If you used Google today (who doesn’t use Google every day?) you would have seen the doodle for today is celebrating Robert Bunsen’s 200th birthday, what you may not have noticed is the mouse control it has.
Move your mouse left or right and the flame goes from yellow to blue respectively, move your mouse up or down and the flame gets bigger the higher your mouse is.
Today we were called by Google to let us know that their billing system isn’t working properly!
A recent update has caused many user’s cards to be automatically disabled, so you need to click the ‘Enable’ button to re-enable the card.
They’ve had to phone every use to let them know of the issue so if you have an active AdWords account in the UK (or possibly worldwide) you may have received a call from Google as well.
Let us know in the comments below if you’ve been called by Google or had any issues like this!
Yesterday Google revealed the new Chrome logo
It’s not a very big change, according to the Chrome blog the new “simpler icon embodies the Chrome spirit“.
Chrome users can look forward to seeing the new logo in updates in the coming weeks.
Tell us what you think about the logo in the comments below!
Last week Google announced a search algorithm update which would impact nearly 12% of all queries. The update was aimed to reduce visibility of “low-quality sites” from the SERP (Search engine Results Page). It has only been released in the US so far, but it has already caused quite a stir…
Although Google has never explicitly stated it the new update is an attempt to crack down on content farms like eHow, answerbag.com and other Demand Media sites. However the effect on page rankings in the US alone have been unexpected to say the least.
Many content farm sites have seen their rankings reduced, but they’re not the only ones seeing a negative impact on their search engine rankings. Several sites which create their own unique content were slammed, losing in some cases over 90% of their Google spots.
cultofmac.com, an Apple-focused blog which produces it’s own unique content has seen 96% of it’s Google spots disappear in the past week!
ehow.com has actually seen improvements in it’s Google visibility and search engine traffic, so the update has actually removed some of it’s competition and boosted it’s traffic.
It hasn’t been a very good week for Google, on Monday 0.02% (about 35, 000) Gmail users logged onto their accounts only to find ALL of the emails missing. According to the Google’s Gmail blog the error was caused by an update that created a software bug which infected Google’s online backups of the accounts, so they’ve had to bring in the back-up tapes to restore the accounts.
Let us know if your site has been affected by the update whether it’s good or bad news.
Yesterday Google Relesaed an Extension for Chrome which allows user to block selected websites from SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).
This may look like a poor solution to solve Google ‘s content farm result issues, however it is just a tool they are using to help them combat this issue.
The data from this extension will be sent to Google and analysed to create a “potential ranking signal for search results” according to Matt Cutts (head of the web spam team at Google).
The Extension is called Personal Blocklist Extension.
I decided to try it out myself to see if it is any good. It took less than 10s to download and install and no browser restart is required so you can block as you please straight away.
It’s quite simple to use, when you search for anything on Google a link is displayed underneath each result which can be used to block a domain.
Pages from blocked sited no longer appear on the results page. However they can be allowed back into your current results page by clicking the “show” link that appears at the bottom of the page.
A list of blocked sites can be viewed, edited or unblocked by clicking the red logo next to the address bar.
So all in all it’s a pretty good extension, however for Google web spam team to find the data collected useful a lot more users will need to
a) Use Chrome (currently with only 10% market share)
b) Bother install and use the extension
There has been speculation of Twitter buy out talks with Google and Facebook. Figures as high as $10 Billion (£6.23 bn) have been said to come up.
Considering that in December the microblogging site was valued at just $3.7 Billion after reporting some $200 million in profits, are they offering too much?
However they have just set two phenomenal records for the most Tweets per second. In Japan an astounding 6,939 tweets was recorded just after midnight and the most Tweets during a sporting event was set during the last minutes of the Super Bowl this year at 4,064.
Assuming the site still has a few more years left until it becomes as redundant and slow as MySpace there is still time for it to expand. However if I were in charge I’d take the $10 bn! Social Network fads don’t last too long!
Did anyone see the Google logo taday?
This is paying tribute to Jules Verne, author of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Around the World in Eighty Days. His birthday was today, if he were still alive he would be 183 years old today!
How much time did you spend playing around with the logo pretending to be Capitan Nemo instead of working?
As with most SEO queries there is no straight forward answer, so I’ll just go with it depends…
Basically Google doesn’t use them any more at all!
So if you’re only worried about how you show up on Google don’t bother (unless your site search feature uses them!).
However, if you’re concerned about showing up on Yahoo or Bing they are a necessity!
Bing and Yahoo have a combined 10%* of search market share which may not seem like much first glance, however this accounts for 4.6 Billion^ searches per month in the US alone!
Yahoo has claimed in the past that they stopped indexing the meta keyword tag, however they provide advice on improving your search position including:
Use a “keyword” metatag to list keywords for each page of your website. Use distinct lists of keywords that relate to each specific page on the site. Do not use one broad set of keywords for the entire site.
Bing also provides similar suggestions in their head tag optimisation blog.
So if you care about your position on Bing or Yahoo follow their advice, but like any SEO method you will need more than just a good meta keyword tag to position well on any search engine.
*According to Net Market Share
^According to comScore December 2010 U.S. Search Engine Rankings
The past year has seen a great success for Google. With Chrome’s market share reaching 9.98%, over 100% increase since January 2010 when they had only 4.63% market share.
However this was not good news for IE, losing over 5% of their market share over the course of the year.
Google Android OS has also see a significant Rise in new users of the Smart phone OS. In the US over the past 6 months, over 40% of new smart phone users choosing Android OS over iOS or Blackberry OS phones. However iOS is still the most popular phone OS with 28% overall market share Android OS is close behind with 25% overall market share.
With the release of Chrome OS and their Netbook the Cr-48, Google is looking to have another very prosperous year in 2011.
Google are slowly rolling out a new Adwords feature called Ad Extensions, which you’ve probably already come across in your account. They can be found in the Settings tab of each Campaign and allow you to add your Business Location for example, from your Google Places account or by manual address entry. Then when someone is served your Ad they will see an expandable link below your Ad that shows them a map of your business location. This is one Ad Extension you may have already used if your business relies on walk-in customers.
Sometimes providing additional information in your Ads is necessary in order to get the best response, and Google Ad Extensions does exactly that. For example, when you’re trying to describe a product, including a picture could make the message more relevant and valuable. Or when trying to describe a location, an Ad that only contains text can be confusing. In this case, having a map can help someone find your location more easily.
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There are only a handful of Ad Extensions available to everyone at the moment, like Locations (as mentioned above), Click-to-Call (for mobile devices) & Sitelinks. But in future all of the following Ad Extensions will be available:
Currently these Ad Extensions are available in limited release & limited beta only so it’s unlikely that you’d see these in your account yet but we’ve spotted some already so they are definitely out there! Take a look at this example of Adwords Product Extensions:
If you were lucky enough to be part of the beta testing, or currently using the limited release, we would really like to hear from you!
