WebProNews

Tag: Google Developer

  • Recapping The Search Happenings At Google I/O

    Recapping The Search Happenings At Google I/O

    Fabian Schlup, a software engineer at Google offered an interesting recap of this years Google I/O which was held a couple weeks ago. You can read Fabian’s full post in the Google Developers Blog.

    Our summary of Google’s summary is as follows:

    1. Rich cards

    Rich Cards are Google’s latest version of its enhanced mobile friendly search results that from a site owners point of view can lead to more visitors and business if you follow the Rich Card protocol. Rich cards are a new search result format building on the concept of rich snippets, using schema.org structured markup to display content in a more engaging and visual format. Google believes that this approach provides the mobile Google searcher a better user experience.

    Screen Shot 2016-06-02 at 2.25.51 PM

    2. New Search Console reports

    Per Google – “We launched a new report in Search Console to help developers confirm that their rich card markup is valid. In the report we highlight “enhanceable cards,” which are cards that can benefit from marking up more fields.”

    On WebProNews we also wrote about Google’s launch of ‘Property Sets’ within their Search Console, allowing webmasters to combine apps and sites within a single group in order to monitor overall clicks and impressions within a single report. It will be rolling out to all users over the next couple of days. This is a great feature for those that have many subdomains as well.

    3. Real-time indexing

    Per Google – “Instead of waiting for content to be crawled and indexed, publishers will be able to use the Google Indexing API to trigger the indexing of their content in real time.”

    On WebProNews we wrote about the Google Search API getting a few updates:

    There have been a handful of updates to the Search Console API (formerly the Webmaster Tools API). This is the API that lets you add sites to a Search Console account, retrieve data and diagnostics, and submit sitemaps. One update is the addition of pagination in Search Analytics. You can request over 5000 rows of data for your site without having to iterate through filters. Additionally, crawl errors now include “linked from” info from the start.

    4. Accelerated Mobile Pages

    Google announced that they have provided an update on their use of AMP, an open source effort to speed up the mobile web. In a WebProNews article we quoted Google News engineering director Maricia Scott, “Our tests have shown that AMP documents load an average of four times faster and use 10 times less data than the equivalent non-amp’ed result. In many cases these stories will load instantly.”

    5. New and improved Structured Data Testing Tool

    Now tightly integrated with the DevSite Search Gallery and the new Search Preview service.

    6. New Stuff For App Indexing

    It’s migrating to Firebase, Google’s unified developer platform. Watch the session here.

    7. App streaming

    Per Google – “App streaming is a new way for Android users to try out games without having to download and install the app — and it’s already available in Google Search. Check out the session to learn more.”

    8. Revamped documentation

    Google is now organizing developer documentation around topical guides to make it easier to follow!

  • YouTube Gives Us Pitch Advice for Entrepreneurs and Startups

    YouTube and Don Dodge, a developer and startup advocate at Google, bring us this next video which features some great advice and strategies for getting funding and support for new projects and startups.

    Critical aspects he covers include developing an elevator speech (a concise overview of the problem and your solution), a thirty minute product/service overview, and a one hour pitch, typically reserved for investors.

    He directly addresses the components of these pitches, and what ingredients to include in them. Dodge also talks about body language and checking for consensus/understanding during a pitch. He helps us comprehend the purpose for refining these speeches and how to assess whether you’re addressing the right people.

    If you’re a member of a startup of just someone seeking funding for a new project, Dodge gives valuable advice that may just land you the investors you’ve been searching for. It’s a short video, only about five minutes long. It’s worth reviewing, even if you believe you’re already prepared.

    Take a look:

  • Google’s BigQuery Means Analytics for all Businesses

    Google is introducing an analytics solution for businesses of all sizes without the need for investments in additional hardware or software. BigQuery is a web service that lets you analyze information from huge datasets and have on-demand access to the figures. The service is available for free right now.

    Google has been running a trial version of their analytical solution since November and many businesses and developers are using it with great success. Claritics, a mobile solutions provider, developed a mobile analytics application based on BigQuery.

    Claritics CEO Raj Pai comments on BigQuery:

    “Getting data into the system was cumbersome,”

    “Once the data was in, running queries – asking simple questions and getting responses – took a lot of time. Complex queries on large datasets could take more than 30 minutes.”

    “We can use the BigQuery Service infrastructure to create advanced queries and build these really quickly from a prototyping perspective,”

    “Google BigQuery Service is saving us time and resources. Since we don’t have to worry about setting up machines as we bring more clients onboard, we expect it will save us a lot of money as well.”

    Crystalloids is another company who streamlined their efforts and used BigQuery to help vacation destinations plan, predict, and target markets based on available data from past sales and inquiries.

    Richard Verhoeff, founder of Crystalloids Innovations comments on BigQuery:

    “We had to get all of the data over into Excel and then format the reports, which became very tedious,”

    “Then we would have stacks of papers on our desk, comparing this year’s occupancy rates with last year’s and trying to identify problems.”

    “Google BigQuery Service makes it possible to examine millions of records in seconds,”

    “Other business intelligence solutions could take eight minutes to come back with an answer. That’s much too long. Speed is an essential part of our application, and BigQuery Service gives us that.”

    Google+Enterprise+Blog%29″>Businesses and developers alike can sign up for the BigQuery service and get 100 GB of data per month for free. They also offer special pricing plans for storing and query up to 2 TB. Google wants you to try the service and share your success stories on Google+. It sounds like a great service. Having real-time business information can vital for reaching new customers and competing against other providers in the same market.