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Google has hinted that it will soon be increasing its DoubleClick integration; technology it had paid billions for.

 Among the planned additions are frequency capping, frequency reporting, and view-through conversion measurement capabilities. None of the enhancements is available yet, and none will be for “a few months,” according to a Google spokesperson. Still, it’s clear the firm aims to ensure advertisers, publishers, and company observers that it’s working at incorporating DoubleClick into its ad operation.

More details of when the features will be provided will be available in the coming months. Google expects all of the additional features to boost ad quality. For more information, check out ClickZ

A small group of ex-Google employees have started a search engine company with hopes of conquering the “big three”: Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft. The founders of the company (Anna Patterson and Tom Costello) were integral members of Google, working on the algorithm, the heart of the Google.

Their new search engine, Cuil (pronounced “Cool”), promises to deliver  more relevant results, and with a larger search index. There have been plenty of other search engines who have attempted to break into the market, however Cuil believe their pedigree, combined with indexing more sites will give them an edge. Not all analysts agree with the methodology however, as Danny Sullivan has these thoughts:

…unimpressed by Cuil’s claim that its index includes more Web pages, noting that that could mean users are “overwhelmed by a whole bunch of junk”

For more information on the new company, check out the New York Times article.

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.

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.

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.

An article on Bloomberg MUSE on the 7th of May discusses a new method of monetisation Google is looking at launching based around display advertising on it’s image search results.

Matching graphical-display ads with image searches “represents a large opportunity, and there’s lot of potential for advertising revenue there,” Marissa Mayer, a Google vice president, told Bloomberg Radio today. At the same time, the company must ensure such ads don’t drive users away, she said.

Mayer says the reason Google has not launched something like this to date is that they have yet to master an effective method of delivering the ads whilst not damaging the user experience of the image search engine. Apparently back in 2006 the figures were around US$200 million in potential lost revenue for Google simply from leaving the sponsored ads off of image search results - they gave up on this revenue stream after finding it drove users away.

The recent purchase of DoubleClick opens the doors to leveraging the company’s existing display advertising management software to serve display ads on image search results pages in an effort to show adverts that fit in much better with what the user expects to see on the page. No launch date has been concreted butthere have already been mock ups of what these pages may look like - the next step being user testing before a quite possible (and most likely) launch.

As posted by Stephen Shankland, Google are preparing to overhaul the iGoogle interface to integrate ads under iGoogle’s “canvas view”. This opens the window for the canvas view to be monetized with ads. Not everyone will be able to advertise on this new arena, and certain types of ads will not be allowed. Which type of ads are unknown at this time.

“Ads will be limited to the canvas view only and certain types of ads will not be allowed. Developers are free to use any ad provider,” said iGoogle senior product manager Jessica Ewing in a statement. To maintain the best user experience, we plan on surveying users to determine how ads impact user satisfaction. Poor user ratings and reviews may impact a gadget’s viral features, ranking, and directory listing.

Worried about accidentally clicking on an ad? Don’t worry, Google will be taking measures to ensure that ads are not inadvertently clicked on by not allowing ads to appear in the home view (small gadget view) as the space is limited. The possible revenue generate on iGoogle ads will be interesting to see, as the users of iGoogle are much more aware of sponsored ads than a typical Google user.