search engine
Health Search feature added by Google
A new feature health search results have been added to Google. Google will now list possibly related health conditions when searched for a symptom or multiple symptoms of an illness.
In it’s official blog,Google had announced the feature and also shown with an example [abdominal pain on my right side] to show how it will work. The results which appear over Google’s organic results are algorithimically generated and not written by doctors or medical experts.
A lot of people have started using the search engines for getting answers on medical questions. Out of 10 Internet users,eight people look for health related information online making it the third most popular activity.
The question which will arise is whether Google’s new suggestion will help people in need or just misguide them in a wrong direction. Your comments are invited about Google’s new search feature
Google pays people to use Screenwise
Screenwise, a new product from Google is paying the web users to make Google better.You need to search the web using Google web browser and share the data with Google.
The users need to install a black router on their home network to measure the internet usage.The black router acts as a screenwise data collector.People who will install this router will earn $100 for joining and $20 for each month of participation.
The project starts on March 1st and it is on the same day Google’s new privacy policy goes into effect. Google has created this program to learn how everyday people use the internet.You need to be atleast 13 years old,have a Google account and use Chrome web browser.
“As a panelist, you’ll add a browser extension that will share with Google the sites you visit and how you use them. What we learn from you, and others like you, will help us improve Google products and services and make a better online experience for everyone,” according to the website.
Google will be offering you a $5 amazon gift card to install the browser extension as an incentive for signing up. An additional $5 Amazon gift card will be offered every 3 months if particiapnts continue to participate in the Screenwise program.
Even though Amazon is not involved in the Screenwise program,Google has made it clear that they will be receiving Amazon gift cards.Knowledge Networks,an online research firm is the panel management partner for conducting analysis.
Google spokesperson said “Like many other web and media companies, we do panel research to help better serve our users by learning more about people’s media use, on the web and elsewhere,” according to a Google spokesperson.” People can stay long as they like and can leave at any time.
Google Panda Update Confirmed
The reports of a Panda update by Google has been confirmed and it may rolled out anytime this week. Google has also told that there won’t be any algorithm changes and the update is just a data refresh of Google Panda algorithm.
A lot of webmasters have commented about the loss in rankings and many sites regained their traffic to Pre Panda level.
Google Panda 3.2
A lot of people may ask why 3.2 and not 2.x?One of the Googler told that “one of the 2.x updates was labeled as “minor” update and should have likely named as major update”. The updates are not numbered by Google so it is not easy to keep track of the updates.
The current “data fresh” update is just a minor update so this update is referred as 3.2 update. The last update was done during November and there was a long gap between two updates because Google said there would not be any updates during holidays.
Average Search Position Metric Recalculated by Google
There has been changes made on how Google calculates average position metric.In an attempt to provide more accuracy to the rankings,the way of calculating average position in Google Webmaster Tools Top Search Queries and Google Analytics has undergone some changes.
This is a sample Google has put forward to understand about the changes it has made to average ranking position of pages in a site.
“Let’s say Adam searched for [blue berries] and URLs from your site appeared in positions 3, 6, and 12. Richard also searched for [blue berries] and URLs from your site appeared in positions 5 and 9. Previously, we would have averaged all these positions together and shown an Average Position of 7. Going forward, we’ll only average the highest position your site appeared in for each search (3 for Adam’s search and 5 for Richard’s search), for an Average Position of 4.” There won’t be any changes made to historical data.
Google Launches One Privacy Policy for All
A new master privacy policy and terms of service was announced by Google in it’s official blog.The users will be notified about the new changes in the coming days.The new terms of service and privacy policy will take effect on March 1.
Instead of 70 privacy documents,Google has created one privacy document to govern all it’s products.Google can pull information from one service and deliver it to you through other Google product you use.
Individual search has become more customized and this has brought a wonderful opportunity for the advertisers to reach their targeted audience.
Check out this video on Google’s Privacy Policy Update
These new changes from Google aslo helps them to make more revenue. It will result in better search results and ads. Google made sure that it will never sell user information and it still promotes data liberation. Google received a fare share of criticism for the changes in in it’s privacy policy in previous years.
Punctuation Marks and Symbols in Google Search Results
Another update from Google on it’s search results and now you can see results for punctuation marks and symbols.Searching for the symbol equivalent of a percent sign,comma,carat and more symbols will return search results but the results are not exactly relevant.
Wikipedia page ranks as the top link for for the following punctuation marks.
- ^ (caret)
- ( ) { } [ ] (bracket) – parentheses, brackets and curly brackets are all combined into the same search result
- ~ (tilde)
- | (vertical bar)
- “ (quotation marks)
- < (less-than sign) > (greater-than sign)
- $ (dollar sign)
- . (full stop/period)
- , (comma)
- : (colon) – however, the colon that is a piece of the large intestine currently outranks the punctuation mark of the same name
- ; (semicolon)
- # (number sign)
- % (percent sign)
- @ (at sign)
These punctuation marks in Yahoo and Bing diplays “No results found” to the user.
Ability to Block Search Results Will Return
When Search Plus Your World was launched by Google a few days back it also marked the exit of ability to block web sites from search results. Google says the feature will return back but the timing was not disclosed.
How Blocking Worked
Previously the results contain a “Block All” link that appeared below them. Selecting this option will not display pages in the search results of the site you blocked. This option no longer appears.
Return of Blocking Will Take “Some Time”
The feature has been dropped earlier this week and Google told they are working on a fix.Search Plus Your World is still in the process of being rolled out. It’s only a short term problem and and it might take some time.
Response to Relevancy Complaints
The blocking site feature was released last February that allowed users to block sites only if they used Google Chrome. A lot of criticisms were made on Google that their relevancy had decreased to a great extent. Google have also addressed regarding this issue in their official blog.The ability to block sites, along with Google’s Panda Update, were part of that response.
Twitter criticizes Google On the Update
Google has received criticism from Twitter on it’s major search update that was unveiled on Tuesday. Twitter claimed that it’s totally “bad” for web users as the update has made it harder for the users to find information.
The recent update Search Plus Your World allows Google to show results in SERP from it’s social networking platform in order to offer a personalized search experience for the users.
Twitter in a statement told that latest enhancements will not help the search engine giant when it comes to providing real time personalized information within its search results.
The statement said “Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant (search) results,” .”We’re concerned that, as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.”
Alex Macgillivray tweeted that ” the update from Google is a bad day for internet”.Both Google and Twitter are battling for dominance in the social market which is currently headed by Facebook.
Search Plus Your World launched by Google
Come 2012 and Google has introduced quite a lot of features thats going to bring clarity to many features they have made over the past few months.These changes include the creation of their own social media network and implementation of SSL search. Over the next few days in Google.com you will be witnessing their new change called “Search Plus Your World”.
The new feature will bring results from Google+ in the search results at the click of a button.The results include People,Pages and Profiles that are fully integrated into search results.
When personalization icon is clicked for a search query it pulls out posts and pictures from their friends circle into their search results.Already in the search results Google + posts have began to outperform the original content. The new icon personalizes the search results to those within the user’s network that includes even the content shared privately.
The results does not show anything related to Facebook or Twiiter and this helps Google+ to promote their social network.Regarding this Amit Singhal said “Facebook and Twitter and other services, basically, their terms of service don’t allow us to crawl them deeply and store things. Google+ is the only [network] that provides such a persistent service. Of course, going forward, if others were willing to change, we’d look at designing things to see how it would work.”
Check out this video to know more about Search, plus Your World
Google+ Brand Pages Showing in Search Results
Out of world’s top 100 brands,77 have Google+ brand page.According to Bright Edge there has been a 50 percent increase in the number of fans adding their favorite brands to their circles and this amounts to 222,000 fans.
There are 300 million fans for the same brand on Facebook compared to 148,000 on Google +. Brands like IBM,Vodafone and Google have a Google+ page but not an official Facebook page.
The social and search channel gap in Google is closing up as Google is embedding popular product with it’s dominant search marketing position. The brands need to address both channels and it’s now their choice to extend their social presence from Facebook to Google+.
Brands are now offering incentives to include one of their pages as part of their search and social strategy such as the inclusion of Google+ pages in primary search results.There has also been a speculation around this move that it could lead google to anti trust woes.
Including Google+ pages in the search results is a smart move by Google and a recent survey found that Google,Yahoo contributes 34 percent of Facebook fan page referrals.A few questions like whether this could abuse Google’s dominant position in the market if it still contributes further remains to seen.