Latest Google happenings
- Google’s estimated numbers of search results per query aren’t to be trusted? Hmm… kinda looks that way. Certainly Yahoo’s numbers appear to more believable from this little study.
- Google releases an API for Google AdWords – an Application Programming Interface for manipulating your AdWords account programatically without having to do screen scraping. Way cool!
- Google unveils new “nofollow” link tag. Yahoo and MSN follow suit. I’m dubious that this is going to do anything to squelch comment spamming, but I thank Google (and Yahoo! and MSN) for giving us website owners better control when we link to sites that we don’t want to share the “search engine juice” with.
- Google more than triples its word limit on search queries to 32 words. Good work Google! The 10 word limit was one of my pet peeves. Now I can finally run queries that have a pile of site: operators all separated by ORs. Now please Google will you let me further refine link: queries with additional operators? (Yahoo! and MSN support the use of other operators with link:)
- Google launches Google Referral program, an affiliate program that pays $20 per referred AdWords customer. Sounds kinda cool, but I can’t imagine I’ll make nearly the cash I make as an AdSense publisher…
- Source code released into the public domain for getting the PageRank of a page automatically in PHP. Not that the Toolbar Server can really be trusted anymore to serve up anything resembling the actual PageRank score used by Google’s ranking algorithm…
- Google loses another trademark lawsuit in France relating to selling AdWords ads against trademarked terms. Ouch, that smarts!
- Google earnings for 4th Quarter 2004 top $1 billion. Makes me sorry I don’t own Google stock…
- How To Destroy Google With $100 Million? – a flawed idea, but it does make one think…
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Posted by stephan of stephan on 02/07/2005
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Filed under: Google, News Google, Google-News
Catalog Age article: Microsoft is Gunning for Google
My article, “Gunning for Google,” has just been published in this month’s issue of Catalog Age magazine. As of today, it is now live on their site. Enjoy!
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Posted by stephan of stephan on 02/06/2005
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Filed under: Google, MSN Search
MSN and Yahoo! sneaking up on Google
A new study on users’ search engine preferences from Keynote found that MSN and Yahoo! have gained favor with users since Spring 2004:
Indeed, the latest survey determined that 81% of Yahoo! users and 61% of MSN users say they would go back to those sites in the future. In May, 72% of Yahoo! users and just 55% of MSN users said the same. Dr. Bonny Brown, Keynote Director of Research and Public Services, notes, “MSN’s recent separation of sponsored results from actual Web results greatly improved user perceptions of MSN search results. This move has increased the loyalty of MSN users and improved perceptions of advertising and sponsored results on the MSN site.”
Although Google is still the favorite, MSN and Yahoo! are catching up. For those who equate natural search optimization with Google optimization: stop. It’s time to take MSN and Yahoo! seriously. Very seriously. They are distinctly different engines; different marketing channels really.
As distinct channels, astute marketers will execute different strategies and tactics for each engine. By that I don’t mean engine-specific doorway pages. I mean things like developing different ‘use cases’ based on the unique user profiles of MSN users, versus Yahoo! users, versus Google users. And then developing unique keyword portfolios, unique landing pages with unique offers, etc.
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Posted by stephan of stephan on 01/23/2005
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Filed under: Google, MSN Search, Yahoo
Google happenings
Lots of Google-related happenings of late. Here’s a quick list:
- Google now supports searching within their sponsored links (Search Engine Lowdown). Try it out.
- Google Scholar released a new advanced search interface (SearchEngineWatch Blog)
- CBS’ 60 Minutes gets up-close and personal with Google (you can watch the segment here)
- Google publishes their 2004 Year-End Google Zeitgeist, with a cool interactive summary of the data done in Flash.
- Google Labs is working on video search (Google Blogoscoped)
- Google readies charitable foundation (ZDNet)
- A new AdWords policy from Google rains on affiliates’ parade (Unofficial Google Weblog). Three cheers for Google! It’s about time they clamped down.
- ServerSideGuy provides a thorough dissection of Google Suggest
- Google Hacks, 2nd edition has hit the bookstores (Google Blogoscoped)
- Google plans to index entire libraries (ResearchBuzz)
- Questions & answers about the “Google Sandbox” and PageRank lag (SEO Chat)
- A healthy dose (9 pages worth!) of prognostication on What’s Next for Google (Technology Review)
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Posted by stephan of stephan on 01/10/2005
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Filed under: Google
Google bug reveals favored web sites
A couple months ago I shared one of my Google secrets, since that secret no longer worked. 😉 Specifically, it was how to obtain a list of the most important web sites according to Google.
Now, surprisingly, this little trick appears to work again (it stopped working in 2003), thanks to a bug introduced into Google’s algorithm. Two months ago, a search for http would have revealed results like HTTP – Hypertext Transfer Protocol Overview and Welcome! – The Apache HTTP Server Project. Today, these sites appear nowhere near the top of the results. Instead, the top results are occupied by a “who’s who” list of highly important web sites — sites that don’t include the word http anywhere in the text of the page.
As already noted by blogger Nathan Weinberg, this same phenonemon occurs when you search for www.
One thing I found curious is that http and www Google queries return different results. Now these results are NOT in order of PageRank score, at least not the PageRank scores as revealed by the Google Toolbar. You can verify this to be the case yourself simply by using SEO Chat’s PageRank Search tool. Indeed, it’s a well-known fact within the SEO community that the PageRank scores served up by the Google Toolbar servers are not the actual PageRanks used by Google in the ranking algorithm. PageRank debate aside, perhaps this list offers us a (now) rare glimpse at some of Google’s Chosen Ones — the most important sites on the Internet according to Google.
What makes me say this is due to a bug in Google? For one thing, these results are NOT relevant to the search query. Secondly, I’ve uncovered another bug newly introduced into Google’s algorithm, namely that the inurl: query operator does not work properly, and I think these two bugs might be related. For an example of this second bug in action, search Google for site:blogs.msdn.com scoble inurl:msnsearch and the top search result is currently blogs.msdn.com/mikehall/archive/2004/11/10/255417.aspx. Note there’s no msnsearch in that URL!
I’ve compiled a list the top 1000 results for each of the two queries for your convenience. You’ll see, they do vary quite dramatically:
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Posted by stephan of stephan on 01/09/2005
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Filed under: Google
Do Google AdSense ads cheapen your site?
Does displaying Google AdSense ads on your web pages cheapen your site? Not in my opinion. Some of the most reputable sites prominently display Google adverts on their pages. For example, see example pages on NYTimes.com (the “Advertiser Links” section near the bottom of the page is AdSense) and Oreilly.com. The only danger with AdSense ads on your pages is that you are driving traffic out of your site. So, if you are trying to sell a high ticket item you might want to leave the ads out until you have an order — or at least an email address.
For those who don’t have etail transaction concerns, then Adsense makes a lot of sense (pun intended) for any kind of site that wants to monetize their rich content without having to charge a subscription for access. It is entirely possible to support a content site on AdSense revenue alone, a welcome change after years of popups and intrusive banner ads. For example, we own several content sites (e.g. WritersNet and InnSite) that collectively earn 5-figures from Google (actually from its AdWords advertisers, but the check comes from Google) each month. It’s “money for jam,” as Kiwis would say!
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Posted by stephan of stephan on 12/29/2004
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Filed under: Google, Paid Search
Google’s new keyword suggestion tool
Undoubtedly the brand new Google Suggest service was built for the benefit of users not SEOs (search engine optimizers), but us SEOs can certainly appreciate the elegance and utility of Google’s new creation. The way Google Suggest works: start typing and it suggests search keywords. With a few keystrokes you have alternate search terms (keywords) to consider chasing in your SEO efforts. For example, if you’re an online music store going after “buy cds” as a keyword you can quickly see that “buy cd” and “buy cds online” are two alternative keywords to potentially chase as well. Just to the right of each search term is the number of search results competing for that search term. Looks a like it could be sorted in order of search popularity, too. Thanks, Google!
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Posted by stephan of stephan on 12/28/2004
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Filed under: Google, Keyword Research
Google Desktop security holes?
It seems a small tick-box is causing a few ructions in the world of Google Desktop. Which tick box you may ask? The one where Google Desktop, by default, indexes secure web pages.
This ‘feature’ of Google Desktop results in GD indexing and caching secure files such as internet banking pages and web-based email pages that are viewed by the user. The index isn’t providing the passwords to access these, but the pages viewed by the user once the password prompt is passed.
These cached files have previously been somewhat buried in windows, but with them easily available to GD there are obvious security concerns. For example, try a search for ‘compose’ on Google Desktop if you have used web-based email recently and you may be surprised at what GD indexes and caches.
While the tech news sites argue over whether this is or isn’t a security threat, it’s clear Google overlooked an obvious user concern when they left that GD option on by default.
It makes one wonder what secrets may be buried deep in the Google web index, just waiting for some intrepid searcher to discover!
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Posted by Brigitte of Brigitte on 12/16/2004
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Filed under: Google
Google Desktop: Total Search Recall
Google Desktop Search gives customers “Total Search Recall” capabilities – altering search engine optimization as we know it
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Posted by Brian of Brian on 12/13/2004
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Filed under: Google, Keyword Research, Searching desktop-search, Google, Google-Desktop
Google isn’t going to develop a web browser
In a recent blog entry I referred to The Register’s speculation about Google building a web browser to compete with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Apparently that isn’t going to happen any time soon. This according to Associated Press:
Chief executive Eric Schmidt has, however, ruled out developing a Google browser to compete with Microsoft’s dominant Internet Explorer.
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Posted by stephan of stephan on 11/22/2004
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Filed under: Google, Research and Development
