search engine
Google Launches New URL Shortening Website
Google by introducing its very own URL shortening website http://goo.gl/ has added another service to its swiftly escalating range.With its new goo.gl site, Google joins the likes of bit.ly and tinyurl.com in enabling internet users to shorten long web addresses into more manageable, bite-size links.
The demand for link shortening services has increased considerably in recent years, as users of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook look to discover ways of sharing links as rapidly and in brief as possible.
Google’s new URL shortening tool transforms long links into the much shorter http://goo.gl/, followed by a unique mixture made up of four letters as well as numbers.
Whilst the popularity of goo.gl remains to be seen, the service could have a constructive effect on search engine optimisation. Social networking and SEO are becoming more and more intertwined, so any service that enables quicker and easier link sharing via social platforms is likely to benefit SEO campaigns.
Goo.gl presently consists of just a text box and a click button marked ‘Shorten’.Google software engineer Muthu Muthusrinivasan stated that the beauty of the service lies in its very simplicity.He also added that Google didnt plan to overload goo.gl with features, but that they wanted it to be the stablest, most protected, and quickest URL shortner on the web.
“Google Me” Social Network…a Facebook Contender ?
News that Google is building a Facebook competitor have become more believable due to Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt confirming the launch of the social application ‘Google Me‘ into their products including email, online search, videos and maps.
The proclamation of this launch (in fall this year) comes at a very significant time. With Facebook having suffered badly from recent privacy issues, chances are that Google Me could become an immense concern for Facebook.
Google desires that ‘Google Me’ should not be just another accumulation to the product catalogue but will target at combining all their previous ‘not so winning’ social networking attempts like Orkut, Buzz and Profiles into a victorious social network.
Google CEO,Eric Schmidt recently stated at the Google Zeitgeist Conference held at Scottsdale, Arizona that “We’re trying to take Google’s core products and add a social component.” He also added “If you think about it, it’s obvious. With your permission, knowing more about who your friends are, we can provide more tailored recommendations. Search quality can get better.”
Well, we also need to wait and watch as to how Google can get such huge Facebook devotees to abandon Facebook and turn towards Google Me instead !
Google Instant-A Dramatic Break From The Conventional Google Search Experience
Google displays its role as the leader of search engines by relentlessly pushing technology to its limits, with the launch of Google ‘Instant’.The new feature ‘Google Instant’ that was launched yesterday, is a huge enhancement to its search platform as it displays result as the user types ,without even clicking on the search button.
Within the next couple days, Google will be launching a new enhancement to its search platform with its newest addition of Google Instant. Google Instant is a new feature that shows results to the user as the user types, without even touching the search button. Infact every letter the user inputs, updates the search results in view of that. It was really exciting to watch this major transformation today created by Google.
Google has always been an supporter of simplicity, Google estimates the latest improvement can save around 2-5 seconds for every search. The new system also enhanced on the prediction feature that’s been utilized by Google and many of the other search engines like Yahoo, MSN, and Bing. The smarter prediction will help guide users through their searches, making it simple even if you’re not precisely sure what your searching for.
The following corresponding output was obtained while typing in each of the letters a s m in the search:
Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of Search Products stated that the user benefits of Google Instant are numerous but the primary one is time saved. Mayer announced the novel feature at the company’s launch event in San Francisco yesterday.
Google Instant is presently only available for desktop searches, but the company announced that it is at this time also working on the mobile version, which will be released soon.
Partnership Deal between Yahoo and MSN
With Google being the present leader in the search engine kingdom, other competitors confront a massive mountain to climb if they need to emerge as the winner. Research firm comScore reported that in July, Google claimed an enormous 66 percent of the total search traffic within the United States. Much behind were Yahoo with 17 percent and Microsoft’s Bing with 11 percent .Rather than uniting with Google or being absorbed by them, Bing and Yahoo decided to be united in their quest for preeminence in the search engine market.Within the last couple months, Bing and Yahoo announced that they would become partners in order to unite their efforts to take up the number two spot in search engine market share and take direct aim at Google’s top spot.
The amalgamation is a great move for Yahoo, for whom the market share dropped over the last year. For the moment, Bing, which began in 2009, has seen its share steadily climb. While Yahoo brings abundant search engine experience to the table, Bing can bring can launch a fresh start to the partnership.
Presently, Bing is powering Yahoo’s search results in English within the United States as well as Canada. People who visit Yahoo’s search will notice “Powered by Bing™” at the bottom of each page to officially indicate the partnership between the two services.
In future, other languages are expected to be added for more of an global flair. In addition to the standard search engine services, Bing and Yahoo will also merge their advertising services. Yahoo and MSN are working on a total shift over to Microsoft’s adCenter, which is the company’s advertising service that provides pay-per-click advertisements to those involved. They hope to complete the shift this fall, appropriate for the holiday season. Bing and Yahoo will divide advertising revenue once everything is finished.
It would be interesting to notice how search engine technologies develop as competition increases, and what type of response Google will have in this search engine race.
Yahoo News Undergoes Major Transformations!
Yahoo has launched a new search-powered module for their News Section(news.yahoo.com),driven by their search algorithm. SEO friendly content which would obtain increased visibility would be the end result of this algorithm.
One of the major highlights was the inclusion of images,videos as well as slideshows.Its also visible that unlike google news, yahoo news tries hard to be more editorially managed in its choice of stories from online news providers rather than algorithmically delivered.
Presently being tested by a few Yahoo users, the fresh feature appears as a subsection on the Yahoo! News page as well as in the ‘Today’ module on the main portal. It’s complemented by the fresh ‘Trending Now’ lists, noticeable on the Yahoo home page. When a visitor clicks on any of the terms on the Trending Now list,she/he will can get hold of the most recent information about a hot topic and determine related content from Yahoo! search.
Lately Yahoo stated that the click through rates on its Trending Now lists have doubled from the time the firm implemented the fresh content optimisation technology that powers the Today Module of the Yahoo! Homepage.
Built in URL Shortening added in Google Maps
Google Maps URLs have always been long and messy. It’s really unpleasant to paste a complete URL linking to a Google Map on an email, IM, or blog post.Specially for twitter users ,it is very inconvenient since there is a restriction of 140 characters for each tweet.
To start using short URLs on Google Maps(http://maps.google.com), all you need to do is go to Google Maps Labs by clicking on the little green flask on the upper right corner. The next step is to enable the Short URL option, which is the second on the list of experimental features. Refresh the page, and the feature should be good to go. We obtain a URL something like this ..goo.gl/maps/sss.This is Google’s official URL shortening service that is being utilized. Goo.gl is entirely integrated into Google Maps once you enable it, so the only URL you see when you hit the Google Maps “Link” is the shorter and the simpler version.
We tried the option by giving the following in Search Maps
Seattle, WA, United States
The original URL before enabling the Short URL option:
The URL after enabling the Short URL option:
Google Buzz in the field of SEO
Google Buzzhas already created a buzz with its comparison with Facebook and Google. Additionally,it was infamous for its privacy lapse,though Google seems to have sorted it out.However there is another important aspect of Google Buzz which cannot be ignored,which is its importance in the field of seo.Few include:
- Feature of Indexing – The most rational explanation is that Google Buzz can be used for quick indexing of new content. So in order to obtain to get a new page indexed post it on Buzz or better include a buzz button.
- Facility of keyword research – One can use buzzzy.com,which is the third party Google Buzz search engine to find out popular keywords presently. They’re displayed on the homepage itself as “popular searches”.
- Helps in link building – Google Buzz does not use “nofollow” as Google moves away from this option. Twitter included nofollow to all links in tweets as well as its profile pages. Some people include their Twitter feed to Buzz in order to get it rightly indexed and followed.
- Organic Search Results – Google Buzz items presently don’t appear correctly in real time results on Google yet but there is every chance that it will appear soon.It could be one of the major reasons Google introduced Buzz, to contend with Twitter for attention.
- Microblogging Phenomenon- Though majority of people compare Buzz to Twitter and Facebook, in reality it is rather a Tumblr and Posterous rival. It’s quite good for content you just drop quick without much commotion. Tumblr and Posterous are still much superior but Google is bigger. So choose one.
Google Buzz: The New Microblogging and Social Networking Tool
The new tool Google Buzz which is built right into Google’s Gmail allows you to social network and microblog in real-time.Google Buzz is a novel method to share updates, photos, videos and more as well as start conversations about the things you find interesting.Google Buzz is identical to Friendfeed and twitter.
To set up Google Buzz, proceed to www.google.com/buzz.
- Once you have signed-in with your Gmail account / Google account, you are automatically following the people you have earlier emailed and/or generally chatted with through Gmail.
- You have the option to “unfollow” anyone at any time.
- Create/update your personal information via Google Profiles.
- Begin using Google Buzz now.
Pros of Google Buzz:
Google Buzz offers you microblogging in Gmail setting and enables you to:
- Follow others, and/or be followed by other people
- Publish your posts to your friends and obtain comments right to your Gmail inbox in real-time.
- Post messages in either private or public mode.
- Share links, photos as well as videos with others.
- Import stuff from Twitter, Flickr, Picasa as well as Google Reader.
- Maintain all your social networking friends’ conversations in one location.
- Automatically eliminate useless short messages.
- Share from your Andriods or iPhones.
Additionally,Google Buzz also automatically suggests fascinating messages and filters out futile messages that you are likely to skip
Cons of Google Buzz:
The possible issues of Google Buzz include:
- It might take time for existent Gmail users to actively microblog Google Buzz.
- On the other hand, it might take much longer for non-Gmail users to begin with Gmail and then get into Google Buzz.
- It is not possible to export items into Google Buzz from the world’s biggest social networking site Facebook.
- When you post on Google Buzz, your message will not appear on the most trendy micro-blogging service Twitter’s Tweets.
SEMMY Awards 2010
The SEMMYS are an annual awards event honoring the search marketing industry’s finest articles and blog posts.The nominees incorporate around 139 authors who represent nearly 99 blogs as well as sites.
The SEMMY Awards 2010 are divided into 17 categories that include SEO, PPC, Small Business, Local Search, Google, Blogs & Blogging, Link Building, Social Media, Analytics, Search Tech, Rants, Online Marketing, Reputation Management, Viral Marketing, Design & Usability, Industry, & Copywriting.Check out their website SEMMYS.org and vote for you favorite article in each category.The final winners will be announced on February 1st.
American Dialect Society selects ‘google’ and ‘tweet’
The American Dialect Society (ADS) has chosen “google” – the verb – as its top word of this decade and “tweet” – a short message sent via the Twitter.com service or the act of sending such a message – as its top word of the year 2009.
Grant Barrett, chairman of the New Words Committee of ADS stated that both words are, in the end, products of the Information Age, where every person has the ability to satisfy inquisitiveness and to broadcast to a select following, both through the Internet.He also said that he had assumed the word blog would take the position in the word of the decade category, but its also true that more people google than blog.
Google only became a verb after users of the search engine began to use it to mean search. “Google” as a verb was coined and included in the Meriam-Webster Dictionary as well as the Oxford English Dictionary in 2006.
The American Dialect Society(ADS) is a collection of scholars dedicated to the study of the English language and other languages and dialects in North America. They choose the Word of Year by conducting a voting session.