WebProNews

Tag: Search

  • Google Announces Opt-Out Tool To Keep Content Out Of Its Specialized Search Engines

    Google has launched a new way for sites to opt out of having their content show up in Google Shopping, Advisor, Flights, Hotels, and Google+ Local search.

    Matt Cutts announced the feature in a very brief post on the Google Webmaster Central blog, saying, “Webmasters can now choose this option through our Webmaster Tools, and crawled content currently being displayed on Shopping, Advisor, Flights, Hotels, or Google+ Local search pages will be removed within 30 days.”

    This is obviously not a feature that Google would want a ton of people to use, because the less content that appears in these services, the less useful they are. Perhaps that’s why Cutts hasn’t tweeted about the tool (maybe not, but perhaps). At least with the short announcement, they have something they can point to.

    The feature is a direct response to an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission. When Google settled with the FTC, one of the voluntary concessions Google made was a feature that would let sites opt out of Google’s specialized search engines.

    As Danny Sullivan notes, the feature doesn’t let you choose which search engines you wish to opt out of. If you use the feature, you’re opting out of all of those mentioned.

    On a help page, Google says, “This opt-out option currently applies only to services hosted on google.com and won’t apply to other Google domains.”

  • LinkedIn Revamps Its Search Algorithm, Adds Features

    LinkedIn Revamps Its Search Algorithm, Adds Features

    It doesn’t come with all the fanfare of Facebook’s Graph Search, but another important social network has just revamped its search engine.

    LinkedIn announced some new search capabilities, which it describes as “smarter and more streamlined,” and though Facebook’s Graph Search has plenty of ramifications for businesses, LinkedIn is used almost exclusively as a business tool.

    “We’ve unified the search experience so you no longer need to search for people, companies, or jobs separately,” explains LinkedIn’s Johnathan Podemsky. “Now, all you need to do is type what you’re looking for into the search box and you’ll see a comprehensive page of results that pulls content from all across LinkedIn including people, jobs, groups and companies.”

    They’ve also added auto-complete, suggested searches, a “smarter” query intent algorithm, enhanced advanced search, and automated alerts. As you search more on LinkedIn, the algorithm learns more about your intent to improve your results. Enhanced search includes filers like location, company, school, etc. Searchers can save their searches to be alerted when results change.

    “No two professionals are alike on LinkedIn,” says Podemsky. “This means even if you search for the same thing as someone else, your results will be customized to you. LinkedIn’s search efforts are founded on the ability to take into account who you are, who you know, and what your network is doing to help you find what you’re looking for. And we’ll continue iterating on this with better ways to surface new kinds of content across Linkedin as well as more personalized results.”

    The changes will start rolling out today, and should be available to all within the coming weeks. According to the company, there were 5.7 billion “professionally oriented” searches performed on LinkedIn in 2012.

  • Angel Tompkins Nude Pic Shows Up In Google Knowledge Graph

    Update: Google has removed the image from the Knowledge Panel. Rather than replacing it with a non-nude image, they went with no image at all. The image in question is also gone from the image search results (though it’s still there if you search “angel tompkins topless”). There are other topless pictures of her showing up further down in the image results as well.

    Update 2: Google has removed more of the topless pictures from the image search results.

    Is Google’s system for imagery in the Knowledge Graph flawed? Let us know what you think.

    When you search for “Angel Tompkins” on Google, Google presents a Knowledge Graph result. That makes sense, she’s a Golden Globe-nominated actress. What is interesting about Google’s listing, however, is that the image it displays is photo of Tompkins topless – not the kind of material you would expect the search engine to display to users as the main thing you see on a results page.

    Search Engine Land was tipped about the result on Twitter, and as Barry Schwartz notes, this is probably not the ideal web presence for the now 70-year old woman, who is reportedly married with two children (it should be noted that Google’s Knowledge Graph has gotten marriages wrong in the past).

    Here’s what it looks like censored. You can go to the SERP to see the real thing if you like (though Google will likely pull it soon).

    Angela Tompkins Nude Pic

    Google will often display a set of images from Image Search in the Knowledge Panel for a given query. Here’s what Clint Eastwood’s looks like, for example:

    Clint Eastwood

    It’s unclear how exactly Google chooses which pictures to display, or when to include the Eastwood-like set of images in the Knowledge Panel. The first Eastwood picture in the panel is not the first one that shows up in an image search, nor is the topless photo of Tompkins the first one in an image search for her. So why is Google selecting this one? To make things even more complicated, Schwartz notes that the nude image appears to be coming from a spam blog – something Google rigorously tries to keep out of its search results. Now we’re seeing one being highlighted in Google’s prized Knowledge Graph?

    The whole thing is even more interesting, considering that Google has recently gone out of its way to make adult-oriented imagery harder to access.

    It is worth noting that Tompkins has been described as a “Sexploitation Siren,” so users wanting nude pictures of her isn’t that far out of the realm of possibility.

    This is not the first time we’ve seen Google make mistakes in the Knowledge Graph. Have you noticed any? Let us know in the comments.

  • Google+ Adds a New Search Filter for Photos

    Google+ search has just gotten a little more useful.

    Now, when searching anything within the social network, you can filter the results to only show photos. Just search for whatever you’re looking for, and hit the drop-down menu at the top of the results.

    The option to filter by photos joins the other filtering options: everything, people and pages, communities, Google+ posts, Hangouts, and events.

    Adding a search filtering option for photos makes sense for Google+, who can boast an enthusiastic photography-oriented demographic. It’s actually one of the more popular things to do with Google+. Nearly every day of the week there’s a new photography-related trend, whether it be #LongExposureThursday, #FloralFriday, or #MountainMonday.

    Dave Cohen

    Dave Cohen14 hours ago

    Filter Google+ search results to only show photo posts

    You can now filter your Google+ search results to only show photo posts. Just type in what you’re looking for, and select “Photos” from the filter dropdown.

    You can find any photo post that’s shared with you — from items shared only with you, to public photos shared by some of the great photographers on Google+. Here are some searches that I enjoy:

    – Long exposure: https://plus.google.com/s/long%20exposure/photos
    – Steel wool: https://plus.google.com/s/steel%20wool/photos
    – Cartoons: https://plus.google.com/s/cartoons/photos

    We hope you enjoy using this feature. Keep the feedback coming!

    #googleplusupdate   #googleplusphotos

    93    26 Powered by socialditto

    Google+ isn’t the only major social network that’s making it easier to find and group photos together. You may remember that Facebook recently announced a huge news feed redesign that, among other things, brings new content-specific feeds to the mix. These specific feed options include music, games, pages, groups, and yes, photos.

    The new photo search filter should be available to all users.

  • Google Re-Indexes Digg After Spam Removal Screwup

    Wednesday afternoon, Digg disappeared from Google. Vanished. Gone. It was clear that Google had de-indexed Digg, but why? To what end?

    Was it because Digg had just announced plans to build a Google Reader clone to satisfy angry users when Google kills the product on July 1st? Was Google just being a dick?

    No, conspiracy theories were put to rest when Google released a statement, saying that it was all just a big screwup.

    We’re sorry about the inconvenience this morning to people trying to search for Digg. In the process of removing a spammy link on Digg.com, we inadvertently applied the webspam action to the whole site. We’re correcting this, and the fix should be deployed shortly.

    And fixed it they have. Digg is back up in Google:

    Digg back indexed in google

    It’s not like being de-indexed in Google was really a killer for Digg, considering the majority of their traffic is direct. But for Digg, you’d at least want digg.com to show up in a search. Thankfully, Google has fixed the screwup and everyone can carry on.

  • Google Updates Sports Search Results with More Detailed Info

    It looks like that full NCAA Bracket isn’t the only sports-related information that Google is adding to search results.

    They have just announced an update that will display interactive info cards for various sports-related queries. This includes schedules, stats, and standings for the NBA, NFL MLB, and more.

    “League schedules are now grouped by day/week, so you can easily see who’s playing and when. Clicking on a game gives you detailed information with links to more content on official sites. You can find complete league standings just by doing a quick search for [NBA standings], and you can even see the latest stats from your favorite players,” says Google.

    If you want to see this in action, just search “NBA.” You’ll see a “scores and schedule” card above all results that is viewable by date. When you click on an individual game, you’ll see the teams’ records, the time and location of the game. You’ll also see a couple of links to outside sites – “preview” and “tickets” links to NBA.com.

    Here’s what searching “NBA standings” looks like, once you’ve expanded the info card:

    Sure takes up a lot of the results page, huh?

    Of course, when Google puts information like this inside search results, it makes it less likely that you’ll need to visit an another site to obtain what you’re looking for. These info cards, along with Knowledge Graph, have and will continue to impact traffic to other sites. But for users, it’s a great feature that gives them the info they desire, faster.

  • ‘NCAA Bracket’ Google Search Returns Bracket On Results Page

    Google has a new March Madness feature for basketball fans. When you search “NCAA Bracket” in Google, the search engine will return a bracket on the actual page, so you can see where all the teams are at in the tournament.

    Google’s Dan Vanderkam announced the feature in a tweet (via Search Engine Land):

    Here’s what it looks like:

    NCAA Bracket

    Google has offered March Madness tools in the past. Here’s what they did last year. And the year before that.

  • Bing Tests Authorship-Looking Images In Search Results

    It appears that Bing is experimenting with showing pictures of people in search results similar to how Google does with its authorship feature, but for when results are about a person, rather than written by them.

    Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land points to some examples where Bing is doing this for results for journalists Kara Swisher and Nick Bilton.

    According to Sullivan, Bing’s Duane Forrester said Bing is considering something like authorship at the SMX conference last week. It’s unclear whether he was referring to this or something separate. As in the Bilton example Sullivan shares, Bing is not always showing images of the person when it is showing these images. In one case from that example, Bing was simply showing an image from the article.

    Here are a couple of the images Bing is showing for Sullivan himself:

    Sullivan on Bing

    Blind FIve Year Old’s AJ Kohn did some additional on what Bing is up to, and found a bunch of sources for results where Bing is showing these kinds of results including: CrunchBase, Myspace, NBA.com, Quora, TED, ESPN, The Canadian Encyclopedia, Amazon, MTV, Last.fm, Forbes, NNDB, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo Movies, Hollywood.com, AskMen, FriendFeed, TV Guide, and Comedy Central, to name a few.

    According to Kohn, the images show up more often for about pages, which he says, “supports the idea that Bing is looking for high confidence entity pages and not assigning real authorship.”

    Google has been pretty clear that authorship is going to be an increasingly important factor moving forward. It’s no surprise that Forrester hinted that Bing will be working on this too. Perhaps what we’re seeing now will provide a sufficient supplement to whatever they come up with for real authorship.

  • Google Expands Public Alerts to Japan to Help with Natural Disaster Preparedness

    Google has expanded its new public alert program to Japan, a country that is still feeling the effects of a massive hurricane and tsunami that hit two years ago.

    Google Public Alerts, first launched in the U.S. following hurricane Sandy, are now available in Japan. Public Alerts provide pertinent information about natural disasters and other emergency situations inside Google Search, Google Maps. and Google Now.

    This is the first country that Public Alerts have reached since its U.S. launch.

    Now, when people in Japan search Google or Google Maps for information pertaining to an earthquake, let’s say, the alert info will appear on both desktop and mobile right at the top of the search. There will be a link inside the alerts that will let users access “more info,” which will include full disaster profiles from the Japan Meteorological Agency, among other stuff.

    “We hope our technology, including Public Alerts, will help people better prepare for future crises and create more far-reaching support for crisis recovery. This is why in Japan, Google has newly partnered with 14 Japanese prefectures and cities, including seven from the Tōhoku region, to make their government data available online and more easily accessible to users, both during a time of crisis and after. The devastating Tōhoku Earthquake struck Japan only two years ago, and the region is still slowly recovering from the tragedy,” says Google.

    The Public Alerts are also featured on Google Now, and are tailored to the user’s location. “For example, if you happen to be in Tokyo at a time when a tsunami alert is issued, Google Now will show you a card containing information about the tsunami alert, as well as any available evacuation instructions,” says Google.

    Google says that they are looking to expand these Public Alerts to other countries soon.

  • Twitter App Update: Better ‘Old Tweet’ Search Plus Tweet Context for In-App Web Browsing

    Twitter has just announced a small update to both its iOS and Android apps, although the iOS app benefits more from it.

    Across both apps (as well and mobile.twitter.com), Twitter has tweaked their search function to provide more context for topical tweets. Back in February, Twitter finally allowed users to unearth old tweets within search. Before, users could only pull up tweets up to about a week old, but now they can find tweets from months and month ago. Today’s update puts a “top tweet” at the top of searches for popular topics. Twitter says that this is chosen based on “relevance and engagement.”

    You can now view more tweets from around the time period of the top tweets (which is usually older) by tapping “view more from this time.”

    Twitter has also made a couple more improvements to the iOS app. The biggest one has to do with adding tweet context to in-app web browsing.

    “When you open a link from a Tweet in your timeline, you’ll see that Tweet displayed at the bottom of the app’s built-in web browser. This provides additional context to the page you’re viewing, and makes it easy for you to retweet, favorite or reply to the Tweet as you’re reading an article or watching a video. If you don’t want to see the Tweet, simply tap the page and the Tweet will slide away from view. By pulling up or down on the tray icon, the Tweet will appear or disappear from view,” says Twitter.

    They’ve also improved the autocomplete feature in search, added support for traditional Chinese, and removed support for video uploading via Mobypicture, Vodpod and Posterous.

  • Facebook Promotes Graph Search to the Less Than 0.1% of Users with Graph Search

    Let’s just say that Facebook has 1 billion MAUs. Yes, they announced that milestone a little while back so they most definitely have a few more than that, but for the purposes of this calculation just indulge me. Ok, 1 billion active users.

    In a blog post today, Facebook says that hundreds of thousands of people are currently using the beta of Graph Search, Facebook’s new in-site search product that the company unveiled in the middle of January.

    So, hundreds of thousands – no more specific that that. That could mean 200,000 or 900,000. Since we know that about 100,000 were given Graph Search at the onset – well that tells us nothing really. We don’t know exactly how fast Facebook is rolling it out. But I think we’re safe in saying that the current number of Graph Search users is probably closer to 200,000 than 900,000.

    But even if we go for the highest possible number, that still means that only 0.09% of Facebook users have been given Graph Search.

    Facebook said that the rollout would be slow. Very slow. So you really shouldn’t be surprised if you haven’t been called up to participate in the beta quite yet. But Facebook is pushing the new feature pretty hard considering a microscopic portion of the Facebook population even knows what the hell they’re talking about.

    Today, the company shared some of its favorite searches from the roughly 6 weeks that Graph Search has existed. Not the most popular, mind you. Just some of the favorites.

    Facebook says that people are using Graph Search to find out stuff about their friends, as such:

    And people are using it to find photos, like this:

    Facebook also highlights Graph Searches related to trip planning like “Ski resorts my friends have visited,” and interest discovery searches like “TV shows liked by my friends.”

    Strangely, they don’t get into any of the more adventurous ways that people are using the new product. I know, there are just too many lingering privacy concerns for that sort of tomfoolery. Although, Facebook has attempted to mitigate those worries by taking steps to protect minors when it comes to creepy old dudes searching for their info on Graph Search.

    But what Facebook is highlighting is beside the point. It’s why – considering that pretty much nobody has Graph Search right now.

    I haven’t found myself using Graph Search all that much (yes, I have it), except in researching stories and/or the occasional oddity query. I was helped by its cross-matching abilities once, with a “people who are friends with both me and John Smith.” That particular search helped me remember the name of a person I talked to a bar one night then drunkenly forgot their name. So that was cool. Graph Search has its uses, and some kinks. But that’s to be expected, as it’s a beta.

    Plus, I’m just one guy with one experience. Sure, writing about Facebook all the time means that I’m probably more likely to use Graph Search than the average person (at least right now). But even still, it’s really really early in the game to try and pick a winner or a loser.

    But with all this promotion to a very limited subset of users, is Facebook just trying to create buzz? Are they not seeing the early adoption they were looking for? Are they trying to kickstart usage for a project that went too far off the rails of what most Facebook users really care about (the news feed, photos, the news feed, photos, and the news feed)?

    Anyway, it’ll be nice to hear from Facebook on how users are taking advantage of Graph Search when more than 0.02% have had the chance to look at it.

  • Google Adds Your Google Calendar Data To Search Results

    Google announced today that it has added Google Calendar data to the Gmail Search Field Trial. This is the feature that lets you search Google’s regular web search and get relevant content from your Gmail account right on the main search results page.

    I’ve been part of the field trial since the beginning, and personally, I find it to be one of the most useful things Google has done in quite some time. This notion was only amplified when Google added Drive content into the mix, and I would imagine that Calendar data would only enhance it further.

    With the update, you can search for your agenda, and find appointments saved to your Google Calendar.

    I should note that I’ve been experiencing some problems with the feature actually returning results for the past week or so. I reached out to Google about the issue, and have so far been unable to get an explanation, though I’m told nothing has changed, and it’s likely something specific to my own account.

    When the feature works though, it really is helpful on a daily basis.

    What other Google services would you like to see implemented in this feature?

  • Google Is Struggling With Long Queries

    Google is currently unable to process search queries past a certain length. If you reach that threshold, you’ll be greeted by a 414 error, with the message, “The requested URL/… is too large to process. That’s all we know.”

    Search Engine Roundtable reported on the issue after noticing a Google Web Search Help forum thread. Google addressed the issue in the thread, saying, “Thanks for reporting this issue. We’re aware that this has been happening and are working on a solution.”

    I”m not sure what the exact character count is, but I tried pasting in a paragraph of text, and it worked fine. Two paragraphs, however, were too much.

    Why would you want to search for such a long query? Well, it is a good way to see all of the other sites who are scraping an article or straight up plagiarizing it.

    It doesn’t appear to make a difference in what international Google site you use. The error occurs regardless.

  • Google Finance Gets 3 New Stock Exchanges, VIX Index

    Google Finance Gets 3 New Stock Exchanges, VIX Index

    Google announced today that it has added three new stock exchanges to Google Finance, which will make some followers of international markets happy. Google has added Singapore, Korea and Israel stock exchanges, as well as the Chicago Board of Exchange index values (VIX).

    Google Finance

    “Even better, Singapore Exchange stock market data is available in real time,” says product manager Karolina Netolicka. “This is the first time Singapore Exchange has provided real time data to an open website, and we’re proud to be the first website to do so.”

    You can find the full list of exchanges, mutual funds and indexes that Google Finance includes here.

  • Are These Google’s Ranking Signals For Google News?

    Computerworld has a new report out about an old patent of Google’s that is drawing some attention. It looks at ways Google might be ranking content in Google News, which is not only helpful for all publications trying to gain eyeballs from the aggregator, but interesting in light of how Google is dealing with unhappy publishers around the world.

    Does Google News do a good job of ranking content as it should be ranked? Does it favor certain publications too much? Tell us what you think.

    Computerworld reports that the application was filed a year ago, and published in July, but patent analyst Bill Slawki points out that the updated version of the patent from 2003 gets rid of some of the old media ideals.

    Note: We’ve updated as Slawski has pointed this out.

    The patent describes a number of metrics, listed as: the number of articles produced by the news source during a given time period, an average length of an article from the news source, the importance of coverage from the news source, a breaking news score, usage pattern, human opinion, circulation statistics, the size of the staff associated with the news source, the number of news bureaus associated with the news source, the number of original named entities the source news produces within a cluster of articles, the breath of coverage, international diversity, writing style, and the like.

    Slawki notes:

    In February of 2012, a new version of the Google patent was published as a pending application. (A second version was granted in 2012). The third version has the same name as the first version, and it has substantially the same description section as the first version. What’s different is the “claims” section. The claims section of the new version of the patent starts off with:

    1-31. (canceled)

    Gone are things like the “circulation statistics of the news source,” the “number of bureaus associated with the news source,” and other things associated with the kind of journalism that’s done in print.

    Either way, the signals listed are worth taking a look at.

    Now, it’s important to note that just because these are listed as such in the patent, it does not mean that this is the exact recipe to Google’s secret News sauce (which is separate from Google web search). Still, it does tell you some of the stuff Google might be thinking about when it comes to news stories. And of course, ranking in Google News can also put you in regular Google web results for hot news items, via Universal Search.

    It’s hard to say how much weight any one signal would be given, and that would likely fluctuate, anyway, based on the strength of the remaining signals, and an on article-by-article basis.

    The article length metric is painted as a valid one in the Computerworld article, but I wonder how much weight that really should be given. Certainly it depends on the content of any particular article. Additional length does not always make a story better. Sometimes it’s simply added fluff. More text from one source may not be as relevant as less text from the right source.

    Here’s what the patent says about that particular metric (labeled as the “second metric”):

    The average length may be measured, for example, in words or sentences. In one implementation consistent with the principles of the invention, the second metric may be determined by determining the average length of non-duplicate articles produced by the news source. For example, it may be determined that the average length of an article from CNN is 300 words, while the average article length from Amateur News Network is 150 words. Therefore, the value of the second metric for CNN may be 300 and for Amateur News Network may be 150.

    So, based on that description, it would seem that adding additional text to articles regularly, even when it is not needed, would help one better compete with CNN for rankings. Of course, even assuming Google’s secret sauce is comprised of these metrics alone (and remember, “and the like” is listed with the metrics, leading one to believe there are more things Google is looking at), there’s always the chance other signals will be used more strongly in some cases.

    Google does like stories to have substance though. If nothing else, the Panda update taught the web as much. Still, as I discussed with ChaCha CEO (and Panda victim) Scott Jones recently, sometimes a quick answer is really better for the user. It really just depends on the case.

    I wonder how valid the “number of articles produced by the news source during a given time period” metric is too. If given too much weight, one could see this signal easily burying an original source, which could come from anywhere. It wouldn’t serve the niche blog (which might have a great deal more authority on a subject than a big news outlet like CNN) very well when it covers something first (because it is focused on said niche), if the story is later picked up by said big news outlet.

    As Slawki points out, he pretty much made this case about the patent years ago.

    This could, however, be offset by the “importance of coverage from the news source” metric, which appears to basically be how many articles a publication produces on a particular subject. For example, a publication writing 500 articles on the crash of the Columbia Shuttle (example given in patent) should rank better for this particular metric than a publication who only put out 10 articles about it. Depending on the story, this could actually benefit the industry-focused niche blog. Again, it comes down to how Google is weighing these signals against one another.

    Google’s Matt Cutts recently put out a video discussing news stories – specifically whether it”s better to use one article or multiple articles for developing stories. I’m not sure you could call his take on the subject the definitive answer to such a question, but he seems to prefer the one-page route. Interestingly, this seems almost contrary to the signal described above. Of course, one could see how such a metric could be ripe for abuse, but that all depends on how Google is able to fight this kind of spam. I’d still recommend only writing relevant articles, and not just blasting out a bunch of useless stories about a subject.

    You can see further description of each of the metrics by reading the patent here. Scroll down to the “Exemplary Processing” section.

    Google recently launched a new News Keywords meta tag to give it an additional signal for ranking news content. This simply allows publications to include keywords they want their stories to be associated with, making the importance of having such keywords in a title a little less important. At least that’s how Google portrayed the addition.

    Do you think Google is currently doing a good job of getting the right stories in front of users? Do you often see examples of where Google is getting it wrong? Let us know in the comments.

  • Major UK Flowers Site Interflora Gets Slapped By Google

    Update: While Google hasn’t named Interflora, the company seems to have confirmed the situation with an out of the blue post about paid links on Google’s Webmaster Central blog today. There’s nothing new. It’s just Matt Cutts reminding everybody that Google “takes this issue very seriously”. Here’s a sample:

    Please be wary if someone approaches you and wants to pay you for links or “advertorial” pages on your site that pass PageRank. Selling links (or entire advertorial pages with embedded links) that pass PageRank violates our quality guidelines, and Google does take action on such violations. The consequences for a linkselling site start with losing trust in Google’s search results, as well as reduction of the site’s visible PageRank in the Google Toolbar. The consequences can also include lower rankings for that site in Google’s search results.

    It appears that Interflora, a major flower-seller in the UK, has been hit by manual action from Google, after participating in link buying from newspaper sites.

    Anthony Shapley at Dave Naylor’s blog has the breakdown of what he believes to have happened, as the site no longer ranks for keywords it used to, including its own name. He shares a table of over 50 newspapers sites who had their PageRank reduced after Inteflora made a big advertising push ahead of Valentine’s Day.

    Search Engine Land shares the following statement fro Google:

    We typically don’t comment on whether we’ve taken corrective webspam action regarding specific companies.

    As Barry Schwartz at that blog notes, Google has commented on similar stories in the past, like when they related to JC Penney’s, Forbes, and Overstock.

    Shapley says he is confident in his explanation, but Interflora has not commented, and if Google won’t, we may not see an official word on this, but rest assured, if Google catches you doing paid links they will punish you.

    At least Interflora will get some new brand recognition out of the whole thing. It seems unlikely that they won’t make their way back into the rankings after a while. Google managed to get its Chrome landing page back in the rankings after penalizing it.

  • Yahoo Is Not Pleased With Its Microsoft Search Deal

    That big Yahoo Microsoft search deal is not working as well as Yahoo would like.

    Do you think Yahoo will sever its ties with Microsoft prematurely? Do you think it should? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    CEO Marissa Mayer made comments at the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday expressing disappointment with the deal. Reuters quotes her:

    “One of the points of the alliance is that we collectively want to grow share rather than just trading share with each other…”

    “We need to see monetization working better because we know that it can and we’ve seen other competitors in the space illustrate how well it can work.”

    Rumors have existed for quite some time, that Yahoo and Microsoft could kill their search deal early, but we’ve heard nothing substantial enough to suggest this is going to happen. However, Yahoo seems to be getting increasingly impatient.

    Yahoo is a different company than it was when it made the deal with Microsoft. Marissa Mayer is the fifth person to hold the CEO position while the deal has been in place (granted, two of them were interim CEOs). It was announced under Carol Bartz, and has gone through leadership from Tim Morse, Scott Thompson, Ross Levinsohn, and finally Mayer.

    Mayer is, of course, a former Googler, and has brought other former Googlers along for the ride. Since Mayer has been at Yahoo, the company seems to be closer with Google than any other time in recent memory. In fact, last week, Yahoo announced a new partnership with Google (non-exclusive) for contextual ads, which will see Yahoo displaying contextual display ads from Google on various Yahoo properties and “certain co-branded sites” using Google’s AdSense for Content and AdMob advertising offerings.

    “By adding Google to our list of world-class contextual ads partners, we’ll be able to expand our network, which means we can serve users with ads that are even more meaningful,” said Yahoo in its announcement. “For our users, there won’t be a noticeable difference in how or where ads appear. More options simply mean greater flexibility. We look forward to working with all of our contextual ads partners to ensure we’re delivering the right ad to the right user at the right time.”

    We asked Microsoft’s Stefan Weitz about Google and Yahoo’s partnership last week, when we spoke with him about Microsoft’s new “Scroogled” campaign. The only comment he offered on the subject, was “I’d say I wonder how Google is using the content [of] your private communications in Gmail to serve ads in other places.”

    Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt recently expressed interest in partnering with Yahoo, years after the two companies tried to partner on a similar search deal to what Yahoo has with Microsoft. The partnership never happened thanks to the threat of regulation, so Yahoo settled for Bing, which regulators did not have a problem with.

    Since all of that, Google has cleared some significant regulatory hurdles (though it faces others). Last month, the company settled with the Federal Trade Commission, which found that Google’s search practices did not violate antitrust law.

    A couple weeks ago, Yahoo released its earnings report for Q4 and the full year 2012. The report was better than many analysts had expected, and this was helped significantly by better-than-expected search performance. Mayer made some comments during the company’s earnings call, indicating that search is a major priority at Yahoo. Wired quoted her:

    “Overall in search, it’s a key area of investment for us,” Mayer said. “We need to invest in a lot of interface improvements. All of the innovations in search are going to happen at the user interface level moving forward and we need to invest in those features both on the desktop and on mobile and I think both ultimately will be key plays for us.”

    “We have a big investment we want to make and a big push on search. We have lost some share in recent years and we’d like to regain some of that share and we have some ideas as to how.”

    It was interesting to see this emphasis put on search, but still on the front end, which would seem to imply that Yahoo is happy to continue outsourcing the back end. It makes you wonder what Mayer’s thinking, particularly if she’s not happy with the Microsoft/Yahoo deal performance.

    Last week, reports emerged that Russian search engine Yandex has surpassed Bing in global search queries, though as Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land notes, Bing is still well head of Yandex in unique searchers.

    Recent research from RKG has indicated that the Yahoo Bing Network continues to take away market share from Google, as Bing recently pointed out to us, noting that Bing Ads have gained paid search spend share from Google four quarters in a row.

    Obviously it’s not benefiting Yahoo to the extent the company would like.

    Microsoft did tell us about some new ad formats that it will be launching this year, such as Google-like product listing ads and click-to-call ads with Skype integration. Both formats have proven popular with Google advertisers, and the Yahoo Bing Network continues to strive to emulate Google’s success.

    David Pann, GM of Microsoft’s Search Network tells us that advertisers come over to the Yahoo Bing Network with the mentality of “It performs well over there [Google], so it will here too.”

    Will Yahoo and Microsoft’s Search Alliance stay in place? How long will Yahoo remain patient?

    This is not the first time we’ve seen Yahoo speak publicly about dissatisfaction with Microsoft in recent memory. Regarding IE 10’s “Do Not Track” default, Yahoo recently slammed Microsoft saying that the company’s move “degrades the experience for the majority of users and makes it hard to deliver our value proposition to them.”

    That was not an off the cuff remark. That was an official blog post.

    At the conference, Mayer also reportedly made comments expressing an interest in strengthening Yahoo’s relationship with Facebook (a big partner of Bing’s). Bloomberg reports that Mayer said she plans to focus on mobile apps and strengthening ties with Facebook to “bolster turnaround efforts at the biggest U.S. web portal.” Brian Womack and Peter Burrows quote her:

    “A lot of the strengths of Facebook are available to Yahoo users,” Mayer said yesterday at an investor conference in San Francisco hosted by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. “That’s something we want to build upon. We have a real commitment to bringing valuable content to our users.”

    …

    Enhancing social features is crucial to Yahoo’s success, Mayer said, as she reinforced her preference to partner with companies like Google, Apple Inc. and Facebook rather than build expensive new products.

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he would “love” to work with Google at a recent company press event, though he indicated that those two companies aren’t really on speaking terms. He did, however, also say, ““We want to work with any company as long as they’ll honor the privacy of the folks on Facebook.” (as quoted by The Verge).

    On Wednesday, Yahoo announced that it has expanded its display advertising partnership with Microsoft and AOL into Canada.

    Do you think a Yahoo search partnership with Google would be good for users? For advertisers? Could the deal that the companies backed out of a few years ago work in the future? Is Yahoo better off sticking with Microsoft? We’d love to hear what you think about it.

    Image: Google Talks Archive (YouTube)

  • Edward Gorey Google Doodle Celebrates Eccentric Artist

    Edward Gorey, who enjoyed a wonderful career as the artist of several dark little characters–and cats–is being celebrated with a Google Doodle in honor of what would have been his 88th birthday.

    Having written/illustrated more than 100 books, Gorey found a loyal following over the years for his use of pen-and-ink sketches, which often included cats, Victorian-era characters, and doomed children. His illustrations were often tinged with dark humor and have been noted as inspiration for countless creative people, including musicians Nine Inch Nails and writer Caitlin R. Kiernan. He himself was inspired by many varied expressions of art and once said that “Batman: The Animated Series” had a profound influence on his work at one point in time.

    Although children played a rather large part in his work, Gorey was unmarried and had none of his own, and expressed no interest in starting a family. In fact, his sexuality often came into question and was swiftly avoided most of the time. It’s reported that he did address it a few times, however, such as in an interview where he said, “I’m neither one thing nor the other particularly. I am fortunate in that I am apparently reasonably undersexed or something … I’ve never said that I was gay and I’ve never said that I wasn’t … what I’m trying to say is that I am a person before I am anything else.” He also spoke briefly about his orientation in the book “The Strange Case Of Edward Gorey”.

    Gorey illustrated books for other authors, as well; the work he did for late writer John Bellairs is haunting and lovely, evoking images of spooky mansions and the sense of dark mystery that pervaded all of Bellairs’ work.

    Several years ago it was announced that Gorey’s book “The Doubtful Guest” would be put into production for a film, but according to IMDB there’s very little information about it. There is, however, a release date of November 15th, 2013.

    The Gorey Doodle will be available in the U.S. tomorrow, February 22nd.

    Images: Wikimedia Commons, TagandStation.com

    edward gorey

    edward gorey

    edward gorey

    edward gorey

  • Bing Launches Sitemap Plugin (Beta)

    Bing announced the launch of a public beta program for the Bing Sitemap Plugin, an open source server-side offering, which generates XML Sitemaps (compliant with sitemaps.org) for sites running on IIS and Apache.

    The plugin can generate both comprehensive sitemaps of all URLs seen in server traffic and sitemaps dedicated to store URLs that have changed recently.

    “Having both comprehensive and delta Sitemaps provides you with significant benefits, as you will always have a full, up-to-date list of all URLs on your website that search engines can use for deep crawl, as well as a concise Sitemap of URLs that were modified recently, which search engine crawlers can prioritize,” says Bing’s Duane Forrester. “This can help in keeping bot traffic bandwidth down. In addition, the Sitemap Plugin automatically adds <lastmod> values to your Sitemap, and generates <priority> values to the Sitemap based on how popular your URLs are.”

    “SEO is a complex and ever changing area but there are some key elements that are still as relevant now as they were a few years ago,” he says. “One of them is building high-quality XML Sitemaps, a comprehensive and accurate representation of your website. That way, you keep control of what you want search engines to index in order of priority and you inform them of new or updated content on your website.”

    More on the plugin here. It can be downloaded here.

    Bing Sitemap Plugin

  • Facebook Adds Search Results Tab To App Insights

    Over the past few months, Facebook has added a number of metrics to App Insights. It’s invaluable data that allows developers to analyze where traffic is coming from, and where they can capitalize on said traffic. Now Facebook is adding a new metric that may prove very important as Graph Search gets into the hands of more people.

    Facebook announced that it’s adding a Search Results tab to App Insights. In essence, this new metric will tell developers how many people found their app through the search bar. The metrics will tell developers how many clicks were organic and paid. It will also tell you if a user clicked on the app from the search bar, and whether or not they found your app via Graph Search. Insights doesn’t cover clicks from mobile of the search results page yet.

    Another change coming to the Facebook platform is an extension of Realtime Updates for the Graph API to include Page posts. Facebook says this change will automatically notify you of any comments or posts on a Page without having to constantly poll said Page. You can read more about it in the documentation.

    The final change this week is an update to Facebook’s Platform policies. The new change comes from the branding section, and requires all “app descriptions, display names and icons adhere to [Facebook’s] Advertising Guidelines.” You can read more about that here.

    Facebook says it received 241 bug reports this week, and 38 were accepted for further review. The social network also fixed 30 bugs over the past week. You can see the full list at the weekly blog post.

  • Arrestees Have the Right to Google Lawyers, Says Canadian Court

    An Alberta, Canada court has handed down an interesting ruling regarding detainees’ rights and how they run up against the modern world.

    According to the ruling, police must provide the accused access to the internet so that they can initiate a Google (or Bing, I guess) search for legal counsel.

    The case in question involved a 19-year-old man who was detained for possible driving under the influence. Since his cellphone was already in lockup, police offered him the phone at the station as well as the local Yellow Pages.

    Also available to Christopher McKay was the 411 directory assistance, but according to court documents he didn’t even consider it a “viable search engine.” The court asked McKay how he would have found legal counsel if given the choice, and he said Google.

    The court agreed that he should have been given access to a computer with internet access to aid in his lawyer search.

    “The Crown says that the police do not have any duty in law to provide access to the internet for detainees when there is no specific request to access the internet. The Court disagrees. In particular case, the accused was actually directed to use the toll free number and he did so in ignorance of the potential to use other resources with which he might have been more familiar. In the Court’s view, in the year 2013 police providing access to the internet is part of a detainee’s reasonable opportunity to contact legal counsel. This is so even whether counsel of choice is not an issue and the accused is simply seeking general information from a source such as Google,” said the court.

    The court showed that a quick Google search for “Calgary criminal defense lawyers” turned up plenty of viable options, and even came to the wild conclusion that the information of Google may even be more up-to-date and helpful than the information contained in the Yellow Pages or the like.

    The court also noted that police are now routinely using the internet in order to assist with their investigations, so it stands to reason that they should provide the accused access to the internet to find a lawyer.

    Basically, it boils down to the fact that plenty of young people have no idea what the hell 411 is, and Google is how they find information in their daily lives.

    “There are sufficient numbers of individuals born post computer age who have no understanding of the paper world who have extensive knowledge and understanding of the virtual world,” said the court. “These individuals must be accommodated and the only way to do that is to ensure that detainees under arrest be given the opportunity to use the internet to call a lawyer in the same way that they can use a telephone book to call a lawyer.”

    [via The Star]