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Some friends in America have noticed that Google has recently been testing a new search layout that allows users of the search engine to modify how the results appear on their screen. Options include the ability to see longer text excerpts, dates, places and even images. There’s even the choice to limit Google search results to fresh pages only (created in the last month) without using the “Advanced Search Page”.
If or when this change will occur is still unknown, along if it will be applied to Google Australia and across other countries. It’s also interesting to note that the Sponsored Links are no where to be seen. You can read more about this development at Digital Inspiration.
Google has added a new feature to their keyword suggestion tool where advertisers can now find out roughly how many users a searching for a key term. This is a significant update because it gives advertisers hard data to work with when managing their search engine marketing campaigns.
This is a good move for Google, considering Yahoo had recently ceased the Overture keyword suggestion tool.
For more info on the keyword suggestion tool, check out Google’s extensive guide.
Yahoo, in an attempt to win back market share from Google has decided to let independent web developers use the Yahoo technology to create their own custom searches.
This new service will be know as “Build Your Own Search” or BOSS, and will allow any third party developers to piggyback onto their technology. Yahoo in return will display their ads next to any search result, in an effort to combat Google Ads.
Yahoo figures plenty of Web developers will be interested because it’s providing access to a set of tools that would cost more than $300 million to build from scratch.
Whether this is a sign of innovation or desperation from the wounded giant of the search engine world is yet to be seen. Microsoft has attempted a takeover of Yahoo, with certain shareholders favouring the takeover due to plummeting share prices.
For more information on the technology and the takeover, check out the Forbes article.
An obscenity trial currently underway in Florida is highlighting the impact that search engines are having on the offline world. The defence team are using results gathered from Google to show the browsing trends of the community.
Whether the data is admissible in court or not is yet to be determined, however the salient fact is that the data collected by the major search engines is providing a more detailed shapshot of our lives.
“That’s why a lot of people are nervous about Google or Yahoo having all this data,” [Chris Hansen, lawyer] said.
For more information, see the New York Times Article
The far-reaching impact of cases like this come into play when looking at the Microsoft takeover attempts of Yahoo. Civil Libertarians are worried that the fewer the number of companies holding onto the data, the less secure the private viewing histories would be.
Over on the official Google Webmaster Blog, Google are reporting on improvements on their flash indexing technology; this is after numerous requests for it to be improved. They are now able to index all of the text that users can see as they interact with a flash file. In addition to this, they will also be able to discover URLs that appear in the files.
To find out more about this recent update, check it out at the Google Webmaster Blog.
Image via WikipediaA new deal between Google and creator of cartoons “Family Guy” and “American Dad” will see an innovative new method of syndicating original web content. A new project by Seth entitled “Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy” is set to appear exclusively on the web, and the 50 two-minute episodes, featuring a cast of newly created characters, will be delivered in a very unique way.
The innovative part involves the distribution plan. Google will syndicate the program using its AdSense advertising system to thousands of Web sites that are predetermined to be gathering spots for Mr. MacFarlane’s target audience, typically young men. Instead of placing a static ad on a Web page, Google will place a “Cavalcade” video clip.
More info on the plans can be found on nytimes.com.
Microsoft has signed a deal with an up and coming start-up YuMe. The company specialises in serving in-video adverts and the deal with Microsoft will see them serving ads to online videos across Microsoft-owned web sites. The deal is another step by Microsoft in their quest to gain a bigger piece of the lucrative online advertising pie.
YuMe is the first dedicated video advertising network and ad management system built exclusively for the new world of Web video. With 400+ websites, more than 150 million video streams, and 46.9 million unique visitors, the YuMe network provides both audience scale and quality reach for advertisers.
More details in the press-release on the YuMe web site.
Since it’s launch around two years ago, Google Trends has allowed users to graph the trend in the number of searches over time for different keywords and in different locations and languages, etc. Clever people were able to use these graphs in conjunction with other tools and stats to try and estimate search volumes and compare whilst undertaking tasks such as keyword research. However, things are set to become much easier;
Now Google is giving users the ability to search across terms in its database, instantly chart how they compare to other search terms, then export the underlying numerical data into a common spreadsheet format to compare with other data.
The new features require a user to be logged in with a Google account. More info on Yahoo! News.
Microsoft has setup a deal with HP for distribution of Live Search on all HP PCs and laptops in an effort to combat Google’s deals with Mozilla and Dell.
A post by Udi Manber, the VP of engineering at Google in charge of Search Quality on the official Google Blog called “Introduction to Google Search Quality” begins a renewed effort by Google to reveal more about search quality and optimisation of search results.
…being completely secretive isn’t ideal, and this blog post is part of a renewed effort to open up a bit more than we have in the past. We will try to periodically tell you about new things, explain old things, give advice, spread news, and engage in conversations. Let me start with some general pieces of information about our group. More blog posts will follow.
The post is said to be the first of many to come, and whilst it does not delve too deeply or give too much away, it is still a very interesting and valuable read. Udi takes us through an explaination of the different groups involved under the search quality umbrella - ranking, user experience, product testing, usability, and of course the web spam team (headed up by “web-famous” Matt Cutts - who is often mistaken to be the head honcho of the whole Search Quality outfit) amongst others. Well worth a read.
