New Ranking Methodology for Google Image Search
The New York Times is reporting on a new research paper about Google’s new image ranking algo which apparently associates an inferred linking relationship between images and uses the PageRank method of iterating ranking values across the graph to come up with final ranking values. This “VisualRank” method was presented in a paper at the International World Wide Web Conference in Beijing this past Thursday, and the process was also reported at Techcrunch.
Google’s advancements in Image Search
could help keep high-value image results
like this coastal pic stay high in the SERPs
for apropos keywords, while making less-
important images rank far lower.
The new methodology is apparently very adept at weeding out less-important and less-useful images from the search results.
I have earlier reported on Google’s research into Supervised Multiclass Labeling (“SML”) which can assist with associating keywords with the actual content found within digital images. See also Search Engine Land’s article on Google’s VisualRank Paper.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 04/28/2008
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Filed under: Google, Image Optimization Google, image-search, Image-Search-Optimization, VisualRank
Travel Searches, Local & More Searches Turning Case-Sensitive in Google SERPs
Some of us at Netconcepts have been noticing that keyword rankings in Google search engine results pages (“SERPs”) have been turning case-sensitive for some queries lately. Search Engine Roundtable highlighted that the case sensitivity issue had been reported for queries seen in the UK, but we’ve been seeing it for queries committed from the US as well.
For instance, search for something like “fossil watches” and compare with “Fossil Watches”, and you’ll see that a few of the listings in the SERPs trade ranking positions:
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 04/15/2008
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Filed under: Google, Local Search, Local Search Optimization, Search Engine Optimization, Searching, SEO case sensitive, case sensitivity, Google, Keyword-Rankings, search engine results pages, SEO, SERPs
Google’s Ranking Advice in Blended Search at SMX West
Just a quick post here on some simple tips that David Bailey of Google advised in this morning’s session on “The Blended Search Revolution” at the SMX West conference in Santa Clara:
- Publish high-quality, well-captioned images;
- Have pages which already have good PageRank (use traditional SEO to achieve);
- Create a Google Video Sitemap;
- Update business listings in Local Business Center;
- Submit your feed to Google Product Search;
- Create a high-quality company blog;
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 02/26/2008
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Filed under: Conferences, Content Optimization, Google, HTML Optimization, Image Optimization, Local Search Optimization, PageRank, Search Engine Optimization, SEO blended search, David-Bailey, Google, SEO, SMXWest08, Universal-Search
Origins of the Google Logo
Wired today has an article on the preliminary Google logo designs – something that aspiring internet commercial artists should check out.
One of the designs is obviously referencing Op Art to give a modernistic feel. Another treats the second “O” as a sort of loose metaphor for the web or to symbolize multidimensionality. Yet another uses a magnifying glass for the second “O” — a much more literal representation for a search engine which we used to see really frequently in the earlier years of the internet (remember stuff like the old WebCrawler logo?).
I think the version they ultimately used is the best/strongest one, even though I think it likely owes something to eBay’s playful/colorful logo.
The original designer of the Google logo was Ruth Kedar, an assistant professor at Stanford at the time. She noted, “I had no idea at the time that Google would become as ubiquitous as it is today, or that their success would be of such magnitude”.
Ubiquitous it is indeed. As I noted two months ago, the frequency of use of the Google logo and its familiarity within the popular culture have been growing to the point of actually being a little bit of a danger from the viewpoint of being able to protect the marks as intellectual property.
The Google name is on everyone’s lips.
Copyright Silver Smith 2007. All rights reserved.
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 02/12/2008
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Filed under: Design, Google Commercial Art, Google, Google-Logo, Graphic Design, Logo, Logos
Google’s I’m Feeling Lucky Button Enabling Spam
Google’s “I’m Feeling Lucky” functionality is apparently enabling a lot of email spam to bypass filters.
When you use the button by entering a keyword phrase and hitting the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button, Google sends you straight to the very first webpage in their results that matches that phrase.
Spammers have apparently found that they can embed links like this one for Natural Search Blog to the Google I’m Feeling Lucky functionality, and their emails will bypass filters that would automatically catch lots of blacklisted and spammy-looking URLs. Email filters allow links to search engine results through because many people may genuinely send such links to one another.
It was just the day before yesterday that I wrote about how a guy was using the I’m Feeling Lucky button to enable some cool linkbait involving Chuck Norris. That was a benign use of the application, whereas using it to obscure links to evil spammy sites would definitely be unethical/black-hat.
So, how will this get fixed? I’d expect that Google may have to lock down their “I’m feeling lucky” functionality so that it only works for users referred directly from the Google homepage, and from the Google Toolbar (if the user has enabled the I’m Feeling Lucky button on the toolbar).
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 01/30/2008
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Filed under: Google, Security Google, I'm feeling lucky, Security, spam
Do CueCats Have 9 Lives?!? Google Resurrects a Bad Idea
For those of us who’ve been around the internet biz for a while, there’s often a feeling of deja vu or “been there, done that!” Thus we have that sensation today when we see this article from Silicon Alley Insider which seems to gush just a bit in its praise of these cute, “new” barcodes that Google is resurrecting in some print ads that can be scanned camera phones so people can easily connect up instantaneously to associated websites.
The article fails to mention the last time this sad concept was foisted on the world. Remember the company, Digital Convergence, with their various “CueCat” devices that allowed people to do this exact same thing?
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 01/29/2008
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Filed under: Advertising, Google, technology CueCat, Digital Convergence, Google, Google Adwords
Fantastic Linkbait: Google doesn’t need to find Chuck Norris for you!
This is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a while – I saw this mentioned on John Battelle’s blog. Type “find Chuck Norris” into Google’s search form, and then hit the “I’m feeling lucky” button, and you’ll get this:
The result is a Google search results page with no listings and the message at the top states:
“Google won’t search for Chuck Norris because it knows you don’t find Chuck Norris, he finds you.”
But wait! This result page is actually a hoax, only pretending to be from Google! It’s actually produced by Arran Scholsberg. Arran is a student at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, and is a web designer and photographer. (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 01/28/2008
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Filed under: Google, Link Building, Marketing, Searching, Tricks Chuck Norris facts, Google, hoaxes, linkbait
The Ultimate Online Ad: Own The Google Logo
Google today changed their logo to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Lego brick:
I think this may be the first time that they’ve used the logo to honor another company or product. This must be the very pinnacle of both product placement and internet advertising, combined! Millions of people go to the Google homepage every day, so this gives Lego company a nice piece of exposure.
What would you need do if you’d like to get that sort of advertisement or endorsement? (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 01/28/2008
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Filed under: Advertising, Google, Monetization of Search Advertising, Google, Lego, LEGOs, Logos
Mahalo Traffic Growth Vulnerable To Google Penalty
A couple of weeks ago, Heather Hopkins at Hitwise noted that the human-powered Mahalo search engine has been showing a very strong curve of increasing traffic:
They also noted that 76% of this traffic comes in as referrals from other search engines.
This is slightly ironic, since Jason Calacanis, founder of Mahalo, has historically been very critical of the worth of search engine optimization. I’m not the only one who sees the irony in this, since Allen Stern also noted it, saying “Mahalo is an SEO Play“. As Allen notes, if Mahalo didn’t want this traffic it would be easy for them to block the spiders thru their robots.txt file. (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 01/24/2008
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Filed under: Google, News, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Google, Jason Calacanis, Mahalo, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SERPs
Organic Search Marketing in 2008: Predictions
If you’re even the slightest bit aware of what’s been going on in organic search marketing, you couldn’t help but know that Google made a number of changes during 2007 which impacted the natural search marketing programs for many webmasters. So here’s my little post predicting where I see the trends pointing and what we can expect in 2008 and beyond… (more…)
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Posted by Chris of Silvery on 01/10/2008
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Filed under: Best Practices, Design, Google, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Google, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, Social-Media, usability, User-Centered-Design
