per month
And finally, the top 10 U.S. Web brands for video, according to Nielsen's data:
1. YouTube — 111.1 million average page views per month
2. Vevo — 34.6 million average page views per month
3. Facebook — 29.8 million average page views per month
4. Yahoo! — 25.3 million average page views per month
5. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing — 16.6 million average page views per month
6. AOL Media Network — 13.3 million average page views per month
7. Hulu — 13.1 million average page views per month
8. The CollegeHumor Network — 12.5 million average page views per month
9. CNN Digital Network — 8.3 million average page views per month
10. Netflix — 7.4 million average page views per month
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of plus.google.com. Credit: Google
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MySpace’s Tom Anderson weighs in on censored pics on Google+
posted by Technology @ 3:36 PM
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Call it the tempest in Google+.
Former TechCrunch writer and current blogger/venture capitalist MG Siegler stirred things up this week by complaining that Google's politically correct overlords had censored his profile picture because in it — not sure how to put this delicately — he was giving the world the finger.
SearchEngineLand's Danny Sullivan explained Google's rationale (in a post on Google+): "Why's Google care so much if +MG Siegler wants a middle finger in his Google+ profile picture? Because in turn, that has him giving the finger in Google's search results. And that mess is kind of Google's own doing on how it has linked author pictures so much to Google+ profiles."
Now in a blast from the past, Tom Anderson has taken to Google+ to pounce on the debate. As the co-founder of Myspace, the guy who was everyone's automatic friend on the service, he has a lot to say including this: MySpace became a "cesspool" because people put up all kinds of potentially offensive content.
"All Google+ has done here is execute on its stated plan: removing offensive photos. This is Facebook’s plan, Twitter's plan and Myspace's before it. When you’re processing hundreds of thousands of photos a day (and in Facebook’s case, millions a day), it’s not easy to spot such material (even with algorithms). It’s not that Google+ has decided to do things differently, it’s just that they’re ahead of the game and doing things better," Anderson wrote.
Further, Anderson says users of Google+ (and presumably Google) "don't need to see you flipping us off, nor do we need to see you naked, or displaying something else generally considered offensive. When a social network lets that stuff slide, it turns into a cesspool that no one wants to visit … sorta like Myspace was."
In a Twitter post, Siegler responds: "As much as I enjoy #fingergate I do have this other job I'm attempting to do…"
The real beneficiary may be Google+ itself which, if you believe predictions from the armchair statisticians out there, is starting to get some real traction.
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– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Surfboards decorate the main lobby at one of Google's offices in Santa Monica in 2007. Credit: Anne Cusack / Los Angeles Times
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Samsung ships 1 million Galaxy Notes, says U.S. release coming
posted by Technology @ 11:06 AM
Thursday, December 29, 2011
With a stylus and a 5.3-inch touch screen, the Samsung Galaxy Note has prompted the question, is it a phone or a tablet?
For about 1 million people in Asia and Europe, what it's classified as may not matter much.
Samsung said in a statement posted to the photo-sharing site Flickr that it has shipped more than 1 million Galaxy Notes globally and that "worldwide sales of Galaxy Note are also on the rise in Europe and Asia including France, Germany, Hong Kong and Taiwan."
The Korean tech giant didn't disclose specific sales numbers, but said that the "rapid global sales of Galaxy Note are notable since it is creating a new market for something between smartphone and tablet pc."
The Galaxy Note, which does make phone calls, will also arrive in the U.S. sometime next year, Samsung said. A tip-of-the-hat goes to the Verge, which first reported on Samsung's Flickr statement.
The device has been released thus far running a modified version of Google's Android Gingerbread operating system, but Samsung has said that the Galaxy Note will be updated to Android Ice Cream Sandwich in the first quarter of 2012. Samsung has yet to offer up a U.S. retail price.
So what do you think? Is the Galaxy Note just a big phone? Or is it really a new class of gadget? If so, what should it be called — maybe a phoblet or a tabone? Sound off in the comments.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: D.J. Lee, executive vice president of Samsung, unveils the Galaxy Note at Berlin's IFA mobile trade show in September. Credit: Odd Andersen / AFP/Getty Images
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Windows Phone reportedly passes 50,000 apps
posted by Technology @ 3:02 PM
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Microsoft's Windows Phone operating system has reportedly passed 50,000 published apps, hitting the milestone just 14 months after its launch.
The 14-month time frame for 50,000 apps is second only to Apple's iOS, which hit 50,000 published apps in 12 months, according to a report from All About Windows Phone, a website that tracks Windows Phone apps and hosts a Windows Phone app directory as well.
Google's Android reached 50,000 apps published in its Anroid Market in 19 months, the report said.
For its part, Microsoft declined to comment on the report, neither confirming nor denying that it has passed the 50,000 mark. All About Windows Phone, a site not affiliated with Microsoft, said it compiled its data "from our own tracking system," which is also used to power its directory of Windows Phone apps.
"It took just over a year to get to 40,000 apps, but just 40 days to add the next 10,000 apps," showing increased growth for the Windows Phone operating system, Rafe Blandford, who runs the All About Windows Phone site, wrote in the site's report.
But just because more than 50,000 apps published doesn't mean that every Windows Phone user has access to all of those apps, Blandford said.
"Of the 50,126 items published to the Marketplace, just under 6,000 are no longer available," meaning they were removed by Microsoft or withdrawn by the publisher, he said. "In addition, some apps are only available in select markets. This means the number of available items to a consumer, in a given market, is lower than the number of published items."
In the U.S., about 42,655 apps are available for download, the report said.
Of the apps published to the Windows Phone Marketplace storefront, about 58% are free, compared with about 69% of apps being free in Google's Android Market and about 43% free in Apple's iOS App Store, Blandford said.
Both Android and iOS have published about 10 times more apps than Windows Phone so far, he said, though the two rivals have been offering downloadable apps since 2008.
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The Foursquare app running on a Windows Phone handset. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Android Ice Cream Sandwich coming to Sony Tablets
posted by Technology @ 9:54 AM
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Sony has announced that its tablets, the Tablet S and Tablet P, will receive upgrades to Google's Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.
The tech giant, however, isn't yet saying when Ice Cream Sandwich will hit its tablets, of which only the Tablet S is on sale.
The Tablet S, which features a tapered shape resembling a rolled-back magazine and a 9.4-inch touch screen, went on sale in September at a price of $500.
Meanwhile, the Tablet P — a clamshell device with two 5.5-inch touchscreens and a hinge running through the middle of the displays that allows it to close on itself, screen to screen — was announced in April but has yet to hit stores or even get a solid release date.
Both devices currently run Android 3.0 Honeycomb, but that will soon change, Sony said in a forum posting on its website, as first reported by PCMag.com.
"We're happy to confirm that an update to Android 4.0 will be available for Sony Tablet," Sony said in a statement posted to its company forums. "Details including timing will be announced in due course, so please stay tuned."
Sony also said in the forum posting that it recently released a software development kit for the dual-screen Tablet P to help aid developers looking to create apps specifically for that device.
The company has previously stated that Ice Cream Sandwich, the first version of Android designed for use on both phones and tablets, will be heading to 11 Sony Ericsson smartphones next year as well.
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Image: Sony's Tablet S, left, and Tablet P. Credit: Sony
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Google+ may reach 400 million users by end of 2012
posted by Technology @ 8:55 PM
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
It's a guessing game but only Google has the real answers: How many users does its Google+ social networking service have? And how actively are they using it?
The Internet search giant is adding 625,000 new users a day to the service and will finish 2012 with 400 million, said Paul B. Allen, founder of Ancestry.com.
Allen, who calls himself Google+'s unofficial statistician, has been estimating the number of users on the service that seeks to challenge Facebook, which has more than 800 million and is preparing for an initial public offering next year that could raise as much as $100 billion. Google, which is stepping up its game in the social arena with Larry Page at the helm, said in October that it had 40 million users.
"It may be the holidays, the TV commercials, the Android 4 sign-ups, celebrity and brand appeal, or positive word of mouth, or a combination of all these factors, but there is no question that the number of new users signing up for Google+ each day has accelerated markedly in the past several weeks," wrote Allen, founder and CEO of FamilyLink.com, a company he helped start in 2006 with other Ancestry.com alumni.
But Allen is not measuring active users, which is what Facebook measures. He's just measuring total users. The real question, as TechCrunch's Eric Eldon points out, is how many people are hanging out on Google+ after creating accounts.
Last week, ComScore reported that Google+ had grown to 67 million monthly unique visitors in November, up 2 million from October. But that's measuring visitors.
Still, the two analyses do suggest that Google+ is growing.
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– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Google CEO Larry Page. Credit: Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
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Nearly 7 million Apple, Android devices light up on Christmas Day
posted by Technology @ 7:00 PM
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Apple and Android mobile devices lit up like Christmas lights on Dec. 25 as people the world over pulled a smartphone from their stocking.
People fired up 6.8 million Apple and Android devices on Christmas Day, more than doubling the 2.5 million that they activated on the same day last year, according to Flurry Analytics, a mobile metrics firm that tracks activity from 140,000 apps.
On the days leading up to Christmas, people activated about 1.5 million Apple and Android smartphones and tablets each day.
But on Christmas itself, activations shot up more than 350%, to 6.8 million. (The report does not disclose whether Apple or Google-powered devices accounted for a larger share of that number).
Perhaps a bit predictably, Christmas Day app downloads began to rocket up around 6 a.m., and remained high throughout the day until they hit a peak around 8 p.m. — that is, after dinner, when sated revelers can play with their new toys in earnest. More than 15 million apps were downloaded between 7 and 9 p.m. alone, if you line up all the world's time zones.
The Flurry report notes that app downloads have shot up in 2011, with Apple users downloading close to 10 billion this year, as many as in the previous three years combined. Google's Android devices have seen similarly rapid growth.
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LG: Android Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade due for 11 phones
posted by Technology @ 10:29 AM
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
LG has detailed its Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich plans and 11 of its smartphones are due for the update to the latest Google mobile operating system.
The updates will begin in the "second and third quarters of 2012, which will be followed by a global rollout," LG said on its company Facebook page on Monday. "During the second quarter of 2012 upgrades will begin for the following smartphone models: the LG Optimus LTE, Prada phone by LG 3.0, the LG Optimus 2X, the LG Optimus Sol, the LG my Touch Q and the LG Eclipse.
"These upgrades will be followed by upgrades for the following smartphone models during the third quarter of 2012: the LG Optimus 3D, the LG Optimus Black, the LG Optimus Big, the LG Optimus Q2 and the LG Optimus EX."
Not all LG Android phones will get the upgrades. Noticeably absent from the list was AT&T's recently released LG Nitro HD, T-Mobile's LG G2X and the LG Thrill 4G.
However, these phones may yet get the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade since they are rebranded versions of phones that are scheduled for updates. The Nitro HD is a rebranded version of the Optimus LTE, the G2X is a redubbed Optimus 2X, and the Thrill 4G is a renamed Optimus 3D.
Also missing from the list was the dual-screen LG DoublePlay and T-Mobile's LG MyTouch, which is largely the same phone as the MyTouch Q but without the MyTouch Q's sliding keyboard, and G-Slate tablet.
Officials at LG were not available Tuesday to comment on the upgrade status of the Nitro HD, G2X, Thrill 4G, DoublePlay, T-Mobile MyTouch and G-Slate.
"The exact start dates can vary by market, as each country can have different requirements, depending on the carrier and the smartphone model," LG said in its statement. "Further details on the ICS OS upgrade, including their exact start dates, will be released prior to their commencement."
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The LG Nitro HD smartphone, available from AT&T. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh / Los Angeles Times
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Five ways to get started with your new Android phone
posted by Technology @ 11:33 AM
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Did you unwrap your gifts this Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Festivus to find that you're the proud new owner of an Android? If so, welcome to the world of Google-powered smartphones.
Millions of others around the globe own phones running Google's Android operating system, across dozens of devices with varying screen sizes and specs. These phones might be from one of more than a dozen hardware makers, running on just about every wireless network out there.
Given the variation, Android can be a bit fragmented, but no matter what your Android looks like, here are a few basics that can help you get started if you're new to smartphone ownership.
1. Set up your Google Account: To use an Android phone you'll need to have a Google Account, which means you'll have to set up a Gmail.com email address if you don't already have one. Your Google Account is, of course, the login identity that follows you as you use all things Google — Gmail, YouTube, Google Docs, Google Maps, Google Calendar, Blogger and anything else Google produces. This can add some convenience to your life by automatically syncing your contacts and calendars across your computer and your smartphone if you make use of Google's services for keeping track of all that information.
2. Get yourself some apps: The major differentiator between smartphones and other cellphones, aside from the ability to send and receive email, is the mobile app. Android phones have the second largest app store, behind only Apple's App Store for its iPhone/iPod/iPad lineup. Unlike Apple's i-devices, Android users have the option of getting their apps from Google or from third parties. The top two places to find apps currently are Google's official Android Market and the Amazon Appstore for Android. Both stores offer a wide selection of apps and games that have been tested and vetted before being sold, to help prevent apps filled with viruses and other malware from making it out to Android users. Amazon also allows you to test many apps, which can be helpful before downloading. Some basic apps we really like for Android: Pulse is a great news reading app if you like to read news from multiple websites and Cut the Rope is a fun game that can be a bit tougher than Angry Birds but is just as fun.
3. Social networking: Android phones are among the best choices for staying on top of your social networks. The official Twitter app is thoughtfully designed and can help you keep up with the fast-paced social network. Path is a social network that is by default private and designed for easily sharing what's going on in your life with close friends, but you can also share to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Foursquare from Path as well. And, of course, there is Google+. The Google+ Android app isn't the greatest social networking experience in mobile apps, and falls far below Twitter, Path and Facebook in terms of looks and usability, but if you were lucky enough to receive the Galaxy Nexus smartphone this holiday, which runs Ice Cream Sandwich (the latest version of Android) this might not be as big of a problem. In Ice Cream Sandwich, Google has baked-on Google+, allowing for automatic photo sharing and the ability to even read emails in your Gmail inbox by circles of friends on the network.
4. Check out Google Music: For many, the smartphone is also a portable music player, and if you're not already a big iTunes or Amazon customer for music, Google's own Google Music is worth a serious look. Google Music on a PC isn't as easy to use as iTunes, but it does allow you to sync your purchases and music library to the cloud for streaming or easy downloads on the go. Also, Google so far has done a great job on pricing, with hundreds of songs as low as 49 cents and albums as low as $4.99.
5. Talk to friends: As suggested by my colleague Deborah Netburn in her "Five Ways to Get Started With Your New iPad" post, talking to others who own and use Android on a daily basis is a good call. This shouldn't be too tough considering that Android is the most widely used mobile operating system worldwide.
Do you have any other suggestions for new Android owners? Feel free to sound off in the comments.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The Motorola Droid Bionic from Verizon Wireless, left, and the Samsung Galaxy S II Epic 4G Touch from Sprint. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh/Los Angeles Times
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No Ice Cream Sandwich for Samsung’s Galaxy S and first Galaxy Tab
posted by Technology @ 1:17 PM
Friday, December 23, 2011
Samsung on Friday confirmed that yes, the original Galaxy S phone and Galaxy Tab tablet won't receive upgrades to the latest version of Google's Android operating system, Ice Cream Sandwich.
The disappointing news seemed to be coming after Samsung announced which of its Android devices would get the Ice Cream Sandwich update on Tuesday, while leaving the popular Galaxy S and first-generation Galaxy Tab off the list.
But on Friday, Samsung explained itself in a company blog post on its Korean website, which was reported on by the websites Xataka Movil and The Verge.
In its post, the South Korean company says that the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab won't be upgraded because the two devices lack the necessary hardware, namely not having enough RAM and ROM, to power Ice Cream Sandwich after Samsung puts its TouchWiz user interface changes over the top of the software.
The argument seems understandable for the sluggish performer that is the first Galaxy Tab, which launched in U.S. stores November 2010. But the Galaxy S, which launched in June 2010, isn't a performance dud by any means, with a 1-gigahertz processor, 512-megabytes of RAM and either 8 or 16 gigabytes of built-in storage.
As noted by The Verge, the Galaxy S has the same internal hardware found inside the Samsung Nexus S, which has been upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich.
So why is the Nexus S getting Ice Cream Sandwich and not the Galaxy S? The reason, according to Samsung, is that the Nexus S runs a pure version of Android with no third-party changes to the operating system, while the Galaxy S has to maintain TouchWiz and other carrier-specific software additions as well.
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Samsung Galaxy Nexus finally hitting U.S. retailers
Samsung Galaxy phones, tabs to get Ice Cream Sandwich in 2012
Google's Andy Rubin: Over 700,000 Android devices activated daily
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Taking a photo on the Samsung Galaxy Tab. Credit: Los Angeles Times
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If your business has been hesitant about creating a Google+ brand page, perhaps a good New Year's resolution would be for your company to get on board — or at least consider it.
According to a recent BrightEdge SocialShare study, December saw an increase in Google+ adoption from the top 100 brands, as well as a major increase in fans within the circles of Google+ brand pages.
Currently, 77 percent of the top 100 brands now have Google+ pages. This is a huge number, especially since many Fortune 500 brands are without Twitter or Facebook accounts.
There has also been an increase of more than 50 percent of people within circles of the top 100 brands over the past month. For example, Starbucks almost quadrupled its social followers, while H & M and Pepsi hit more than 20,000 people in their circles.
But if all that information is not enough of an incentive to create a brand page for your business on Google+, this might be – Google has embedded Google+ pages from brands on search engine result pages. Meaning more visibility for your business.
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Yahoo's search influence may be waning, but it seems to be all good news for Bing.
In under three years, the Microsoft-owned Bing, which actually powers Yahoo Search, crept up to almost tie Yahoo's share of the search engine market. Comparatively, Yahoo has been in the search game since 1995.
comScore officially reported last week that Bing now has 15 percent of the search engine market, a statistic that shows pretty impressive growth in the company's short lifespan. Yahoo barely squeaks by in second place with just 15.1 percent of the market.
There are many possible reasons for Bing's climb, including being attached to the Microsoft brand (which provides both recognition from users and integration into various Microsoft products) and Yahoo's recent trend of focusing on projects that decidedly aren't search-related.
Of course, both are still proverbial small potatoes compared to Google, which holds over 65 percent of the market alone.
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Google-Firefox search deal reportedly worth $900 million
posted by Technology @ 3:34 PM
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Google is reportedly paying Mozilla about $900 million over the next three years to remain the default search engine in the Firefox Web browser.
The two parties this week renewed their longstanding partnership to keep Google as the default search engine, rather than moving to alternative such as Yahoo or Microsoft's Bing. When the agreement was announced, neither disclosed financial terms.
On Thursday, the website AllThingsD reported that the deal would call for Google to pay the nonprofit Mozilla about $300 million a year for the next three years.
"We're pleased to announce that we have negotiated a significant and mutually beneficial revenue agreement with Google," Mozilla said in a blog post Tuesday. "This new agreement extends our long-term search relationship with Google for at least three additional years."
Mozilla said the financial details weren't disclosed because the deal is "subject to traditional confidentiality requirements."
If the AllThingsD report is true, the new deal would be a huge revenue increase: Mozilla's total revenue last year was just $123 million, according to the website ZDNet.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of Mozilla.org in the Firefox Web browser. Credit: Mozilla
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Britney Spears first person with 1 million Google+ followers
posted by Technology @ 12:57 PM
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Click me baby one more time.
Britney Spears is the first person to get more than 1 million followers on Google+. As of this writing, she had 1.08 million according to Social Statistics. Google's founder, Larry Page, is the second most popular person on Google+ with 926,161 followers. Snoop Dogg comes in third with 930,292 followers.
Spears, who turned 30 this month, has a pretty robust social media presence — she is the fifth-most followed person on Twitter with 11.9 million following her tweets, and 15.7 million fans "like" her Facebook page.
But that doesn't put her anywhere close to the top of Facebook's most popular list. Currently, Eminem is the most "liked" person there with 38.7 million likes.
So why is Spears the queen of Google+?
Well, if you go to BritneySpears.com you'll find a giant Google+ icon on the bottom right, that takes up nearly one-sixth of the page. By comparison, there appears to be no Google+ icon anywhere on Rihanna's website Rihanna.com.
If you want it, you've got to work for it people!
Wondering what the most successful Google+ user in the world is sharing? Here's a taste:
"OMG. Last night Jason surprised me with the one gift I've been waiting for. Can't wait to show you! SO SO SO excited!!!! Xxo"
And:
"Still glowing! About to jump on a plane to Planet Hollywood in Vegas. Throwing a Bday Party for Jason at Chateau Night Club. So fun. Xxoo"
That last post got 500 comments on Google+. The star (or her team) posted the same thing on Facebook, where more than 1,300 people commented on it.
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– Deborah Netburn
Image: A screen grab of BritneySpears.com which shows how the site prominently features Google+.
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Google’s Andy Rubin: Over 700,000 Android devices activated daily
posted by Technology @ 11:28 AM
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Google's Android, the world's most widely used mobile operating system, keeps on growing and is activated on more than 700,000 smartphones and tablets each day.
Andy Rubin, Google's senior vice president of mobile, who oversees the Android operating system, announced the latest Android statistic in one quick sentence on his Google+ page and on Twitter, writing:
There are now over 700,000 Android devices activated every day
Later, Rubin added on Google+:
…and for those wondering, we count each device only once (ie, we don't count re-sold devices), and "activations" means you go into a store, buy a device, put it on the network by subscribing to a wireless service.
To put that all in a bit of perspective, Android activations are up from more than 500,000 a day in June and 300,000 daily activations in December 2010.
Last week, the research firm NPD Group said that Android's share of smartphone sales in the U.S. grew to 53% from January through October, up from 42% in 2010.
Since January of this year, Android has been the most widely used mobile operating system worldwide as well.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screenshot of Google executive Andy Rubin announcing on Google+ that the Android mobile operating system has passed 700,000 daily activations. Credit: Andy Rubin/Google
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Google investing $94 million in Sacramento-area solar plants
posted by Technology @ 8:43 PM
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Google announced that it's investing $94 million in solar panel farms in the Sacramento area.
The money will go toward four photovoltaic, or PV, panel farms built by San Francisco-based Recurrent Energy, owned by tech-giant Sharp, and will help fuel the project alongside funding from investment firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., said Axel Martinez, Google's assistant treasurer, in a company blog post Tuesday.
The investment pushes Google's portfolio of clean energy investments to more than $915 million, $880 million of which has been invested since January, Martinez said. Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Recurrent and Google did not disclose how much Kohlberg Kravis Roberts was investing in the project.
"We're already committed to providing funding this year to help more than 10,000 homeowners install solar PV panels on their rooftops," he said. "But this investment represents our first investment in the U.S. in larger scale solar PV power plants that generate energy for the grid — instead of on individual rooftops."
Martinez said the effort will produce about 88 megawatts of power, or about the amount of energy needed to power "the electricity consumed by more than 13,000 homes."
The investment is the first in which Google and KKR are partnering, but it is likely not the last, he said.
"We believe investing in the renewable energy sector makes business sense and hope clean energy projects continue to attract new sources of capital to help the world move towards a more sustainable energy future," Martinez said.
The power that will be produced by the four solar farms "is already contracted for 20 years with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District," he said.
Let It Snow! And five other super-fun Google tricks
Google awarded U.S. patent for driverless car technology
Sens. Herb Kohl and Mike Lee call for Google antitrust probe
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A Recurrent Energy solar panel farm. Credit: Google
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Final Brand Page Changes for Google+ in 2011
posted by Michael Garrity @ 2:15 PM
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Google+ wants to know who the 50 most important people in your company are; or, at least, the 50 most important people related to social media.
As a present to its users, both brands and regular Joes, Google+ pulled out a few last updates for 2011 in preparation for what should be a pretty successful 2012 for the social network. Arguably the two biggest changes to the product are those that will affect businesses and users: stream noise controls and clearer notifications.
Let's be honest, the Google+ homepage can get really cluttered. Luckily, more observant members of the Plus team noticed this and resolved to do something about it; the result is a stream noise control feature that allows users to determine which of their circles they're most interested in, giving them more control over what is seen in their streams (and how much of it). Circles now come equipped with sliders (think volume control sliders) that let a user determine the amount of material that each circle includes in the general stream.
Also, they company has added sneak previews to the new "Google bar" that sits atop Google-related pages. Now, when users click on their glowing red notification indicator, they'll be able to see what's happening on the social network and determine how interested they are in the material without having to leave the page and go to the content. This notification tab has been upgraded with some other "meaningful improvements," such as letting users see +1s and shares to posts received since they last time they were on.
For brands, Google+ Pages are getting some pretty notable enhancements, as well. Brands can now let more of their employees socialize; before, just one user was given access to a brand page, which can be a big hindrance to some businesses, especially larger, enterprise-level companies. The latest update allows up to 50 moderaters for each Google+ Page.
In addition, notifications are changed so that all of a brand's administrators are aware of activity taking place on the page, including a new metric displayed on the page that tells both administrators and visitors that shows how many people have engaged with the it through +1s or by encircling it.
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Samsung Galaxy phones, tabs to get Ice Cream Sandwich in 2012
posted by Technology @ 10:33 AM
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Samsung said Tuesday that upgrades to Google's new Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system are due early next year for its lineup of Galaxy smartphones and tablets.
That should be welcome news to owners of Galaxy devices who might feel a bit behind after last week's launch of the new Galaxy Nexus phone, the first device to run on Ice Cream Sandwich.
All of Galaxy phones and tablets for sale will receive the software upgrades, Samsung said in a blog post. The Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note phones will be updated in the first quarter 2012 "and other Galaxy devices will soon follow," Samsung said.
Among the other Galaxy products promised for updates are the Galaxy R phone and the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 7.7 and Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus tablets.
Older Galaxy devices no longer on sale, such last year's original Galaxy Tab, aren't set to receive the upgrades.
Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system, is the first version of Android designed to work on both smartphones and tablets and adds many new features such as "face unlock," which removes the needs for passwords to unlock a phone by enabling the phone to recognize its owner's face looking at the screen.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Visitors walk past Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 on display in Seoul on Oct. 13. Credit: Jo Yong-Hak/Reuters
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ITC to ban select HTC Android phones in Apple patent win
posted by Technology @ 6:56 PM
Monday, December 19, 2011
Apple landed a potentially major victory against HTC on Monday after the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled in its favor and found that some of HTC's Android smartphones and tablets violated one of its patents.
In its ruling on the patent dispute between Apple and HTC, the ITC also handed down a ban on the importing of specific HTC Android devices that goes into affect April 19, 2012.
The HTC phones or tablets banned by the ITC will include any that run on Google's Android 1.6 Donut to 2.2 Froyo mobile operating system, according to Gizmodo.
The decision doesn't specifically call for an import ban on phones running newer versions of Android such as 2.3 Gingerbread, 3.0 Honeycomb or the new 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. Most newer HTC phones and tablets run on Android Gingerbread, and some (such as the HTC Rezound) are due for upgrades to Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
In its complaint to the ITC, Apple accused HTC of violating a number of its patents, each of which are older than smartphones themselves.
But the ITC found HTC in violation of only one of Apple's patents — patent 5,946,647, which Apple was awarded in February 1996 and covers the "system and method for performing an action on a structure in computer-generated data," or basically a patent for handling the actions that take place in the background when you do something as simple as tapping a link in an email to open it in a Web browser.
In an emailed statement, HTC lawyer Grace Lei said that the company was pleased that the ITC found that it wasn't in violation of all the patents Apple accused it of infringing. As for the one patent it was found to be in violation of — patent 5,946,647 — HTC said it would alter its use of Android to avoid the problem.
"We are very pleased with the determination and we respect it," Lei said. "However, the 647 patent is a small UI experience and HTC will completely remove it from all of our phones soon."
Apple officials were not available to comment on the commission ruling Monday.
From here, the ruling still has to be approved by the ITC's president, who has 60 days to sign off on the decision or veto it.
If the decision sticks and the import ban comes to fruition, HTC will still be able to sell whatever it has in the U.S. before April 19 of next year. The Taiwanese company also has until Dec. 19, 2013, to import refurbished devices "to be provided to consumers as replacements under warranty or an insurance contract (whether the warranty or contract is offered by HTC, a carrier, or by a third party)," the ITC said in its ruling.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The HTC G1, left, and Apple iPhone 4S smartphones. The G1 was one of a number of HTC smartphones found to be in violation of an Apple-owned patent. Credit: Eric Risberg / AP
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Sens. Herb Kohl and Mike Lee call for Google antitrust probe
posted by Technology @ 2:46 PM
Monday, December 19, 2011
The chairman and top Republican on the Senate antitrust subcommittee have asked regulators to investigate Google Inc.'s search practices, saying they were concerned the company was biasing results to favor its own products.
The senators — panel Chairman Herb Kohl (D-Wis.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) — sent a letter Monday to the Federal Trade Commission, which already is conducting a broad antitrust investigation into Google's business practices, including search and advertising.
Kohl and Lee questioned Google Chairman Eric Schmidt at a contentious hearing in September. Schmidt's answers, along with testimony from two Google competitors, raised questions that should be explored by regulators, the senators said in their letter to FTC Chairman Jonathan Leibowitz.
"We believe these allegations regarding Google's search engine practices raise important competition issues," wrote Kohl and Lee, whose committee has been conducting its own review of Google. "We are committed to ensuring that consumers benefit from robust competition in online search and that the Internet remains the source of much free-market innovation."
At the hearing, senators heard complaints from the chief executives of local review site Yelp and online product comparison site Nextag that Google abuses its search engine dominance at the expense of smaller competitors.
Asked by Lee during the hearing whether Google "cooked" its search results on three product-comparison websites to favor Google Shopping results, Schmidt responded, "Senator … I can assure you we have not cooked anything."
Schmidt strongly denied the accusations. But Kohl and Lee said Monday that there were enough questions to warrant an FTC review.
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– Jim Puzzanghera in Washington
Photo: Google Inc. Chairman Eric Schmidt takes the oath at a Senate antitrust subcommittee hearing in September. Credit: Associated Press.
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BT sues Google, alleges widespread patent infringement
posted by Technology @ 2:16 PM
Monday, December 19, 2011
British Telecommunications, better known as BT, has accused Google of infringing six of its patents in a lawsuit filed in the U.S.
The company — which has customers in more than 170 countries and offers land-line and mobile phone service as well as Internet TV and IT services — alleges in its suit that a number of Google products violate its patents, including Google's search engine, the Android mobile operating system and Android Market app store, Gmail, Google+, Google Books, Docs, Maps, Music, Places, Offers and advertising operations.
Google plans to fight the suit, saying in an emailed statement: "We believe these claims are groundless and we will vigorously defend ourselves against them."
The suit, which was first reported by the website Foss Patents and filed in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Del., didn't specify what sort of damages BT is looking for, but did ask for an injunction against the products it accuses of infringing its patents.
The six patents BT accuses Google of violating cover broad technologies, such as products that tailor what information they present based on the location a user is in, as well as how user location and profile information is stored and accessed.
The BT suit is one of many Google is grappling with. The tech giant is dealing with a patent battle against Oracle, a suit from EBay/PayPal and suits from Apple and Microsoft directed at Google's hardware partners.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A Google sign outside the tech giant's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. Credit: Clay McLachlan / Reuters
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Let It Snow! And five other super-fun Google tricks
posted by Technology @ 1:58 PM
Monday, December 19, 2011
Let it snow? Just in time for the holidays, Google has rolled out the latest in a string of neat tricks that you can play with the search engine.
For those who haven't tried it yet, pull Google up on your browser and type in the words "let it snow." Then enjoy a snow flurry right on your computer screen.
To keep the wintery fun going, Google also added a frosty element to the experience: As the snow continues to fall, your computer screen will fog up. Click the "defrost" button to clear it, or use a mouse to draw hearts, or initials or whatever else you want in the fog. You can click defrost at any time to start over again.
A spokewoman from the company sent the following statement about the Let It Snow trick in poem form:
Through the fog, you have to peer
Because it's the most wonderful time of the year
Your page turned into a winter wonderland
When you typed in that search command
You can always defrost the window
Or just let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!
Well, it's not a poetry house, but they do like to have fun.
Google has some other neat tricks up its sleave, and if your work is slow for the holidays, now might be a perfect time to try them.
1. Type in the word "askew" into the search engine. Tilt your head and enjoy.
2. Type in the word "tilt." Hold your head askew and enjoy.
3. Type in the word "recursion." Google will wonder if perhaps you meant to type the word "recursion."
4. Google didn't forget Jews. Type in the word "Hannukah" for some festive non-Christmas holiday screen decor.
5. Type in "anagram." Google will wonder if perhaps you meant "nag a gram."
Unfortunately, some of the Google classic tricks are no longer functioning. It used to be that if you typed in the words "Chuck Norris" you would get a statement that says, " You don't find Chuck Norris, he finds you."
There was also a time when if you typed the word "Gravity" into the search engine you'd watch all the copy on the page plunk to the bottom. It doesn't do that anymore, but you can see what you missed here.
Happy holidays!
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– Deborah Netburn
Image: A screen shot of what happens when you type "let it snow" into Google and then write "let it snow" in the fog with your mouse.That blob at the bottom was supposed to be a heart.
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Author Stats Now in Webmaster Tools
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 11:00 AM
Friday, December 16, 2011
This week Google released Author Stats within its Webmaster Tools product. Authorship annotations (read more here) are fast becoming a must-have element on websites as they provide greater visibility on the SERPs.
The new report will essentially just show how often this annotated content is showing on the search results pages. If an author has associated their content with a Google profile, they will be able to see the amount of impressions and clicks it received. While there’s certainly no guarantee that setting up authorship annotations will matter to SERP position, but it is easy to understand how they might positively influence a users decision to click through.
Google has made several improvements to its authorship annotations since its release earlier this year. For example, an indication of how many Google+ users have the author in their Circles appears on the SERPs, as does the ability to add an author directly to circle. Search engine users can also access comments posted on Google+ about an article shared by the author.
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Google’s Chrome browser overtakes Internet Explorer 8
posted by Technology @ 5:18 PM
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Did Google's Chrome browser just become the globe's most popular?
That's what StatCounter is reporting.
It says Chrome topped Internet Explorer 8 in the last week of November, when Chrome took 23.6% of the global market and IE8 took 23.5%.
Of course, if you combine all of the versions of Internet Explorer, it's still the browser champ. And in the United States, Internet Explorer is still on top, with 27% of the market.
So what's driving the growth? Aodhan Cullen, chief executive of StatCounter, says businesses as well as consumers are adopting Chrome.
Microsoft, which includes Internet Explorer with its Windows operating system, used to have a lock on the browser market. Google didn't even enter the market until 2008.
But Chrome recently surpassed Mozilla Foundation's Firefox browser, which it used to support. Firefox launched in 2004 and drove innovation in the market, which was dominated by Internet Explorer since IE overtook Netscape's browser in the late 1990s.
Google CEO Larry Page was always a proponent of Google's getting into the browser market. Google began to build a browser in 2006, concerned that existing browsers were not good enough to support its online services or might lead users away from its search engine. (Microsoft uses Internet Explorer to send users to its own Bing search engine.)
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– Jessica Guynn
Photo: The logo for the Google Chrome Web browser is shown during a news conference at Google headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., in September 2008. Photo credit: Paul Sakuma / Associated Press.
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Google awarded U.S. patent for driverless car technology
posted by Technology @ 2:19 PM
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Google has quietly made off with a U.S. patent for self-driving cars.
Google applied for the Transitioning a Mixed-mode Vehicle to Autonomous Mode patent in May and it was awarded Tuesday. It covers a method of handing the wheel from a human driver to the self-driving car.
It involves two sets of sensors: one which identifies a "landing strip" where the vehicle stops, the other which receives data about precisely where it is and where it should go. The driverless car could get directions or driving instructions from a URL, QR code or radio link.
"The landing strip allows a human driving the vehicle to know acceptable parking places for the vehicle," according to the patent filing. "Additionally, the landing strip may indicate to the vehicle that it is parked in a region where it may transition into autonomous mode."
In June, Nevada became the first state to legalize self-driving cars, a victory for Google which has been working to put technology in the driver's seat by building cars that use radar, video cameras and lasers to navigate traffic.
Google contends that computer-powered cars will drive more safely than humans. One vehicle in its automated fleet has gotten into an accident. But don't blame the technology. It was operator error.
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– Jessica Guynn
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Apple among most searched in Google Zeitgeist 2011
posted by Technology @ 10:08 AM
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Google's Zeitgeist crunched billions of searches in 2011 to find the most popular and fastest-rising search terms. The result of the 11th annual survey is the online equivalent of climbing into a time machine.
Web celeb Rebecca Black was the fastest-rising query with singer Adele, reality star Ryan Dunn and Casey Anthony following quickly behind. Google+ nabbed the No. 2 spot.
But even as Hurricane Irene struck the U.S. and earthquakes shook Christchurch, New Zealand, and Japan, nothing took a bite out of Google's Zeitgeist like Apple (as GigaOm pointed out).
Three Apple queries appear in the list of the top 10 fastest-rising searches, including Apple's iPhone 5 (which still has yet to make an appearance), the iPad 2 (which did make an appearance and is burning up holiday sales) and the man who helped make it all possible: Steve Jobs, who peaked as a search term in October when he died.
Apple makes other appearances as well. The briskly selling iPhone 4S, for instance, is second-fastest in the consumer electronics category (the iPad2 and the iPad3 also ranked). But it was bested by Amazon's Kindle Fire.
Sure to get a big bump in Google searches today: Google Zeitgeist.
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– Jessica Guynn
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Google might be ramping up its fight against thin affiliate sites, but at the same time it is rewarding “advanced publishers” and advertisers by launching the first version of its Affiliate Network API.
The API provides an opportunity to automate some important tasks related to the Google Affiliate Network. For example, publishers can use the API to access data that advertisers have chosen to share such as payout rank. And of course it will work in reverse as well.
Advertisers can use the API to access data on publishers such as publisher classification.
And let’s not forget the developers. The API also provides access to event-level data for transactions and actions which can be integrated into internal systems and applications.
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Samsung Galaxy Nexus finally has a U.S. release date: Thursday
posted by Technology @ 6:11 PM
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
The wait is over: The highly anticipated Samsung Galaxy Nexus will be available in the U.S. starting Thursday.
The smartphone — the first device to run Android's Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system — will be sold at Verizon Wireless stores and online for $299.99 with a new two-year customer agreement, a Verizon spokesman said. It will run on Verizon's 4G LTE network.
Verizon, Samsung and Google said the Galaxy Nexus "brings an entirely new look and feel to Android," according to a news release posted on Droid Life. It offers customers a redesigned user experience with improved multitasking, notifications, near-field communications and a Web-browsing experience with "blazing speeds."
"The lock screen, home screen, phone app and everything in between have been rethought and redesigned to make Android simple, beautiful and useful," the companies said.
Here are some of the phone's features:
– Redesigned user interface: Software navigation buttons, a first for Android smartphones, and a dedicated recent apps button to make multitasking easy.
– Face unlock: Use state-of-the-art facial recognition to unlock the Galaxy Nexus.
– Android Beam: Share Web pages, apps, contacts and YouTube videos with friends by tapping two compatible phones together.
– Redesigned camera: Introduces panorama mode, 1080p video capture, zero-shutter lag for instant photo capturing and effects such as silly faces and background replacement.
– People application: Browse friends, family and co-workers, see their photos in high-resolution and check their latest status updates from Google+ and other social networks.
– Cloud services: Keep email, contacts, photos, music, browser bookmarks and other data synced to the cloud, available across multiple devices so customers never lose important data.
– Google Music: Upload up to 20,000 songs to the cloud and stream it instantly on Galaxy Nexus and from the Web for free.
Customers who purchase a Galaxy Nexus will need to subscribe to a Verizon Wireless Nationwide Talk plan beginning at $39.99 monthly and a smartphone data package starting at $30 monthly for 2 GB of data.
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Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Android Ice Cream Sandwich unveiled [video]
– Andrea Chang
Photo: Models display the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone in Hong Kong in October. Credit: Kin Cheung / Associated Press
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Google’s Street View shows Japan before and after tsunami
posted by Technology @ 2:00 PM
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Laptop explorers, prepare to take a sobering visit to Japan.
Google has digitally archived the areas of northeastern Japan that were hit hardest by the massive earthquake and devastating tsunami that struck the region in March.
The images are available through Street View in Google Maps, but they are more easily accessed via Google's Memories for the Future website, which easily allows you to toggle between before and after images of the same area.
Sometimes the difference is minimal. But sometimes, as shown in the before and after image above, the difference is striking.
Confession: We toggled back and forth at least 10 times to make sure that something wasn't wrong with Google's data. It's so hard to imagine–all those structures, just gone.
Google says it drove more than 44,000 kilometers through effected areas of Japan in order to take 360 degree panoramic imagery of the areas that were hardest hit. In a write up about the project on the company's Lat Long Blog, Google says that if you start inland and venture out toward the coast, you'll see the countryside change dramatically "becoming cluttered with mountains of debris as you get closer to the ocean."
The best way to explore the before and after of the tsunami is to grab the little orange man from the left hand of the screen and drag him to the different areas marked in blue on the map. That will take you directly to the street view and then you can toggle back and forth to see what was once there, and what the earthquake and tsunami destroyed.
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–Deborah Netburn
Images: Top image: A view of a street in Japan photographed in July 2008, before the March 11 tsunami and earthquake. Bottom image: The same street photographed July 2011, after the March 11 tsunami and earthquake. Courtesy of Google Street View.
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2011′s Key Developments in Paid Search at Google
posted by Website Magazine @ 1:45 PM
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
We all know that the search
engine marketing industry
moves at break-neck speed.
This has always been the case and it
doesn’t show any signs of slowing.
Now that we’ve reached the end of
2011, this is a good chance to take a step back and review
the new PPC tactics, tools and strategies that have become
predominant over the past year.
Some of the items on this list were freshly introduced
to the world during 2011. Some of these items were
launched before 2011 but they have gained more importance
to PPC managers within the previous 12 months.
Mobile devices and tablets go prime-time: Sure,
ads have been running on mobile devices for a while now.
However, in 2011 things really took off in regards to
search volume via mobile devices and tablets. These devices
can no longer be ignored by advertisers. If you didn’t
get on board with mobile this year, don’t miss the train
in 2012 or you’ll get left behind.
AdWords call metrics opens the phone lines:
Advertisers can track calls generated directly by their PPC
ads on Google. You can track metrics such as cost, completed
calls, phone-through-rate, time of call and duration.
If your business generates sales or leads via the
phone, you need to explore the new bid-per-call and call
metrics options in AdWords.
Multi-channel funnel analysis gets good: For a
couple years there has been chattering about the lack of
actionable, reliable cross-channel analysis. There are some third-party software providers that have excellent multichannel
reports, but the general advertising public was
lacking these features. However, in 2011 Google Analytics
released its own cross-channel reports and they are
now mission-critical for advertisers. You should be reviewing
and analyzing yours now.
Landing page Quality Score gets serious: This
element of the AdWords Quality Score has been around
for years. Until recently, this metric has been a negative
signal; your landing page didn’t directly contribute to your
Quality Score but it could hinder your score. Now, landing
pages are assigned positive scores making sure that
their content is highly relevant to a user’s search query.
This means that if you’ve been using the same landing
page for a while, you need to get serious about relevancy
quickly (like right now).
Social PPC spells ROI: Facebook and LinkedIn have
been generating a great deal of traffic for advertisers for a
while now. However, in 2011 I think advertisers are getting
smarter and learning how to interact with users on
social networks and getting them to buy. In 2010, the
main question on social PPC was if it could generate a
positive ROI. Advertisers will have settled the ROI question,
and in 2012 will start wondering how to get more
volume from these networks.
Automated rules in AdWords make life easier:
Google rolled out a series of automated rules for AdWords that can help save advertisers time and focus their optimization
efforts. These automated rules can schedule ads,
pause low-performing ads and keywords, adjust bids automatically,
and control daily budgets. These can be a great
time-saver if implemented properly.
adCenter Quality Score revealed: One way to
grasp how your campaigns compare to other advertisers is
by analyzing your Quality Scores. In 2011, Quality Score
metrics were introduced within the adCenter interface.
Analyze these stats to see where your keywords and landing
pages may be coming up short.
Google+ and +1 Button is what’s next: One of
the latest-breaking developments in the PPC world is the
launch of the Google +1 button. Within Google users can
now “+1” search results they find helpful or interesting,
and they can also “+1” pages and websites they like as
well. These social interactions can appear directly within
the Google SERPs (for users who are logged into their
Google accounts) as well as on the Google Display Network.
Just as recently as mid-November, Google released
new reports within AdWords that allow advertisers to review
their ad performance when the +1 social signal appeared
within their ads.
These are just a few of the PPC industry updates that
occurred in 2011. As you can see, it was a very busy year
— and 2012 should be even busier. Hold on to your hats,
folks, we’re only just getting started.
About the Author: Joseph Kerschbaum has been working in the SEM industry since 2006,
sharpening his expertise in PPC advertising, search engine optimization,
conversion optimization and social media marketing. Joseph is the
co-author of PPC Marketing: An Hour a Day, and a client services director
with Clix Marketing.
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Google executives offer to save Hangar One at Moffett Field
posted by Technology @ 1:39 PM
Monday, December 12, 2011
Google's top three executives have reportedly offered to save Hangar One, a historic landmark at Moffett Field in Silicon Valley that for years has sat neglected.
Larry Page, Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt — the CEO, co-founder and executive chairman of Google, respectively — have proposed paying the full $33 million cost of revamping the iconic hangar through a company they control, according to the San Jose Mercury News. But there's apparently a catch: They want to use up to two-thirds of the floor space of the hangar to house their fleet of eight private jets.
Moffett Field is in Mountain View, Calif., where Google is based. NASA Ames, which owns the site including Hangar One, is said to be considering the offer made in September by the Google trio's company, H211.
An icon from the infancy of the Space Age that looms large in aviation history, Hangar One spans 361,000 square feet — as big as seven football fields — and is wide enough to fit three Titanics side by side. Built in 1933, the cavernous structure once housed the Macon, a lumbering dirigible that roamed the California coast on U.S. military missions before crashing into the Pacific Ocean in 1935.
But the humpbacked Silicon Valley structure sits on a toxic site and is currently undergoing a major process to strip the hangar of its PCB-laden paneling. The 198-foot-tall building has faced numerous challenges, especially in the last year, when the House of Representatives cut $32 million from NASA's budget that was set aside to replace Hangar One's siding, the Mercury News report said.
A NASA spokesman told the newspaper that the H211 proposal had "not yet been completely vetted" and "we have to weigh that against the reality of constrained resources and use." Under the plan, NASA would remain Hangar One's owner and would be able to lease out floor space not used by H211 as well as the upper levels of the structure.
"We are giving all options thoughtful consideration as we prepare our funding proposal for the fiscal year 2013 budget," NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs said.
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– Andrea Chang
Photo: Hangar One at Moffett Field. Credit: Robert Durell / Los Angeles Times
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The LG Nitro HD reminds me a lot of the Samsung Galaxy S II, and if you’ve ever seen the two smartphones, I’m sure you’ll agree.
The two phones could be mistaken for twins, sitting side-by-side with 4.5-inch touchscreens, and similarly designed plastic backs with 8-megapixel cameras sitting rear-center.
However, aside from the outside looks, the overall experience of using the two phones is quite different and it’s on the software side where LG comes up short with the Nitro HD.
The Nitro HD is one of a new wave of smartphones (along with handsets like the HTC Rezound and upcoming Samsung Galaxy Nexus) that is upping the ante for screen resolution into high-definition territory, with a 1,280 x 720 screen resolution.
The Nitro HD’s display is one of the nicest I’ve seen on any smartphone so far. Streaming video, websites, apps all looked detailed and worthy of being called high definition. Colors came though balanced and accurate. Images looked smooth, with pixelation hard to find due to a density of 326-pixels-per-inch, which is the same pixel density as the iPhone 4 and 4S.
The display also features edges that are curved to roll into the sides of the phone’s body, so running your finger across the device for any swiping motion on-screen is extra satisfying. It’s such a small detail, but not having a hard edge to run into makes using the touchscreen a thoughtlessly pleasant experience. Nokia has taken a similar approach with its Lumia 800 and this is a design touch I wouldn’t mind seeing on more phones.
The internals of the Nitro HD are top-notch as well, with a 1.5-gigahertz dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM and 4 gigabytes of built-in storage pared with an included 16-gigabyte microSD storage card.
Photos from the rear camera looked good, but colors came out a bit oversaturated for my taste; 1080p video shot by the camera was impressive.
But all this goodness felt a bit held back by LG’s modifications to Google’s Android operating system and a few other gripes.
Every handset maker out there adds their own “skin” over the top of Android in an effort to stand out in the crowd. But LG’s version of Android adds app icons, widgets and even fonts used in the operating system that all feel a bit too big, as if LG is failing to take advantage of all the screen real estate the Nitro HD’s display has delivered.
Battery life was poor, as is pretty much standard for just about any 4G smartphone nowadays, especially phones with 4.5-inch screens requiring so much power. In a week of testing, I found that I needed to charge the Nitro HD before my work day was done, after charging the phone each night as well — so keep spare chargers around at home, work and in the car if you’re considering buying the Nitro HD.
The Nitro HD also has a quiet, flat sounding speaker that wasn’t good for talking to a friend on speakerphone, much less for video watching or music listening — so a nice set of headphones would be a good accessory as well.
At $249.99 on a 2-year data plan from AT&T, the Nitro HD is fairly priced (though it’d be a lot nicer at about $200), but the Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket and HTC Vivid are worth a look if you’re looking for big-screens and 4G speeds from AT&T.
Like the Vivid and the Galaxy S II Skyrocket, the Nitro HD runs on AT&T’s 4G LTE network if that network is available wherever you are, which so far isn’t very many places.
AT&T’s 4G LTE network is up and running in Atlanta and Athens, Ga.; Baltimore; Boston; Charlotte, N.C.; Chicago; Dallas-Fort Worth; Houston; Indianapolis; Kansas City, Mo.; Las Vegas; Oklahoma City; Washington D.C.; San Antonio; and San Juan, Puerto Rico, with more markets planned to launch next year. If you’re outside of those markets, the Nitro HD (and other AT&T 4G LTE phones) run on the carrier’s HSPA+ 4G network or its 3G network, each of which are speedy in their own right, whenever you have a strong signal.
So, taking a look at the good and the bad of the Nitro HD, the new phone sits among the nicer phones available from AT&T at this time, but there is one major hurdle I see that would make me hesitant to purchase this device: the question of Ice Cream Sandwich.
The Nitro HD runs on Android Gingerbread and LG hasn’t yet said whether or not its flagship AT&T phone will be upgraded to the latest version of Android, known as Ice Cream Sandwich. It seems a no-brainer that LG would make the move to Ice Cream Sandwich eventually, but many hardware manufacturers have made a habit of leaving devices stagnant when it comes to Android.
As great as the Nitro HD’s hardware is, it’s the software, both in its current form and its undefined future, that holds this phone back from living up to its potential.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: The LG Nitro HD from AT&T. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh/Los Angeles Times
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Motorola Droid Xyboard tablets on sale, start at $430
posted by Technology @ 8:55 PM
Friday, December 9, 2011
Motorola's two latest Android tablets, exclusive to Verizon Wireless, went on sale online Friday; the Droid Xyboard 8.2 and the Droid Xyboard 10.1.
The two screen sizes come with different prices.
The Droid Xyboard 8.2 has an 8.2-inch display and sells for $430 with 16 gigabytes of built-in storage or $530 for 32 gigabytes of storage. Each price is based on signing a two-year 4G LTE data plan with Verizon.
The Droid Xyboard 10.1, with a 10.1-inch screen, is offered in three storage options and three prices. A 16-gigabyte Xyboard sells for $530, a 32-gigabyte model sells for $630 and a 64-gigabyte unit runs $730, again with a two-year Verizon 4G contract.
While the Droid Xyboards went on sale online Friday, the new tablets actually land in stores Monday, Verizon said in a statement.
Aside from the differing screen sizes and storage options, each of the five variations of Droid Xyboards will run on Google's Android Honeycomb operating system, although an upgrade to the soon-to-arrive Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system will come later.
The Droid Xyboards also all feature a screen resolution of 1280 x 800 pixels, 1.2-gigahertz dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, a 5-megapixel rear camera with an LED flash, a front-facing camera for video chatting, and micro USB and HDMI ports. The 10.1-inch models also can be used with a stylus.
For a limited time only, Verizon said, those who buy a Motorola Droid Razr smartphone from Verizon can get a $100 discount off a Droid Xyboard tablet.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: The Motorola Droid Xyboard 10.1 tablet. Credit: Motorola/Verizon Wireless
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Galaxy Nexus smartphone on sale in Canada, but still no U.S. release date
posted by Technology @ 5:35 PM
Thursday, December 8, 2011
The Galaxy Nexus and Google's Android Ice Cream Sandwich have finally arrived in North America — but not in the U.S.
On Thursday, Android fans in our neighbor up north were able to buy Samsung's new Galaxy Nexus smartphone as it launched on Canadian carriers Bell for $159.95 and Virgin Mobile for $159.99, along with each company's respective data plan.
But the Galaxy Nexus, which is the first device to run on the highly anticipated Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system, still has no U.S. release date or price.
Making things a bit more painful for Google gadget lovers in the U.S.: The Galaxy Nexus has been on sale in Britain for weeks and is launching across Europe over the next few days.
Whenever the Galaxy Nexus hits the States, it'll be available on Verizon's 4G LTE network (something we've known since mid-October), sporting a massive 4.65-inch touch screen with a 1280 x 720 pixel resolution, a 1.2-gigahertz dual-core processor and 1 gigabyte of RAM.
The new handset will also have a 5-megapixel rear camera capable of shooting 1080p video and a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front for video chatting, and no physical buttons on the curved face of the device. The back of the Galaxy Nexus looks, well, a lot like the Galaxy S II and the LG Nitro HD.
All of that measures up with other top-of-the-line smartphones out there — so nothing groundbreaking hardware-wise, but nearly all you'd want out of a current smartphone is included, on paper anyway.
So what makes the Galaxy Nexus remotely special? Again, Android Ice Cream Sandwich, Google's first operating system designed for both smartphones and tablets.
Ice Cream Sandwich is the version of Android that Google hopes will get hardware makers on the same page. In the past, many handset makers have failed to issue software updates for older phones when newer versions of Android are released.
Will Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich be any good? We'll have a full review of the Galaxy Nexus shortly after we get our hands on it. Stay tuned.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Andy Rubin, left, Google's vice president in charge of Android, and Samsung President J.K. Shin unveil the Galaxy Nexus smartphone in China on Oct. 19. Credit: Bobby Yip / Reuters
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RIM denied BBX name, redubs new phone/tablet OS BlackBerry 10
posted by Technology @ 12:27 PM
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Research In Motion's next BlackBerry smartphone and tablet operating system won't be called BBX after all.
Instead, RIM is going with the name BlackBerry 10 after a Federal Court in Albuquerque issued a temporary restraining order against the Canadian company, banning it from using the name BBX, which is a trademark of the New Mexico-based software firm Basis International.
Basis sued RIM in October over its use of the BBX name and rather than continue to fight the suit, RIM announced via Twitter on Wednesday that it's moving forward with its new operating system under the name BlackBerry 10.
In a tweet regarding the keynote speech at its BlackBerry DevCon Asia developer conference, currently taking place in Singapore, RIM said:
#BBDevCon Asia Keynote: BlackBerry 10 is the official name of the next generation platform that will power future BlackBerry smartphones!^BZ
Basis uses the name BBx — note the difference in capitalization — as branding for its Business Basic eXtended line of software developer tools. The BBx tools are used to build applications that can run on a number of operating systems that use the Java programming language, including Linux, Microsoft Windows, Apple's iOS and Mac OS X, and Google's Android, according to Basis, which says it trademarked the name in 1995 but has been using it since 1985.
RIM's formerly-known-as-BBX operating system has been under development for months and will be the first OS from the company to run on both smartphones and tablets — an approach taken by Apple's iOS and Google's new Android Ice Cream Sandwich.
The OS now-known-as-BlackBerry-10 is based on QNX, the current operating system found on the slow-selling BlackBerry PlayBook tablet. RIM recently announced a $485-million loss on unsold PlayBook inventory.
BlackBerry 10 will usher in increased touchscreen-based controls to new RIM phones and the OS will enable BlackBerry devices to run Android apps alongside native QNX and BlackBerry 10 apps, apps developed using Adobe's AIR software and HTML5 apps.
The software is expected to arrive on new BlackBerry phones and the PlayBook tablet early next year.
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— Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Image: A screen shot of Research In Motion's message on Twitter announcing that its BBX operating system has been renamed BlackBerry 10. Credit: Research In Motion / Twitter
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Google’s Android Market passes 10 billion downloads
posted by Technology @ 1:25 PM
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Google's Android Market has passed 10 billion app downloads, a major milestone for the world's most widely used mobile operating system.
"One billion is a pretty big number by any measurement. However, when it’s describing the speed at which something is growing, it’s simply amazing," said Eric Chu, director of the Android Developer Ecosystem, in a company blog post. "This past weekend, thanks to Android users around the world, Android Market exceeded 10 billion app downloads — with a growth rate of 1 billion app downloads per month."
The massive number is even more impressive when considering the fragmentation found on Android, with companies such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Yahoo hosting Android app stores of their own, in addition to independent app stores such as GetJar.
Apple passed 15 billion downloads from its App Store in July, noting that there are more than 200 million iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch users worldwide.
More than 200 million Android smartphones and tablets have been sold and about 550,000 new Android activations take place each day, Google has said.
To celebrate passing the 10-billion-download mark, Google and a number of developers are offering selected apps for 10 cents for a limited time, Chu said.
"Starting today for the next 10 days, we'll have a new set of awesome apps available each day for only 10 cents each," he said. "Today, we are starting with Asphalt 6 HD, Color & Draw for Kids, Endomondo Sports Tracker Pro, Fieldrunners HD, Great Little War Game, Minecraft, Paper Camera, Sketchbook Mobile, Soundhound Infinity & Swiftkey X."
Each day, until the 10-day period is up, Google will offer another 10 apps for 10 cents each, as listed on the Android Market.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: A screen shot of Google's Android Market. Credit: Google
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Galaxy Nexus: Still no U.S. release date, could sell for $299.99
posted by Technology @ 10:38 AM
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The Galaxy Nexus smartphone, whenever it goes on sale in the U.S., may come with a $299.99 price tag on a two-year data plan.
So far, Verizon hasn't said when the Samsung-built, Google-approved handset will hit stores or at what price the eagerly anticipated phone will sell.
But, according to a Dow Jones report, unnamed sources "familiar with the matter" said the Galaxy Nexus would fall in line at the $300 level with the launch price of other top-tier Verizon smartphones, such as the Motorola Droid Bionic, the Motorola Droid Razr and the HTC Rezound.
Apple's iPhone 4S, which many consider to be the Galaxy Nexus' main competitor, sells at a starting price of $199.
Unlike the iPhone, the Galaxy Nexus will run on Verizon's 4G LTE network (the iPhone is still 3G-only) and feature a larger 4.65-inch touchscreen.
The Galaxy Nexus will also be the first device to run Android Ice Cream Sandwich, the latest version of Google's mobile operating system. Ice Cream Sandwich is also the first version of Android that is designed to work on both smartphones and tablets.
The new handset is already on sale in Britain and is launching in Canada on Thursday from Bell for $159.95 and Virgin Mobile for $159.99 on each carrier's respective data plans.
The new Samsung phone will also feature a resolution of 1280 x 720 pixels (same as the HTC Rezound), a 1.2-gigahertz dual-core processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, a 5-megapixel rear camera capable of shooting 1080p video and a 1.3-megapixel camera on the front for video chatting.
As soon as Verizon offers an official release date and price we'll let you know here on the Technology blog and we'll have a full review of the Galaxy Nexus as soon as we can get our hands on the new phone.
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Galaxy Nexus, Android Ice Cream Sandwich: U.S. launch on Dec. 8?
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: Models hold up Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphones that run the Google Android Ice Cream Sandwich operating system in Hong Kong last month. Credit: Jerome Favre / Bloomberg
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Sony Ericsson phones dropping ‘Ericsson’ in mid-2012
posted by Technology @ 8:19 PM
Monday, December 5, 2011
After a little more than a decade, Sony Ericsson is reportedly dropping the Ericsson, giving Sony a cellphone brand of its own.
The move to re-brand Sony Ericsson as just Sony follows the October announcement that Sony is buying Ericsson's half of the joint venture for about $1.5 billion. The mobile phone company was founded in 2001 and currently makes a wide range of smartphones, with some Google Android handsets among its offering.
Kristian Tear, a Sony Ericsson executive vice president, told the Times of India about the re-branding effort, stating that the switch should be completed by the middle of 2012.
"A lot of planning goes into getting the branding right but we will be done by middle of next year," Tear said. "It will also mean that the marketing and advertising investments will go up. We haven't been as fierce as we were a few years back but we will step it up, refocus and invest more in brand-building in select markets, and India is one of those markets."
The name change makes sense given Sony's pending sole ownership of the mobile phone maker.
As the Los Angeles Times has previously reported, Sony will also cross-license five essential patent families relating to wireless handset technology as a part of its takeover of Sony Ericsson.
Sony to take over Sony Ericsson
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Photo: Sony Ericsson Xperia Play smartphone. Credit: Sony Ericsson
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Need to Know: 6 Key Google Algo Updates for December 2011
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 1:45 PM
Monday, December 5, 2011
Google published another list of algorithm changes last week, following up on set of improvements it announced last month. Here’s what digital Web workers need to know and can expect on the search results pages in the future:
Original Content Signals: In perhaps the most important of the changes, Google indicated that it has added “new signals” to indicate which page is original and which is not. While Google obviously won’t reveal what those individual signals are, over time you can expect less duplicate content in the search results.
Less “Host Crowding”: A modification (and additional processing) on the top set of results ensures that Google won’t show too many results from one site (host crowding). Expect a more fair and balanced search results page.
Related Query Results: A refinement has been made that will ensure that sites/pages which only “partially” match the original query are seen less often. Why Google was in some instances returning only partial matches to a user query is up for debate.
More Long Tail Indexing: Google has made a change to make more long-tail content available in its index. Expect more of your long-tail content to rank for relevant queries.
Blog Search Results: The Google blog search index is now more comprehensive and will feature fresher results in the natural search results. If you’re not blogging now, you should be.
Parked Domain Classifier: In an update that should have happened many years ago, Google finally released a new algorithm for automatically detecting placeholder sites (parked domains).
Google has also made some layout changes to improve usability on tablet devices, made modifications to better determine image freshness, and is now offering more autocomplete predictions.
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Apple loses bid to block U.S. sales of Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
posted by Technology @ 10:13 AM
Monday, December 5, 2011
Samsung chalked up a victory in its ongoing patent battle with Apple when a federal judge ruled against a proposed sales ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in the U.S.
Apple had requested a ban similar to the temporary injunction placed on sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia, but the U.S. District Court in San Jose on Friday decided that such a move wasn't necessary before the dispute goes to trial in July, according to Bloomberg Businessweek
Australian's ban on sales of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is set to lift on Dec. 9, with the patent battle there headed for trial in March.
The two consumer electronics titans are involved in a running legal war over the rights to technologies used on tablets and smartphones in more than 10 countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, Japan, France and Italy, and with more than 20 lawsuits filed between the two companies.
So far, sales of Samsung's Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace smartphones have been temporarily banned in 30 European countries, and Germany has placed a preliminary sales ban on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 7.7 (all devices which run on Google's Android operating system). Samsung went so far as to redesign and then re-release the German version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 as the Galaxy Tab 10.1N, but Apple requested a new ban of that tablet in that country as well, according to the Times of India.
When Apple and Samsung aren't fighting to keep each other's products off of store shelves, the two are actually business partners. Samsung, for example, manufactures Apple's A4 and A5 processors found in the iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPad 2 and iPod Touch, among other components, such as flash memory, inside of i-devices.
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Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Photo: An Apple iPad 2, left, and a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 at a store in the Hague, Netherlands, in August. Credit: Robert Vos / European Pressphoto Agency
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The Kobo Vox tablet feels like a missed opportunity.
Over the last year, the scrappy Canadian e-reading company has released the impressive Kobo Touch eInk eReader and polished its Kobo Reading Life apps into worthy rivals to Amazon’s Kindle apps and Barnes & Noble’s Nook apps on tablets and smart phones.
The company is in the process of being purchased by Japan’s equivalent to Amazon, the massive online retailer Rakuten. Despite Kobo’s largest U.S. retail partner, Borders, closing its doors, it seemed that Kobo was akin to a promising, aspiring prizefighter on the brink of being ready to challenge the heavyweight champs of e-reading, Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
And then I used the Vox — Kobo’s answer to Amazon’s Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s one-two punch of the Nook Color and Nook Tablet.
With the Vox, Kobo has taken a step back, delivering a product that doesn’t come close to its rivals and one that doesn’t match up to the quality I expected given how much I like the Kobo Touch and Kobo reading apps on Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS devices.
On paper, the Vox looked like a smart move, selling for $199.99 and featuring a seven-inch touch-screen with eight gigabytes of built-in storage — that’s the same included storage and price as the Fire and the same as the Nook Color (the Nook Tablet sells for $249). Just as the Nook Color and Nook Tablet do, the Vox features with a MicroSD card slot, which can accommodate a card of up to 32-gigabytes in size, if you don’t mind buying one.
Like the Fire and the Nook, the Vox runs a modified version of the Android Gingerbread operating system, designed by Google with phones, not tablets in mind.
But unlike those two others, Kobo has only made minimal changes to Gingerbread, most noticeably pinning reading-related functions to the bottom of the Vox’s Android home screens.
I was hopeful Kobo would deliver a competitive product, but instead I found myself disappointed at just about every turn in using the Vox.
The hardware, from the outside, isn’t bad looking. The back of the Vox is great to hold on to, with Kobo’s signature quilted pattern rendered in a soft and grippy plastic. On the review unit I tested, a light-blue rim of plastic sat between the back of the Kobo and its 1020 x 600 pixel resolution display.
It’s nice to see a company take a bit of risk design-wise, especially when compared with the boring looks of the Kindle Fire. The Vox is also offered with lime-green, pink and black rims.
But once I turned on the device, it was mostly downhill.
The Vox starts up slow, and I failed to ever reach the seven-hour battery life Kobo claims for the Vox. I usually got about four or five hours of battery life, but there were about four times in my week of testing that the device would shut itself off when falling below an 80% charge (a couple of those delays struck when we were shooting the above video).
When the Vox was up and running, it did so sluggishly. Loading apps, menus, Web pages; checking email; opening e-books; turning pages in e-books — everything took place slowly. It felt as though the Vox was always a step, or a second or two, behind my touch input. The display also fails to match the clarity, brightness, color range or viewing angles of the Fire and the Nook Tablet.
Snappy, speedy, responsive — these are not words I would use to describe the Vox. Too often I found myself staring at a rotating gray circle waiting for something to load. This complaint can partly be attributed to lower-end internal specs, such as an 800-megahertz processor and 512-megabytes of RAM, but if tuned enough with the right software, such hardware shouldn’t be so slow.
Kobo has a solid selection of books available for sale, more than 2.3 million titles. Major new releases are often available at a price that meets or beats those of Amazon or Barnes & Noble. But unlike Amazon and Barnes & Noble, Kobo has no app store — instead directing users to purchase apps from the independent online app store GetJar.
Like Barnes & Noble, but very much unlike Amazon, Kobo has no storefront for music, movies or TV shows, either.
Although I like the hardware of the Nook Color and Nook Table, and I like the software and Web services of the Fire, I can’t say that I’m happy with either the hardware or software offered by the Vox. At the same price as the Fire and the Nook Color, the Vox seems overpriced and more in line with tablets that sold for about $130 to $150 a year ago.
I wanted to like the Vox, but I didn’t. Instead, the Vox feels like a prototype, not a fully finished product ready for the masses. And that left me flatly disappointed.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Nathan Olivarez-Giles on Google+
Twitter.com/nateog
Photo: The Kobo Vox tablet, on top of an Amazon Kindle Fire and a Barnes & Noble Nook Tablet. Credit: Armand Emamdjomeh/Los Angeles Times
Twitter.com/emamd
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Australia’s Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales ban back on
posted by Technology @ 8:39 PM
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Samsung was set back again, temporarily, as an Australian High Court put back in place a sales ban on its Galaxy Tab 10.1 in an ongoing patent lawsuit the South Korean company is involved in with Apple over tablets and phones.
This go-around, the temporary sales injunction is on for just one week as High Court Justice John Dyson Heydon blocked the overturning of the ban through Dec. 9, according to a report from Bloomberg Businessweek.
"A stay for one week will cost Samsung, in effect, one week's trade," but lifting the ban would probably "be injurious to Apple," Heydon said, according to the Bloomberg report.
The reinstatement of the preliminary sales injunction, which was overturned on Tuesday, will delay Samsung's plans to get the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which many see as the Apple iPad's current top competitor, onto store shelves as consumers are ramping up their holiday shopping.
Samsung has said it plans to give up on releasing the Galaxy Tab 10.1, which runs Google's Android operating system, in Australia if it can't sell the device there before Christmas.
Katrina Howard, a Samsung lawyer, told Heydon in court that "even one day can make a difference" and that holiday sales were crucial for the company. Samsung has no doubt already missed many sales opportunities for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 because of its suit with Apple — the sales ban has been officially in place since October, but Samsung voluntarily pulled the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from shelves in August.
Apple and Samsung, which are suing each other over alleged patent infringement on the technology used to make their respective tablets, are set to go to trial in Australia in March to settle their dispute.
The two tech giants are also in similar patent battles over tablets as well as phones in the U.S., France and 30 other European countries, as well as Japan.
RELATED:
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales ban in Australia overturned
ITC sides with Apple over HTC in initial ruling on patent suit
Samsung sues to ban Apple iPhone 4S sales in Japan, Australia
– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Photo: Visitors walk past Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 on display in Seoul, South Korea on Oct. 13, 2011. Credit: Jo Yong-Hak/Reuters
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Google+ offers free voice calls to U.S. and Canada from Hangouts
posted by Technology @ 12:23 PM
Thursday, December 1, 2011
Google+ is offering free voice calls to the U.S. and Canada from Hangouts.
Google staffer Jarkko Oikarinen made the announcement, from where else, Google+.
That means anyone can join a Google+ video chat even if they are not online. Just call them and they can join the Hangout session.
The new feature is available inside Hangouts with extras (plus.google.com/hangouts/extras). To add someone by phone: click invite at the top of the hangouts with extras window. Then click the phone tab on the left of the window and punch in the number. Click call now.
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– Jessica Guynn
Photo: New calling feature in Google Hangouts Credit: Google
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Facebook increases limit on status updates to 63,206 characters
posted by Technology @ 8:13 PM
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Wordy and long-winded Facebook users may officially rejoice.
Twitter may limit you to a paltry 140 characters. But Facebook wants you to go on and on (and on).
The social networking site has increased its limit in status updates to more than 60,000 characters — 63,206 characters to be exact. That means you could fit an entire novel into nine status updates. (If you are a friend of mine, I am asking you nicely not to try).
Just this summer, Facebook pumped up the limit to 5,000 from 500 characters for those who are congenitally incapable of keeping things short and sweet. Back in the olden days (March 2009), the limit was 160 characters, a 20-word premium on Twitter.
Still Facebook doesn't let you go on as long as Google+. There the limit appears to be 100,000 characters.
For that, you may have to buy a few vowels from Vanna White.
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– Jessica Guynn
Photo: Facebook founder and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg shows off the social network's new "time line" feature at its annual developers conference in San Francisco in September. Credit: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg.
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Social network offers ‘smart journal’ users a revamped Path
posted by Technology @ 9:39 PM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
In an unforgettable scene from AMC's "Mad Men," Don Draper pitches Kodak executives on an advertising campaign for their new slide projector.
They want to focus on the technology. He's loaded the carousel with family pictures and the emotional pull of memory.
"This device isn't a spaceship," he tells the suits. "It's a time machine."
And that's exactly what the founders of Path are trying to build: a smartphone app that is more powerful than memory alone, that becomes a digital vehicle for recording memories so users can roll back through time and return to places that in Draper's words, "we ache to know again."
Dave Morin and Dustin Mierau have distilled that idea into a new version of the Path app for iPhone and Android. They call it a "smart journal" for the smartphone. Think of it as a modern take on the moleskin diary that travelers used to carry in their pockets to jot down notes about the places they had been and the people they met.
Morin and Mierau say they took their cue from their some 1 million users who have turned Path into a handy way to document their lives — screenshots of songs playing on their iPods, notes to friends or themselves, photos from weddings and road trips — and share pivotal moments with a tight-knit circle of friends and relatives.
"People have this deep desire to remember things, to remember their lives. It's a source of real happiness for people," Morin said. "It's the participation of your friends and family in the story that's exciting."
Path is looking to cement its bond with users by rolling out an updated version of the app. The app has been redesigned to be easier on the eyes and make stuff easier to share.
Users can also now share and check in on other networks such as Facebook, Foursquare and Twitter. And a new feature called Automatic does exactly what the name suggests: it automatically notes changes to your daily routine, such as traveling to a new city, and updates your social circle, essentially becoming a journal that writes itself. (You can turn it off if that's not your thing).
Still, Path has yet to live up to its promise as a new kind of social network.
People often say that they want privacy as they gripe about Facebook pushing them to share more information with more people. But is that what people really want?
So far, Path has yet to catch on in a big way. It's early going but Path is still an ant in a land of social media giants. Facebook is the world's largest social networking site with more than 800 million users and an initial public offering coming soon despite concerns over privacy. And Google's new social network, Google+, has already attracted millions (in part by using its mighty presence on the Web and in part by giving users a new way to segment friends in "circles").
So Path is casting a wider net. At the time it launched a year ago, Path let users designate only 50 friends. Path has now upped that limit to 150 friends, but even then lets people accumulate more friends if they want.
Path pitches itself as a social network that is more exclusive and private than Facebook, an antidote to an era of online openness in which people routinely broadcast the details of their lives to friends and strangers alike.
Morin, a former executive at Facebook and Apple, is betting that people crave more intimate interaction with a much smaller circle.
Path users post snippets and snapshots that over time create a "path." That means your friends and family can see your life through your eyes. The concept got early traction with high-profile investors. Path even turned down a $100-million buyout offer from Google.
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Path, a new social network, limits users to 50 friends
– Jessica Guynn
Images: Screenshots of Path include U2's "Beautiful Day" being posted by a user, and friends and family commenting and sharing emotions on a user's post. Credit: Path
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Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 sales ban in Australia overturned
posted by Technology @ 9:29 PM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
An Australian court has lifted its temporary sales injunction against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, landing the Korean company a win in its patent battle against Apple in that country.
The sales ban had been in place since October, after Samsung voluntarily pulled the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from shelves in August.
No doubt, Samsung has to be pleased with the reversal of the preliminary injunction, given that the holiday shopping season is in full swing.
This is just the latest development in the Australian patent battle between the two tech giants, which is set to go to trial in March.
And as we've reported, the Australian dispute is just one piece of the puzzle. The patent battle between the two companies is raging in the U.S., France and 30 other European countries, as well as Japan, and has spread to encompass not only the Galaxy Tab 10.1, but also Samsung's Galaxy S, Galaxy S II and Ace smartphones, other Galaxy Tab tablets (all products that run Google's Android operating system), and Apple's iPhone and iPad products.
The suits and counter-suits cover disputes over touchscreen technology, the look and feel of products and even how the devices connect to the Internet.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Photo: The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is displayed in Seoul last month. Credit: Park Ji-Hwan/AFP/Getty Images
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Cloud computing traffic to grow fast in coming years, Cisco says
posted by Technology @ 3:02 PM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Cisco Systems Inc. sees a cloudy future.
By 2015, cloud computing will account for nearly 34% of traffic at the world's data centers, the huge computing stations that now process and distribute most of the Internet's information. Last year the cloud accounted for only about 11% of data center traffic.
The trend comes as data centers become an ever larger part of the way the Internet works, acting as the digital jet engines for the Internet's most-used services: Google, Facebook, Amazon, Apple's iCloud and many others.
Cisco's first "Cloud Index" report says that overall traffic at data centers will more than triple by 2015, to 4.8 zettabytes from about 1.5 zettabytes in 2011. Cisco is one of the world's largest vendors of the networking hardware that sends data around the Internet and between servers in a given data center.
A zettabyte is an astronomical amount of data, equal to 1 billion terabytes. A terabyte is 1,000 gigabytes. Many current PCs contain about 500 gigabytes of storage. So the amount of data that will be processed by the world's data centers by 2015 is roughly what you could fit on 2 billion modern PCs.
None of that may be very surprising, as the benefits of cloud computing — including the substantially lower cost of storing and retrieving data to consumers and businesses — have been widely extolled in recent years. Cisco differentiates between "traditional" services and cloud servers; the latter is a more elastic type of computing that can grow or shrink depending on the number of active users or the types of tasks it is performing.
That can make for economic and energy efficiency gains by reducing the number of data center servers that sit idle while, for instance, people in North America are asleep. With cloud systems, those otherwise unused servers can be shifted over to perform needed functions — often for different companies on other continents.
The rapid movement of data that goes along with cloud computing has raised a number of concerns about online security, including whether consumers and businesses can know precisely where their private data is located and the extent to which cloud data is vulnerable to hackers or accidental disclosure.
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– David Sarno
Image: An artist's rendering of Facebook's newest data center in Lulea, Sweden, on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Facebook picked the location because the cold climate allows it to keep its servers cool more cheaply. Credit: Associated Press
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Google Maps 6.0 includes indoor mapping of Macy’s, IKEA, airports
posted by Technology @ 1:42 PM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Google is bringing its mapping technology to the great indoors.
With the launch of Google Maps 6.0 on Tuesday, users of mobile devices running Android OS 2.1 and up will have the ability to use Google Maps not just to get directions to an IKEA, Macy's or one of several airports, but to use the mapping functionality to figure out how to find housewares, ATMs, and your flight gate once you are inside.
Google's inside mapping will work similarly to its outside mapping. A little blue dot will move along with you to show you where you are, and the technology is even able to know what floor you are on — what Steve Lee, director of product management for Google, called "the third dimension of mapping."
It's exciting news, but there are a few caveats. The release is pretty limited. Although Google's launch partners include 18 U.S. airports — notably some of the biggies, such as Chicago O'Hare International Airport, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport and San Francisco International Airport (obviously) — LAX and JFK are still not available.
Some of the big-box stores such as IKEA, Macy's, Bloomingdales and Home Depot have already been mapped, but not Target. Not Wal-Mart. And not nearly as many malls as you'd like to see, especially in this holiday season.
"While we are super proud of this launch, it is still a small slice of indoor public spaces in the world," Lee said. "The goal is to get to where we can deliver detailed maps for all indoor spaces."
One additional bummer: Google Maps 6.0 is currently only available for Android, which means: iPhone owners, this is not yet for you. A Google spokeswoman said there is still no specific timing for when indoor maps will be available for non-Android platforms.
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Cyber Monday sales up 33%, new sales records set, IBM says
– Deborah Netburn
Image: The Google Map 6.0 view of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. Credit: Google
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BREAKING: WordAds from WordPress Launched
posted by Peter A. Prestipino @ 1:42 PM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
It's been a long time coming. But through its partnership with Federated Media, popular blogging platform WordPress has launched an AdSense alternative dubbed WordAds.
While the name is confusingly similar (at least to me) to Google's search-based advertising product Adwords, expect the millions of WordPress users to sign up in droves.
WordPress has never supported the inclusion of advertising so this does come as a bit of a surprise for many.
“We’ve resisted advertising so far because most of it we had seen wasn’t terribly tasteful, and it seemed like Google’s AdSense was the state-of-the-art, which was sad. You pour a lot of time and effort into your blog and you deserve better than AdSense,” said Jon Burke of WordPress in the official announcement.
Only publicly visible blogs with custom domains will be considered for the program. Website Magazine will provide more information as it becomes available.
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RIM Mobile Fusion to add BlackBerry security tools to Android, iOS
posted by Technology @ 1:22 PM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Research In Motion announced on Tuesday that it will soon launch software that will bring security and management features once only found on BlackBerrys over to Android and iOS phones and tablets.
The new tools, which RIM is calling BlackBerry Mobile Fusion, will allow businesses to set up and control Apple's iPhone and iPad, as well as smartphones and tablets running Google's Android operating system, as they have done for years with BlackBerry phones and more recently, the slow-selling PlayBook tablet.
"We are pleased to introduce BlackBerry Mobile Fusion — RIM's next generation enterprise mobility solution — to make it easier for our business and government customers to manage the diversity of devices in their operations today," said Alan Panezic, RIM's vice president of enterprise product management and marketing, in a statement.
"BlackBerry Mobile Fusion brings together our industry-leading BlackBerry Enterprise Server technology for BlackBerry devices with mobile device management capabilities for iOS and Android devices, all managed from one web-based console," Panezic said. "It provides the necessary management capabilities to allow IT departments to confidently oversee the use of both company-owned and employee-owned mobile devices within their organizations."
In announcing Mobile Fusion, RIM touted itself as "the leading provider of enterprise mobility solutions with over 90 percent of the Fortune 500 provisioning BlackBerry devices today," a nod to its still-large market share of the business market for smartphones.
But the Canadian company also acknowledges that when it comes time for consumers to buy phones and tablets for themselves, they're increasingly choosing rival devices and then bringing those gadgets into the workplace.
"The enterprise market for smartphones and tablets continues to grow in both the company-provisioned and employee-owned (Bring Your Own Device or BYOD) categories," RIM said. "BYOD in particular has led to an increase in the diversity of mobile devices in use in the enterprise and new challenges for CIOs and IT departments as they struggle to manage and control wireless access to confidential company information on the corporate network. This has resulted in increased demand for mobile device management solutions."
Among the features RIM said Mobile Fusion will offer for Android and iOS phones and tablets is the management and configuration of devices, as well as security features such as remote locking and data wiping, the creation of multiple user profiles on shared devices, app management and control over how a device connects to the Internet, among other settings.
While some would seem to love having an iPhone or an Android that's as secure and easy to manage at the scale a large business would require, others such as ReadWriteWeb has asked if RIM isn't "shooting itself in the foot with Mobile Fusion?"
GigaOm described RIM's stance with Mobile Fusion as "If you can't beat iOS and Android devices in the market, you might as well secure them."
Currently, Mobile Fusion is in "early beta testing with select enterprise customers," RIM said. But the company is accepting "customer nominations for the closed beta program which will start in January." The commercial rollout of Mobile Fusion isn't expected until late March.
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— Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Photo: An Apple iPhone 4S. Credit: Robert Galbraith / Reuters
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Cyber Monday sales up 33%, new sales records set, IBM says
posted by Technology @ 10:47 AM
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Cyber Monday deals lured a record number of online shoppers, leading to a 33% jump in U.S. sales compared with the Monday after Thanksgiving last year, according to a new IBM report released Tuesday.
Consumers spent an average of 2.6% more this year than they did in 2010, with the value of an average online order rising from $193.24 to a record $198.26 this year, according to IBM's fourth annual Cyber Monday Benchmark study.
Also increasing this year was the number of shoppers who made purchases on their smartphones and tablets, the study said. On Cyber Monday, a record 10.8% of people used a mobile device to visit a retailer's site, up from 3.9% in 2010. Mobile sales also grew to 6.6% on this year's Cyber Monday purchases, up from 2.3% a year earlier, the tech giant said.
"Consumers flocked online, with shopping momentum hitting its highest peak at 11:05am PST/2:05pm EST," IBM said in a statement. "Consumer shopping also maintained strong momentum after commuting hours on both the East and West coast."
Two statistics not included in IBM's study was an estimate of how much in total was spent or exactly how many people were shopping on Cyber Monday. IBM produces its Cyber Monday shopping report by "analyzing terabytes of raw data from 500 retailers nationwide," the company said.
And, as a tech firm that sells software, tech infrastructure and consulting services to businesses, IBM's analysis of this data is a bit of a marketing opportunity for the company founded in 1911.
"Retailers that adopted a smarter approach to commerce, one that allowed them to swiftly adjust to the shifting shopping habits of their customers, whether in-store, online or via their mobile device, were able to fully benefit from this day and the entire holiday weekend," said John Squire, the chief strategy officer of IBM's "Smarter Commerce" team, in a statement.
So, how did Cyber Monday compare with Black Friday, the Friday after Thanksgiving? IBM has some data on that too, reporting that it found Cyber Monday brought in 29.3% more online sales than Black Friday did (though many shoppers on Black Friday were in brick-and-mortar stores and not online).
According to a few other Black Friday reports, that day was a shopping sales record too.
Most people who purchased items online on Cyber Monday and Black Friday did so using Apple's i-devices, which "continued to rank one and two for mobile device retail traffic" with 4.1% of shopper Web-surfing taking place on the iPhone and 3.3% on the iPad, IBM said.
Android came in third with a solid 3.2% of Cyber Monday and Black Friday Web traffic, the report said.
"Shoppers using the iPad also continued to drive more retail purchases than any other device with conversion rates reaching 5.2 percent compared to 4.6 percent," on other devices, IBM said.
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Photo: Cyber Monday specials on Target's website. Credit: Stan Honda / AFP/Getty Images
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LG Nitro HD: 4.5-inch 720p display, on AT&T 4G LTE, due Dec. 4
posted by Technology @ 7:38 PM
Monday, November 28, 2011
Smartphone screens keep getting bigger and thankfully, the resolution on displays is finally starting to grow too.
The latest example: the LG Nitro HD, which features a 4.5-inch screen with a 1,280 x 720 screen resolution. That'd be 720p, the lowest possible resolution that can be considered high definition.
As such, this will be AT&T's first HD-screen phone when it goes on sale Dec. 4 at a price of $249.99 with a two-year contract, the carrier said in a statement.
But the promising touch screen isn't all the Nitro HD has going for it. The new LG handset features a 1.5-gigahertz dual-core processor (that's the same clock speed as some laptops), an 8-megapixel and 1080p camera on the back with an LED flash, and a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera.
Verizon has a 720p screen phone of its own in the $300 HTC Rezound, which I'm currently testing for an upcoming review. Both of the competing handsets run Google's Android Gingerbread operating system.
The Rezound, which has a 4.3-inch touch screen, runs on Verizon's 4G LTE network and the Nitro HD will run on AT&T's 4G LTE network. The Nitro HD will also offer 20 gigabytes of storage with 4 gigabytes built in and an additional 16 gigabytes on an included microSD card.
Stay tuned — we'll have a review of the Nitro HD soon as well.
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– Nathan Olivarez-Giles
Image: The LG Nitro HD, from AT&T, front and back. Credit: AT&T
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www.HubPages is a user generated content site. That means that you, and others, create the content on the site. Each piece of content you create becomes a hub or an individual web page. You can receive comments on the page, drive traffic to it, add content, and make money with your HubPage. In fact, if you’re interested in making money online but don’t want to build or manage your own website, a hub page may be the answer you’ve been looking for.
Here are just a few ways you can make money with HubPages.
#1 AdSense
AdSense is Google’s publishing program. Sign up for AdSense; it’s free, and you can publish Google ads on your HubPages. Each time someone clicks on an ad, you earn money. Now Google has rules, like you can only have three ads on a page and you cannot ask people to click or call attention to the ads. So it’s important to know what the rules are before you sign up.
And like many monetization tools, the more content you create, the more money you’ll make. The same is true with AdSense. The more hubs you have, the more AdSense profit potential.
#2 Affiliate Marketing
Another way to monetize your HubPages is to promote affiliate products. You can create product demonstrations and upload videos to your HubPage. You can create articles and include a call to action that links to an affiliate product or service. You can also write reviews or create comparison charts and let readers see which affiliate product is right for them.
Make sure your content is valuable rather than a blatant advertisement for your affiliate program. Present an unbiased review and/or an informative article to help your readers. You’ll make more money and earn more dedicated followers.
#3 Sell Your Own Products or Services
You can also use HubPages to sell your own products or services. For example, if you write a book or create a home study course you can write and publish content that attracts and helps your audience. Then, include a call to action that drives traffic to your sales page.
For example, you might create a hub page on organizing your home with many different tips and articles on the subject. You can then tell readers that they can visit your website to purchase a book or course that can help them organize their home from top to bottom in 30 days.
Any niche topic can make money on HubPages. It is a growing site with more and more users every day. According to statistics, HubPages received around 42 million visits in December 2010 and over 90 million page views. There’s a lot of potential to make money without spending time, money or energy creating your own blog or website.
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Free Tools For Your Online Business
Internet marketing is simply exploding on the web and along with that explosion is access to many free products that will help you to succeed online. These tools save time, which in the end translates to making more money…and, isn’t that why we’ve entered this online marketing world in the first place? I’ve included a list of valuable tools that I have used to help you with your online marketing and the best thing about it is they are free!
* Google Alerts
You can do so many things with this tool,not he least of which is the ability to “see” who is publishing your material, if anyone is talking about you and which sites have picked up your Ezine articles. If you are targeting certain keywords, you can set it up to show you when something has been posted on a website regarding the keywords you are targeting. Navigate to google.com/alerts and enter the keywords you want to track.
* Google Analytics
Another great tool provided by Google. With this tool, you can track the kind of activity your site is receiving such as…who is visiting, where they are from, how long they stayed on your site and the best part…which keywords they used to find you. It is very easy to install…just follow the prompts and paste the code exactly where they tell you to on your website.
* Google Adwords
Here’s Google again 
If you are not already tracking certain keywords for your blog or website, then you should begin doing so. Great search engine optimization requires finding the best keywords and long tail keywords. There is a lot involved with SEO, but learning how to find the right keywords is a must if you want to experience serious success.
* CamStudio
There is no question about it…the popularity of video on the Internet has exploded. CamStudio gives you the ability to learn and apply your video making skills before you move on to a paid program such as Camtasia. Obviously with Camtasia you are going to get more features, but CamStudio is a great starting place, and a good place to practice your video skills. Eventually, you will probably move up to a paid program, but you can’t beat free for starters!
* FTP
FTP stands for file transport protocol. Simply put, it is what you use to transfer your files from your computer to your host/server. My own personal choice…the that I use is Filezilla. It is open source and free to use, but there are many more available such as Smart FTP. Just do a seach on FTP choices and study your options.
* RSS reader
We all have favorite blogs that we like to return to and read the content, but trying to keep up as to when these blogs are updated can be a daunting task at best. An RSS reader will notify you of any new posts on your favorite blogs. Additionally, it will save you valuable time navigating to these blogs only to find out they have nothing new to offer yet. Google Reader is a good one and its free to use. Having access to RSS on your blog or website is equally important to your readers. You want them to have the ability to receive your blog posts when they are new. This tool will save you time and also save your readers time.
* Traffic Virus 2.0
Traffic Virus 1.0 was one of the web’s first traffic generating pieces of software designed to launch your own viral advertising campaign. The newer 2.0 version is now available and the best part about it is it remains free…even though it has been improved upon with better features. You can’t beat that deal!
This is just a partial list of the free tools that I have taken advantage of to keep my own Internet marketing business running smoothly. As you can see, there is no shortage of free programs and material out there to get your business up and running on the web in no time. It’s up to you to take action.
For more free tools, just Google “free Internet marketing tools”…you might be surprised at what’s out there!
Do You Want the Top Spot on Google?
Every website is battling for the top spot in Google’s search results page, and to do that you have to optimize your website for Google. Optimization requires continually improving your site’s content. Even though Yahoo and Bing simply search the tag structures in HTML, Google uses a trickier, and somewhat clandestine, method to determine top spot.
Google looks for websites that continually provide fresh and relevant content. Since Google has such strict guidelines for top spot, it requires web page owners to continually work on keeping their page’s content fresh and relevant to hold a top spot in the list.
* Keywords and Phrases
Google looks for phrases and keywords as it is assessing a site. It evaluates a site’s content, and looks for phrases that match a particular search term. If say, a visitor is looking for ‘boat repair’ Google will display pages where that keyword shows up several of times in the body of the page. So when you are optimizing your web page, you should concentrate on phrases rather than single words. Now that you know Google is looking for a particular phrase you do not want to go crazy with that phrase on a page either, because this is know as keyword stuffing. Be careful with keyword phrases–if Google sees too many of them, they will lower your page in the search engine rankings.
* The Title Tag
The title tag is important and is unique to each page in a website. The tag can be found on the browser’s title bar. It is also used by Googlebot to see what the page contents are going to be. Google then looks at the page contents and evaluates if the two match, and this helps determine page relevance. Since Google looks at each page in a domain, many sites dynamically generate page titles with an introduction text appended to the company name.
* Anchor Text
When you add link tags to your page, this is anchor text. Take care to be precise in your anchor test by using relevant phrases for prominent links on your page. Google is looking for specific link information, so the more specific that you can be the better. If you focus on your site’s keyword terms and make sure that these are always in line with your content, you will make Google’s assessment of your site easy. Google is generous with its link limits saying that no more than 100 links should ever appear on a web page.
* Header Tags
Header tags are HTML page elements coded “”, and they provide a bold heading on the page. The headers tell Google what the purpose of the page is, and the title tag tells it the purpose of the website. You should have a header tag on each page.
* Quality Content
The last thing that Google is looking for is unique content. Google’s customers are your website visitors, and when Google returns a search list, they want their customers to be happy. So you are helping Google as it is helping your. New content and keyword phrases help you get to the top of Google’s search list. So if you have bad content – either plagiarized, badly written or irrelevant content – Google is not interested in you. Make sure to follow Google guidelines, or Google will blacklist your domain and not link to it at all.
* Optimize Your Website for Google and Make it Readable
By complying with the guidelines that Google has set out for page ranking, you can set your page up to show up at the top of the search list. By continually adding new content, Google will mark your page as a good one to return to its customer. However, you must always make sure that you site is aesthetically pleasing and readable by a human, because the point of why you optimize your website for Google, is to attract new visitors to your page to increase your company’s market share.
Link Building: When Will Backlinks Show Up In Google
Many times website owners who are new to link building simply don’t know what to expect when it comes to the timeframe for registering backlinks.
Here’s a common question I get:
“I’ve just started marketing my brand new website, and I know I have backlinks coming into my site, yet when I do a check for incoming links, nothing shows up. Am I doing something wrong?”
Probably not–A backlink check will tell you how many incoming links are registered with a particular search engine, but it will not tell you how many backlinks you actually have.
Why is that? Well, it usually takes search engines months to re-evaluate incoming links, so if you do a backlink check today, there are likely links that are going into your site that haven’t yet been calculated in.
It would be nice if we could build links and then immediately have them show up in a backlink check, but that’s just not the way the internet works.
As you’re building links to your site, here are some ways to keep track of your progress and build links effectively over time:
- How To Do A Backlink Check
It’s incredibly easy to do a backlink check for your site. In Google, just type this into the search box (replacing the ‘yourwebsite.com’ part with your URL):
* link:http://www.yourwebsite.com/
The results of that search will bring up a list of sites that are linking to your website address. In the upper right hand corner of Google you’ll be able to see a total count of your registered backlinks.
An even better tool is Yahoo Site Explorer https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com which provides a list of your registered backlinks and much more detailed information. Both of these backlink checking tools are free, so you can try each one out (or do both).
- Why Are Backlinks Not Showing Up For My Site?
Let’s suppose you know that you’ve build links to your site, but nothing is showing up when you do a backlink check (frustrating, I know!).
There are some logical reasons why backlinks may not be showing up:
1) Perhaps your website is brand new and has not yet been indexed by Google
When you launch a new site it does not automatically appear in Google–it usually takes several months for Google to realize that the site is there and to index and categorize it.
Until your site is indexed, it will not show up in any search engine searches and no backlinks will be registered. You can even do a search for your exact site name or URL and nothing will show up–that is how you know that your site has not been indexed yet.
If this is your situation, don’t fret! This waiting period is something that all website owners go through, and Google (and the other search engines) will eventually index your site.
It can take anywhere from 3-5 months for a new website to be indexed.
I remember the last time I was launching a new site it took about 5 months for the site to be indexed in Google. On that 5th month, all of the backlinks that I had been building over the preceding months finally showed up–whew!
2) Not enough time has elapsed since building the links
Even if your site is already indexed, it usually takes search engines several months (3-4) to recalculate the backlinks. So, if you have been doing article submissions for the past 2 months and you know for a fact that you have quite a few incoming links, those links will not show up in a backlink check for another month or two.
This doesn’t mean the links aren’t there–they are! The search engine just hasn’t registered them yet.
As you can see, one necessary component of any link building campaign is PATIENCE. There will be a time delay from when you build the link to when you see the fruit of your labor in Google.
Keep in mind, this time delay does not impact your marketing campaign–whether the links have started to show up or not, you should continue to market your website and submit articles. Immediate results are not the goal–you should be going for a long lasting impact on your search engine ranking for your keywords, rather than a brief shot of traffic that fades away after a day or so.
When you’re link building, you need to market your site consistently–develop an article submission schedule for yourself and stick to it, submitting articles each and every month.
You will be rewarded in the long run with an increased search engine ranking for your major keywords, which can of course build traffic dramatically for the long-term.
How to use the Google Trends Website
The Google Trends Website was made public in 1996 but many marketers on the Internet don’t know about it. Some know but don’t understand it and so don’t get the benefits out of it that are possible.
The Google Trends website is a service offered by Google to users that want to get some fantastic data about keyword searches in the Google search engine. For example if you wanted to know how popular Levi jeans were over the past 6 years you could type in “Levi Jeans” and get data that would show you the search trend for Levi Jeans. It will not only give you the search trend but you can begin to focus the searches on country, city or even by language.
For anyone looking for a Niche to market and make money Google Trends is something they should not do without.
* How to use the Google Trends website Practically?
a) PPC Marketing
If you are primarily a PPC marketer Google Trends is going to help you in your geo-targeting. I was involved in a niche that was hot in the United States but it gradually tapered off in the USA but got real hot in the Japanese market and so you set up your Adwords campaigns to target Japan. Thank you Google for saving me money on advertising and making me money by knowing where the buyers were.
b) Spying on Competition
To the right of the trends graph there are a list of links that show you articles that are ranked high for the keyword that you chose. Look over those articles, get some ideas, spin it and submit it. Have you seen our page about Online Article Marketing?
c) Hot Trends for Bloggers
Google Hot Trends is a separate service and URL. When you are blogging you are in need of content and if you want to have something relevant to your crowd that is timely with world events or something else you can use Google Hot Trends to see what is real relevant. Not long ago Tiger Woods went through his hardship with his family and the reporters. If you type Tiger Woods into the Google Trends website you will see the spike that was created over the bad press. I would not use Hot Trends to determine a niche because it is only reporting the hot things that are very current and as we know, news is changing all the time.
d) Keyword Analysis
The Google Trends website should be a part of your keyword research in conjunction with a program like Traffic Travis (download Traffic Travis for FREE) and the Google external keyword tool. Google trends will save you money from choosing keywords or a niche that is no longer active in a particular country that you may be targeting.
Another cool part of the keyword analysis that I should mention is something I saw in a webinar. The Google Trends website was used to compare “table tennis” and “ping pong”. Which do you think is more popular? Which country would you think either is more popular? Curious? Well I am not going to tell you. Go to the Google Trends website and check it out for yourself. While you are there play with it and see if you should alter some of the marketing that you are doing.
Remember that this is only Google traffic and does not account for the traffic on other search engines like Ask, Yahoo and Bing. Clearly Google dominates as a search engine and gives a good picture of what is most likely taking place in the other search engines.
How to Increase Google Page Rank
Visit any internet marketing forum and you are bound to find at least a few discussions on Google page rank. But what exactly is Google Page Rank and what do you need to do to increase it?
First of all Page Rank is a value that Google assigns to a web page based on the importance of the page. It is determined by the number of incoming links to that web page and few other factors including the page rank of the page giving the link to you.
There has been discussion recently asked to the importance of page rank. However one thing to consider is this, if Google thinks page rank is important than page rank is important.
Remember Google gets over 65% of all the search traffic on the Internet every day. If you were to take 10 websites that were all optimized for the same keywords, typically you would find that the page with the highest page rank would rank higher in the search engine results than the other pages.
* So what are the best ways to increase your Google Page Rank?
1. One of the first things you should do is aim to increase the numnber of backlinks that you have pointing to your website. This fact alone can increase your link popularity and ultimately increase your page rank. Combined with that is the fact that the more back links you have pointing back your website for more potential traffic you will get from it.
2. As well as increasing the quantity of links to your website you should also try to get your links on high quality web pages. This means getting your link on pages that are ranked as high or higher than yours. When you do this some of their page rank can be transferred to you which ultimately helps increase the page rank of your site.
There are lots of ways to increase your page rank, but the most common methods are posting in discussion forums that have a high page rank, article marketing, submitting your site to directories, commenting on blogs and distributing press releases.
You should also try to get some deep links in addition to the links to your home page. Deep linking means linking to internal pages on your website as opposed to always linking to your homepage.
There are many other methods that you can use to improve your page rank, but any time you spend on getting links is well spent!
It is worth noting that the page rank displayed on the Google toolbar is not up to date. Although Google is always internally updating the page rank of web pages, the toolbar page rank is only updated every few months.
You should also be aware that just because a web page has a low page rank it doesn’t mean that getting a link on that page isn’t worthwhile. The page rank could increase on the next toolbar update.
Finally, it is worth remembering that a good Google Page Rank on its own is not necessarily going to mean lots of traffic. You also want to ensure that you have chosen good keyword phrases and have optimized your website.
3 Important Questions to Ask Google Analytics
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, June 25, 2011
3 Important Questions to Ask Google Analytics
With dozens of free web analytics tools available in the market, Google Analytics stands out because it provides data like no other tool does. Just add a few lines of JavaScript code to your website’s footer and you have access to a vast amount of metrics you can slice and dice.
This data is useful to develop and implement fresh website marketing strategies and understanding the behavior online of your web visitors.
But before diving into Google Analytics, prepare a list of the most important questions you want answered from this tool:
1. What do you want visitors to do on your website?
Every website has a purpose. It may be to provide information, build a brand or sell products online. Set your goals for the website and build it accordingly.
The Goals category of Google Analytics helps you to understand the number of goals achieved in a day, week or month. All you need to do is set your goal URL in the analytics settings and watch the data pour in. The funnel visualization sub category provides this type data:
* How many visitors completed my goals?
* How many visitors abandoned the goals to move onto other URL?
* Which internal pages did visitors came from to the goal webpage?
2. What is the Visitor doing on the Website?
Analysis of this data enables you to track the visitor’s action on the website. You can find out whether the visitor completed the goal you set. Accordingly you can make the changes which will reinforce goal completion. The content category in the left sidebar of Google Analytics provides important data:
a) Top Content: It contains a list of the content viewed by the visitor, arranged in descending order. This lets you know the most popular pages of the website and how to leverage them.
b) Top Landing Pages: These are the pages visitors land on, before going ahead and browsing the website. You can view the browsing path for each webpage and find a pattern.
c) Top Exit Pages: It contains a list of web pages which failed to generate interest among the visitors and lead them to exit the website. Revamp the exit pages with these details and aim to convert them into your top content pages.
d) Site Overlay: The Site Overlay opens a new web page which contains a small progress bar over every link. This bar shows the percentage of the number of clicks on that link. As the number of clicks on a link increase, the percentage of the progress bar increases.
3. Where is the Visitor coming from?
This is one of the most important data elements you can work on to get insights into the visitor. The ‘Traffic Sources’ category displays the websites and keywords which send traffic to your website. This category can be segregated into:
a) Direct Traffic: This contains the number of visitors who came to the website by entering its URL into their web browser. Direct traffic is also used to determine the popularity of the website.
b) Referring Sites: Referring websites are the ones which link back to a website using some content and a link. The visitors get referenced from the source website and land on the target website using the link provided. Referring websites can be used to judge the success of social media marketing techniques.
c) Search Engines: It contains a list of the search engines which send traffic to the website. Google Analytics also lists keywords which were clicked upon by the visitors. A high percentage of visits from search engines indicate a successful search engine optimization strategy.
The answers to the above questions coupled with custom reports and segmentation provide rewarding insights. These metrics can be used to model the website around the desired goal and achieve higher conversions.
The Google Gadget that Makes Selling Online a Snap
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The Google Gadget that Makes Selling Online a Snap
If one or all of the following applies to you, please raise your hand – “I want to sell something on the Net”, “I have no technical or coding skills”, or “I don’t want to be bothered with a merchant account”.
Do I have your attention now? How about if I told you that there’s a quick and easy solution to your online selling problems? Well, thanks to Google, your prayers have been answered. Google Labs is a testing ground for new services thought up by the geniuses who work there. One of their latest concoctions is called “Google Checkout Store Gadget”. Its basic function allows you to copy and paste some code onto any webpage or blog, and become an instant merchant selling your own products.
Let’s take a look at the “man behind the curtain” to see how it all works. The very first step is to open a Google Checkout Merchant account, which is easy to do by going to http://checkout.google.com/signup Fill out all of the required information, and you’ll also need to input a bank account where your hard earned sales funds will be sent to. Google Checkout will process all incoming orders for you. The orders will appear under the “orders tab”. On another note, make sure to uncheck the box that says, “my company will only post digitally signed carts”, then hit the save button. Also, make sure to write down your “Merchant ID” number as you’ll need it later on.
The next step is done using a Google Docs Spreadsheet which will track all your inventory. Google provides a template that can be copied which can be found here, http://tinyurl.com/yhebl4y . Take out the “dummy” product information and replace it with your own. There are separate columns for each item, even for shipping information. Each product can have its own separate shipping charge if need be. Keep in mind when filling it out that it can be viewed by the general public, so don’t include any private information in it.
After you’ve entered all your items, hit “share” in the upper right hand corner, and publish as a “web page”. Also, check the box that says “Automatically Re-Publish when changes are made.”
Google makes it easy to set up your online store by using http://storegadget.googlelabs.com . It takes you through the process step-by-step, and when finished you click on “start publishing” and select where you’d like to embed the code, for example your website, Blogger, etc. Copy the code and paste it where you want the gadget to appear. There are no coding skills necessary, and anyone can do it. Really, it’s that simple.
If adding to a Blogger Blog, go under “edit layout”, add a “gadget”, then click “add your own”, and paste the gadget code. Now you’re selling items from your Blog that quickly.
So what’s all of this going to cost? There is a small transaction fee charged by Google Checkout for any monthly sales as follows:
* Under 3,000.00 2.9% plus .30 per transaction
* 3,000.00 to 9,999.99 2.5% plus .30 per transaction
* 10,000 to 99,999.99 2.2% plus .30 per transaction
If you’ve been putting off getting up a store front because you thought it was too difficult or technically complicated, Google really has simplified the process. With “store gadgets” even a child can sell online.
For more information see these resources:
* http://googlecheckout.blogpsot.com Checkout Blog
* http://tinyurl.com/ybd8ksk Google Checkout Store Gadget Forum
* http://tinyurl.com/n2c2dy Google Docs blog
“5 Tips on How To Use Google Sidewiki Efficiently”
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
“5 Tips on How To Use Google Sidewiki Efficiently”
Google launched Sidewiki on 23rd Sep 2009 as a part of its toolbar. Google Sidewiki appears as a sidebar in the browser and allows visitors to comment on any webpage. Its main aim was to collect useful information on any webpage from people around the world and therefore lead to better user experience.
For example, a person searching for a local restaurant can see its review in the sidebar by the previous diners.
Google Sidewiki comprises of an algorithm which pulls out the most useful and valuable comments from its database. This ensures that a visitor will see the most relevant comments on a webpage. Listed below are 5 steps for using Google Sidewiki efficiently.
1. Get Started With Google Sidewiki
Sidewiki is available in the options tab of the Google toolbar. Simply download the Google toolbar and select the option to integrate Sidewiki using the checkbox. It appears as a blue sidebar in the browser which slides open when you click on it. Google Sidewiki works perfectly well in Firefox. Although, Google’s own browser, Chrome seems to be having some issues in integrating Sidewiki.
2. Add Comments on Useful Webpages
Adding comments in Google Sidewiki is extremely easy. You need to log in to your Google account and click on the “Make an Entry” link which appears at the bottom of the sidebar. Enter your comments and publish. It is advised to add something which ads more value to the content. If your comment is relevant to the topic, then it can be placed on the first page of Sidewiki for that web page, unless you are the website owner.
3. Claim Your Position At The Top Of All Comments
If you want to place your own comment at the top, you need to verify ownership of the website by using Google Webmasters Tool. If verified, as the page owner your entry is placed at the top entry for that page. The top slot can be used to leave a note for anyone who is yet to comment.
4. Share Your Comments With Everyone
Each comment in Google Sidewiki has the option of being shared on Twitter, Facebook or emailed to any user. This enables everyone to read the Sidewiki entries without using the Google Toolbar. This option is very useful if your web page has received some great comments from visitors. Sharing these comments will pull readers from others streams like Twitter and Facebook onto your website.
5. Flush Out Negative Comments By Blocking Sidewiki
Google Sidewiki does not provide an option for blocking or deleting negative comments on a webpage. Many users have expressed their displeasure with Google for not providing an option for this purpose. If your web page is inundated with negative or irrelevant comments which are harming your website, you can block Google Sidewiki. This can be done by switching from normal http:// to secure https:// pages.
Google Sidewiki is not the first of its kind. One of the first commenting add-on, Third Voice was launched way back in 1999. AddATweet and Kutano are plug-ins which can be installed on your browser and let you tweet comments on a webpage.
Despite many competitors, Google Sidewiki has risen to become the most popular commenting tool of its time. Start your week by experimenting with this comment tool.
On Google Docs
Google Docs has been around for some time now but until recently I’d never managed to find a use for it in my life and my lack of experience with the service means I’ve not felt confident enough to recommend it to readers. We are currently going through the process of getting another shop up and running in Newton Abbot which has necessitated several people working on the same few spreadsheets (costing exercises, proposed time sheets and so on) from several different locations. Google Docs has worked out perfectly for this task.
To get started, set up a free Google Account (if you don’t already have one) at http://docs.google.com. From there you will now be able to create an online Document, Spreadsheet or Presentation. As well as then giving you access to these documents from wherever you are in the world, you also have the added advantage that you can choose to share them with any number of different people. Those that you trust to make their own changes can then also edit the document, even at the same time as another user.
There are three primary types of file that you can work with:
A) Word Processed Documents
* Either create a document from scratch or upload an existing Word, OpenOffice, RTF, HTML or plain text file. Files can also be saved back in to these formats for distribution in more conventional formats.
* Files are created using a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. Those familiar with Word should have no problems using this and similar formatting and insert tools are provided.
* Each document can have a maximum size of 500kb plus up to 2mb per embedded image.
B) Spreadsheets
* Documents can be created from scratch or imported from Excel, OpenOffice, CSV or a plain text file. In the same way as with documents, work created in the Spreadsheet can also be saved back in to those formats.
* The layout and navigation is very similar to Word and the previously mentioned formatting and formula editing tools are provided.
* The spreadsheets you can create can be up to 256 columns, 200,000 cells or 100 sheets; whichever is reached first.
C) Presentations
* Work can be imported and exported in PowerPoint format along with the facility to save as a PDF file.
* A familiar looking WYSIWYG editor is provided to allow you to easily format your slides as well as inserting images and videos. Those used to using Word or PowerPoint shouldn’t have any issues.
* Presentations can be a maximum of 2mb in size when uploaded.
I have been massively impressed with how fully featured the Google Docs applications actually are, even though nothing needs to be installed or downloaded. The sharing functionality which is incredible and really helps Google Docs to shine; it’s quite surreal to be working on the same document as someone else and seeing the changes they are making in real time. A revision history helps keep track of amendments that have been done on a document as well as rolling it back if necessary.
Since all the work you create is saved online there are potential issues with regards to privacy and security however I don’t believe that most would have any real cause for concern. Members of MI5 may want to consider sticking to conventional offline storage methods for the time being, although that having been said, it is much harder to leave an online document on the train.
How to get Started With Google Analytics
* Set up a Google account
If you do not already have a Google account you will need to set up an account to continue -click on the link “Sign-up Now” and complete the requested information.
Once your have established an account, login. Click on the “Sign Up” button and you are on your way. It is important to note before proceeding that you must be the owner of the website that you are wishing to track or have the permission of the website owner.
Blog sites such as WordPress often will have resources that will allow you to place code on your particular Blog page(s).
* Setup Google Analytics
You will be directed to a couple of input forms that will ultimately provide you the coding to produce tracking data for your website.
- General Information – On this page you will be asked to submit your website’s URL, a name to serve as a domain identifier and finally your country and time zone. (You can elect to identify your locality based on your physical location or your target audience/primary user location.)
- Contact Information – This will simply request your name and your physical location.
- Accept User Agreement – Naturally, Google will request that you approve their Terms of Service. If they are acceptable to you check the box and click on “Create New Account”.
- Add Tracking – Finally, Google Analytics will produce a Javascript code for your domain. This should be added to each page of your website at the very end of your page coding between and .
* Tracking your website
Once you have inserted the information onto each page, you will return to the Google Analytics page. Click on the link for the website you are wishing to review. This will bring you to the main “dashboard” and provide a wide range of general information including – daily usage, bounce rate, new visits, geographic locality of users, most viewed pages, etc.
You can receive more detailed information by clicking on various menu items. Detailed information will include specifics like what browser your visitors were using, by what means they accessed your page (directly, search engines, etc.), what keywords were used when accessing via a search. Google Analytics offers an area for users to establish goals to focus on specific areas of interest and particular campaigns.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool which offers the user such a wide range of in depth data the greatest risk is becoming overwhelmed by the amount of information received.
Google 360 Street View
For the good of mankind Google need to let the rest of us know exactly what they do to come up with such fantastic and innovative ideas. For now I will have to be content with the constant stream of material they provide me with for these articles. The most recent offering that has me climbing the walls in excitement being “Google Street View”.
I can practically imagine the meeting in which an employee stood up and proclaimed “let’s drive specially modified cars down every street in the entire world and create a three dimensional virtual representation that anybody can then browse at home for free”. In any other company you would undoubtedly be ridiculed but at Google this idea was taken on board and followed through so over a period of two years practically every major city in the developed world has been captured.
By now most computer users will have used Google Maps which has a birds-eye view of almost every square-inch of the planet. “Street View” enhances this is giving you a street level 360 view of your chosen location so can take a look around as if you were actually there.
This world was created by the vehicles photographing their surroundings at 30 to 60 foot intervals along each piece of road they are driving on, the result allows you to view the world 360 degrees horizontally and 270 degrees vertically. Additional freedom to explore is given by simply clicking the direction in which you wish to move down the street or even take a corner when you reach a junction.
The UK maps only came online very recently so the coverage is fairly limited, there isn’t any coverage of my local area in the South West. Cities added in the United Kingdom currently include London, Oxford, Cambridge, Nottingham, Derby, Sheffield, Leeds, Manchester, Bradford, Scunthorpe, Bristol, Norwich, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Birmingham, Coventry, Liverpool, Southampton, Belfast, Cardiff, Swansea, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee and Aberdeen.
Number plates and faces have been removed to give users the opportunity to remove any views that are deemed inappropriate, however ‘Street View’ has given the campaigners involved with the ever present privacy debate yet more ammunition. The watchdog organisation “Privacy International” based here in the UK has issued a formal complaint to the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office) requesting the service be switched off pending a full investigation. These concerns have been sparked by 200 complaints by the pubic who believe their likeness is verifiable despite the facial recognition software blurring their faces.
It seems odd to me that these two hundred individuals didn’t simply click the ‘report an image’ button to have their image removed permanently but instead choose to locate the address for Privacy International to compose a strongly worded letter of protest. For the sake of the other 60,954,800 people in the UK who haven’t felt the need to complain I hope that the service remains online as provided the privacy of the individual continues to be respected via face blurring and manual image removal tools I don’t see there being any real cause for concern.
To get started simply visit http://maps.google.com or alternative the feature is also accessible directly from the fantastic Google Earth which can be downloaded for free from http://earth.google.com
Milestone Tracking with Google Analytics
Web analytics is a valuable tool for website performance monitoring and measurement. Website owners and administrators prefer to use Google Analytics, in particular, because of its easy-to-use features that simplify website tracking, analysis, reporting, and corrective activities.
Google Analytics has a user-friendly graphical user interface (GUI) that makes it popular among expert and non-expert website operators. A wide range of features — advanced segmentation, e-commerce tracking, analysis tools, and APIs – provide accurate data gathering and reporting.
Why are tools such as Google Analytics important for website performance tracking? In the old days, website owners have no accurate means to gather data and assess the successes or failures of their websites. Google Analytics tracker scripts which are embedded into website pages gather relevant data for each accessed page. This data is interpreted and presented to website owners in varying perspectives, trends or patterns. The resulting data aid website owners in assessing whether traffic generation strategies, marketing campaigns, or whatever business goal they have set, are effectively achieved or not.
* Intelligent Data Mining and Analysis
Google Analytics is popular with website owners because it is easy to deploy and is able to gather accurate statistics on website performance. It can generate accurate reports and present it in a way that is understandable to technical and non-technical users.
Depending on the goals of the business, there are several features in Google Analytics that are useful for goals or performance tracking. Here are a few of them:
1. Customized segmentation: Website owners can use segmentation to focus on monitoring website data relevant only to the site’s business goals.
2. API packs for data manipulation and tracking: The Data Export API allows client applications development that can be integrated into Google Analytics data transformations, while the Tracking API allows for customization of the way the tracker script gathers data.
3. Analytic tools: The core strength of Google Analytics comes from the use of statistical methods making use of multiple dimensions, filtering and pivot tables, among others, to mine relevant data.
* Performance Monitoring Flexibility
Google Analytics provides customization of data variables useful in aligning monitoring activities with business goals, which are then sent as reports to website owners in aid of decision-making. The bottom line is that only needed data are presented in custom reporting, giving the convenience of browsing only useful data instead of a multitude of unnecessary information.
* Performance monitoring is made flexible and can be deployed in any of the following scenarios:
1. E-commerce monitoring: It is possible to correlate e-commerce transactions with targeted keywords and marketing campaigns, and measure customer engagement with the site, as well as identify new sources of revenue.
2. Multi-channel tracking: It allows tracking not only traditional channel access but also other sources such as mobile phones applications and websites.
3. Benchmarking and Goal comparison: Threshold levels can be tracked from sales to conversions, making it possible to assess the current performance of the website.
Using the same infrastructure the supports the Google search engine, Google Analytics assures integrity of the data gathered, as well as the privacy of visitors to the website. Together with its multiple features and ease of implementation, this is one analytic tool that can really support comprehensive and accurate site performance appraisal.
Google Analytics: Advice
As a freelance SEO consultant I always set my clients up with a Google Analytics account. This enables them to keep track of what progress is being made and adds transparency to the relationship. However, there are usually a fair amount of questions directed my way as how to understand the data, and what exactly they should be looking for or expecting to see. The main aim of using Google Analytics is to keep an eye on traffic. Not only does this mean seeing how many visitors your site is getting, but also seeing where they are coming from both in the geographical sense, and via other sites on the internet. This article goes through a few basic things can help someone who is unfamiliar to Google Analytics:
* The Dashboard
This is the first page that you will see when you enter the report. It is there to give you an overview on what is going on, and typically includes; Visitor Numbers, Site Usage Data, Unique Visitor Numbers, Map Overlay and Page View details. Any of these modules can be removed and if you’d prefer to include something else in the dashboard e.g Keyword data then you can. To add another module to the dashboard, simply view the report in question and click ‘add to dashboard’.
* Visitors Vs Unique
Visitors At the top of the dashboard you should see a large line graph spanning the page. This graph shows you the amount of visitors or ‘hits’ your website has received. The standard display shows data from the previous month, with points for each day. This can be programmed to display whatever time period you prefer. You can also view time periods from the past to help compare past traffic levels against the present figures. This data shows the total number of visits and will include yours. The number you should really focus on however, is the amount of unique visitors. To get a more accurate view, you can block certain IP addresses from the report.
* Traffic Sources
For anyone involved in SEO this is the really interesting bit. It is crucial for any online marketing that you can keep an eye on where the traffic is coming from, and also see what keywords are sending traffic from the search engines. If you are fortunate to spot a dramatic spike in traffic numbers this report will identify where they have come from. With regards to keywords, you can go into quite a lot of detail and find out not only which phrases send you the most traffic, but which ones are actually converting into customers. This is vital if you are engaging in pay per click advertising when each click is costing you money.
* Site Usage
This is the bit that confuses most people. Once you understand what’s being reported you will find this information extremely useful as it lays out a very detailed report on what people are looking at, and for how long. The three most important things you should be checking are; Bounce Rate, Average Page Views and Average Time On Site. If your site is doing well, you should expect to see a low bounce rate, a relatively high average page view and again a relatively high average time on site (over 2-3 mins is good!). For poor performing websites the bounce rate is often very high, i.e people are clicking on the website and ‘bouncing’ straight off.
Google Adwords for Your Internet Based Business: The Upside and Downside
When people need information on any subject today, the first place they will look for it is on the internet. One of the best things to come out of the internet revolution is the search engine and the most popular search engine is Google.
Having the internet and Google has made for a quick and easy method of finding out whatever it is that you want to know. Not only does Google make it very easy to search for information but it also allows for fast growth of an internet based business for anyone who chooses to use Google Adwords as a means of advertising.
If you have never heard of Google Adwords this is a pay-per-click program that was started by Google ten years ago and it can be used to generate traffic to your website and increase the number of sales that you make. The way it works is that an internet business owner will pay Google for the amount of exposure Google gives them on the search engine.
There is an upside as well as a downside to using Google Adwords that you should be aware of before jumping in and using this type of advertising:
1. On the upside Google Adwords reaches an enormous audience. According to fairly recent research approximately 65% of all internet users will resort to Google when searching for information of any kind.
With this type of exposure one would automatically assume that by using Adwords advertising on Google your website would be displayed and bring interested buyers to your website, people who will purchase the products that you have on offer.
The advantage of this is that even if you are running your business on a limited budget you can still get your brand out there at least in the online world. By setting up your adverts and your landing pages correctly you are likely to not only recoup your advertising outlay but make a good profit as well.
One other good thing with using Adwords is that you only pay per click. In other words Google will only charge you when someone clicks on your link so no clicks no charge. Remember though that the position of an ad on the Google search page is dependant on the budget you specify and that is something else to think about. If you set the budget at 1 cent per day don’t expect your ad to be positioned in a prominent place as budgets can go as high as $100 per day and those people are going to get much better exposure.
With Google Adwords you have the flexibility to make alterations according to what you prefer – this is something that you cannot do with other forms of advertising and it only takes about 15 minutes to set up an ad on Google Adwords so it is no big deal to make frequent changes to it if you so desire. You also have the option of a multitude of languages and this allows you to cater for a niche audience.
Here is the downside!
One of the biggest downsides to using Google Adwords is that you will not be able to get any information on how well your competitors are doing. Google has a policy of not sharing this information and this can make it a bit difficult to strategize the best way to advertise effectively.
The other downside is that with Google Adwords you are very limited with the amount of copy space that you can use. You have only seventy characters with which to catch to prospective customers’ attention and this can be very difficult to achieve at times.
Even though there are these downsides when using Google Adwords it can still be a very profitable method of promoting your internet based business as it gives plenty of exposure especially with the internet being as overcrowded as it is today.
GoogleApple War: What does it all mean?
For those who have been living in a cave, Google recently bought AdMob, the small but highly innovative mobile advertising company for the extremely inflated price of $750 Million. That is the gross national product of the country of Kiribati, a small country made up of a bunch of atolls. While AdMob hadn’t quite made anywhere around that amount of revenue, Google wanted to gobble it up before someone else did and to have a quick way to access the growing revenue stream available on Mobile Applicatications. Part of this strategy was to be able to access the significant population of IPHONE users. However, recently Apple came out with new developer rules that will prevent ADMob and Google Adsense from being displayed on iPhone applications… and thus a significant issue with ADMob’s revenue stream. However, perhaps things aren’t as they seem…
Let’s make this really clear, Apple is looking to break into the advertising and eventually search market. Google, as the all encompassing leader of search clearly dominates the market. However, they recently also decided to get into mobile market with the Google Android system, which while itself doesn’t make that much money for the company, the offshoots such as the product development, application development, google interfacing and even their own google nexus phone has been a significant success. In fact, according to most reputable reports, the open-source android phones are taking over as the dominant force in the market, pushing out Apple. Apple, ain’t happy about their market share being taken. They saw themselves as dominating the mobile space for a long time to come. Don’t forget also that Apple had actually wanted to buy ADMob, but the $750M price tag was way too high – they bought a competitor with just as much revenue and potential, it seems for a significantly lower price tag of $250M.
While some people might say this is a stab at Google for getting into “their business”, there is much more here than meets the eye. Apple has no reason to actually allow Google Adsense onto their applications – because they don’t make a single dollar from those ads. Since Apple is making their own system, they need to ensure that the only way to run advertising on the system is through them. It’s pretty damn simple – Google already has an extensive database of advertisers, and they would easily overshadow any attempt by Apple to compete with them even on their own platform. This wouldn’t fare very well for Apple, if in a year a report came out that not only was Google Android overtaking Apple iPhone, but that the predominate type of advertising on the IPHONE was actually Google.
What is strange about this mobile advertising war is the investment versus the actual possible revenue being made. Everyone is talking about mobile advertising on applications and application development as if it is the “end-all” of advertising and will take over advertising left and right. However, people ten years ago pushed application advertising and ad-supported applications as the method that would take over interactive advertising. Now it’s almost impossible to find any program that actually does this and the predominate type of advertising is in the browser.
I honestly think that this is a very possible future for mobile also. As mobile devices get bigger, as the web integrates with mobile more and more, there will be a growing seamless interaction between the two mediums. In fact, if you think about it, a great portion of the “internet” users are really “mobile” – laptops are a “mobile” device of sorts, and they have become smaller and smaller, while phone screens have become bigger and bigger. At some point in the near future they will meet in the middle and we will have laptop/netbooks that are nothing but combinations of mobile phones, laptops that do everything. Most people that I know who have android phones and iPhones spend quite a bit of their time, browsing the web using it as a “little computer” of sorts and see all the banner and other type of ads made specifically for the websites.
So, does this war really matter? Perhaps for the short term, but within a few years, I can’t see it will really matter except to corner a very small part of the marketshare. Mobile as separate entity, with its own features (mobile billing, mobile applications) will become part of the entire interactive, internet, web-process. No one actually believes that ADMob was worth $750M, but sees it as one chess piece in a greater strategy that both these companies have to dominate the web. This has little to do with “Mobile”.
The Power of Google Analytics
Internet marketing efforts need to be tracked so you know if you are using your resources wisely. Google analytics is a good, free tool you can use to track traffic sources, conversion rates, etc.
Make sure you have Google analytics or some other type of analytics installed on your website.
- Traffic Sources
You want to know where your traffic is coming from and where it is not coming from. This will help you allocate your resources properly. Google Analytics is able to track where your site visitors are coming from, where they go on your site, etc.
A few examples of where your traffic may come from:
- Search Engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc)
- Pay-Per-Click campaigns
- Twitter, Facebook, etc
- Articles and press releases that include links
- Websites that have your links
- Etc.
Having this information can help you have a more effective Internet marketing plan.
- Easy Come, Easy Go
It is easy to find out where the traffic comes from and what page they leave from. Both of these pieces of information are valuable. Knowing them can help you identify if your Internet marketing strategy is working.
The page people enter your site on is important. You want to make sure they arrive on your website on a page that has a focused message for what they are looking for (most websites have multiple entry points, each focused on a different search term). Pay careful attention to what page your visitors land on and make sure it is well designed and well written.
The page visitors leave your website on is also important because it may identify a problem with your site. If you find that a certain page is the primary exit point you want to see if there are any technical or other issues with that page that make people leave your site.
- Conversion Rates
Though it is important to learn about where your traffic is coming from it is more important to know where your sales are coming from. Conversion rates in Google Analytics are tracked by traffic source. You can see where your actual buyers are coming from so you can put more emphasis on those resources.
Google Analytics is important to add to a website. Learn about your website traffic, conversion rates and more so you can make important tweaks to your Internet marketing strategy. It’s free to use so all you have to do is go for it.
Time Spent In The Google Sandbox: Still Important To Success
Google denies that they sandbox new websites. Yet, webmasters and SEO gurus alike have been frustrated to no end by the sandbox effect noted when a new website is launched. Google does acknowledge that there may be something in the algorithm that penalizes new websites and gives them lower rankings until they have proven their value. The reasons for such a filter are many and include keeping people from putting up multiple sites with links to one another when one website is what they need. Whatever the reasons behind ending up there, time spent in the Google Sandbox is still important to success.
Whether it was a conscious decision on the part of Google owners or not, they have written into the algorithm a set of filters that manage to establish the quality of a website using time-based indicators. These indicators include the age of the web site or domain, the age of different backlinks and inbound links to the site, and other factors. One important feature to note is that not only new sites are found in the sandbox. Older sites that suddenly get a rush of inbound links are often sandboxed while the value of the links is established.
With these points in mind, many who have paid for SEO services and still ended up in Google Sandbox are wondering what they can do to get out. Sadly, the only true way to climb out is to be patient. Time is actually on the side of those who are in the sandbox. There are several reasons for this.
The first reason is that time spent in the sandbox allows the website owner to work on tweaking any problem that is found with the site so that it is 100 percent ready when page rank climbs to a point where new visitors are coming in large numbers. This is the best time to test and fix any programming errors noted.
The second reason is that it allows you to work on the content of your site and any related sites linked to it. On the internet, content is king and Google is no different on that score. New, keyword optimized content appearing regularly with links that go back to a site that has been sandboxed catch attention and increase the odds of getting out sooner. Of course, these links must be relevant to the material on the website to be of any real value.
It gives webmasters time to establish relationships with others that are considered authorities in their fields. These authorities can include links to a site in their own pages. If these individuals are recognized as authorities in their fields, the value of their links increases dramatically.
Trust is an important part of any business relationship. There are some sites on the internet that are trusted more than others. Links from these sites are seen as more trustworthy by the search engine, and can help boost page rank quickly.
Ideally, you should try for a trifecta by seeking out relevant links from sites owned by recognized authorities in the field who have been deemed trustworthy by Google and users doing business with them. These links can combine in an exponential manner to boost a page ranking significantly regardless of the page’s age.
Another trick to consider is not limiting yourself to Google when performing SEO operations. One can be in the Google Sandbox and still get good organic results on other search engines such as Yahoo or Ask Jeeves.
You can also optimize for more long tailed keyword phrases. The sandbox effect only seems to affect sites that use highly competitive keywords. Therefore, if you sell an item that can be described in the keywords, the longer keyword phrases may help increase page rank. Of course, you must choose keywords that users are likely to type into the search engine.
In a nutshell, to take advantage of these time-based indicators, you should:
1. Get links that deliver the most trust, first.
2. Start your website today and also begin your link-building task as well
3. Target quality 4-in-1 links. This means going for links that are Relevant, Authoritative, from Trusted sources and from High page rank pages.
The Google Sandbox is real, despite denials from Google. These filters are part of the algorithm that assigns page ranks and they do penalize new sites that use competitive keywords. They also penalize established sites that enter into link farming agreements and try to manipulate the rankings artificially. The filters are age related for the age of the domain, the age of the links to the pages, and other factors.
The time spent in the Google Sandbox is important for the success of any web based business. To be more precise, what is done during this time is important. This is an opportunity to work out any bugs in your website that could hurt business. It is also an opportunity to establish high quality relationships with other site owners who can provide links to your site that are relevant, authoritative, from trusted sources, and coming from pages that are ranked highly, allowing you to take advantage of their rank until your own comes into being.
Google Instant Means The End Of SEO
Initially, Google’s new Instant Search system could mean a major change in how web surfers look for information online. Instead of typing a search query into Google and then hitting return, and waiting for a list of results, Googlers now see a dynamic list of results as they type. Google considers this a positive step forward in the development of searching. Google claims this new style of response will save between two and five seconds per search query. That potentially means 11 hours are saved every second. but does anyone other than Google really care?
The internet marketing community, however, will never be very enthusiastic about Google Instant. SEO consultants, who try to get sites listed at the top of Google’s organic search rankings, and SEMs, who battle for their clients’ sites to be placed near the top of Google’s Adwords Sponsored Listings, have been blogging and tweeting as if Armageddon is here.
The SEO community is paranoid at the very best of times, and perhaps with good cause as: a small change in the Google algorithm can determine the future of many websites. In this instance, however, the reaction is not necessary, essentially the results are the same, the sole change is you can see potential results of each word as you type it in, so if you are typing in ‘Italian restaurant’ you will observe everything Italian prior to getting to the restaurant results and then you will have to include your location unless you are very flexible about your travel arrangements, so in fact long tail key phrases are far from dead.
And this time round the latest Google scare is ‘much a do about nothing’ or will it be? There isn’t any denying that Google’s original innovation in search transformed how the Internet worked and made the business of finding stuff considerably quicker and easier. It also created an enormous market – one Google still dominates – that allowed companies to market us things depending on whatever we had entered in that box and all was well, for a while.
But something happened. Social networking, social media, whatever you want to refer to it as… suddenly, content was coming right at us, without us even looking for it. We couldn’t escape it. Several hyperactive egotists in each community began curating content and spewing it out to their friends. People were sharing photos, stories and links so we found that we were spending less and less time foraging around for things and increasingly more time sitting back and allowing it to wash over us.
Fast forward to 2010, and we’re being assaulted by more stuff than we could possibly consume. Facebook, Twitter, and email are shoveling pictures and video down our throats more and more quickly. Feedback loops enabled by sharing and retweeting functions imply that each of us has now changed into an over-sharer as well as an over-consumer. If you are not confused and over loaded with information, you soon will be.
QR Codes as Emerging Business Trend
Recently mobile marketing got armed with another powerful weapon – Quick Response codes, or, as you might have heard of them, QR codes. The first QR code was created by Toyota subsidiary Denso-Wave in 1994. Back then nobody could imagine that as soon as in around 15 years this invention will cause a real marketing boom all over the world.
Basically this code is a very useful and time-saving tool, it looks like an image that can be scanned with mobile device. From a technical point of view, these are two-dimensional matrix barcodes that contain some unique data (website’s url, contact information etc.). If you are going to use this tool in your campaign than you should know that there are many different QR code generators that can create unique code almost for everything that you want. Second thing you need to know is that this code can be scanned with help of free applications which must be installed on mobile phones.
Audience and Demography
Well, Japan and South Korea are real pioneers in the sphere of implementing QR codes into various spheres of life. Western countries are a bit slower in adopting this technology so far, however they’re catching up fast. The current situation shows that using this marketing tool will be more efficient with tech-savvy audience and youngsters (both of these are the most advanced groups in the new technologies). iOS and Android are most popular mobile operation systems that use QR code scanning and that have the most efficient apps for this purpose. Twitter and Facebook users are the most advanced segments on the web in terms of using QR codes. Given all that, you want to consider adding some additional information about your QR code (what is it, how to use it etc.) before starting QR code campaign. Also you can always experiment with the size, color and design of your QR code in order to better engage the visitors and make them try this technology and then come back for more.
Tips and Techniques
In short, we believe that QR codes can be used as effective marketing weapon for freelance designers and web developers. And here are some ideas that might help you to better understand how you can use QR codes to help your business. You should notice that such campaign will be quite experimental and maybe you won’t achieve positive results instantly, though according to some statistics about campaigns of famous brands like Pepsi-Cola and PlayStation, the usage of QR codes in marketing campaigns is definitely worth trying. Below we’ve tried to give you a short list of possible practices and the results that you may expect to achieve from QR codes.
- Branding and Promotion – you can create a QR code for your resume or portfolio and distribute this code in many different ways. For example you can put it to your business card, Facebook and Twitter profiles, avatar on forums etc. Also you can create a kind of a QR code that will add your phone number and other contact info into the mobile devices of the ones who scan this code. Pretty cool, isn’t it?
- Promos – as a part of your promo you can offer exclusive discount code that would available only via QR code. This may engage your clients and visitors to find out more about this technology and of course will make them want to take part in your promo.
- SEO – distribute QR code allowing free downloads of mobile-related freebies such as wallpapers, free illustrations, photos and other similar stuff with the link to your website.
- SMO – using QR codes to encourage your visitors to share your content on Facebook will give you some extra social media and link juice, make your brand/name more recognizable and may even help to build a community in the long run.
The Future
It is hard to predict all benefits that you may expect from using QR codes in your marketing strategy, it all very much depends on your goals, However we assume that in the nearest future we will see more and more original solutions for QR codes’ usage. It is obvious that next generation of barcodes will have more physical space for information and we can only imagine how far this technology may go. It would be a great pleasure to hear about your experience in using QR codes in marketing purposes, so please feel free to tell us about it. Don’t you think that QR codes may change some basic principles of usability theory, including web design usability? There is not much research data concerning this topic today, but we really hope to discuss that with you now.
Google’s Need For Speed Means You Need to Check Your Website
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Google’s Need For Speed Means You Need to Check Your Website
Not too long ago Google released a new search tool “Google Instant.” Google Instant tries to speed searches by anticipating what you are going to type next based on what you have searched in the past. When you start typing Google offers you a selection of results and you can watch the results change with each letter typed. Google claims that it will save 3.5 Billion global seconds a day! I don’t know about you but I feel better knowing that I won’t be searching for the same thing fifteen years from now.
Putting aside the privacy issues and the file Google has on each and every one of us, let’s look at how this will affect your website and your search placement. In that same Google interview they stated they will pursue all options to shorten search times. At the top of the list was site load times and robot read times.
We already know there are rules to govern the code to content ratio, keyword density and placement, and content quality but this rule goes right to the foundation of every website. This rule speaks right to the background code, which by the way, has changed a lot over the years. Under this new rule the load and read speeds of your website will have a direct affect on your ranking.
How do you know if your website needs to be updated?
1- Web code standards and browser capabilities have advanced a lot in a short time. If your site is pushing five years since the last tune up, it is time to look.
2 – Was the original site written with outdated or obsolete WYSIWYG software? These are notorious for adding tons of erroneous code (Google already penalizes for this).
3- Copy placement. Search bots only read so many words in to a website. It is important that these be the important words. We call that “strategic copy placement.”
4- On-page optimization. Is your website easy for Google to find and more importantly, understand where you want to be listed? Older sites have little or no optimization at all. This is especially true with WYSIWYG and templates.
How do you fix this problem? Sorry, there is no short answer. The best thing to do is find an experienced website designer and get an evaluation. Not an artist turned developer but a good design / code / search optimization team. I have argued this point many times in the past and won’t go into here. But, other than the graphic design there are two other components to a website. These two parts together are the most important components. First, the way the site is written and second is the search optimization, which includes current market research.
What the code should look like, again that is too deep to cover here. We coined a phrase a couple of years ago “search engine positive code”. This is how your website is presented to the search engines. You need to give it to them the way they want it. This is now critical to website placement and that is important in this competitive environment.
Once you have the evaluation tackle it one step at a time. You can re-do the code with minor changes to the design. Another option is to just re-do the index page. The occasional overhaul is part of the normal evolution of maintaining a website. Technology changes and you have to also, you can bet that your competition will.
Free Keyword Research and Market Research Method You’ve Never Seen Before
posted by Stephen Pierce @ 7:55 AM
Saturday, January 22, 2011
I GUARANTEE you have NEVER seen this keyword research and market research method before!
In today’s training video I show you one of the slickest ways to use Google for keyword research and market research to find markets you can bankroll.
I walk you through exactly how to do it in today’s training session.
You get that and more in today’s video on how to do keyword research to get cash carrying buyers to any website, anywhere.
When you use the right keywords YOU can make more money… a whole lot more money!
So check out today’s keyword research and market research training and put my little super secret Google keyword tactic to work for you to uncover some cash banking opportunities.
It’s crazy easy and effective. Watch and see it for yourself as I give you a full demonstration on how to do it.
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I will not only train you in doing keyword research that’s leads to sacks of cash, but I stack the deck in YOUR favor for serious success by giving you everything you need to master keyword research to include;
…keyword research checklist, 2 different keyword research action plans, a keyword research workbook, a keyword research cheat sheet, a keyword research blueprint, a keyword research mind map …and more.
But watch today’s training first and steal one of my super secret, never, ever before revealed to the public keyword research and market research methods.
Remember, I demonstrate the whole thing in today’s videos so shut the door, grab a pen and paper and hit play because you are going to looooove this!
So let’s do it…
Be sure to TalkBack to me while you’re here… and share the love by Tweeting this or posting to Facebook.
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Who Created Google?
Do you want to know a secret? The answer to the question in the title of this article is me. That’s right, I created Google. No, really, and so did you. You don’t believe me? Okay, maybe that is because you have already heard the story of how Google was created by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, PhD’s of Stanford University, and how the concept for Google was born of Page’s dissertation idea to investigate the mathematical properties at work online. It is truly a great story and Page and Brin do get the credit for creating the company known as Google, but they are not solely responsible for the popularity of the company. This is where you and I come into the picture.
Well, before we come into the picture I have to admit the marketing team at Google also played a significant role in the success of Google. While Page and Brin put together the concept behind the page rank system, it is their marketing staff who really helped to promote Google as the superior choice in search engines. The fact that Google produces reliable results is important, but there are other search engines out there such as Yahoo! and Bing that are also doing this, but they are not nearly as popular as Google.
Think about when your friend asks you the name of a song and you can’t think of the answer. Do you tell him to just DogPile it? Do you tell them to Yahoo! it? No, you are much more likely to tell him to Google it. That is because the marketing team at Google has done such an excellent job of branding this company that their name has come to mean search engine in the minds of many internet users. It is the first place many of them turn for any information they want.
Which brings us to why I created Google! Right, it wasn’t just me, you helped too. Page and Brin created the concept their marketing team promoted, but it is the users of the internet who embraced it so wholeheartedly. It is also the users of the internet who have remained loyal to the brand. While other fads on the internet have come and gone, this search engine is showing no signs of losing popularity because the internet users are happy with the results they receive when they use Google.
What Does This Mean For Google’s Future?
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Google Acquires SocialDeck: What Does This Mean For Google’s Future?
It seems that in recent times, Google has made some mistakes when coming up with new programs. Google Accelerator, Google Answers, and Google Wave are all examples of programs that flopped. And with the recent merger of Yahoo and Bing, Google might be losing its grip on the search engine monopoly. However, it seems that Google may have something up its sleeve. Recent acquisitions reveal that the Internet giant has big plans for their social network platform that is currently under development. And it seems they are taking every measure to ensure that this next project of theirs won’t be a flop, and can even rival social media giant Facebook.
This is evident by the fact that Google recently purchased social gaming developer SocialDeck, which is one of five acquisitions made in August. The popular games created by SocialDeck, such as Pet Hero and Color Connect, are available across a variety of platforms, including Blackberry, iPhone, and Facebook. SocialDeck uses their own social gaming platform technology, which enables simultaneous game play across mobile devices and social networks.
With the acquisition of SocialDeck, Google will be able to integrate SocialDeck’s games into their future social network. In addition, Google is looking to either purchase or work out deals with other social gaming companies which work over multiple platforms, such as Zynga, Playdom, and Playfish, which all currently produce games popular on Facebook, such as Mafia Wars.
It seems Google may have some big plans in store. Chris Morrison of InsideSocialGames.com mentioned the possibility that Google is working on a viral platform for the web and its own mobile devices, like Android. Earlier this summer, Google purchased social application developer Slide, and also has purchased other companies involved in social gaming and other aspects of social networking. Just days before acquiring SocialDeck, Google purchased Angstro, which developed Knx.to, an address book that combines a user’s connections from social networks. Google also has acquired Jambool, which makes “virtual currency,” and visual shopping engine Like.com. Each acquisition is another piece to the puzzle of what Google is planning.
Google’s activity has been generating a lot of buzz over the Internet. Many speculate, “Will this social network,” rumored to be called Google Me, “be the ultimate social network? Will it dethrone Facebook as king of social media?” While the growing popularity of Facebook caused many people to flee from MySpace, there is no guarantee we’ll see people fleeing from Facebook to join Google Me in the same manner, but it’s certainly a possibility. With confusing and ever-changing privacy policies, some Facebook users might be eager to make the transition to a new social network. There are also rumors that the way Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was negatively portrayed in box-office smash The Social Network might turn away Facebook users if they have another option for social media.
While some are predicting success for Google, others are not so optimistic. Danny Sullivan, editor in chief of Search Engine Land, has taken note of Google’s unsuccessful attempts at social media, such as Google Buzz, and doesn’t foresee Google Me as an instant success. He states, “So far, Google’s failed to have a hit in the social-networking space, swinging and largely missing with both Orkut and Buzz. It’s unclear whether a third, new service (or a renamed Buzz) will do that much better.”
Negative press regarding Google Buzz alone has caused some to be doubtful that Google can gain a foothold in the realm of social media. Harry McCracken, the founder of tech site Technologizer.com, believes that the failure of Buzz shows that people may not want their relationship with Google to be a foundation for social networking.
When Google’s social platform emerges, possibly later this year, we’ll see how these applications integrate and whether or not Google will achieve the success it’s after. If Google has made wise choices and can provide a social site that provides users what they want, and has features not found on Facebook, including clear-cut privacy policies, Google Me just might prove to not be another Google Wave.
12 Quick Tips To Search Google Like An Expert
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Thursday, December 16, 2010
12 Quick Tips To Search Google Like An Expert
If you’re like me, you probably use Google many times a day. But, chances are, unless you are a technology geek, you probably still use Google in its simplest form. If your current use of Google is limited to typing a few words in, and changing your query until you find what you’re looking for, then I’m here to tell you that there’s a better way – and it’s not hard to learn. On the other hand, if you are a technology geek, and can use Google like the best of them already, then I suggest you bookmark this article of Google search tips. You’ll then have the tips on hand when you are ready to pull your hair out in frustration when watching a neophyte repeatedly type in basic queries in a desperate attempt to find something.
The following Google search tips are based on my own experience and things that I actually find useful. The list is by no means comprehensive. But, I assure you that by learning and using the 12 tips below, you’ll rank up there with the best of the Google experts out there. I’ve kept the descriptions of the search tips intentionally terse as you’re likely to grasp most of these simply by looking at the example from Google anyways.
* 12 Expert Google Search Tips
1. Explicit Phrase:
Lets say you are looking for content about internet marketing. Instead of just typing internet marketing into the Google search box, you will likely be better off searching explicitly for the phrase. To do this, simply enclose the search phrase within double quotes.
Example: “internet marketing”
2. Exclude Words:
Lets say you want to search for content about internet marketing, but you want to exclude any results that contain the term advertising. To do this, simply use the “-” sign in front of the word you want to exclude.
Example Search: internet marketing -advertising
3. Site Specific Search:
Often, you want to search a specific website for content that matches a certain phrase. Even if the site doesn’t support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term. Simply use the “site:somesite.com” modifier.
Example: “internet marketing” site:www.smallbusinesshub.com
4. Similar Words and Synonyms:
Let’s say you are want to include a word in your search, but want to include results that contain similar words or synonyms. To do this, use the “~” in front of the word.
Example: “internet marketing” ~professional
5. Specific Document Types:
If you’re looking to find results that are of a specific type, you can use the modifier “filetype:”. For example, you might want to find only PowerPoint presentations related to internet marketing.
Example: “internet marketing” filetype:ppt
6. This OR That:
By default, when you do a search, Google will include all the terms specified in the search. If you are looking for any one of one or more terms to match, then you can use the OR operator. (Note: The OR has to be capitalized).
Example: internet marketing OR advertising
7. Phone Listing:
Let’s say someone calls you on your mobile number and you don’t know how it is. If all you have is a phone number, you can look it up on Google using the phonebook feature.
Example: phonebook:617-555-1212 (note: the provided number does not work – you’ll have to use a real number to get any results).
8. Area Code Lookup:
If all you need to do is to look-up the area code for a phone number, just enter the 3-digit area code and Google will tell you where it’s from.
Example: 617
9. Numeric Ranges:
This is a rarely used, but highly useful tip. Let’s say you want to find results that contain any of a range of numbers. You can do this by using the X..Y modifier (in case this is hard to read, what’s between the X and Y are two periods. This type of search is useful for years (as shown below), prices or anywhere where you want to provide a series of numbers.
Example: president 1940..1950
10. Stock (Ticker Symbol):
Just enter a valid ticker symbol as your search term and Google will give you the current financials and a quick thumb-nail chart for the stock.
Example: GOOG
11. Calculator:
The next time you need to do a quick calculation, instead of bringing up the Calculator applet, you can just type your expression in to Google.
Example: 48512 * 1.02
12. Word Definitions:
If you need to quickly look up the definition of a word or phrase, simply use the “define:” command.
Example: define:plethora
Hope this list of Google search tips proves useful in your future Google searches. If there are any of your favorite Google expert power tips that I’ve missed, please feel free to share them in the comments.
Do You Want the Top Spot on Google? Find Out How
posted by Web_University @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Do You Want the Top Spot on Google? Find Out How
Every website is battling for the top spot in Google’s search results page, and to do that you have to optimize your website for Google. Optimization requires continually improving your site’s content. Even though Yahoo and Bing simply search the tag structures in HTML, Google uses a trickier, and somewhat clandestine, method to determine top spot.
Google looks for websites that continually provide fresh and relevant content. Since Google has such strict guidelines for top spot, it requires web page owners to continually work on keeping their page’s content fresh and relevant to hold a top spot in the list.
Keywords and Phrases
Google looks for phrases and keywords as it is assessing a site. It evaluates a site’s content, and looks for phrases that match a particular search term. If say, a visitor is looking for ‘boat repair’ Google will display pages where that keyword shows up several of times in the body of the page. So when you are optimizing your web page, you should concentrate on phrases rather than single words. Now that you know Google is looking for a particular phrase you do not want to go crazy with that phrase on a page either, because this is know as keyword stuffing. Be careful with keyword phrases–if Google sees too many of them, they will lower your page in the search engine rankings.
The Title Tag
The title tag is important and is unique to each page in a website. The tag can be found on the browser’s title bar. It is also used by Googlebot to see what the page contents are going to be. Google then looks at the page contents and evaluates if the two match, and this helps determine page relevance. Since Google looks at each page in a domain, many sites dynamically generate page titles with an introduction text appended to the company name.
Anchor Text
When you add link tags to your page, this is anchor text. Take care to be precise in your anchor test by using relevant phrases for prominent links on your page. Google is looking for specific link information, so the more specific that you can be the better. If you focus on your site’s keyword terms and make sure that these are always in line with your content, you will make Google’s assessment of your site easy. Google is generous with its link limits saying that no more than 100 links should ever appear on a web page.
Header Tags
Header tags are HTML page elements coded “”, and they provide a bold heading on the page. The headers tell Google what the purpose of the page is, and the title tag tells it the purpose of the website. You should have a header tag on each page.
Quality Content
The last thing that Google is looking for is unique content. Google’s customers are your website visitors, and when Google returns a search list, they want their customers to be happy. So you are helping Google as it is helping your. New content and keyword phrases help you get to the top of Google’s search list. So if you have bad content – either plagiarized, badly written or irrelevant content – Google is
not interested in you. Make sure to follow Google guidelines, or Google will blacklist your domain and not link to it at all.
Optimize Your Website for Google and Make it Readable
By complying with the guidelines that Google has set out for page ranking, you can set your page up to show up at the top of the search list. By continually adding new content,
Google will mark your page as a good one to return to its customer. However, you must always make sure that you site is aesthetically pleasing and readable by a human, because the point of why you optimize your website for Google, is to attract new visitors to your page to increase your company’s market share.
Google Instant Means The End Of SEO
Initially, Google’s new Instant Search system could mean a major change in how web surfers look for information online. Instead of typing a search query into Google and then hitting return, and waiting for a list of results, Googlers now see a dynamic list of results as they type. Google considers this a positive step forward in the development of searching. Google claims this new style of response will save between two and five seconds per search query. That potentially means 11 hours are saved every second. but does anyone other than Google really care?
The internet marketing community, however, will never be very enthusiastic about Google Instant. SEO consultants, who try to get sites listed at the top of Google’s organic search rankings, and SEMs, who battle for their clients’ sites to be placed near the top of Google’s Adwords Sponsored Listings, have been blogging and tweeting as if Armageddon is here.
The SEO community is paranoid at the very best of times, and perhaps with good cause as: a small change in the Google algorithm can determine the future of many websites. In this instance, however, the reaction is not necessary, essentially the results are the same, the sole change is you can see potential results of each word as you type it in, so if you are typing in ‘Italian restaurant’ you will observe everything Italian prior to getting to the restaurant results and then you will have to include your location unless you are very flexible about your travel arrangements, so in fact long tail key phrases are far from dead.
And this time round the latest Google scare is ‘much a do about nothing’ or will it be? There isn’t any denying that Google’s original innovation in search transformed how the Internet worked and made the business of finding stuff considerably quicker and easier. It also created an enormous market – one Google still dominates – that allowed companies to market us things depending on whatever we had entered in that box and all was well, for a while.
But something happened. Social networking, social media, whatever you want to refer to it as… suddenly, content was coming right at us, without us even looking for it. We couldn’t escape it. Several hyperactive egotists in each community began curating content and spewing it out to their friends. People were sharing photos, stories and links so we found that we were spending less and less time foraging around for things and increasingly more time sitting back and allowing it to wash over us.
Fast forward to 2010, and we’re being assaulted by more stuff than we could possibly consume. Facebook, Twitter, and email are shoveling pictures and video down our throats more and more quickly. Feedback loops enabled by sharing and retweeting functions imply that each of us has now changed into an over-sharer as well as an over-consumer. If you are not confused and over loaded with information, you soon will be.
Google Instant Search for Marketing
Google recently introduced their “Instant Search” feature which starts to populate search results the instant you start typing into the search box. At the same time, Google suggests alternate search terms as you type to help narrow your search without forcing you to enter entire search phrases.
The main idea behind this new feature is to save users a few seconds on each search and cut down on misspellings for search terms, business names or product names. Users may not notice much difference in their overall experience, however, for small businesses and online entrepreneurs, this new search method carries a few interesting ramifications.
Since Google clearly ranks as the “900 lb. Gorilla” of the online marketing world, acting as de facto gateway to the Web for millions, any change to their system makes businesses nervous. Many have expressed concern that this latest change will force users of Google’s AdWords program, the search giant’s lucrative pay-per-click marketing arm, to pay for more expensive keywords.
They reason that since the most popular search terms appear in the search box first, and that most people will opt to accept Google suggestions, those most popular searches will carry the highest click prices. In other words, businesses that depend on Google to show their ads fear that Google will force them to pay more money by recommending more expensive keyword searches.
I disagree.
The suggested search term feature actually appeared on Google quite a while ago, and all that’s really changed is Google starts to display the actual search results AS you type. With the old 2-step process, Google made suggestions as you typed and then you clicked the search button to see the search results.
Instant Search just creates a FAST way to see the results for different search variations without forcing you to click the button each time to see those results. This process makes it simple to see the results, change your mind, and not wait for the results each time you change the phrase.
My experience shows that most people always start with a broad search and then narrow it by including more descriptive terms (often called “long-tail” keywords) to better find what they want. This new process won’t change that.
In fact, it will give people more chances to refine their searches on-the-fly by providing Google more details of what they want. Instead of posing a threat, I believe this new Instant Search feature creates an opportunity for any business to perform high-speed market research to look for possible opportunities and trouble spots.
The following four steps will help any small business use Google’s new feature for instant results.
1. Go to Google and search for your business as if you were a consumer.
2. Make a note of the keyword suggestions Google offers as you type.
3. See if those suggestions give you any ideas for your own marketing (since they should represent the most popular phrases).
4. Note which competitors show up and where you appear in relation to them.
These 4 simple steps make a great barometer for taking a read on your local market, fast.
Who appears consistently?
Who shows up hit-and-miss or every once in a while?
Who shows up in Google Maps?
If your competitors show up and you don’t, you’ve got some work to do!
Bottom line: as a small business, use Google’s new Instant Search to quickly get the big picture when it comes to your business, industry, and local competition.
Google Real Time Search Impact On Small Businesses
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Google Real Time Search Impact On Small Businesses
Google recently introduced us to Real Time Search and this has
been met with a lot of questions. What Tweets will show up in
real time? How will this affect businesses who are, and those who
are not, engaging in social media? How will it affect PPC? Where
will the searches show up? The biggest question is what impact
will this have on small business? Small business owners are
met with limited resources and adding any additional hours into
their day is nearly impossible. But can a small business ignore
real time search?
What is Real Time Search? As per Google
“… new features that bring your search results to life with a
dynamic stream of real-time content from across the web. Now,
immediately after conducting a search, you can see live updates
from people on popular sites like Twitter and FriendFeed, as
well as headlines from news and blog posts published just
seconds before. When they are relevant, we’ll rank these latest
results to show the freshest information right on the search
results page.”
In other words, your tweets from Twitter and new blog articles
will be appear as “Latest Results.” The latest results are
featured in 2 ways.
a. On the search results page below the “News Results” (if
there are news results). This appears for very hot topics that
are getting a lot of activity.
b. The “Show Options” menu: click on “Latest” under All Results
and the live search results will appear.
What Does This Mean for Small Businesses?
1. Customer Experience.
Consumers are much more savvy and they are going online for more
information. A quick Google search will provide them possibly
more information about your company than you might have thought.
A business cannot control what a person tweets about. As we see
in the example below, tweets are posted when they mention a
topic, business name, a name, etc.
See: http://www.sitepronews.com/images2/googlerealtime.jpg
Image Courtesy of: Lifehacker.com
(http://www.lifehacker.com.au/2009/12/is-google-real-time-search-any-good/)
Most tweets, blog entries and company mentions will show up
under “Latest” and not on the main search results page. However,
if a consumer wants to see more information about you, they have
the option at their fingertips.
2. Reputation Management.
Not every business is on Twitter or has a blog, nor do they
necessarily belong. However, ignoring your “Latest” news can
present a problem. If a consumer is singing your praises, or
worse a bad comment is written and you do not respond, you are
adding fuel to the fire. That customer has been given a chance
to continuously go on and on about your company/brand whereas
the praise singer just got deflated with no feedback from you.
Failing to monitor your reputation online could result in some
missed opportunities or a poor company image that leads to
reduced sales.
3. Spam.
Yes there will be spam because spammers are going to jump
on this like ants at a summer picnic. While Google will make
every attempt to try and control spam, the current algorithm for
posting in real time makes that nearly impossible. How will this
affect a small business? Spammers could very well keyword stuff
tweets to get ahead and push your company lower on the tweets
area. This is going to happen. There is no control right now, but
the key is to try and stay ahead of them.
4. Search Engine Optimization.
Will real time search improve page rank? This remains to be
seen. Will keyword laden tweets that are tweeted over and over
from different accounts and push a company to the top of a
searched term make a difference? Will this be seen as spam?
Keyword laden tweets will give great results for a specific
term, especially for those difficult to rank terms, and even
if your company is atop of tweets for a short time, you may reap
some rewards.
Real time search is not just the posting of tweets. It also
posts company mentions from blog articles. So if your company
has a blog, you may want to check out your “Latest” results.
In small business branding we have to consider social media
marketing as an extension of your brand in the same way that we
do traditional advertising. For some businesses, it is a time of
uncertainty. As stated earlier, not every business needs to be
on Twitter. A “crickets” account is worse than no account at
all. But can you still just ignore the social media community?
The good news here is that, if you are able to squeeze in an
extra hour as a small business owner, you can go and see what
terms are popular in your industry, see what is being said
about you, and see if you need to move full steam ahead in 2010.
Most smal businesses will need to do so because social media
marketing has just started to make a big impact and getting in
now will make a world of a difference in a year or so.
The Google Duplicate Content Penalty: the Truth
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Friday, August 20, 2010
The Google Duplicate Content Penalty: the Truth
The truth of the Google duplicate content penalty is quite
simply that there is none! If that confuses you, then you
have been reading too many misinformed forums or blogs where
people get stuck on some popular term that they have no idea
what it means, and then profess to be experts.
The only experts on the Google duplicate content penalty,
and the only people who are qualified to define it, are
Google, and in Google’s own words “There is no such thing as
a duplicate content penalty”. This comes directly from
Google’s Webmaster Central Blog.
That should be the end of this article, at precisely 96
words excluding title as I define my word count. But it is
not. Why? Because even though this blog is operated by
Google, and even though much the same has been stated by
Matt Cutts, Google’s main software engineer, and other
Google experts, people still argue and complain about the
Google ‘duplicate content penalty’.
So here is the truth: you might ask who am I to know the
truth, but I read all the Google blogs and their official
statements, and in applying what I learn, I achieve excellent
results for my web pages on Google search engine listings:
and those of Yahoo, MSN and Bing. So I am coming from a
sound base that my results can prove.
As a professional article writer whose customers trust to
get them the best results from the articles I write, I have
to be very aware of the policies and the way the algorithms
work of each of the major search engines, and so I am as
qualified as anybody to comment on myths such as this.
The Truth of the Google Duplicate Content Penalty
There is no duplicate content penalty. Google’s major search
engine function is to offer a customer the best possible
results for a search, based upon the search term (keywords)
that the customer has used in the Google search box.
Google’s customers are not:
1. You, who use it to get your web pages listed.
2. Adwords advertisers that use Adwords to advertise their
products.
3. Corporations or individuals that use it to have their
web pages listed.
4. Internet marketers who recommend others to use Google
for advertising or searching.
Google’s customers are those seeking information,
whether that is to solve a problem, where to purchase a
product at the cheapest price, find a sports result or to
get directions to a specific location. Everybody that uses
Google uses a search term to find some information that they
need. That search term is what you and I refer to as a
keyword.
If Google detects several web pages offering exactly the
same content, its algorithms will select that which best
offers the information required and list that. It might also
list one or two other pages offering exactly the same content
if there are good reasons for it doing so (e.g. more links to
other relevant websites, more other relevant pages on the
domain, and so on).
So, not all duplicate content pages will be refused a
listing. If these duplicates are articles, then the
algorithms that the spiders carry on their backs will take
the links from these articles into consideration, the
authority of the directory on which it is published, and
other factors, before deciding which should be listed. It
is wrong to believe that this decision has a chronological
factor, but, if you include a link in your article Resource
section to your web page that contains the same article,
then your page is liable to be listed above the others,
partially because of a greater number of links back to it
from the other copies, and partially because your entire
site is liable to be more relevant than these others to
information being sought by Google’s customer.
This is not because yours was created first, but because it
better meets Google’s criterion for authoritative
back-links. However, if the rest of your website is not
equally authoritative, your page might be listed behind
another with the same content or even not listed at all.
All of this is designed by Google so that its customer is
offered the most relevant range of results to the keywords
they used. That is what Google is for, and is its ultimate
objective. Google will not penalize any individual or any
website for publishing what you refer to as ‘duplicate
content’, and it will take your version into consideration
for publication just as any other version.
What counts in the long run is which version Google’s
algorithms believe to be most likely to offer the best
possible information to the person seeking it, and if that
means not publishing a whole host of duplicate information,
then that is only fair, isn’t it? If you used Google to find
some information, you wouldn’t want to find page after page
saying exactly the same thing, would you?
No, and neither does Google. A Google listing comes from its
indexing of billions of web pages that contain the keywords
used by the searcher: both in relation to the entire phrase
and to the individual words used in the search term. If you
want your copy to be different, make some minor changes and
perhaps change the form of the keywords, but most
importantly, change the title and the introductory paragraph
to which the crawlers will take special notice.
You then have a better chance of your version being listed
along with some of the others, but remember: the next time
you use the term ‘duplicate content’ you are using a term
that does not exist in Google’s vocabulary for any reason
than to deny its existence. The Google Duplicate Content
Penalty does not exist: the truth!
How to Hard-Wire Your Site to Google
Until Bing turns into David and slays Goliath, the only search
engine game in town is Google. While the other search engines
can’t be ignored or forgotten, when it comes to online search,
Google will deliver the majority of your quality organic
traffic. For webmasters and especially for online marketers,
having your website virtually hard-wired to Google is a
marketing Must-Do.
We are strictly talking about white hat stuff here. If you’re
seeking the opposite color, look elsewhere. As a full-time
search engine marketer, I have learned a few things over the 10
years or so I have been working on the web. One of the most
significant factors running constantly in the background has
been Google. And, the underlying fact is that the more I
intertwined my sites and content with Google, the more success
I achieved. There seemed to be a direct correlation between the
two, making it a little more than ironic that the original name
for Google was BackRub.
But this is not exactly rocket science territory here. Google is
the biggest entity on the web, especially if you go the free
organic traffic route. There are tons of ways to market online
which don’t involve Google at all, but for the purposes of this
piece, I will be discussing ways any webmaster or marketer can
better connect their site and content with Google. Plus, I’ll
(if it’s not already obvious) also give you some reasons why
this is a smart marketing strategy on your part.
The first technique you must perfect is how to get your new
content into Google’s Index within minutes, if not seconds.
These days with social media sites this can be easily achieved.
It may be as fast as your latest Tweet or Google Buzz
(http://www.google.com/buzz). Google News (http://news.google.com/)
is another easy way to instantly get your content into Google.
Press releases are another immediate way to connect your content
with Google. So too is something as simple as making a video and
posting it on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/) which is Google
Owned.
(Note – Google has recently revamped the YouTube system and
provided many ways webmasters can view the linking data and
stats; great source of information for webmasters and marketers.)
Actually Google will index any new site or content fairly
quickly these days so you don’t have to worry about it. One
method I like best is using a free blog from Blogger/Blogspot
(http://www.blogger.com/) [which is also Google owned] and
placing links there to be indexed within minutes. To keep track
of what content Google is indexing, I usually set up Google
Alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) for all my main sites and
my main keywords. Whenever a page is indexed in Google related
to my sites or keywords, Google sends me an email. Many savvy
webmasters use these alerts to find and build link partners
since these indexed pages will be thematically related to yours.
Using Google Alerts will make it seem like you’re totally welded
to Google and Google’s indexing system, every second of the day.
Needless to say, keywords rule the web and Google. You must
attach your content to keywords people are using to find stuff
on the web and build top 10 rankings for those keywords in the
search engines, especially Google. Now if you’re new at this,
Google gives you some valuable keyword tools you can use to see
how many searches are made each month for a keyword phrase and
also gives you some idea of the keyword competition you will be
facing. I like using http://google.com/sktool and also
http://labs.google.com/sets. Besides, you must start your Google
courtship off on the right foundation.
Next, you must realize Google is not really a search engine but
a business. The main goal of this business is to supply quality
content to web users so that these users will use Google over
and over again, allowing Google to attach ads and make a profit.
The key to getting and keeping Google’s attention is fulfilling
your part of this “quality equation” with superior content which
surfers want and find helpful. Make this your religion and the
SEO gods, including Google, will smile kindly upon your site.
Now like any religion there are some strict rules you have to
follow. In a recent WebProNews video interview, Matt Cutts said
Google has (200) signals it uses to rank content on the web.
Most webmasters refer to these as ranking factors, but in truth,
they are really signals that your site gives off… provide the
wrong signals and it could spell lower rankings. So if you want
to keep your site in Google’s good graces, you have to follow
some simple SEO on-page rules, such as placing your main keyword
in the Title, in the Heading, in the Body and in the URL. Make
sure your site is easily navigated by your visitors and
especially by the search engine spiders. Keep your linking
structure simple, with no links more than three clicks away from
your index or homepage. In my opinion, getting quality related
one-way backlinks is the most important way to get top rankings
in Google.
In recent years, Google has gone out of its way to help
webmasters understand all these simple SEO basics. And as far as
I am concerned, one resource every webmaster should be using is
Google Webmaster Tools (http://www.google.com/webmasters/). This
is a whole suite of tools and information webmasters can use in
correlation with Google. Recently, in Webmaster Tools Google has
made available Click-Thru data on its search engine results so
that you can find out how many impressions you’re getting for a
certain keyword and your click-thru or conversion rate. Some
webmasters are questioning the accuracy of these numbers, but it
will give you some indication of how well your site and content
is doing in Google.
Perhaps, another just as valuable program is Google Analytics
(http://www.google.com/analytics/), where you’re really giving
Google access to all your site’s information. You can use
Analytics to measure different links/content on your site to
see how well it performs. More importantly you can use it to
fine-tune your conversion rates in order to make more sales. I
also use it to test-out different graphics, different salescopy,
different site layouts… and so on. But a word of caution,
don’t just use Analytics. As an online marketer you want many
sources of information, so regularly study your own traffic logs
and raw site data. Even with Google and probably especially with
Google, you should always cross-reference any data with other
sources on your site and on the web. Lets not get too carried
away with this Google worship thing.
I use both Google Adsense (https://www.google.com/adsense/) and
Google Adwords (http://adwords.google.com/) with most of my
sites. As an online marketer, I know I can get 10 times more
from an affiliate link than from Adsense… but over the years
I have found having both types of links on sites doesn’t
significantly reduce sales. To explain further, I have tested
my pages with and without Adsense, and it doesn’t affect my
affiliate sales even though I know I am losing some sales to
Adsense. Overall, using Adsense adds to the competitiveness of
my pages. If someone is looking for the lowest price and finds
it in a Google ad, they come away happy and will probably visit
my site again or sign-up to my newsletter. Besides, Adsense is a
very quick way to monetize pages which I don’t have ready
affiliate programs for on my sites. In addition, Adsense and
Adwords give you valuable feedback on your content’s performance.
There are several other Google programs which I use to further
connect with Google such as Google Docs (http://docs.google.com/),
Google Knol (http://knol.google.com/) and iGoogle
(http://www.google.com/ig). One must-have program is Google
Accounts (https://www.google.com/accounts/), which basically
connects me with all my different programs within Google. I have
found managing all your Google programs is much easier from this
one location. I also like using Google Profiles
(http://www.google.com/profiles) and Google Buzz
(http://www.google.com/buzz) to get my content quickly into
Google and onto the web. As you have probably guessed already,
Google does have a lot of programs which webmasters can use to
improve their content’s performance. In the process, by using
and intertwining your content with all of the Google programs
highlighted here, you’re really connecting with Google en masse.
While many marketing experts will say it is foolhardy to marry
all your content to just one search engine, I have found over
the years that hard-wiring your site to Google really makes
your content readily accessible in the most dominant presence on
the web. Doing so not only gives your content the attention it
deserves, but it can also help further your own goals. Actively
positioning your site and content firmly within Google’s many
different facets can prove beneficial for any webmaster or
online marketer. Just get that pre-nup agreement in writing
first!
Google’s Local Business Center: A Major Update & A New Name – ‘Places’
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Friday, August 6, 2010
Google’s Local Business Center: A Major Update & A New Name – ‘Places’
If you have a brick and mortar store, and rely on walk-in
traffic for your survival, you may be wondering
what the Internet can do for your business. Believe
it or not, a lot – and you don’t even need a website.
In the “old days”, the bulk of businesses relied on
the Yellow Pages to get the phone ringing. The majority
of marketing dollars were spent getting listed in this
ten pound paperweight. With the popularity of the Net,
less people let “their fingers do the walking” when they
need something, and more are letting their mouse do
the talking.
Online search has gone mainstream when it comes to
searching for local businesses. Google states that
73% of searches are done for local content. Another
study by BIA/Kelsey and Constat report that 97% of
consumers use online resources when doing research
for products/services in their local area. See
http://www.kelseygroup.com/press/pr100310.asp
Google has always understood the power of local search,
and years ago launched its Local Business Center where
any business can get a listing for free. Recently,
they’ve done a major overhaul and have re-launched with a
new name of “Google Places”, showcasing a host of new features.
http://google.com/places . The name change was done
to tie in with Google’s Place Pages which were launched
over a year ago and include over 50 million places
worldwide. http://tinyurl.com/yc56vx9
If you want customers to be able to find you, and haven’t
listed your offline store here yet, you need to get with
the program. You are missing out on the opportunity to
reach millions of Google users, including Google Map users,
Google’s 800 Voice Directory Search and even Google Earth.
And all of this exposure won’t cost you a dime. It’s totally
free.
Now that I have your attention, let’s go over the steps
for inclusion. As with all things Google, you’ll need
to sign into Google Places with your Google Account.
Up to 100 single locations can be added but, if
you have more than ten to list you’ll need to use
their “Bulk Upload Tool”.
There is a verification process that must be done
to prove you’re the owner of the business being listed.
The choice is yours, it’s by phone or mail. Once
this is done, your listing goes live.
Now in case you’re thinking all that’s included in
a listing is an address and phone number, hold onto
your hat. Here are some of the listing options.
1) Show the geographic area you service.
2) Photos: Upload your own, up to ten images per
listing, in JPG, GIF, PNG, TIFF, BMP. A professional
photo shoot can also be requested for your business.
3) Place Page Posts: You can post real time updates
here, up to 160 characters, announcing special sales,
events, and new products. One post appears at a time.
4) Custom QR Codes: For use with smart phones to
take users to your mobile website.
5) Advertise: They do have a “Tags Program” in
select cities for $25.00 a month where your business
will be highlighted on Google.com and Google Maps.
6) List your operating hours. Biz description
and even reviews.
7) Post Videos: Up to five videos can be posted,
but you’ll need to publish them to YouTube first,
then include the URL’s on your Place Page.
Payment Types Taken
9) Coupons: Create online coupons to give people
incentive to visit your site. There’s a separate
“coupon tab” that appears on your listing page.
10) Privacy: If you work from home and have no
storefront you can choose to make your address
private in your listing.
At this point you should be realizing how important
being listed in Google Places is to your business.
If you’d like to see what your listing looks like
to a searcher, log into Google Places and click on
“see your listing on Google Maps”.
Now remember, search results are based on relevance
and “geographic distance”, so you can’t buy your
way to the top of the list as with pay-per-click
advertising. As previously mentioned, the “tags
program”, if available in your area, can be utilized
for having your business show up highlighted for
$25.00 a month.
If you’re interested in paying for your links to show
up on the Google Maps search results page, if related
to the search terms and location searched, that can
be done using Google’s Adwords program with what’s
called “Local Targeted Ads”. http://google.com/adwords
By the way, Google also includes a “Reporting Dashboard”
that will tell you how people find you, and what keywords
they used to search. It’s powerful stuff that can also
be used in your local search engine optimization work.
Do yourself a favor – if you’re not listed with “Google
Places”, do it today. It’s targeted, free traffic. Now
where else can you say that when it comes to marketing
on the Internet. People are looking for your business
online and with Google Places you can make it easier
for them to find you. Website or not – it simply doesn’t
matter – but getting people in the door does, and Google is
there to help.
Top 10 Google Search Features for Your Business
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 2:26 PM
Monday, July 26, 2010
Top 10 Google Search Features for Your Business
The people at Google are truly amazing! They are evolving
their search engine into something that can be an incredibly
powerful tool for business. There are a zillion things that
Google can do for different parts of your business and in
this post, I will highlight the top 10 Google search tools
that will help your supply chain.
Since Google is just a click away, I think it’s a very
useful for everyone involved in the supply chain to be aware
of how much easier it can make their lives. Everybody from
traffic managers, to purchasing people, to accounting people
and customer service will likely need to reference what
Google can do during the course of the week. There are a
lot of people who don’t even know all of Google’s
capabilities. So without further ado, here is your:
Top 10 Google Search Tools That Will Help Your Supply Chain
1. Package Tracking – You can track packages by typing the
tracking number for your UPS, Fedex or USPS package directly
into the search box. Some of the LTL and motor carriers also
allow for you to plug in their pro numbers as well. Google
will return results that include quick links to easily track
the status of your shipment.
Example of what to search for: “1Z9999W9999999999″
2. Time – This is huge when dealing with vendors or
customers overseas or across the country. To see the time
in many cities around the world, type in “time” and the name
of the city.
Example of what to search for: “time London”
3. Currency Conversion – This is cool! To use Google’s
built-in currency converter, simply enter the conversion
you’d like done into the Google search box and they’ll
provide your answer directly on the results page.
Example of what to search for: “150 GBP in USD”
4. Unit Conversion – Countries use different metrics for
measuring. This tool is extremely useful. You can use
Google to convert between many different units of
measurement of height, weight, and volume among many others.
Just enter your desired conversion into the search box and
Google will do the rest.
Example of what to search for: “10.5 cm in inches”
5. Calculator – Since Google is right on your desk top you
don’t have to go searching for your calculator. Plus it
uses Excel style equations so it’s really easy for business
people who think in Excel. To use Google’s built-in
calculator function; simply enter the calculation you’d
like done into the search box.
Example of what to search for: “5*9+(sqrt 10)3=”
6. Weather – Weather plays a big role in transportation so
this is great for getting a snapshot of the world’s weather.
To see the weather for many U.S. and worldwide cities, type
“weather” followed by the city and state, U.S. zip code, or
city and country.
Example of what to search for: “weather San Francisco, CA”
7. Maps – Want to see the mileage between a shipper and a
consignee or try to figure out where your vendor is located?
This is great! Type in the name or U.S. zip code of a
location and the word “map” and Google will return a map of
that location. Clicking on the map will take you to a larger
version on Google Maps.
Example of what to search for: “Seattle map”
8. Area Code – This can be helpful in situations ranging
from trying to find where a phone call is coming from to
finding out what part of the country you are calling. To
see the geographical location for any U.S. telephone area
code, just type the three-digit area code into the Google
search box and hit the Enter key or click the Google Search
button.
Example of what to search for: “212″
9. Stock Quotes – Wanna see how a freight carrier or a
vendor is doing in the market? Just type the ticker symbol
into the search box. On the results page, you can click the
link to see more data from Google Finance as well.
Example of what to search for: “MSFT”
10. Earthquakes – I have heard carriers make up some crack
pot reasons why they missed the delivery. In case you are
given the old earthquake excuse, you can use Google to see
if the story checks out. To see information about recent
earthquakes in a specific area type “earthquake” followed by
the city and state or U.S. zip code.
Example of what to search for: “earthquake 90210″
*When entering keyword or phrase into Google’s search engine
with these tools, do not use quotation marks.
Why You Should Create Controversial Content
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Last week, like every other week, I wrote an article. This time I decided to syndicate it, something I should be doing twice a week, but only get to about 4 times a month, and that’s if I’m feeling up to it.
This was one of the biggest traffic draws from a single article that I have had in years. It is still producing a steady stream of traffic, sales and subscribers as I’m writing this.
It’s been 2 years since I’ve gotten that much of an appreciative response, or that amount of attention, period, for an article I wrote that wasn’t widely syndicated. In fact, it only appeared in one major publication.
So what’s all the hub-bub, bub?
As you may have guessed, there was a controversy surrounding the article. First, there were several typos. Normally I’d edit the article so relentlessly that by the time the article was perfect, it would be a month since I wrote it and it wouldn’t fit into my article marketing campaign for that week.
Since I’d been kicking my own butt to get content out on schedule, even when it isn’t perfect, I took my own medicine and just sent it out the way it was. And boy were the grammar, typing and spelling police mad!
Two people wrote me that they passed my article around at their meetings as an example of what not to do. Does it count as a backfire when one of the people who sees it Googles you and becomes a client?
(Just had to get in that little dig. Forgive me.)
What else was so bad about the article?
I called my readers “punks” – in the title.
This was a calculated risk – I’d run another version of the article, a blog post, and from sharing on StumbleUpon alone it got over 3000 visitors. In this new version, the article then went on to tell my readers to basically get off their over-thinking butts and do something, then gave them two examples of things to do.
There was, of course, a vocal minority of outraged responses about this too. But, curiously, other, louder, people who read the article – people I haven’t ever met or spoken to – came along and defended it.
In the end, my slang-ridden, typo-laden, in-your-face article brought me more profitable traffic and attention than any other article I’ve written this year. It was written in a moment of passion I had at seeing a friend almost lose her house, and a peer almost lose his business, mostly as a result of inaction.
And seeing this reaction led me to go back and look at my other articles. I write all my own stuff – it’s far more profitable for those of us who are at least halfway decent at writing to write an okay article injected with personality than it is to pay someone else to write generic content.
(I still hire writers for certain things though. But I concentrate on the ones with voice and depth, and pay them more for unique, engaging writing – I don’t simply outsource to the lowest bidder. I say if you’re going to hire a writer, get someone better than you.)
If you have the ability to generate controversy with your content, do it. Not convinced? Here are seven reasons why you should consider it.
1- It’s Effectíve
Nothing gets more attention than controversy. That’s why reality shows are popular. It’s why we read the journalist who we think is making an absolutely backwards prediction about something we care about. That’s why people gossip and debate.
Why merely participate when you can be the topic of discussion?
2- Negative Attention is Sometimes even Better than Positive Attention
Nothing spreads faster than outrage. Wide exposure for a controversial view is much better than no exposure for towing the conventional wisdom line.
3- Display Your Skill at Dealing with Diverging Viewpoints
Let people see the smooth way you react to the rude comments from people who take your words personally that WILL follow. I’ve gained lifelong friends, fans and customers from them witnessing what they call poise under pressure – and I call common courtesy.
You don’t have to respond from the same type of energy that’s being directed at you. Why let someone else having a bad day ruin your day?
4- It Vets Your Buyers
For example, if you want more clients that will take your advice to heart, get off their butts, and stop making excuses, try making a video that takes a hard line and tells people to get off their butts and stop making excuses!
Yeah, you’ll get reamed for it – by people who make excuses. They will be offended and won’t ever sign up to your newsletter.
Awesome. Because the people who needed a coach who believes in swift kicks in the butt will take your advice and hungrily seek more of it.
5- It’s Fun to Do
What’s more fun than seeing something controversial? Being controversial or doing something controversial. It’s not for the faint of heart, but if you can take it, boy is that a fun ride!
6- It’s Entertaining To Experience
When people are entertained, they buy more. You probably haven’t ever noticed the music playing in the background at the grocery store. It’s there because studies show that people browse longer and thus, buy more, when they’re being entertained.
Now you see more TVs at gas stations and in convenience stores. When I used to live in Vegas many of the Strip cabs had TVs on the backs of seats before I ever saw them in regular cars.
Then there’s the classic example of commercials during our favorite TV shows.
7- It Sets You Apart
You know why bigger companies are afraid of controversy?
Me either. If you find out, come tell me. All I know is, I’m not afraid of controversy because I see it as an opportunity. It’s another way to connect, to have something to discuss, and in the case of my last controversial article, to help people.
Even if you aren’t going to make a controversial audio, video, blog post or article, for goodness sakes, do something different.
No one watches boring shows on TV, invites boring people to parties, reads boring books or listens to boring music unless they have to, for study or evaluation.
Try a little controversy and see where it takes you. If that’s too scary, at least risk being extraordinarily passionate. The spotlight can be fun.
Google SideWiki Encourages Public Graffiti
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Google has launched a controversial new tool that allows the public to comment on any web site in a side bar displayed in their browser.
Called Google Sidewiki, the tool is integrated in the latest version of Google Toolbar and works with both Firefox and Internet Explorer but ironically, not yet Google Chrome. To use Sidewiki, download the latest version of the Google Toolbar and set it to enhanced.
When activated, Sidewiki slides across from the left and becomes a browser sidebar, where you can write entries in a vertical column and read the entries of others. To activate Sidewiki, you simply click on the Sidewiki button in your Toolbar menu or the little talk bubble on the left hand side of your screen.
See: http://www.sitepronews.com/images2/sidewiki.jpg
If you’ve got a Google profile, your image will appear next to your Sidewiki entry. You can either highlight a certain part of a web page, click the Sidewiki button and comment about it, or you can make a general comment about the entire web page. If you’ve got Sidewiki installed, you can see comments made on the same web site by other members of the public and you can forward your Sidewiki comments to colleagues, friends and family via direct link, email, Twitter or Facebook.
It appears that persons can read the Sidewiki comments sent via link whether they have Sidewiki installed or not. When you’re logged into Sidewiki, you’ll always see your comments at the top and any others below.
Not only does your Sidewiki entry appear on the original page, but if you have highlighted text, your entry also appears on any webpages that contain the same snippet of text that your comment is about. From the official blog post:
“Under the hood, we have even more technology that will take your entry about the current page and show it next to webpages that contain the same snippet of text. For example, an entry on a speech by President Obama will appear on all webpages that include the same quote. We also bring in relevant posts from blogs and other sources that talk about the current page so that you can discover their insights more easily, right next to the page they refer to.”
Rather than viewing them in the order in which they were written, Sidewiki entries are ranked via an algorithm determined by Google:
“So instead of displaying the most recent entries first, we rank Sidewiki entries using an algorithm that promotes the most useful, high-quality entries. It takes into account feedback from you and other users, previous entries made by the same author and many other signals we developed.”
The technology used to determine ranking involves large-scale graph computing but other factors are at play, as revealed by Danny Sullivan in his post about Sidewiki. These include use of sophisticated language, complex sentences and ideas, user reputation and user history as revealed by your Google profile and comment contributions. Your comments and others can be thumbed up or down using the “useful – yes or no?” tool, or reported as abuse, further contributing to your user reputation and “Profile Rank” as Danny calls it.
Google have also launched an API that allows developers to work freely with the content created in Sidewiki. Where no comments have been made on a web page, Google may show blog results relating to that page.
The potential applications of Sidewiki are interesting and frightening at the same time. For example, I can see how it could be a useful bookmarking tool, allowing you to make notes about a web site you’ve found which you could refer to later. You can even embed YouTube videos in Sidewiki (take a look at the Google home page to see this in action).
It also has fantastic potential as an online collaboration tool, letting you annotate the pages on a site in conjunction with team members in a similar way to tracking changes in a MS Word document and sharing document versions via Google Docs.
BUT, (and it’s a big but), I can see Sidewiki being open to abuse in a similar way to Searchwiki, Google’s comment tool for search engine result pages. Searchwiki has been widely panned in the search industry because it’s Notes feature has been exploited by spammers, overactive PR companies and people with a chip on their shoulder about certain web brands. Unfortunately, I see Sidewiki heading in the same direction. And fast.
Any user controlled element of a search engine is open to some level of abuse. But I don’t see a huge amount of comment filtering going on yet and have already seen evidence of spamming (view the Microsoft home page with Sidewiki installed and you’ll see anti-MS entries like this one).
Yes Google have a usefulness rating system in place, a Report Abuse link and are flagging some comments with the disclaímer “These entries may be less useful” but I doubt their filters will be able to keep up as Sidewiki takes off. There’s also going to be the troll factor which will undoubtedly lead to the system becoming worthless if it’s not carefully controlled. I’ve viewed Sidewiki entries on some major sites this past week and it’s already starting to feel like Toilet Wall Graffiti 2.0.
Sidewiki has program policies but spammers don’t care about those and trolls don’t read them. Besides, one man’s graffiti is another man’s gospel.
Google’s catch phrase for Sidewiki is: “Contribute helpful information to any web page”. To that, I say: Define helpful.
The Tricky Issue of Duplicate Content and Google
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Friday, April 2, 2010
Being a full-time online marketer means you have to keep a close watch on how Google is ranking pages on the web… one very serious concern is the whole issue of duplicate content. More importantly, how does having duplicate content on your site and on other people’s sites, affect your keyword rankings in Google and the other search engines?
Now, recently it seems that Google is much more open about just how it ranks content. I say “seems” because with Google there are years and years of mistrust when it comes to how they treat content and webmasters. Google’s whole “do as I say” attitude leaves a bitter taste in most webmasters’ mouths. So much so, that many have had more than enough of Google’s attitude and ignore what Google and their pundits say altogether.
This is probably very emotionally fulfilling, but is it the right route or attitude to take? Probably not!
Mainly because, regardless of whether you love or hate Google, there’s no denying they are King of online search and you must play by their rules or leave a lot of serious online revenue on the table. Now, for my major keyword content/pages even a loss of just a few places in the rankings can mean I lose hundreds of dollars in daily commissions, so anything affecting my rankings obviously gets my immediate attention.
So the whole tricky issue of duplicate content has caused me some concern and I have made an ongoing mental note to myself to find out everything I can about it. I am mainly worried about my content being ranked lower because the search engines think it is duplicate content and penalizes it.
My situation is compounded by the fact that I am heavily into article marketing – the same articles are featured on hundreds, some times thousands of sites across the web. Naturally, I am worried these articles will dilute or lower my rankings rather than accomplish their intended purpose of getting higher rankings.
I try to vary the anchor text/keyword link in the resource boxes of these articles. I don’t use the same keyword phrase over and over again, as I am nearly 99% positive Google has a “keyword use” quota – repeat the same keyword phrase too often and your highly linked content will be lowered around 50 or 60 places, basically taking it out of the search results. Been there, done that!
I even like submitting unique articles to certain popular sites so only that site has the article, thus eliminating the whole duplicate content issue. This also makes for a great SEO strategy, especially for beginning online marketers, your site will take some time to get to a PR6 or PR7, but you can place your content and links on high PR7 or PR8 authority sites immediately. This will bring in quality traffic and help your own site get established.
Another way I combat this issue is by using a 301 re-direct so that traffic and pagerank flows to the URL I want ranked. You can also use your Google Webmaster Tool account to show which version of your site you want ranked or featured: with or without the www.
The whole reason for doing any of this has to do with PageRank juice – you want to pass along this ranking juice to the appropriate page or content. This can raise your rankings, especially in Google.
Thankfully, there is the relatively new “canonical tag” you can use to tell the search engines this is the page/content you want featured or ranked. Just add this meta link tag to your content which you want ranked or featured, as in the example given below:
Anyway, this whole duplicate issue has many faces and sides, so I like going directly to Google for my information. Experience has shown me that Google doesn’t always give you the full monty, but for the most part, you can follow what they say. Lately, over the last year or so, Google seems to have made a major policy change and are telling webmasters a lot more information on how they (Google) rank their index.
So if you’re concerned or interested in finding out more about duplicate content and what Google says about it try these helpful links. First one is a very informative video on the subject entitled “Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues” which is presented by Greg Grothaus who works for Google.
Another great link is this page from Google Webmasters Support Answers by Matt Cutts. It has a lot of helpful information, including a video on the Canonical Link Element.
In yet another post, Matt Cutts discusses the related issue of content scraping and advises webmasters not to worry about it. This is a slightly different matter, other webmasters and unmentionables may use software to scrape your site and place your content on their site. This has happened to me, countless times, including when my content has been reduced to scrambled nonsense. Cutts says not to worry about this matter as Google can usually tell the original source of the material. In fact, having links in this duplicate content may just help your rankings in Google.
“There are some people who really hate scrapers and try to crack down on them and try to get every single one deleted or kicked off their web host,” says Cutts. “I tend to be the sort of person who doesn’t really worry about it, because the vast, vast, vast majority of the time, it’s going to be you that comes up, not the scraper. If the guy is scraping and scrapes the content that has a link to you, he’s linking to you, so worst case, it won’t hurt, but in some weird cases, it might actually help a little bit.”
As a full time online marketer I am not so easily convinced, I mainly have pressing concerns about my unscrupulous competition using these scrapings and duplicate content to undermine one’s rankings in Google by triggering some keyword spam filter. Whether in fact this actually happens, only Google knows for sure, but it is just another indication, despite the very detailed and helpful information given above, duplicate content and the issues surrounding it, will still present serious concerns for online marketers and webmasters in the future.
Google Reinvents the Phone with Google Voice
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
When it comes to “cool tools”, Google is the master inventor. Say what you want about Google, but they know what they’re doing when it comes to giving the public what they want and need. Take the telephone for instance. An old invention that now has been given a new twist with ” Google Voice” (G.V.) . Hold onto your chair as I’m about to tell you how to have a lot more fun with Ma Bell.
Google is giving you the ability to manage all your phones with one centralized number. At the time of this writing, it’s only available to those in the U.S., and by invitation only. Upon registration, you’ll be given your phone number that you connect to any existing phone number. When someone calls the Google Voice number, it rings the phone number that you specified. The option of selecting a word for your personalized number is also given.
Now, if all Google Voice did was send phone calls to your cell phone, that would be great all by itself, but the amount of extra tools and features are truly amazíng.
When a call is received you can answer it, send it directly to voice mail, listen in on the incoming call to decide what to do with it, or start recording the call upon answering. How’s that for a few options?
After receiving a call you’d like to record, hit 4 on your phone to start recording. Different states have different laws when it comes to recording calls, so check your current federal and state laws before using this feature. Currently outbound calls cannot be recorded. Google does provide an automated verbal announcement when the recording starts and stops so the person you’re speaking with knows they are being recorded. So much for incriminating yourself (LOL).
Say goodbye to voicemail as you know it. When a voicemail is recorded, you can check it by going to the Google Voice website and logging in, or calling your Google number. You can even be notified by email, or text message of new messages needing your attention. The ability to listen in on voice mails as they are being left is a very handy feature.
Voicemail messages can be shared with others via Email, even downloaded as MP3 files and embedded on a website or blog. Messages are also transcribed as text and housed on Google’s site for later reading, or sent to you by email. When it comes to voice mail greetings, custom messages can be set for groups or certain individuals.
Google Voice is free for use within the U.S., but does give the ability to make low cost international calls to over 200 countries from your phone or Google’s site. You’ll first need to purchase credits through Google Checkout before making these calls. Rates vary per country.
Here are some other handy features:
• Phone spam filters which block calls and mark them as spam
• Conference Calling
• Temporary forwarding of calls to another number
• Access Google Voice from mobile browsers at http://google.com/voice/m
• Call Widgets – Easily add a “call me” widget to your blog or site with copy and paste code located under setup.
• Do not disturb option which sends all incoming calls directly to voicemail when you don’t want to be bothered.
So what about when you call someone and want it to appear you are calling from your Google Voice phone number? No problem. The ability to make calls that will display your G.V. number on caller ID can be done in three different ways.
1) Hit call from within Google Voice website
2) From G.V. mobile site on your cell
3) By calling your G.V. number and logging into the system.
Google will call you at the number you specify and connect your outbound call. It doesn’t get much better than that.
The technical requirements to use this service are a computer with Win XP, Vista, Mac or Linux, Internet Explorer 6.0 or above, Firefox 3.0 or higher, Safari, Google Chrome and Flash 8.9. To request your invitation go to – https://services.google.com/fb/forms/googlevoiceinvite/ .
So, if you thought using the phone was outdated, sign up with Google Voice and put some “FUN” back into an old relationship. This just might be the best thing old Ma Bell has seen in years.
There is always a big discussion when it comes to comparing two of the best ways to advertise online: PPC (Pay-Per-Click) advertising and article marketing, otherwise known as “organic” or “natural” search engine optimization. There is no denying that both methods can be effective. However, which method is better? Which gives you a bigger bang for your buck?
You may get varying statistics on this issue, depending on which website you visit for information. Oh yes, this matters, because you have to consider the source of the statistics and who is sponsoring the article. For example, two sources of information (respectively, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and ComScore) recently produced studies indicating that PPC advertising was more cost-effective on average. However, did the fact that Yahoo/Overture and Google were sponsoring this major study play any role in determining the final outcome? Of course it did – those are the two biggest PPC companies on the net!
In figuring out which of the two is better, you have to consider cost-effectiveness as well as click-through-rates and direct conversion from visiting user to paying customer. We are going to review some statistics a little bit later on. For now, let’s consider some logical points that illustrate how PPC and article marketing differ.
Search engine result pages display more listings than PPC results, which does have a psychological effect on the user. For some users seeing ten search results (each one relevant to the search) is enough to convince them that there is enough web information on the subject and that “fishing” PPC ads might not be necessary.
The catch is that in order to actually rank in the Top 10 SEO results for your keyword, you have to have relevant website content, not to mention technical prowess in HTML coding. Search engines will be focusing on their proprietary algorithms, or the most relevant websites based on the search term queried. There is no “bribery” here, whereas in PPC, it is quite the opposite: whoever bids highest for each word usually gets the top listing. A quality algorithm definitely plays a part in PPC, but in the end money talks. In article marketing, we haven’t quite come to the point where “money talks”. The best websites still win the search engine contest and that is an important factor to consider in your marketing campaign.
Even PPC proponents will admit that PPC is largely style over substance. With PPC advertising you are trying to grab attention in just a few loud and occasionally obnoxious words. You direct the user to a carefully crafted page that “sells” the idea. This operation contrasts with article marketing, which doesn’t necessarily sell an idea on a single page, nor does it grab attention with a few words. With article marketing, there is an entire article waiting for the visitor, which uses a methodical and “indirect” approach. Assuming you are listed in the Top #10, your listing means that the search engine agrees that your website is the best authority on the keyword subject – for the time being. People in a hurry or on a whim will probably click on PPC. People on a mission will be looking for relevant content on their chosen keyword.
Therefore, the question now becomes which methodology works better for your business? Are you appealing to the fast clicker or the thoughtful user? Let’s now consider two sources of statistics for a clearer view of the issue. First, one in favor of article marketing, the next in favor of PPC.
In Favor of Article Marketing
Jakob Nielsen, Ph.D. and principal founder of the Nielsen Norman Group researched the behavior of users who found search engine results pages and noticed some trends. Forty-two percent of users selected the #1 search listing for their result, leaving 58% that selected another Top 10 Result. The #1 site listed held the majority of clicks. This indicates that almost two thirds of Internet users were not content to choose even the #1 listing on a natural SEO search. That means that these users (and the majority of all users) are actually using independent judgment in deciding what links are most relevant to their needs.
Other related statistics (with sources from ComScore, Webxico, iProspect, SEOResearcher and Hotchkiss, Garrison, and Jensen) concluded that 77% of search users choose organic listings over PPC ads. There were also studies that suggested organic click-through generated 25% higher conversion rates than equivalent PPC click-through.
In Favor of PPC Advertising
Now to be fair, we have to consider some advantages that PPC advertising has. The best feature PPC has is that it gets instantaneous results. SEO advertising takes time, especially if you have a new website just submítted to the all of the major search engines. Yes, this can be frustrating. PPC brings you immediate traffic and sometimes brings in thousands of users. Seeing your Alexa ranking take a drastic jump certainly pumps up your adrenaline!
ComScore recently published statistics in favor of PPC, stating that their studied users had an 18.3% click-through-rate on “paid” search results versus a 4.3% click-through rate for organic search results. The conversion rate was also higher according to ComScore, stating that PPC had a 1.4% versus SEO’s 0.6%.
The Real Issue: Longevity
However, the downside here (even if you didn’t contest these suspicious results) is that instant and high volume traffic is, frankly, cheap and not as exciting as it first appears to be. Remember that when you use PPC ads you are making a pitch and capitalizing on your audience’s curiosity. When that curiosity fades, they forget your website – especially if it’s just a glorified advertisement. PPC campaigns can also be costly and time consuming when you consider your duties as a manager.
Another problematic scenario with PPC is that they have no staying power – unless of course you have thousands of dollars a month to blow in this recession. With article marketing you get more quality traffic, and perhaps more importantly to you, you earn customer trust over time. Internet users aren’t stupid, the popularity of Yahoo Answers notwithstanding. Most users know that PPC ads usually aren’t relevant to their search – they’re just there because someone is consistently paying to get noticed.
You can consider article marketing as an investment that continually pays all through the life of your company (or until you shut the website down) since it generates traffic forever. You can easily spend thousands a month on a brilliant PPC campaign and soon run out of money, meaning your ads go extinct. Therefore, we can conclude that article marketing does have specific advantages over PPC, which are intrinsic because of the differences in operation.
• Article marketing generates traffic forever
• Article marketing improves your natural SEO ranking and backlinks
• Article marketing establishes trust – you appear as a professional in your industry
• Article marketing doesn’t cost you extra on top of fees spent on websites, landing pages and superfluous domains
How About Return-On-Investment?
ROI is another key issue, as short-term and long-term profit must equal out. Article marketing, by some authorities appears to have a slower ROI -(especially if you make revenue on CTRs). However, studies suggest that organic ROI is more consistent than PPC. Consider some independent research conducted by popular blogger Gord Hotchkiss who explained the situation in crystal clear terms. Let’s say you have 50 high traffic search terms. Now for these 50 terms, there are 2.8 million searches being launched in a month. If statistics like ComScore’s are correct and unbiased, that translates to 456,000 visitors thanks to PPC and 153,000 visitors thanks to article marketing.
The total cost of those 456,000 PPC visitors would amount to over $500,000 with an average CPC of $1.18. Even if you work with an SEO company that charges top dollar ($10,000 a month, let’s say) you’re still paying $10,000 compared to half a million. That means article marketing’s virtual CPC amounts to $0.07. Even if you apply PPC’s higher conversion rate, 3,647 converted visitors, you are paying $147.08 for each individual person. Compare that to 611 visitors you earned through article marketing – you are paying $16.37 for each visitor. And in doing so, you are also earning a higher quality of customer and generating traffic until the end of days.
Does your final ROI number take into account your total expenses? Absolutely! While both methods of advertising have their place online, when it comes to earning quality traffic, article marketing gets the last word.
7 Tricks to Get a Goooooooooooogle of Links
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
SEO is a race. And in any race learning from your competitors makes you a better runner. Even when you’re running first it’s sometimes good to look back and check the runner-ups. And if you’re not the yellow jersey guy, you absolutely should examine the leaders: their gear, their training, their strategy. In SEO the most interesting thing about your competition are their links.
Whether you like it or not SEO is still pretty much about links. Good link profile can make up for almost any lack of optimized content and other onpage flaws. Love or hate, the best thing you can do about it is embrace the fact and run with it.
So let’s go through some tricks that will enable you to look deeper into your competition’s link profile granting you access to the restricted areas: their locker room, dirty laundry and even the briefing hall where they plan their link building strategies.
Let’s Talk Competitive Link Research
Finding out where your competitors’ links come from is not all that hard. You just go to Yahoo! or Google and type in link:www.your-competitor.com to get a list of inbound links to the site.
Yahoo’s much better in that respect as it tends to give more extensive and accurate data. The problem here is that there’s a limit of 1,000 links per website which is often not enough as the fattest link sources get left behind the limit fence. Here’re some tips to break through to the other side.
Note: If you’re lazy like me skip to the end of the article where I’ll share a tool that does it all much quicker.
Trick 1: Search for Links to Particular Web Pages of a Competing Site
Alongside with link:www.your-competitor.com search for
link:www.your-competitor.com/products.html or
link:www.your-competitor.com/services.html
and so on.
Trick 2: Exclude Internal Links
You may examine the internal linking structure of your competition if you want to gain some insight on their navigation and marketing steps. But as we want to find more external links, let’s exclude the internal ones.
You can do this by adding -site:site.com operator to your search query. Type in:
link:http://www.your-competitor.com -site:your-competitor.com or
linkdomain:www.your-competitor.com -site:your-competitor.com
and you’ll get a list of external backlinks only.
There’s a dropdown option in Yahoo! site explorer that does the same.
Trick 3: Exclude Links Coming from Certain Domains
The -site: modifier lets you exclude links coming from specific sites. So, whenever you see a large chunk of links coming from the same domain add -site:thisdomain.com modifier to your query and the links from this site will get replaced with new ones.
You can add -site: multiple times in one query so that you have something like this:
link:http://www.cnn.com -site:cnn.com -site:en.wikipedia.org
Trick 4: Check Links Coming from Certain TLDs
This is a little known trick. The site: modifier actually lets you get a list of links coming from domains with certain TLDs: .com, .org, .edu, .co.uk and so on. Just type in
link:http://www.your-competitor.com site:.gov or
linkdomain:www.your-competitor.com site:.gov
and you’ll get a list of .gov sites linking to your rival.
Note: Do this in Yahoo! regular search, not site explorer
Trick 5: Exclude Links Coming from Certain TLDs
This is an even lesser known trick. You can exclude certain TLDs from the results with the -site:.tld modifier. Usually the biggest chunk of links comes from .com’s so add a -site.com modifier and you’ll get lots of new link data.
Trick 6: Use Different Combinations of the First 5 Tricks
Try link:http://www.your-competitor.com/page.html -site:your-competitor.com -site:.com
Or link:http://www.your-competitor.com site:.org -site:wikipedia.org
Give it a thought and I’m sure you’ll come up with lots of ideas. Feel free to share your findings in the comments.
Trick 7: Use the Above 6 Tricks in Different Search Engines
Don’t limit your searches to Yahoo! and Google, go to AltaVista, Alexa, (Bing doesn’t give you link data, so forget about it) but then there’re Exalead, Excite and tons of regional search engines. Search them, get rid of the the duplicates and you’ll have a goooooooooooooooogol of competitor’s links to study.
Note: Some search engines have a different set of operators so you’ll need to type domain: instead of link:.
Getting It All Done Fast
This sure seems like a lot of work and it is. Moreover, getting the links list is only the beginning and the easy part of competitive link research. Once you get the list you need to analyze each link, weed out poor quality sites and only leave the ones you can get a link from. Now THAT’s a lot of work.
I’m too lazy to do this all by hand, besides I value my time too much to waste it on such kind of work. That’s why I use SEO SpyGlass an advanced link analysis tool that employs all the tricks described in this article (plus some more advanced ones I don’t even know) to get up to 25,000 links per domain, which is much, much more than any other tool can get.
SEO SpyGlass also finds all the data I need to analyze the links:
• Google PR of the domain and linking page
• The URL and title of the linking page
• The anchor text and description
• Whether the link is still on the page (sometimes the link gets removed but search engines will
think it’s there till they reindex the page).
• Whether the link is no-follow or dofollow
• How many other links are on the page
• How much link value the link passes
• And some other data like TLDs, domain age, country, etc.
If you want to do competitive link research seriously, I’d strongly recommend trying SEO SpyGlass out. And of course you can always use my tricks whenever you want to run a quick background check on that new guy on your block.
How Many Links to Get to the Middle of Google Page One?
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Everyday it seems, people are asking me about the optimum number of inbound links they need to acquire for their website in order to rank well in Google.
My answer is going to seem a little flip, but it is the honest, best answer.
Answer: You need more inbound links – of equal or higher quality – than what your competitors have.
Albert Einstein argued that any mathematical formula that required pages of calculations did not contain within it “the mind of God”.
So when Albert Einstein developed E=mc2, then Einstein had fulfilled the promise of a simple formula that could encompass the brilliance of God.
When people wonder how many inbound links they need to acquire to rank in the Top 4 of Google’s search results or even the Top 10 of Google’s SERPs, they are generally hoping that someone will be able to give them a numeric answer, so that they know whether they can afford to undertake the process or not.
I understand the WHY of the question, but there is no canned answer that will work for everyone. Remember, your competitor may be asking the same question and undertaking the same processes as you are, trying to accomplish the same goal.
You can’t truly begin to understand the answer to this question, until you have taken the time to do an Inbound Link Comparison Analysis of all of your competitors in the Top 10 spots of Google’s SERPs.
• You need to look at the Top 10 listings in Google for a particular keyword.
• You need to do backlink checks for all ten URLs in Google’s search listings, and you need to check those numbers across a variety of sources, including Google, Yahoo and any other tool you can find to do a check. (Google and Yahoo both tend to understate the actual link counts. While Yahoo will show you more than what Google does, they also show a number of “no consequence” links in their results.)
• You need to look at the quality of a few of the pages that provide links to the URLs in the search results.
This is not an easy process to undertake. I have done it before, but the best you can hope for is a “snapshot” of what is out there, and therefore, what you need to accomplish.
Note: If Wikipedia turns up in your search query, few people with small budgets will ever be able to dislodge Wikipedia in the search results. What they make up for in a small number of inbound links, they more than make up for with links from dozens or hundreds of PR4, PR5 and PR6 pages. Wikipedia is the king of Internal Linking, and they use that to a great degree to rank extraordinarily high in Google’s search listings.
Your analysis should seek to uncover how many links a page has to it.
As a general rule of thumb, Google will show you less than 1% of the existing number of links for a web page. Yahoo will sometimes show closer to 5% of the existing number of links for a web page, but they will not show you the highest quality of those links.
So, as you strive to gain a “snapshot” picture of the playing field, you want to take Google’s Inbound Links number and multiply that by at least 100. Then you want to take Yahoo’s Inbound Links number and multiply that by at least 20, then cut the number in half to acknowledge the number of worthless crap links they have in their database. Once you have achieved these two numbers, then I tend to call the truth “somewhere in the middle”.
With your “somewhere in the middle” number in hand, you then need to look at the quality of links to a few of those search listings, to get an idea of whether those links exist on higher quality pages or simply junk pages.
If those links are on junk pages, then the goal could be achieved by just working the numbers. But if there are a lot of high PageRank pages in the mix, then whatever number is in your hand, should be multiplied, perhaps 100-fold, to overcome the quality of pages that link to your competitors.
If you get the idea that my simple formula leads to a complicated answer, then you are right.
All of the numbers that I have included in my sample formula are based on rough speculation, as the “snapshot” offers you your best hope of understanding the challenge in front of you.
While the number of inbound links may be relatively easy to determine, the link quality is a factor that is really hard to pin down.
• If you determine that you only need 300 inbound links to rank with the big boys, you may be right.
• Your 300 inbound links number should also be quantified against the number of links that Google will count worthy, so you may need 1200 links to get 300 links that Google will deem worthy. This calculation depends more on the “quality of your content”, rather than the “quantity of your content”.
• When all is said and done and your 300 Google-worthy links have not yet put you on page one, then you know that the quality of the links pointing at your competitors is greater than the quality of the links pointing to you.
If you were hoping for an easy answer, I am sorry that I could not help you with that.
But with this explanation of the challenge, you may be better prepared to answer the big question, the question that is really on your mind:
Are my hopes of achieving good rankings in Google within my reach?
I tend to throw “worry” to the wind and just start working. I don’t worry if I can afford to do it or not. I simply start doing, and I know that in one month, one year or five, I will have built enough value in my website that my competitors are going to be the ones who are trying to figure out if they can unseat me!
Cutting Rank: Improper Domain Name Redirects
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:53 PM
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Can my site rank better with a keyword-rich domain name? Sure.
Can my site rank better without a keyword in the domain name at all? Absolutely.
I get questions (or assumptions) like this regularly. Actually, there are many other things going on behind the scenes that impact rank, and the domain name is rarely a significant factor.
Let’s say your website has been out there for 6 months or more and you assume, for whatever reason, that you can get a higher search engine ranking if you were using a keyword in your domain name instead of the one you have. In addition to your company web domain, maindomain.com, you rush to purchase keyword1.com, keyword2.com and keyword3.com.
From Google’s perspective, there is both a good way and a detrimental way to assign these additional domain names to your site. This can cause a much greater problem in terms of organic ranking if you get it wrong in terms of duplicate content and trust. Have you ever heard of duplicate content? Which domain name does Google have more history and trust with, your current domain name or one you just bought?
Common methods webmasters use to point multiple domain names to your web server include:
• Domain Mirroring/Masking
• Domain Cloaking
• Domain Alias/URL Alias
• Domain Redirecting
Domain mirroring/masking is sometimes called a pointer domain. It looks like it is the domain name when it is used in a browser, but it is simply a mask overlaying the real domain name and its content. When someone types in www.domain.com, it’s really forwarding to domain.blogspot.com without the address changing in the address bar. The user continues to see www.domain.com in the address bar, although the site and its contents are really from domain.blogspot.com.
Domain cloaking uses an iframe or embedded frameset to display the content of another site.
Domain redirecting (also called URL redirecting) requires all traffic that is sent through the new domain name to be redirected to the main domain name. This can also be a domain redirected to a subdirectory of the main domain, or multiple domains redirected to a complex URL. This is different from domain mirroring/masking and domain cloaking because, when a user types in www.domain.com, they end up on www.maindomain.com and the address changes appropriately in the address bar.
But, let’s back up a second and look at the issues you must consider before making this decision.
1. To limit confusion, it’s better to change the brand (or company) name to better reflect the keyword-rich domain name. This could be as simple as recreating the company logo, but you might consult your customer base first.
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2. The technical procedure of redirecting domain names must be done so that the search engines do not get confused about what you are trying to do. Otherwise, you risk tripping a duplicate content filter, which would force Google to accept only one domain with that content (explained below). But the biggest risk is setting off an alarm at Google that you are trying to trick them to get a better rank.
Just for fun, let’s say you’ve gone through the trouble of changing the company name to reflect your new keyword-rich domain. Now it’s time to get technical.
If you use any method other than domain redirecting, you are going to be disappointed with your search rank. Domain mirroring, masking, cloaking and aliases confuse search engines because they see the same content under a different domain name. Google then selects one of the domain names to display that content and leaves the others out of the search results. Google chooses for you – since you are not aware of how to manage your duplicate content issues – and no one knows which domain name Google will choose. You could be saying “bye-bye” to all the hard-earned link juice pointed at your main domain name.
The more serious issue with domain mirroring/masking is the probability that Google suspects you are trying to manipulate search rank by suddenly using keywords in additional domain names. The result is either loss of whatever good ranking you did have or your site is banned from Google altogether. Ouch!
This is precisely what happened with a client. Despite my warnings, but thinking they might change the company name eventually, they bought additional keyword-rich domain names and had the webmaster point them at their server (using domain masking). Within a couple weeks Google dropped their domain ranking across the board, but did not ban them.
Of course they came to me with their issue. I gently reminded them about how this should have been done, redirected the domain names properly (using a 301 redirect) and asked them to consult me next time they’re considering a marketing or technical decision regarding the website. It took about 6 weeks – a long and painful 6 weeks – for Google to restore their good rank again.
When a company acquires additional domain names, they should be permanently redirected to the main domain name – the one, central location on the web for all of the company’s or brand’s content.
Redirecting a domain name should be handled differently depending on the type of server hosting your site (Apache or Windows), how much control you have over that server (hosted on a shared or dedicated server) and the purpose of the redirected domain name.
This morning I woke up to someone having submitted a pile of SEO questions using our newsletter question form. At first I thought, “Yikes, that’s kind of pushy to think I have time to answer all those questions!” But then I remembered that this was a newsletter week and I still had no idea what I was going to write about. A second look at the questions made me think that you guys would probably be interested in the answers to many of them, so it worked out perfectly.
Most of these questions have been answered in greater detail in various articles that I’ve written, so if you’d like more info on any of them, I’ve linked to the relevant ones for your convenience.
Thanks to Umair R., who submitted these questions.
1. Is there any fixed rule for Google as far as SEO is concerned? If so, what are the steps?
If only! There are no fixed rules because every website is different and has different needs. There are basic things that all websites need to do in order to improve their chances of showing up in Google search results for relevant phrases, but no magic formula.
See “The Art of SEO” article for more on this.
2. Do the following play important roles in website page ranking and positioning?
• PR
Yes, real PageRank (PR), the kind that only Google knows about plays a very large part in websites showing up (or not) for search queries that are relevant to it. But toolbar PageRank is another matter entirely. What you see there doesn’t correlate very well to where your page will show up in the search results.
See: “Getting Into Google” (Scroll down to the “Google Still Loves Its PageRank” part.)
• The number of incoming links
Not so much in and of itself. Real PR, as mentioned above, is calculated not only on the number of links, but also on the quality of those links. A handful of links from authoritative, trustworthy, relevant pages should far outweigh hundreds of links from so-so sites.
See the High Rankings Link Building Forum.
• Keyword density
Not in that there’s some special percentage that you need to aim for. Certainly it’s helpful to have the keyword phrases that you’d like to show up being used within the content of your page. But that’s just common sense, if you ask me. Surely, if your page is about a certain something (your keyword phrase), how could that phrase NOT be on the page?
See the various threads on keyword density on the High Rankings Forum.
• Page response time
This is important only because if it takes too long to load, it might not be properly (or completely) indexed.
• Bounce rate
It’s doubtful that this matters, because there’s no way for Google to know the bounce rate of every site. And it wouldn’t be fair for them to only count the bounce rates of those sites that have Google Analytics installed, so my guess is that this is not a factor.
See various High Rankings forum threads.
• Time on site
Like the above answer, they don’t know this number unless the site has Google Analytics installed. That said, they may sometimes incorporate the old trick of seeing if a searcher clicks to another site in the search results after clicking one result, and how long it took them to click another. In other words, if they find that lots of people who clicked to one site in the search engine results pages (SERPs) always end up back at Google to try another site, then perhaps that first site wasn’t a great answer to the search query after all.
• Domain page / Page age
From what I can tell, this can often be a factor. But it doesn’t seem to be as prominent a factor as it was a few years ago.
3. Is there any special technique for content writing?
There’s no special technique, but I highly suggest hiring a professional marketing copywriter. You will see a positive return on your investment very quickly if you do. In addition, the tried and true SEO copyediting techniques in my “Nitty-gritty of Writing for Search Engines” may come in handy if you’re not sure how to integrate your keyword phrases into your professionally written content.
4. Should we cater to code-to-text ratio while developing websites?
There’s not one shred of evidence that this would have an effect on where a page would show up in the search results for a relevant search query.
5. If active scripting is a must for webpage development, how harmful can it be for PageRank and positions?
It’s typically not harmful at all because it’s usually done before a browser (or search engine spider) sees a page. To users and search engines, your dynamically generated pages are just static HTML by the time they get to them. Still, not all dynamically generated pages are created equal. There are some ways of developing your site that are less search friendly than others. For example, some JavaScript menus, some AJAX, etc.
See “Diagnosing the SEO Health of Your Website”.
6. If a webpage is ranking top for a specific keyword, if we make textual changes in that webpage, is there any chance that we lose the rankings?
Any changes you make to a page’s content can affect how relevant the search engines believe it to be for any particular search query. That doesn’t mean it definitely will change the search results, but it could. The only way to know is to try it and see. Usually, if you’re rewriting your page to be more useful to your site visitors and you don’t remove all the instances of the keyword phrase, you should be fine. Because nothing is permanent with SEO, if you don’t like what you see you can tweak it until you do.
Google’s SEO Report Card… Information Nuggets or Fool’s Gold?
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
Google’s SEO Report Card… Information Nuggets or Fool’s Gold?
While ostensibly aimed at helping Google target potential weaknesses in its own product pages, and of no direct use to SEOs, there is nonetheless more than a little gold to be found here, if one just examines the document in a little more depth. So while the post at Google’s Webmaster Central Blog is already beginning to bristle with comments lamenting the fact that this isn’t a clear treasure map to the search-ranking mother lode, it’s worth sifting through the Report Card to see what informational nuggets are hidden inside.
Subject I: Search Result Presentation
It’s easy to see why some readers simply dismissed this document out of hand, as the first section starts off being little more than a rehash of the standard “Use Page Titles, Use Meta Descriptions” advice found in any SEO-101 manual. Only by persevering to the part talking about Google Sitelink Triggering, does one begin to suspect that there may be a little more to the report card than meets the eye. Here the authors throw out a couple of crumbs about categorizing website and link-structure, and consolidating a site’s URLs to maximize its informational focus with the aim of increasing the chances of Google generating Sitelinks.
Even so, it’s nothing most professionals haven’t heard before, and I suspect that by this time a lot of readers had given up, thinking that nothing interesting was in store.
Subject II: URLs and Redirects
This is where we see a little glitter among the rubble, as the section starts off with the statement that: “Google products’ URLs take many different forms. Most larger products use a subdomain, while smaller ones usually use a directory form…”
In itself this is not an exceptional statement, and the chapter continues to give handy, but hardly unique, information about canonicalization, URL structure, and redirects until Page 10, where we find the following declaration:
“Subdomains require an extra DNS lookup, slightly affecting latency, which is very important at Google.”
Page load-speeds are an important factor to Google. There’s been talk and speculation about this ever since Matt Cutts dropped the first hints last year, and these days most SEOs are busily proclaiming that slow websites are now a handicap.
Haven’t they always been?
Be that as it may, this fact is not common knowledge with the average webmaster, as demonstrated by a question I’m regularly confronted with over at the Google Webmaster Help Forum:
“Which is a better way to categorize my site, subdomains or folders?”
The standard answer to this question used to be “Whichever you prefer” before load-times became an issue. Now, however, we find a clear indicator that a folder-based approach is much-preferable unless a category actually contains enough information to merit its own site, which is effectively what a subdomain turns it into.
Subject III: On-Page Optimizations
While at first glance this chapter is more standard SEO-101 fodder, it’s where we find a sizable nugget, as the report talks about semantic markup, and how Google uses it to gauge a page’s content.
“Nothing new here; we all use H1 tags.” you might say, but you’d only be partially right, because this issue not only runs much deeper than H1 headings, it runs beyond Heading tags altogether, as I’ll explain shortly. For the moment, however, let’s stay with them.
In the past few years, a great many Optimizers have reached the conclusion that only H1, and, to a degree, H2 are of any promotional value, and that lesser headings (H3 – H6) carry practically no weight at all. But let’s take a look at the following statement, taken from Page 38 of the Report:
“Most product main pages have an opportuníty to use one
tag, like the example above, but they’re currently only using other heading tags (
in this case) or larger font styling. While styling your text so it appears larger might achieve the same visual presentation, it does not provide the same semantic meaning to the search engine that an
tag does.”
tag does.”
For starters it’s obvious that the lesser headings are alive and well, and being used by Google. We’re also told that Google does not, or cannot, judge the visual-context meaning of CSS styled text. The conclusion is to use more heading tags instead of CSS styles wherever your content calls for it. However, there’s more to it still. Let’s take another look at part of that statement:
“…but they’re currently only using other heading tags…”
It would appear that Google still places greater value on other semantic markup tags (em, strong, blockquote, etc.) than many professionals give them acknowledgment, for these days. Otherwise why would the author specifically note the fact that Google only uses headings and font styles?
I personally know quite a few professionals who have long-since abandoned most semantic markup tags in favour of CSS style, since the prevailing attitude of designers and SEOs has been that making text bold or italic no longer carries much promotional weight, following widespread abuses in the mid-2000s and Google’s consequent algorithm updates.
And although the above statement may be a tentative one, it might just point the way back to a more HTML-based approach to web design. Indeed, if it can be taken at face-value, it’s entirely possible that those SEOs and designers advocating CSS-based, table-less design as the way forward are barking up the wrong tree. Whatever the case may be, there is undoubtedly more to the SEO Report Card than first meets the eye, and at the very least, there is a little gold to be extracted from the mass of standard information. Only by reading the full document will you be able to make an assessment yourself.
What should also be remembered is that the SEO Report Card is not aimed at high-flying SEOs or E-lebrity industry pundits, but at the intermediate webmaster for whom even the report’s basic information is of immense value, if read alongside Google’s SEO Starter Guide
Five Simple but Powerful Ways to Use Google Analytics
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Five Simple but Powerful Ways to Use Google Analytics
If you haven’t started using Google Analytics on your website(s) or blogs, I highly highly recommend it. If you’ve set up an account but rarely look at it – I recommend you start looking.
First of all – what is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is a free analysis tool which gives you information on where your website visitors are coming from, which pages they visit, how long they stay, and a lot more. There are plenty of paid stat counters available which present data in different ways, but Google Analytics is one of the best, and it’s free.
One can over-analyze or under-analyze any website. Some people spend too much time checking stats, analyzing, and planning, and don’t spend enough time writing good content and getting new readers to their blogs.
On the other side of the pendulum, you could go on week after week, blindly publishing content and flailing along with offsite promotíon, without seeing what results your campaigns are getting, which type of content is the most popular for your visitors, and which traffic-generation techniques are getting the best results.
The first is like tuning your car’s engine every day without ever turning on the ignition, the second is like driving in the dark.
In between, we have a happy balance.
I find that the best times to check stats are when I don’t have a lot of time to do a more intense project, or when I am a bit too tired to do anything more “heavy.” Sometimes just before I go to bed at night is a good time to check into what has been happening between my visitors and my websites’ pages. I can browse and poke around in my Analytics account and learn quite a lot – even with minimal energy.
Here are five simple and powerful ways to use Google Analytics:
1. Find out which of your website’s pages are getting the most traffic, and optimize those pages.
If you are running ads on the pages, make sure they are properly placed and updated. If you are linking to affiliate products, make sure your links are up-to-date and that you aren’t missing any links, or new products which should be there. If you are using that page for some other purpose, such as to generate subscriptions or whatever the case may be, make sure that the page is laid out as well as possible. This can be helpful if you have a large website which has a long “to do” list and many things to optimize or tweak. By just starting with the most heavily-trafficked pages, you will get the maximum results from your efforts and also know where to start.
2. Find out which referrers are generating the most traffic, and continue any actions you have been taking to generate traffic from those referrers.
For example, if you see that Twitter is generating a large amount of targeted traffíc, you can expand your activity on Twitter. If you see that your article submissions are getting new visitors from article directories, you can make a note not to drop those out – or possibly step them up. Conversely, if you see that you have been spending time/money on a traffic-generation method which is not getting very far, you can stop wasting your time on it (presuming you have given it time to take effect).
3. Find out which keywords you are ranking the best for, and see which ones you can “push to the top.”
If you had a website on dogs, for example, and found that you were ranking at #30-#40 on Google for many keywords, but ranking #11 for, lets say, “dog chew toys,” you might want to work on increasing your rankings on dog chew toys and focus more of your SEO efforts on this term (of course there are other factors you would consider as well, such as the searches and competition for this term). Climbing from position #31 to #20 will generally not get you a huge improvement in traffic. But climbing from position #11 to position #3 almost certainly will. Focus first on keywords or key phrases that have the best chance of ranking high in the near future, and then move on to the others.
4. Find out which pages keep your visitors’ attention for the longest.
If the average visitor on Page A stays for 5 seconds, while the average visitor to Page B stays for 150 seconds, the likelihood is that your visitors find Page B’s content more interesting than Page A’s.
5. Look at the graph of your bounce rate.
This tells you how many people left your site without visiting a second page. Depending on the website and the page, this may be a good or bad thing. But if you have a blog or a content site, it is usually a good sign when people stick around to view more of your posts and content before they leave. If your bounce rate increased or decreased after you made a certain change, you can opt to revert that change (if bounce rate increased) or keep it (if bounce rate decreased). For example, if I changed the theme of my WordPress blog and then noticed a date-co-incident jump in my bounce rate, I might consider changing it back 
This statistic can be used in many ways – it will depend on the nature of your blog.
There are many, many other ways to use Google Analytics. The above are great ways to start, if you aren’t familiar with or used to using this tracking system. Google Analytics can give you a far greater understanding of what’s happening on your site and can guide you to continue on successful actions and drop the unsuccessful.
Video SEO – A Neglected Path To Higher Search Rankings
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Video SEO – A Neglected Path To Higher Search Rankings
Video SEO is an underutilized search engine marketing
strategy. Even as videos continue to gain significant
traction in the search engines’ natural listings, most
companies either ignore them, or remain completely unaware
of their potency. That oversight represents a valuable edge
your company can use to leapfrog your competitors in the
organic rankings.
The strategy blends traditional search optimization tactics
with a relatively new platform. With the rise of YouTube,
Revver, Blip, and similar video sites, consumption patterns
have driven the search engines to provide these sites with
greater ranking authority. As long as your primary
objective is clearly established, a video SEO campaign can
have a dramatic effect on your exposure in Google, Yahoo,
and Bing.
In this article, we’ll explain why you should integrate
video SEO into your current search marketing strategy. We
will also provide a few ingredients that will help you
avoid potential pitfalls along the way. Last, you will
learn what to look out for when choosing a video SEO
company that can drive traffic and conversions.
How Video SEO Improves Your Search Exposure
Before Google released their Universal Search platform in
May 2007, their natural listings were dominated by
text-based pages. Videos were rare in the top spots.
Universal Search changed the way Google displayed their
primary index. Google, Yahoo, and Bing now include entries
from their respective video search platforms. What’s more,
popular video-sharing sites have been given higher ranking
authority and increased link weight (we’ll describe this
latter point in a moment).
Video SEO gives you greater exposure in the search engines
through two levers. First, it caters to the algorithm used
for Universal Search. By allowing syndication of your
videos to authoritative video-sharing sites, you will enjoy
more exposure through their increased ranking authority. In
effect, those sites will rank higher, drawing more people
to your videos.
Second, videos that are placed on your site (as opposed to
syndicating them) attract links – both directly and
indirectly. As your videos gain popularity, direct links
will naturally build, pointing to the pages on your site
that host the videos. Indirect links will point from other
sites whose owners have embedded your videos. As a result,
your inbound link profile will continue to grow and
strengthen, lifting your site higher within the search
engines’ organic listings.
3 SEO Video Tips To Capture Higher Search Positions
Your video SEO campaign can only be effective if you
recognize the limitations of the search engines. First,
their algorithms cannot read lips. In order to rank for
your target keywords, they must be available to the search
engines’ spiders in text form. If you’re placing videos on
your site, optimize your titles and surrounding text, and
include an edited transcript of the video. If you’re
syndicating them, optimize your external titles and tags.
Second, focus on inbound links. An effective video SEO
campaign relies on contextually related links pointing from
a wide breadth of sites. Videos that spark a groundswell of
attention – whether through entertainment, information, or
controversy – can achieve this easily.
Third, integrate a social media sharing component. You want
viewers to share your videos with their friends on
Facebook. You want them to “Tweet” about your videos on
Twitter. You want them to bookmark your videos on
StumbleUpon, Digg and Delicious. These social media sites
can form the backbone of your video SEO campaign, driving
waves of inbound links to your site.
Key Factors In Choosing A Video SEO Company
Traditional search optimization is a mature strategy. SEO
specialists have honed their craft for more than a decade.
By contrast, video SEO is still an evolving science. Even
though it leverages the core tenets of a traditional SEO
campaign, the rise of social media and video-sharing sites
have infused video SEO with enormous complexity. Hiring a
video SEO company removes the need to keep up with the
roiling landscape. The key is using the right criteria to
identify a proficient firm.
A professional video SEO company should have an established
track record that shows a keen grasp of the search engines’
organic algorithms. That track record should also
demonstrate an ability to evolve as the algorithms change.
Many search optimization experts were completely unprepared
for the debut of Universal Search. By extension, so too,
were their clients.
Leveraging Video SEO For More Traffic And Higher Conversions
A carefully executed video SEO campaign can sharply
increase your exposure within the search engine’s natural
listings. When implemented as a component of a
multi-pronged search engine marketing campaign, it can
drive more targeted traffic to your site. Targeted traffic
translates into higher conversions. If you are not yet
utilizing video SEO for your site, your current organic
rankings may be more vulnerable than you realize.
Do You Really Want Your Site on Page One of Google?
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:00 AM
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Do You Really Want Your Site on Page One of Google?
Do you really want your website on page one of Google for your
chosen keyword phrase(s)? What do you want your online marketing
campaign to accomplish for you?
I asked a potential new SEO Coaching client last week this first
question. From my end of the phone call, it sounded as if he
almost fell out of his chair!
I followed up by asking him if he could ever think of ANY reason
for his website pages NOT to be found on page 1 in the Google
SERPs (search engine results pages).
How ’bout you? Can you think of any reasons you’d NOT want
your pages to be found for your targeted keyword phrases on page
1?
Keep in mind, I’m talking about your chosen keyword search
phrases.
I can think of at least 3 reasons. Maybe you can come up with
some of your own.
Is there Commercial Intent?
Let’s say you have not just a page 1 Google result, but you’re
actually the first result. Here is an important question for you
to ask yourself.
What is the commercial intent of this keyword phrase? Do the
words contained in the keyword phrase give any indication of
someone getting ready to spend money on a product or service
like you offer?
For instance, compare these keyword phrases: Keyword Research,
Keyword Research Specialist and Keyword Research Consultant. The
latter 2 phrases give an indication of someone who is getting
ready to spend money.
You can also Google the Microsoft Commercial Intent Tool
(http://adlab.microsoft.com/Online-Commercial-Intention/) and
consider its results when evaluating your keyword search
phrase choices.
If you are targeting a keyword phrase that has questionable
commercial intention at best, is there any reason to really
be found on page 1? Wouldn’t it be better to target more
appropriate phrases instead?
If there’s no commercial intent, how does that help your online
marketing?
Can you see where I’m going?
How Much Traffic Really Matters
Now, I’m giving you a choice: you can have a first page result
(with commercial intent) and your position number is 4.
Your other choice is a different keyword search phrase with a
second page result, position number 12, also with commercial
intent.
So, the choice is obvious?
Well, I forgot to give you the rest of the details.
The first page choice has monthly search queries for its
phrase of 3,240.
The second page result choice has monthly search queries for
its phrase of 22,167.
Do you still believe that the best choice in this example is the
first page result?
According to numbers from Aaron Wall’s site, approximately 6%
of search users will click on that number 4 result in Google.
That’s 194 visitors in a month.
This is figuring average title and description tags of typical
online marketing ability to convert to a click. “Your mileage
may vary.”
And for that second choice, the second page result? Over 1%
should click on the search result, but let’s use just 1%.
That’s 222 visitors per month.
Last time I checked, 222 is more than 194, so the second page
result trumps the first page result, because the second page
result has much more traffic than can convert to a transaction.
How Many Google AdWords Ads Show for your Chosen Keyword?
If you don’t see many AdWords ads, this should be a warning!
One of 2 problems exist (or both):
1. There isn’t enough traffic for AdWords advertisers to target
the phrase.
2. There isn’t commercial viability for the phrase.
Either way, is a first page result going to help you? Probably
not.
The Value of a Committed Searcher
Want a recipe to waste your time (or your employees’)?
Get a first page result in Google for your keyword search phrase
and place your toll-free phone number in big numbers on the top
right of each of your Web pages.
People clicking the first result in the SERPs are often less
serious than those who go through the first few results or who
continue searching onto the second page.
There may be something to be said for avoiding people who almost
randomly click the first result and who may have impulse control
“issues”.
Now, if you have a large staff to answer your incoming phone
calls AND if your conversion rate from those calls is strong,
then the potential problem I described probably isn’t a problem
for your business.
On the other hand, if you are a solo professional, this strategy
can be hazardous!
How are you going to perform your paid work when you get
“Internet lookiloos” asking you questions they could get
answered, if they would simply read a few words on your
website?
Are these the best potential clients for your services or
products and the best use of your time?
A second page result could bring you more serious potential
customers, people who might be more likely to actually READ your
website content, understand your products or services better and
who might be more likely to convert to a transaction.
It’s sure something to think about.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against first page rankings for
your online marketing. I’m just for thinking a little further
down the road than JUST first page rankings.
Google Caffeine And The New Ranking Factors
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 1:55 PM
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Google Caffeine And The New Ranking Factors
By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009
Google Caffeine is the name given to Google’s “Next Generation”
search engine, which it will use to rank and index all the pages
on the wonderful world wide web. According to all indications,
this is not just another one of Google’s infamous Updates, but a
major “Overhaul” of its index and algorithm – the complex formula
and calculations Google uses to rank all web pages, including
yours.
If that doesn’t sound ominous enough, according to Matt Cutts
(Google Spokesperson) one database is already showing Google
Caffeine, and the full blown version will be released after the
holidays. The reasoning behind this – Google doesn’t want to
upset webmasters and site owners during the lucrative holiday
buying season. In the past, other major Google Updates have come
around this time of the year, most notably the “Florida Update”
which severely affected many web sites and webmasters.
Recently, Google has been more aware and much more generous to
webmasters by being more open and forthcoming in regards to how
it indexes its pages. This time around, webmasters were even
given access to a beta version of Caffeine which Google released
last summer (’09) where webmasters could check to see how well
their keywords and site would fare in this new search index.
This beta site (www2.sandbox.google.com) has now been taken down
by Google.
Like any professional search engine marketer who works online, I
was constantly checking my sites and keywords in Google’s new
search engine. I have drawn some conclusions from what I have
observed, but please be aware it is often very foolish to draw
conclusions and make predictions from your own small sampling of
results. You can end up with egg on your face very quickly,
especially when you consider Google is probably still making
adjustments and refinements on Caffeine as it analyzes the
results.
However, there are certain ranking factors that even Google is
telling us about, mainly “Site Speed” or how fast your site
loads will play a part in how its ranked. We have also heard a
lot about “Broken Links” and if your page or site has them, then
it will probably be ranked lower. Of course, linking out to “Bad
Neighborhoods” will probably still not be a good practice, if you
want higher rankings within Google.
It should not come as a shock or a surprise, that “Over-All Page
Quality” will play a greater role in how well your page ranks.
Keep in mind, Google is like any other company putting out a
product, if that product doesn’t have a high standard of
quality, it reflects badly back on everyone concerned. Google’s
SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) are the key to all their
online revenue, they must do everything in their power to keep
that product fast, relevant, current and above all high quality.
Therefore, expect “OnPage Factors” to play a much greater role
in Google Caffeine. Quality unique content, page design, good
navigation, title, meta tags, description, keyword density, alt
tags, page views, bounce rate, traffic numbers, time spent on
page, and the number of social bookmarks may play an increased
role in achieving high rankings. A perfectly optimized keyworded
page, with the keyword in the title, description, meta tags, alt
tags, on the page… will probably get you ranked higher in
Caffeine, as well as most search engines on the web.
This may be pure speculation on my part, but one of the areas
Caffeine will be addressing or incorporating is “Social
BookMarking”, that is the number of social bookmarks a page
receives will determine how high it is ranked. I also believe
one of the major reasons these bookmarks will become much more
important has to do with the whole nasty issue of link buying.
Now, the integrity of Google’s index is not in question, but any
savvy marketer or webmaster knows any individual or company with
deep pockets and huge resources can buy their way into the top
spot. Despite Google’s attempt to stop it, link buying and
keyword positioning, is a thriving industry on the web. Rightly
or wrongly, money and unlimited resources will get you or your
company to the top in organic search, regardless of which search
engine you’re targeting.
All moral and ethnical issues aside, the small webmaster and/or
online marketer is stuck right in the middle, with Google on one
side and these major multinational competitors on the other.
Looming on the horizon is Google Caffeine, a new sheriff in town!
What New Rules Will This Sheriff Bring?
The major question here is this: has the importance of
backlinking been downplayed in this new index in favor of the
keyworded domain and onsite content and optimization? Has there
been a major shift to listing more quality content rather than
relying on the number of backlinks a site is receiving, even
from important related themed sites? The major problem and
question to Google is this: if links can be bought, how do you
keep your organic results democratic and fair, which was the
original intention of Larry Page and Sergey Brin when they
started Google in 1998.
One Possible Solution is Social Bookmarking.
Will we see an ever growing importance of social bookmarks and
links in this new index. It is quite easy to buy 1000 links, but
getting 1000 or 10,000 “re-tweets” is a little more difficult.
Similarly, getting two or three thousand “diggs” may be a little
harder to pull off. Same goes for Del.icio.us bookmarks,
Facebook fans… well you get the picture. Will Google’s use of
these new social sites make Caffeine faster, more relevant, more
current and most importantly of all, can it bring some democracy
back into their index?
Of course, nothing in Google’s new index will be that cut and
dry, that black and white. Other ranking factors such as age of
site, past history and reputation, traffic numbers, authority
branding… will all play a role in whether your site gets
listed on that all important first page. However, on page
factors may play a greater role – title, meta tags, description,
keyword density, alt tags, page views, bounce rate, time spent
on page, and the number of social bookmarks may play an
increased role in achieving high rankings. Website speed or how
fast your site loads may also be a new ranking factor.
Underlying this whole issue is the fact which many experienced
webmasters/marketers already know, Google’s SERPs are not a
one-trick pony anymore. For very lucrative (monetized) keyword
phrases, Google’s results are broken up into Five categories…
Info listings, Video listings, News Listings, Shopping Listings
and Corporate Listings. Forget Caffeine, this is probably the
fairest move Google has made in the last few years to make its
SERPs more democratic.
Another even more puzzling issue for me concerning Google
Caffeine is how much emphasis or ranking power will it place on
“Keyworded Domains”, domain names which have your keyword or
keyword phrase in them. Will these domains be ranked higher?
Webmasters and marketers for years have been telling us we
should always pick domain names which have our major keywords in
them. Just common sense really, someone searching for “brown
widgets” will more likely than not find that item at a domain
called brownwidgets(dot)com or brownwidget(dot)com. The major
SEO reasoning, all your backlinks will inherently have your
searched keyword in the URL, thus bringing it up in the
rankings.
Against this whole backdrop, everyone has to realize the web
itself is evolving, new sites like Twitter, FaceBook… have
changed the whole cyber landscape. Likewise, the web user is
also changing and becoming more web savvy in how they use the
web. Will search engines, not only Google, take a back-seat role
in how we find stuff on the web? As major sites are branded into
the web user’s psyche, will these users go directly to these
sites, by-passing the search engines altogether?
As the web evolves, keyworded domains will become more valuable
and this value will be reflected in the quality of the site. If
you’re making thousands or even millions from your keyworded
domain, you can afford to invest in quality content and design.
Cream rises to the top. Gradually, as these domains become more
valuable, they will probably be snapped up by marketers and
companies who know just how to exploit them. Thousands upon
thousands of keyworded domains will probably be bought up by
multi-billion dollar corporations who finally realize what the
web has to offer. This new evolved web will probably be much
more narrower in scope and very topic specific.
In the “Next Generation” Web the Re-Direct Shall Be King!
Will the role of the search engines, whether it be Google or
Bing/Yahoo, become less and less important, as savvy web
searchers go directly to a site by typing in the keyworded
domain to find what they’re looking for on the web? Cutting out
the middleman may just become a world wide passion as big
multinational and fully funded corporations snap up all these
valuable and lucrative keyworded domains. Will we see these
domains grow in importance and the search engines take more of a
back-up role? Human nature dictates we always take the fastest
route to our destination and the web will be no exception to
this rule.
Have all the smart people at Google figured this out already,
and designed the new Google Caffeine to reflect the growing
importance of the keyworded domain? Of course, we can only
speculate when it comes to just what Google is planning and
doing with its next generation search engine, but will onsite
factors and your domain name play a greater role in their
organic SERPs?
Regardless of what the new sheriff actually does, when the dust
finally settles on all these latest developments, the keyworded
domain will probably be standing tall, watching the sun rise on
a brand new day.
Google Matt Cutts on Site Speed and the Caffeine Update
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:36 AM
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Google Matt Cutts – Removing Old Content
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:13 AM
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Search Cheat Sheet: This is a quick guide to the operators and restricts supported by wave search.
Keywords
about:[keyword] — finds waves which have [keyword] occurring anywhere. Same as [keyword].
title:[keyword] — finds waves which have [keyword] in the title.
caption:[keyword] — finds waves which have an attachment where [keyword] occurs in the caption.
————————————————
Status
is:read — finds all read waves.
is:unread — finds all unread waves.
Note: you cannot currently do a search like “-is:read” by itself and get reliable results due to an outstanding restriction on megastore queries
is:mute — finds all muted waves.
is:unmute — finds all waves not muted
is:active — currently the same as is:unread.
is:note — finds all waves which have you as the only participant and contributor
————————————————
Participants
from:[address] — finds waves from the participant identified by the address. Special case of from:me identifying waves from yourself.
by:[address] — same as from:[address].
to:[address] — find waves which are a dialogue between you and the participant identified by the address.
with:[address] — find waves that have the participant identified by the given address explicitly listed.
owner:[address] — find waves by person, that they created.
only:[address] — finds waves to which only the participant specified by the given address contributed.
————————————————
Date Search
Currently, there are a few restricts:
past:[date term] — finds all waves in the last period.
previous:[date term] — finds all waves in the period before the last period.
before:[date term] — finds all waves before a certain period.
after:[date term] — finds all waves after a certain period.
which can be combined with date terms:
day
week
month
year
So you can have past:week, past:year. There is also support for
past:N[date term] where N > 0. So you can have past:3days (today, yesterday, the day before yesterday).
Also you can have
past:Ndays
past:Nweeks
past:Nmonths
past:Nyears
Finally, you can abbreviate days, weeks, months and years to a single letter (d, w, m, y). Thus you can write
past:3d
past:2w
————————————————
Folders
in:[folder name] — find waves in the folder with the given name. For example, in:inbox.
in:[search name] — find waves in the saved search with the given name.
is:unfiled — find waves which have not been moved to a user folder.
is:filed — find waves which belong to some user folder.
————————————————
Attachments
has:attachment — finds waves with an attachment. This changed from “is:image”.
has:document — finds waves with an attachment which is a document. (coming soon)
has:image — finds waves with an attachments which is an image. (coming soon)
caption:[keyword] — finds waves with an attachment with caption containing [keyword].
filename:[keyword] — finds waves with an attachment with filename containing [keyword]. (coming soon)
mimetype:[keyword] — finds waves with an attachment with mimetype containing [keyword]. (coming soon)
————————————————
Tags
tag:[tag name] — finds waves with the tag [tag name].
————————————————
Gadgets
has:gadget — finds waves which contain a gadget.
gadget:[keyword] — finds waves which contain a gadget with name containing keywords. e.g. chess, fridge, map, risk, sokoban.
gadgeturl:[keyword] — finds waves which contain a gadget with urls containing keyword.
gadgettitle:[keyword] — finds waves which contain a gadget with a title containing keywords.
————————————————
Expressions
foo & bar — match waves with foo and bar.
You can use AND, or skip the operator altogether, as the logical and is the default.
foo | bar — match waves with foo or bar (or both).
foo OR bar — match waves with foo or bar (or both).
-foo — match waves that do not contain foo. (There is an outstanding bug that causes searches with only negative terms to fail. To get around it, use to:me -foo)
“foo … bar” — matches waves that contain the exact phrase “foo … bar” (There is an outstanding bug for live search not working with phrases)
foo & (bar | -baz) — matches waves that contain foo and either bar or do not contain baz.
————————————————
Phrases
“[multiple terms]” — match waves with one or more terms in sequence:
“hot dog” catches waves with the terms hot and dog in sequence. This is also required for other operators such as in:”new inbox” where say “new inbox” is a saved search.
————————————————
XML Search
tags:subtag — find all waves which have this combination.
tag:[tag] — find all waves which have this .
attribute:[value keyword] — finds all waves which have < …. attribute=value …> where keyword is a token in value.
————————————————
Wave ID
id:”” — find a wave with a specific wave id.
————————————————
Zero Inbox
If you want to zero inbox, you can hack this temporarily by saving a search “my inbox” with the query:
in:inbox is:unread this:week. You can then use the menu option “Mark as read” in the wave panel.
Alternative zero inbox: in:inbox is:unread past:7days -is:mail
————————————————
Saved Searches
A search can be saved using one of two methods:
Create a search in the search box and then press the Save search button at the bottom of the Digest panel.
Add a search using the searches Add button on the Navigation panel. Then add the search query and name of the search in the Saved Search popup panel.
Saved searches can be edited and managed using the pop-up menu which shows when hovering over the saved search in the searches section of the Navigation panel.
————————————————
Filters
Filters are saved searches which also have an action to apply to all waves which match the saved search. The actions supported are
skip inbox – removes the wave from inbox. Whilst this wave continues to match the search, it will continue to stay out of the inbox. Skip inbox will shortly be renamed archive.
mark as read – Whilst the wave continues to match the search, it will be marked as read.
————————————————
Folders
You can add a folder by using the Add button on the folders section of the Navigation panel. A folder is added by typing the folder name in the text box given and hitting enter.
Folders can be managed using the pop-up menu that shows when hovering over the folder on the Navigation panel.
Add folder – A subfolder can be added under the current folder.
Rename – rename the current folder.
Delete – delete the current folder.
————————————————
On the Google Search Bar, enter one of the Google Commands below and replace www.LinkWebServices.com with your website information.
· Cache:
o Description: Displays cached version of the site
o Example: cache:www.LinkWebServices.com
· Cache + Keyword:
o Description: Displays cached version of the site and highlight the specified keywords
o Example: site: www.LinkWebServices.com Keyword Here
· Link:
o Description: Displays the number of links back to the specified page (backlinks)
o Example: link:www.LinkWebServices.com
· Related:
o Description: Displays all web pages that are “similar” to the specified web page
o Example: related:www.LinkWebServices.com
· Info:
o Description: Displays all web page information for the specified page
o Example: info:www.LinkWebServices.com
· Site:
o Description: Displays all pages of the specified site that are indexed on Google
o Example: site:www.LinkWebServices.com
· All In Title:
o Description: Displays all pages that contain all the specified keywords in the title
o Example: allintitle:www.LinkWebServices.com
· In Title:
o Description: Displays all pages that contain any of the specified keywords in the title
o Example: intitle:www.LinkWebServices.com
· All In URL:
o Description: Displays all pages with the specified URL
o Example: allinurl:www.LinkWebServices.com
· In URL:
o Description: Displays all pages with the specified URL anywhere in the address
o Example: inurl:www.LinkWebServices.com
Link Web Services: http://www.LinkWebServices.com
Web University: http://WebUniversity.LinkWebServices.com
The Web Store: http://www.LinkWebServices.com/mm5/merchant.mvc
SEO Google Commands
All Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Google Commands
On the Google Search Bar, enter one of the Google Commands below and replace www.LinkWebServices.com with your website information.
* cache:www.LinkWebServices.com
* link:www.LinkWebServices.com
* related:www.LinkWebServices.com
* info:www.LinkWebServices.com
* site:www.LinkWebServices.com
* allintitle:www.LinkWebServices.com
* intitle:www.LinkWebServices.com
* allinurl:www.LinkWebServices.com
* inurl:www.LinkWebServices.com
Google supports several commands which can help you if you do Search Engine optimization in Google. Typically these commands modify the search in some way or even tell Google to do a totally different type of search, “link:” is a special Google command, and the query
link:www.LinkWebServices.com doesn’t do a normal search but instead finds web pages that have links that point to www.LinkWebServices.com.
A several of other Google commands use punctuation instead of words or phrases. Below is a list of all the special SEO Google commands that Google supports:
cache:www.LinkWebServices.com Search Engine optimization
If you include other words or phrases in the query, Google will highlight those words within the cached document. For instance, cache:www.LinkWebServices.com Search Engine optimization will show the cached content with the word or phrase “Search Engine optimization” highlighted.
This functionality is also available by clicking on the “Cached” link on Google’s main search results pages, some SEO companies protect themselves by placing a Google robot text inside the <head> of the html code to not display the cached web page or content in Google’s search results.
This special html tag look like this: <META NAME=”GOOGLEBOT” CONTENT=”NOARCHIVE”/> try it and put it inside the <head> of your index page and you will notice that Google will not cache your index page anymore.
The command [cache:] will show the version of the web page that Google has in its cache after the crawler visited your site. For instance, cache:www.LinkWebServices.com will show Google’s cache of the LinWebServices.com’s homepage. Remember there can be no space between the “cache:” and the web page or domain url.
The cache command is very handy for people who do SEO, you can compare web sites and after the research you can make adjustments to the content or text. Just try it with your own web site!
link:www.LinkWebServices.com
The Google command [link:] will list web pages that have links to the specified web page. Example, link:www.LinkWebServices.com will list web pages that have links pointing to the SEO watch homepage. Remember there can be no space between the “link:” and the web page url or domain.
This is an very use full Google command for optimization companies that do link building.
site:www.LinkWebServices.com
If you include site: in your search, Google will give the results to those web sites in the given domain. Example,
site:www.LinkWebServices.com will find all pages from www.LinkWebServices.com. Remember there can be no space between the “site:” and the domain.
This google command is very help full if you update your site and would like to know which page Google included in the database of Google’s search results.
related:www.LinkWebServices.com
The google command [related:] will list web pages that are “similar” to a specified web page.
For instance: related:www.LinkWebServices.com will list web pages that are similar to the SEO watch homepage. Remember there can be no space between the “related:” and the web page url or domain.
Google Robots, Spyders and Website Crawling
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 9:28 AM
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Google Robots, Spyders and Website Crawling
Google’s Robots: All You Need to Know
What are Gooble Robots and Spyders?
Robots (a.k.a “spider” or a “bot”) are small programs which come to your site and crawl through your data and your links then send all the information back to the search engine database for indexing your site.
Google has three different known types of robots that crawl through your site:
Google Getting Freer With Sitelinks
Subdirectories appear to be getting some respect. Although there hasn’t been any sort of conclusive announcement, sitelinks – those nice little link collections that appear beneath some search results – are becoming more prevalent.
When Google’s search results provide more than one link to a certain site, the site looks authoritative. The presence of multiple links also makes it more likely that a searcher’s question will be answered, and even the least discerning searcher may just go to the site because all the links are easy to click.
This development could be rather important to some site owners, then. Matt Cutts, for example, tweeted, “Yay, I have sitelinks for the query [matt cutts] after 2+ years!”
Barry Schwartz then asked, “Why did it take Matt over two years to get Sitelinks for his domain when it is such an authoritative source? The answer might be that his content was on a sub-directory. Yes, right now, there is no substantial content on www.mattcutts.com, all or most the content is on www.mattcutts.com/blog/. And it seems like Google is now giving sub directories Sitelink love.”
Given the season we’re approaching, all this inclusiveness is nice. It isn’t bad considering the economic situation, either, if some site owners can now attract more traffic.
Google Analytics Gets A Handle On Flash
Track to your heart’s content
Flash content has long posed a lot of problems for the search and webmaster communities. Now Google – and more specifically, the newly introduced Google Analytics Tracking For Adobe Flash – intends to solve at least a few of them.
Matt Cutts on SEO 2009 & Google Talks AdSense
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 8:59 AM
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Matt Cutts on SEO 2009 & Google Talks AdSense
WebProNews’ Mike McDonald caught up with Matt Cutts of Google at the Hofbrau House in Las Vegas during PubCon to get his views on a number of topics.
Is Ranking Dead?
Cutts said, “I’m not sure I would say ranking is dead but it’s not as important as it used to be. The fact is the smart SEOs are not just necessarily looking at the rankings. They are looking at conversion, they are looking at their server log. It’s great if you’re ranking for a phrase but unless that leads to sales that doesn’t help you very much.”
Is Bounce Rate a Google Ranking Factor?
Bounce rates are a metric that may become more of a factor as SEOs struggle with the ever-changing world of SERPs, which some are predicting to be become much more personalized over the coming year. As discussed in an interview with Mike McDonald (video below), big name SEO Bruce Clay notes that going forward, SEOs are going to have to look at analytics, measure traffic, bounce rates, action, etc., and ask themselves questions like did I get the conversion I was after?
The Great Google Adsense Side Effect
If the Internet consisted of real brick and mortar buildings there would be a construction boom going on right now like the world has never seen. The Internet is not in a recession or on the road to a depression, rather it is experiencing an economic and social explosion of activity.
Google’s 6 Principles of Competition and Openness
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 12:28 PM
Friday, May 8, 2009
by Chris Crum
What Google is Explaining to Difference Makers
There’s a short but interesting blog post up on Google’s official Public Policy Blog, which states six principles the company holds with regards to competition and openness.
Adam Kovacevich”As Google has grown, the company has naturally faced more scrutiny about our business principles and practices,” says Google’s Senior Manager of Global Communications and Public Affairs. “We believe that Google promotes competition and openness online, but we haven’t always done a good job telling our story.”
By Scott Van Achte (c) 2009
In Part 1 (http://www.sitepronews.com/2009/04/30/
how-to-optimize-for-google-%e2%80%93-part-1-of-3-2/) and Part 2
of How to Optimize for Google (http://www.sitepronews.com/2009/
05/01/how-to-optimize-for-google-part-2-of-3-2/)I discussed
general website optimization, links, and Google webmaster tools.
In Part 3 we will look at a number of other considerations which
play a role in successful rankings in Google, and also touch on
some tactics which are best avoided.
Completing Optimization: Other Considerations
By Scott Van Achte in Featured
Optimizing for top Google rankings includes a number of factors. In Part 1 of 3 we discussed onsite optimization. In Part 2 we will touch on incoming links as well as using Google Webmaster Tools.
LINKS
In today’s online world search engine rankings can make your business succeed, and while rankings in Yahoo and MSN are very valuable, their combined market value is still less than that of Google. This makes achieving top rankings in Google that much more important.
In this three-part series on How to Optimize for Google we will touch on a number of important aspects for top Google rankings including website optimization, links, Google Webmaster tools, and a number of other
Universal Search Strategize Your Way to the Top
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:20 AM
Thursday, April 30, 2009
By Leona Griffin
While we all work to beat the competitors for targeted search terms, hoping to land that top ten ranking; Google’s Universal search provides additional opportunities to improve your website’s exposure by mixing in universal search results.
Most companies are not taking full advantage of universal search and are really missing the opportuníty to improve their exposure and interact with
By Nancy Fraser
The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea
In a beautiful pea green boat,
They took some honey, and plenty of money,
Wrapped up in a five pound note.
Edward Lear must have had some precognition about what was in store for us all with the development of the internet when he wrote this nonsensical poem.
By Jason Lee Miller
Blackhat SEO spammers force Google’s hand
Google is set to make changes to its search ranking algorithm to combat the spate of links leading to malicious web pages appearing at the top of Google’s search results, according to an inside source.
Over the past few months, cybercriminals have been using blackhat SEO
Google’s Need For Freshness Sours Search Results
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 12:51 PM
Saturday, April 18, 2009
By Jason Lee Miller
Link velocity a clue to gaming search
Every so often SEO professionals produce a list of what they believe to be the top factors influencing search engine rankings. The latest update to this list of proposed factors looks much like past lists, focusing on traditional factors like links, content, HTML tags, and domain registration age, and some new ones like geographical factors and personalized search history. But one term might be new to many people: link velocity.
By Scott Van Achte
As the population with internet access explodes, and more and more people are using search engines to find what they need, the usage of local search also continues to rise. For any sites servicing a local or specific geographic audience, submission to local search based engines is becoming more and more important.
What is it?
In a nutshell local search involves the use of specialized search engines
Masters Of The Google Universe: How To Achieve Top Google Rankings
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 11:10 AM
Sunday, April 12, 2009
By Bill Platt (c) 2009
For years, it has been well known that Google’s search algorithm is driven by the number and quality of links pointing to a particular URL. And as a result, it was all the rage for some time to buy links on web pages that had a high Google PageRank (PR).
But in March of 2007, Google’s mouthpiece Matt Cutts declared that Google was going to fight back against Paid Links. Google put a shot across the bow of many online marketers, letting them know that the days of easily buying links from high PageRank pages in order to influence a website’s ranking in Google were over.
The Shot Heard Around The World
10 Ways To Increase Pages Indexed In Google
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 9:12 AM
Sunday, March 29, 2009
For a while now webmasters have fretted over why all of the pages of their website are not indexed. As usual there doesn’t seem to be any definite answer. But some things are definite, if not automatic, and some things seem like pretty darn good guesses.
So, we scoured the forums, blogs, and Google’s own guidelines for increasing the number of pages Google indexes, and came up with our (and the community’s) best guesses. The running consensus is that a webmaster
No More DMOZ or Yahoo! Directory for Google?
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 12:33 PM
Friday, March 20, 2009
By Chris Crum
Google is no longer suggesting that you should be listed in relevant directories. In fact, they’ve even removed the suggestion from their webmaster guidelines, as Brian Ussery noticed. The page used to have bullet points for:
- Have other relevant sites link to yours.
Want links? Google says be interesting
Google’s Maile Ohye concluded Link Week with a tutorial on
inbound links. It says basically what SEO experts have been saying
for years: content and inbound links are most important, and in
that order.
Just because it’s old news doesn’t mean it’s bad news. Google’s
Like finding change in your couch
It’s been said links are the currency of the Web, and an
honest-gotten inbound link is like a tip for good work. Locating
broken inbound links, then-links attempted but because of an error
don’t connect with a page on your site-is like an opportunity to
locate missing money.
Google recently introduced a feature to its webmaster portal
Internet Marketing Tactics For These Tough Times (From Google and Me!)
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 11:11 AM
Friday, March 13, 2009
By Titus Hoskins (c) 2009
As we enter into what many enlightened souls are calling the most dire economic times since the Great Depression, online marketers need all the help they can get – regardless of the source. You have probably heard of Google; but chances are almost 100% certain, you have never heard of me. Lucky you!
Actually, the only thing you need to know about me is that I am a full-time online affiliate marketer and I make a very comfortable living from the web.
Google Street View Continues to Raise Privacy Concerns
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:55 AM
Thursday, February 26, 2009
By Brian Cooper (c) 2009 Medium Blue
Google Street View, a Google Maps feature that lets users see images of streets and the surrounding areas, continues to generate controversy. Since its launch in May 2007, the feature has prompted questions about whether it constitutes an invasion of privacy, complaints about inappropriate images, and even a lawsuit.
Aaron and Christine Boring vs. Google
The lawsuit came from a Pittsburgh couple in April 2008. The couple lives
How To Use Web Analytics To Grow Your Business
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:03 AM
Sunday, February 15, 2009
How To Use Web Analytics To Grow Your Business
By Mike Tekula (c) 2009
Got a website?
If you own a business, chances are you do. But don’t pat
yourself on the back too quickly.
By now it’s widely-accepted that if you have a business
card you should probably have a website. It doesn’t matter
what your company is selling – a website, however modest,
has become a standard.
Microsoft is sure making a lot of news in search these days. As reported here earlier the new look search of Kumo is lurking about although Microsoft is acting like Kumo is some kind of hallucination that deserves a homepage.google-cartoon
Now add to that the news reported in a Computerworld article regarding the U.S. market share of the major search engines. It appears that Microsoft’s share is at a 12 month low which is, well, not real good. Microsoft may be
In the past few weeks speculation has run rampant on the future of search and whether Google might be supplanted by Twitter real-time social search or by Wolfram Alpha, the still to be launched search engine that is billed as a true computational knowledge engine.
Wolfram Alpha (http://www.wolframalpha.com/) is scheduled to launch in May and could very well be a major advance in search technology. In brief,
It’s no secret that a continually updated website with new content being added regularly stands a good chance of doing well in Google. One of the long standing methods to regularly expand a site’s content is through the use of a blog.
While there are numerous platforms to choose from for managing a blog, few can compare with the immense flexibility offered with WordPress, and at a cost of free, the price can’t be beat either.
Google likes fresh new content, and setting up a blog on your site, assuming
There is no secret behind the success you can have by increasing your Google pr, but the true secret is how you can do so. There is an array of different ways you can increase your Google pr, but persistence and using a combination of several methods will help you climb up the search engine and increase your pr faster. So, here’s how to increase your Google pr.
1. Link exchange
Interesting Links Makes Us Interesting
posted by Luigi_M_Scollo @ 10:44 PM
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Content and inbound links are most important for SEO, according to experts, and in that order. Even though this is old news for experienced SEO experts, it is still good news for new ones joining the online community.
Experts were often left to theorize and test—and worse, try to game, in response to Google’s silence on the subject. However, when Google started hitting the PageRanks of paid directories, they seemed to confirm basic SEO tactics.
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