Bing announced that it’s rolling out some updates to its UK site, including some design tweaks, speed adjustments, and some changes that have improved relevance.
The design adjustments allow for the homepage image to be displayed larger (as seen above). Bing users often cite the homepage images as one of the more pleasing elements of using the search engine. Now, the UK version essentially matches the US version.
“In addition the results themselves are cleaner. Removing the information on the left of the page and minimising the header raises the level of consistency and predictability while making it easier for you to scan the page and quickly find the information you want,” said Bing’s UK Team on a company blog. “Increasing the space between lines improves readability and optimises the page for touch devices.”
“The new experience is more than skin-deep. You will also notice faster page-load times and improved relevance under the hood,” the team added. “After all, Bing’s goal is to help you spend less time searching and more time doing. Changing how Bing looks is the next big step in doing just that.”
Do you think Bing’s search results have improved?
A couple months ago, Microsoft revealed “The New Bing,” as a completely redesigned social search interface in the U.S. No sign of that in the UK so far.
Google announced that it is now offering the Search As You Type feature from Google Commerce Search as a standalone product. AdWords advertisers now have access to a free pilot.
The feature uses Google’s search suggestions and instant product results for merchants’ site search features.
“Great search is all about turning intentions into actions in the blink of an eye,” says Google Shopping Product Management Director Jennifer Dulski. “And in online retail, having a quick and user-friendly website can make a world of difference when it comes to engaging shoppers and driving sales.”
“It’s easy to implement and helps increase sales and conversion rates on merchant websites,” says Dulski of the feature.
The pilot is available to AdWords advertisers in the US, for free for up to 25 million searches a year. Beyond that, you have to pay.
Google announced that it has added indoor maps and walking directions for 20 museums in the U.S. to Google Maps for Android on phones and tablets.
“In the past, navigating through museums could be an art form in and of itself. But Google Maps for Android has got wayfinding inside your favorite museums down to a science,” says Google’s Cedric Dupont. “With indoor maps and walking directions for U.S. museums now available on your Android phone or tablet, you can plan your route from exhibit to exhibit, identifying points of interest along the way, including between floors.”
The new inclusions are:
American Museum of Natural History
Anacostia Community Museum
Arthur M. Sackler Gallery
Cincinnati Museum Center
Freer Gallery of Art
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Indianapolis Museum of Art
National Air and Space Museum, National Mall Building
National Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center
National Museum of African Art
National Museum of American History
National Museum of the American Indian
National Museum of the American Indian, George Gustav Heye Center
National Museum of Natural History
National Portrait Gallery
National Postal Museum
National Zoological Park
Renwick Gallery
S. Dillon Ripley Center
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Smithsonian Institution Building (“The Castle”)
The deYoung Museum
Users can access the maps by opening Google Maps on your device, and zooming in on the museum.
Google says more museums will get indoor maps soon, including: including the SFMOMA, The Phillips Collection, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and the National WWII Museum in New Orleans.
The search industry has witnessed multiple changes over the past couple of years. Among the most notable changes are social, mobile, and local being integrated into search results. While each of these play a big role in the search evolution that has occurred, I think it’s fair to say that social tops the list.
How has social media influenced your search experience? Do you prefer its integration, or would you rather have the “old search” model back? Let us know.
The influx of Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and now players such as Pinterest has all dramatically impacted how users search. With Google as the dominant search engine, it has obviously pushed its social endeavors aggressively to become the leader in both sectors. After Larry Page became Google’s CEO, reports circulated that he was tying all employees’ bonuses to the success of Google’s social strategy.
What’s more, in a recent interview with Charlie Rose, when asked if he was concerned about Facebook’s competition in search, Page answered with: “It’s something that we take seriously just like we do social media.”
According to Grant Simmons, the Director of SEO and Social Product at The Search Agency, Google has been worried for some time about competition, especially in social. Although the latest statistics show that Google+ has over 100 million users, it’s clear that it is not gaining the same traction that Facebook did.
In addition, Google has made some drastic moves including Search Plus Your World and the recent launch of its Knowledge Graph, both of which are designed to improve users’ search experience by making it simpler, personal, and more social. Interestingly though, as Simmons pointed out to us, these recent announcements from Google are similar to products from other companies, AKA competitors.
He told us that Google has rolled out lots of “me too” announcements and that it is “trying to differentiate itself by copying.”
“The Knowledge Graph is certainly to address some of that,” he went on to say, “but I think also, it’s more like to them looking forward to how they can get Google to be more sticky and also more competitive.”
The push, however, of Google’s social products into search has not exactly set well with users or the search industry as a whole. Although the tone could change and users might begin to find Google’s products useful, it could also turn users away.
“With the alternative search engines whether it’s social search or whether it’s media search or whether it’s just mobile search, I think that Google is a little bit concerned,” explained Simmons,” and tying in their 400-500 million users into search results makes sense, it’s just whether users will get a little bit overcome by Google products always being pushed; or, whether it’s gonna be something they adopt because it’s useful to them.”
When talking about social and the possibilities of a search engine though, one can’t rule out Facebook. At this point, Bing powers the search function on Facebook, but given the social giant’s wide range of data, it’s likely got something up its own sleeve in the search department.
“I think Facebook has to get into some type of search leveraging the data they have,” said Simmons. “They’re already working on it, I’m sure.”
But, as Jessica Lee of The Search Agency pointed out on GigaOM, Facebook can’t exactly compete with Google’s more than 8.6 billion indexed pages. Simmons believes Facebook will use its “Like” system, Open Graph, user profiles, and other data it has acquired toward its search curation product.
“What they do have is they have a core or a connection between lots of pages that have likes on them,” he said. “They have, within Facebook, an understanding of what you do like from a page standpoint, what your connections are, what you talk about within Faceboook, and I think by leveraging that data, they can get a pretty good understanding of what you’re looking for, what you like, [and] what you might connect with on a more relevant basis.”
He sees Facebook’s partnership with Bing continuing at least in the short-term, since both parties benefit. In addition, it addresses Google’s integration with Google+ into its search results.
Incidentally, Danny Sullivan in a piece on Search Engine Land in April expressed his doubt for Facebook starting a search engine:
I’ve been asked a lot recently about whether I believe Facebook will create its own search engine, because the rumors that never die have startedagain. I don’t, not a web-wide one.
Among other reasons, I think Facebook won’t because it understands that doing social right, when you’re at the scale Facebook handles, is ensuring that people discover what’s interesting to them rather than having to search for it.
Social = discovery, a kissing cousin of search, but not the same. And social is what Facebook is focused on. That’s plenty to chew on. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said as much repeatedly, such as to Charlie Rose last year, about wanting to do “one thing incredibly well.” That means continuing to perfect social.
Twitter has also been mentioned in the talks of social search engines, but according to Simmons, it already has “robust search,” but it is challenged by a struggling business model.
Going forward, it’s essentially inevitable that social search will play an even greater role in the game of search. The winner, however, is yet to be determined.
Simmons did tell us that SEOs needed to begin thinking about social search and where their audiences are. Most importantly, he believes that brands need to understand that there are different venues and that their audiences will likely need to be approached in different ways.
“We talk about The Search Agency Search Anywhere Optimization or Search Everywhere Optimization as the new SEO, and it really is about where people are searching and where they’re searching and niche-type stuff,” he said.
“The single search venue as the solution to social search probably won’t happen,” he continued. “It’s gonna be more about these connections, affiliations, [and] associations that make sense to me as an individual as opposed to just a personalized search engine like Google.”
How do envision the future of social search? Do you see Google or Facebook playing a role, or could it be a completely different player? We’d love to hear your thoughts.
If you’ve ever used Twitter’s search engine, you know it can be a little hit-and-miss. It usually returns good results – especially if you’ve got a specific hashtag or trending topic in mind. Sometimes, though, finding a tweets on a topic that you want is a little tricky. That may be about to change.
Last night Pankaj Gupta, head of Twitter’s Personalization and Recommender Systems Group, tweeted that big changes would be coming to Twitter’s search and discovery today. He congratulated the team responsible for the change and suggested they “enjoy the enormity” of the changes:
There’s no indication of exactly what these changes will involve or when they’ll go live, but clearly they’re pretty major. We’ll update you once more information is available.
Google is looking to change the future of search by making it less relevant. It’s a pretty bold move, considering that search is Google’s bread and butter. With Google Now, Google wants to give you the information you need before you even have to search for it. Some find the new feature, announced last week at Google I/O, fascinating, and potentially very helpful, while others are a little creeped out by it, and have concerns about the privacy implications. Others simply aren’t keen on the idea of Google making their decisions for them in this manner.
“Google Now gets you just the right information at just the right time,” Google says, explaining the new feature of Android, included as part of the operating system’s latest version, Jellybean. “It tells you today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, when the next train will arrive as you’re standing on the platform, or your favorite team’s score while they’re playing. And the best part? All of this happens automatically. Cards appear throughout the day at the moment you need them.”
That pretty much sums it up, but it seems clear that this is really just the beginning of something very big. It may only be offered for this one version of Android right now (though, apparently there are some work-arounds for that). That leaves out a whole lot of Google users, but there’s no way Google will not expand this. We can only speculate at this time, but I can see Google expanding this to the Web, Google TV, and even iOS devices via an app, should Apple allow it. It seems like too big a deal for Google not to get it in front of as many users as possible. Perhaps we’ll see it make its way to older versions of Android, but eventually more and more users will catch up to Jellybean, and future versions of Android anyway. It just may take a little while for that to happen.
If you haven’t seen it yet, here’s Google promo for Google Now:
Promo videos from Google aren’t always necessarily indicative of the actual product, as we’ve seen from Project Glass (granted, Google was clear about that not being a finished product). The Google Now vid looks to be a pretty accurate reflection of how it works though. Steve Kovach at Business Insider says Google Now puts Apple’s Siri to shame, citing some real life examples of where Google Now is living up to its promises.
“I was in San Francisco last week to cover Google I/O and meet with some other companies in the area,” he writes, for one. “I had a meeting in Mountain View on Friday morning. Google Now sent me a notification about 45 minutes before my meeting that said I should leave if I wanted to make it on time. It even took traffic into account. Incredible.”
“I’m a Mets fan (unfortunately), so a lot of my sports-related Google searches are for the score of the latest game,” he says. “Google knows this, so Google Now automatically sends me notifications with the latest score. I don’t even have to ask anymore.”
“I took the red eye back to New York Friday night, and spent the hours before my flight drinking with some PR friends in San Francisco’s Mission neighborhood. Based on my search history, Google Now already knew my flight number and kept me updated with gate information and potential delays,” he adds.
The company has been talking about this concept of getting users the info they need before they even know it, for years. That’s truly speeding up the search process, another concept Google has been pushing for years (and one in which Google has accomplished quite a bit with its Chrome browser).
Here are the cards it’s starting with (along with the data they access):
1. Traffic (Shown based on current location, location history and Web History)
2. Public Transit (Only shown if location services enabled)
3. Next Appointment (Shown based on synced calendars and current location)
4. Flights (Only shown if location services and Web History enabled)
5. Sports (Shown based on Web History)
6. Places (Only shown if location services enabled)
7. Weather (Only shown if location services enabled)
8. Translation (Only shown if location services enabled)
9. Currency (Only shown if location services enabled)
10. Time At Home (Only shown if location services enabled)
These cards (and any others that might come later) will mean users don’t have to search for quite as many things. If this works like it is supposed to, users will simply become less dependent on search (and perhaps more dependent on notifications). That appears to be fine with Google, as long as Google is still in the driver’s seat.
The fact is that this decreased dependence on search is happening anyway – with or without Google’s help. People are finding more ways to consume information that are sometimes more convenient, or simply more fun, particularly through mobile apps. Google is finding ways to combat this too. One example would be another new Android feature, which lets users find out what songs are playing, using a sound search app, rather than having to enter a text query into Google search (or, of course, use the popular app Shazam).
Here’s that in action:
About Those Privacy Concerns
As you can see from the list above, Google Now card features deliver info based on your current location, location history, web history, and calendar. You may recall earlier this year, when Google consolidated its privacy policies, and essentially made it so the company could easily pass user data from one Google product to the next, as if each product is merely a feature of the one large Google product. That is, by the way, the way Google seems to be approaching things in general (Google+, for example, isn’t just a standalone product, but the “social spine” of the larger Google, according to the company).
That privacy policy redux enables Google to tap into any Google products you might be using, and use what you’ve done there to change how you interact with other Google products. It also, as we can see from Google Now, enables the company to create all new products to make your overall Google experience much more personalized (and possibly better).
But, as you might imagine, this all gives some people an icky feeling.
“Google’s all-knowing Siri-esque personal assistant has confirmed some suspicions, veering from cool feature into creepy stalker territory,” writes Rebecca Greenfield for The Atlantic, for example.
Greenfield pulls another quote from The New York Times’ Jenna Wortham, who says, “It gets weird when Google starts to extend its reach into that territory, because Google already knows so much about us — things like who we e-mail and talk to the most, along with what we search for. When those smaller bits of data begin to get linked together in a more meaningful way, that knowledge can take on a larger, different context.”
Well, I’m going to have to pull a page from the whole early 2012 discussion about the privacy policy. You’re already letting Google have this data. Why not let Google use it in more meaningful ways that can make your life easier?
It’s very likely that Google Now will expand greatly in the coming months and years, and that may not only mean more “cards,” but potentially use of more data from more Google products you use. Do you have a problem with this? Let us know in the comments.
Google’s Matt Cutts recently downplayed the significance of social signals in search, compared to links. Search Marketing Expo uploaded a new video to YouTube, featuring a discussion between Cutts and moderator Danny Sullivan, in which he talks about the notion that social signals have replaced links. In short, while social signals may gain power in time, links are still pretty important.
“If you look at the library of congress, they say they have 151.4 million items,” says Cutts. “That’s roughly 34 million books, and if you convert that to just pure text like OCR, that’s something like ten terabytes. The web capture team at the library of congress says they have 235 terabytes. Now everybody in this room probably ought to be saying to themselves: 235 terabytes for the largest library in the world is not that much data. YouTube gets 72 hours of video uploaded every minute. So the web is the largest source of data we’ve ever seen before.”
“There’s more data being generated on the web, compared to any other source of data around the web, and I think, the fact is, a lot of people think, ‘Links are dying,’ or ‘Links are not a democracy,’ or ‘It’s impossible to get links that aren’t nofollow,’ or whatever,” says Cutts. “And the fact is, that’s a little bit of a bubble in my opinion, in the SEO industry, because if you look at the actual percentage of Nofollow links on the web, it’s a single digit percentage. In fact, it’s a pretty small single digit percentage. So there’s this perception that, ‘Yes, everything will go social,’ or ‘Links are completely obsolete,’ and I think it’s premature to reach that conclusion.”
“I don’t doubt that in ten years, things will be more social, and those will be more powerful signals, but I wouldn’t write the epitaph for links quite yet,” he adds.
You would think that social signals are pretty damn important, looking at Google’s results on any given day, if you’re using Search Plus Your World (and there’s a good chance you are, as it’s the default experience for signed in users). How often have you seen results appear simply because someone you’re connected to through Google+ has +1’d something?
I don’t necessarily think social is the best indicator of relevance, as I’ve discussed in the past, but I do believe they can carry a lot of weight, and perhaps more importantly, will help you diversify your traffic sources, and not have to depend on the search giant for so much of your traffic.
Methods, systems, and apparatus, including medium-encoded computer program products, for searching a data set and returning search results organized in a hierarchy of categories are disclosed. A set of categories is provided for organizing a set of search results, wherein each category is associated with one or more search results. The set of search results is organized into a hierarchy of categories, the hierarchy including at least one category from the set of categories. At least a portion of the hierarchy of categories is displayed and a user request to modify the hierarchy of categories is received. The hierarchy of categories is modified in accordance with the user request.
It sounds like a directory concept with controls that users can implement to affect the categorization of search results. It may really mean a more human-edited Wikipedia-like approach to search results, however.
Hat tip to Bill Slawski at SEO By The Sea for pointing out this patent, and providing some insight into what Google could do with it.
“When you perform that search for [jaguar], Google may show you a set of categories that you could click upon to choose a category,” explains Slawski. “If you don’t see one you like, Google may also provide a chance for you to add a category. The category that you add might be a personalized result that only you might see. If enough people add a particular category, it might possibly be added to the categories that others see as well.”
“Each category might be associated with one or more search results,” he explains. “The categories may also be organized into a hierarchy of categories. For example, there might a ‘sports’ category associated with the word [jaguar], and that could include the NFL football team, as well as the racing team, and a large number of other teams with the name Jaguar or Jaguars. There may be lower level ‘sports’ categories such as ‘football,’ ‘racing,’ ‘lacrosse,’ and others. A searcher might not only be able to add categories, but also have the ability to modify this hierarchy of categories.”
Users could associate sites with specific categories, or add/remove categories, and there could be a browser add-on element, which would let users make edits to the system from different sites.
As Slawski points out, there is a wiki-like element to the system. The patent says, “A user can re-sort, filter, or display a set of search results organized into a hierarchy of categories and do so on a category-by-category basis. Indeed, the user can modify and customize the categories as well as expand the body of search results associated with the categories, so as to make the operation of a category-based search engine more robust. In addition, user feedback data can be provided related to the content and function of the search engine, adding a wiki-type element of intelligence and content to a category-based search engine.”
Of course there’s no telling if this patent contains any clues to any strategy that Google is currently working on implementing. It was filed in 2008, and a lot has changed in search since then.
The description in the patent wouldn’t be the first time we’ve seen users control things that appear in their search results.
Stefan Weitz, Microsoft’s Director of Search, gave a TED Talk, which TED recently uploaded. The topic of his talk is “how you can win when you’re not supposed to”.
“You need some kind of argument you can use to justify this existence,” he says.
This wasn’t a direct reference to Bing’s existence, but it does bring back some memories about Microsoft’s launch of a new search engine not that long ago (when it already had one at live.com).
Here’s what the description says about Weitz:
Stefan Weitz is the Director of Search at Microsoft and is charged with working with people and organizations across the industry to promote and improve Search technologies. While focused on Microsoft’s product line, he works across the industry to understand searcher behavior and in his role as an evangelist for Search, gathers and distills feedback to drive product improvements. Prior to Search, Stefan led the strategy to develop the next generation MSN portal platform and developed Microsoft’s muni WiFi strategy, leading the charge to blanket free WiFi access across metropolitan cities. A 12-year Microsoft veteran, he has worked in various groups including Windows Server, Security, and IT. Stefan is a huge gadget ‘junkie’ and can often be found in electronics shops across the world looking for the elusive perfect piece of tech.
If your’e a fan of either Bing or TED Talks in general, give it a watch. While you’re at it, why not watch a few interviews we’ve done with Weitz over the past few years:
The idea of a visual dictionary isn’t new. Hell, I can still remember exactly how my first dictionary looked, felt, and even smelled. It was a kid’s dictionary and contained a lot of pictures – enough to help a young, aspiring word nerd.
But this visual dictionary may not be suitable for kids – that’s because the images that comprise it come from the interwebs.
Designers Ben West and Felix Hayes have created “Google,” which is the world’s first dictionary that uses imaged pulled directly from Google image search.
“If the internet goes off, you may need this reference book Felix and I made,” says West on his site. “It contains the first Google Image for every word in the dictionary.”
Yep, all 21,000+ of them. The dictionary comes in at a staggering 1240 pages of internet images, all selected because they were lucky enough to be result numero uno in a simply Google search.
“We used two PHP scripts my brother Sam wrote for us,” said West in a statement to Creative Applications. “The first one takes a text list of dictionary words and downloads each image in sequence, and the second lays them out into columns and outputs a PDF.”
Apart from any sort of functional uses to the Google Images-baed dictionary, is it an artistic statement? Is it just a curiosity? One thing it is for sure is an incredibly interesting look into Google Image search and just how accurate that first picture really is.
For instance, a quick search of about ten tangible items like “fork” and “mint” produced great results. The first image that popped up was about the best physical descriptor of the word in question. Score one for functionality.
But searches for less tangible, more abstract words produce a mixed bag of images. Start searching emotions and heady verbs and some fo the first images can be a tad misleading. Or maybe just non-specific. The point is, the “Google” book will be pretty abstract at times, to say the least.
Ryan Satterfield at Planet Zuda posted an article about Google exposing private info by indexing other sites’ databases, which he says includes social security numbers and credit card numbers.
“If you’ve given a site your credit card number or social security number, then there is a very high chance it is in Google search,” he writes. “This information is very easy for anyone to find, especially for cyber-criminals because Google has made it so anyone can do a Google search with the words filetype: and then the extension for ‘virtual notebooks’.”
Satterfield adds, “I contacted Google immediately when I discovered this problem believing that they would want to fix it. I was wrong. They were fully aware that people can find your info, but they feel that they can’t stop it, nor is it their job to ‘censor or curate’ their results unless they are required to do so by law. They said that it is the webmasters job to hide any information that shouldn’t be seen.”
He shares what he says is an email response he received from Google, which says:
Hi Ryan,
Thank you for your report, I apologize it was not answered sooner. We do not consider these searches (commonly called “google dorks”) to be a security risk that we can control. The amount and variety of information that is indexed on the internet precludes any sort of blacklisting system where certain information is removed. Additionally it is Google/s long standing policy to not censor or curate our results except where required by law (such requests can be viewed at http://www.chillingeffects.com).
The best way to remove these results is for the affected website owners to remove the content from their website (or restrict access via robots.txt or another mechanism) and then submit a request for the content to be removed from the Google Cache.
Regards,
Kevin
The Google Security Team
Planet Zuda brought the subject up with Google’s Matt Cutts on Twitter. Here is the exchange they had:
Alternative search engine blekko announced today that it has integrated new crawl technology to power its search index, and is now claiming to offer more comprehensive, real time updates to its SEO pages. This, a representative for the company tells WebProNews, is “transparent data that no other search engine offers for free.”
“Blekko is now one of only a handful of search companies that has more than 4 billion pages indexed and crawls more than 100 million pages daily, with top sites being indexed hourly,” the representative says.
Blekko shared the following graphic with us:
“When it comes to pages crawled, the sweet spot for blekko is a little more than 4 billion pages and we update at least 100 million pages each day,” says blekko’s director of engineering, Robert Saliba. “As soon as our crawler, Scoutjet, crawls a webpage, users have access to information about it through blekko’s SEO product. We want to allow people to see the Internet the way a search engine sees it, especially what the rest of the internet is saying about an url.”
“Scoutjet updates the top ranked starting pages on the Internet around every hour, while other high quality pages are checked at least every week,” he explains. “The continuous updates to blekko’s SEO data include page content, meta data, duplicate text, and inbound link counts. Since staying up-to-date is as much about forgetting the old as finding the new, inbound links that are no longer live and duplicate content that is no longer available disappear.”
Saliba says blekko is bringing more machines into the service, since traffic continues to “grow rapidly”.
Blekko says it is is getting over 5.5 million unique monthly visitors (a 500% increase over the beginning of the year) and over 100 million queries per month.
A Google spokesperson tells WebProNews, “Consumers benefit from clear labeling in search results, and we have always clearly disclosed which links are paid advertisements. That said, not all search engines clearly disclose paid results, so we would support a fresh look by the FTC at search labeling and transparency practices.”
Though Google’s competitors are often eager to see scrutiny brought to Google, it’s not as clear if some of these same competitors are so eager to see such scrutiny brought to the entire industry.
When asked if they would support such a review from the FTC, Expedia and Orbitz, for example, did not return our request for comment. Microsoft, on the other hand, did return our request for comment, by saying, “No Comment.”
Sullivan had made points about Google not disclosing sponsored results on some of its vertical engines, even if such results came with the “sponsored” label, when appearing on Google’s main search product. For example, one might use Google’s Hotel Finder, but not necessarily know when a result was paid for. Sullivan also made the suggestion that there is an issue regarding device manufacturers who have accepted money from Google to select the search engine as its default, and how they should disclose this to customers.
As he pointed out in his letter to the FTC, there are plenty of similar issues among Google’s competitors.
I head a small law firm in Washington, D.C., where I advise technology companies, including Google, on public policy issues. As an advocate for open Internet rules, I’ve spent many years working on network neutrality issues, and I also took part in the SOPA and PIPA debates, as one of the opponents of unfocused copyright laws.
While advising Google on the FTC’s antitrust investigation, I have noticed an odd pattern: the companies complaining about Google’s actions all commit the same exact actions they complain about. If Google’s actions harm consumers, then so do its competitors. The competitors complain about some things that are not even a problem (such as using snippets of text in a search result) and other things that would be a problem if Google or any other company engaged in them (including deceiving users by mislabeling ads and search results).
Both Ammori and Sullivan talked about NexTag, who specifically made a point to call out Google in a Wall Street Journal op-ed, indicating that the company doesn’t disclose paid listings itself.
The point is, this is an industry-wide issue, and one that is not unique to Google, despite Google’s dominant market share, which already brings so much scrutiny to the search giant.
Just today, Google confirmed that it has offered a proposal to settle antitrust concerns from the European Commission. While we don’t know the details of the proposal yet, one has to wonder if Google is having to make changes to features that its competitors will continue to enjoy.
Update: Just to be clear, Google does not include Knowledge Graph results on Google Goggles results at this time, as a Google spokesperson confirmed for us.
A little over a year ago, Google came out with Search By Image for desktop search. It basically does for desktop search what Google Goggles does for mobile. It allows you to search the web based on an image, as opposed to text. Today, Google announced some improvements it has made to the feature.
First, in case you’re not familiar with Search By Image, here’s the promo video:
“Since its launch last year, people have been using Search by Image to do everything from tracking down the origins of old photographs to more exotic applications like search by drawing, recursive search by image, and creating photomosaics,” says software engineer Sean O’Malley in a post on Google’s Inside Search blog. “To continue making Search by Image more useful, almost every week we launch changes to the algorithms that power this feature.”
Google says it has made improvements to provide “best guesses” for more images more often, while making guesses more accurate.
“With the recent launch of the Knowledge Graph, Google is starting to understand the world the way people do,” says O’Malley. “Instead of treating webpages as strings of letters like ‘dog’ or ‘kitten,’ we can understand the concepts behind these words. Search by Image now uses the Knowledge Graph: if you search with an image that we’re able to recognize, you may see an extra panel of information along with your normal search results so you can learn more. This could be a biography of a famous person, information about a plant or animal, or much more.”
Chrome and Firefox users can simply drag images from Google’s Knowledge Graph Results to the search box, and start a new search, according to Google. We’ve been unable to actually make this happen so far. Perhaps the feature is rolling out. When we tried in Chrome, it displayed a “+” sign when we placed an image over the search box, but didn’t actually perform a search. When we tried in Firefox, it simply searched for the images’ URL’s, which was equally unhelpful. All of that said, it seems like a fairly useless feature anyway. The top Knowledge Graph image, should be what you searched for in the first place, and if there are additional ones, you should just be able to click on them to carry out a new search.
Google says it has also made improvements to freshness and expanded the index for Search By Image, so photos from the news can potentially be returned as results.
About a month ago, Google ran a doodle on its homepage, celebrating the anniversary of the opening of the first drive-in theater. It even came with a special, playable video:
Google irked some people with the doodle for choosing the opening of the first drive-in, as opposed to the anniversary of D-Day, which fell on the same day, but many were delighted with the memories of American tradition the doodle conjured up.
Today, I was interested to see a piece of content come through my Google Alerts, that carried the title: “Google Killed A Part Of America’s Past.” It’s a short opinion piece from The Daily Nonpareil in Council Bluffs, Iowa. I’m not sure why it was coming through today, nearly a month after the fact, but it says:
As I accessed the Internet today for the first time (June 5), I was flabbergasted of what I saw on my homepage (google.com): A Google Doodle of Drive-Ins! When you click on the Google Doodle it provides some information provided by Google about drive-ins and how they were first started. But what they failed to mention is how they “destroy drive-ins and America’s past.” Being a Council Bluffs native, I have my share of memories growing up and going to the drive-in to see movies with my family on the weekends.
I wanted to bring this to the attention of local readers that our local “company” that took away a historic landmark dares to educate people about the past, when they indeed killed a huge part of it!
Google, as you may or may not be aware, has a data center in Council Bluffs, and the company did indeed bulldoze a drive-in, in order to set up shop. An InformationWeek article from 2008 confirms:
Some local landmarks are getting bulldozed to make room for Google. A drive-in movie screen was the first to go. The nearby Presbyterian Church is slated for demolition, too.
On its Council Bluffs Data Center page, Google says: Google is very happy to be located in Council Bluffs, IA. We announced our plans to build a data center here in early 2007, and today we are a fully operational site that has already begun benefitting our users around the world. We have had an excellent experience in Council Bluffs as we’ve built out this $600 million investment, and we look forward to being a part of the Iowa community for many years to come.”
According to CinemaTreasures.org, the drive-in was closed in late 2007, and was demolished. “At that time, the owners were hoping to build a new twin-screen drive-in theatre at another location,” it says.
VirtualTourist.com member Rich62, who uploaded the lead image to that site in 2006, captioned the photo:
THERE ARE STILL A FEW DRIVEIN MOVIE THEATERS AVAILABLE IN AMERICA, AND THIS IS ONE OF THEM.
Six years later, it appears that there are even less.
Google announced a new set of reports in Google Analytics called Mobile Apps Analytics to better help marketers and developers measure mobile apps. The reports include metrics like downloads, new users, retention, crashes, conversions, app sales, and in-app purchases.
There is a set of acquisition and user analysis reports, a set of engagement reports, and a set of outcome/business impact reports. The acquisition/user analysis reports track new and active users, Google Play traffic sources, app versions, and device overview. The engagement reports track user behavior, engagement flow, and app crashes. The outcome/business impact reports track goal conversions and in-app purchases.
“The new reports are part of a holistic experience tailored for mobile app measurement, including a new and lightweight SDK v2.0 that’s easier to implement and is opt-out ready, with a streamlined back-end infrastructure,” says JiaJing Wang, Product Manager on the Google Analytics Team.
“We’ve also revamped our sign-up process, so new users can choose whether they want to start measuring their website or their mobile app,” adds Wang. “This means you’ll be just 3 clicks away from setting up your app analytics account and downloading the SDK.”
Mobile App Analytics reports are in beta. Google says it will be open to whitelisted users in waves. There’s a sign-up form here.
Google has been uploading a ton of videos from Google I/O to YouTube. This particular video is from a session on Google Shopping, which has been a hot button issue in the search industry.
Google announced about a month ago that it was replacing Google Product Search with Google Shopping. The former was free to list, but the new incarnation is a paid inclusion service. This hasn’t been the most popular idea with all merchants, but it is what it is.
Here’s Google’s description for the video:
More and more of consumers research online first before going to a local store to purchase a product and we can expect this trend to continue to rise. How can merchants and retailers take advantage of this trend? Local shopping enables merchants to declare product price and availability per local store. In this session, we will show you how to set up and manage local shopping accounts in the Google Merchant Center and how to use the Content API to upload local products and do live inventory updates.
Google announced Knowledge Graph last month, with a great deal of hype. Google seems to consider it one of the most important things it has done for search in a long time. While it may be significant, it appears that there is still plenty of work to be done.
Another thing Google prides itself on is indexing speed, which it has gotten much better at over the years. According to Conductor’s study, however, this type of speed is not being applied to Knowledge Graph.
“Our analysis of both low and high activity queries tells us that Google and Wikipedia are mismatched for a substantial ‘one out of five’ high activity queries,” says Conductor’s Nathan Safran. “And, when they are mismatched, half the time, Google is behind by 2 or more days. The implication is that searchers may not be seeing the most relevant information for their query. For some context, in our LeBron James example, this means his Knowledge Graph entry could have been without reference to his recent championship for up to four days.”
It’s interesting that Google seems to be falling behind on freshness in some areas, even while it has become such a point of emphasis with recent algorithm updates, sometimes to a fault.
The really evident lack of freshness comes where it is probably most relevant – real time. Google, as you may know, no longer has realtime search, since its deal with Twitter dissolved last year, and now Google simply can’t “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible” as well as it could with that deal in place. It’s just not happening. Twitter is the primary place for realtime info, hands down. That could change, but for now, that’s just how it is.
Now, Google is pushing this Knowledge Graph in a big way, and even it is apparently behind.
Google made some big search-related announcements at Google I/O, related to the new version of Android, Jellybean. There are Siri-like voice features, and Google Now, which we talked about in more detail here. It may take some time, but these may be very important elements to Google’s future as a search engine. Another one of the new search elements is improved visualization of Knowledge Graph results. Based on Google’s demo of the operating system. Knowledge Graph will be more front and center, at least on mobile search. It stands to reason that this will flow into other version of Google mobile search, beyond Jellybean.
While Google may use a lot of different sources for Knowledge Graph results, it’s clear that Wikipedia is the go-to source, as most of the results you are likely to see, will show Wikipedia info above all else. Wikipedia isn’t perfect, but two day-old Wikipedia is even less perfect, and will make Google less perfect.
Google has acknowledged that Knowledge Graph is not perfect. When Google announced the feature, we asked how susceptible it would be to Wikipedia vandalism. A spokesperson told us at the time, “I can’t share a ton of detail here, but we’ve got quality controls in place to try to mitigate this kind of issue. We’ve also included a link so users can tell us when we may have an inaccuracy in our information.”
On the one hand, a real time Wikipedia-based Knowledge Graph may actually make it more susceptible to vandalism. If it’s real time, it’s going to display exactly what’s on Wikipedia, even before editors have a chance to correct issues. Perhaps some lag is needed for quality control.
Safran says, “While a real time Wikipedia update may ultimately not be practical, if Google is indeed positioning Knowledge Graph as the future of search, we have to believe that they can do better than the 2-4 day lag many of their mismatched keywords currently reflect.”
Two to four days can make a huge difference when it comes to information, obviously. Wikipedia pages are often at their most relevant when they are about someone or something in the news. Conductor mentions Lebron James as an example. An outdated Knowledge Graph result could ignore a championship that was just achieved. A celebrity result could ignore a their recent death.
You can see this in action right here:
Notice that the Knowledge Graph result in the above image for “don grady” search results shows his description, saying he “is an American Composer…”
You can see the actual Wikipedia result in the organic section, which says he “was an American composer…”
That is Google highlighting a less relevant result. It’s as simple as that.
Google recently hosted a 50-minute webinar on AdWords Search Funnels. Google has shared the video in its entirety, so if this is an area you want to learn more about, dig in:
Google doesn’t stop there, however. Simon Rosen, Global Sales Lead for Search Funnels and AdWords Conversion Tracking, wrote a lengthy blog post addressing a number of questions users had from the webinar, but that Google was unable to get to.
“Search Funnels uncovers a crucial part of the path to conversion by showing all of your Google search ads that a user either saw or clicked on, before they converted for you,” says Rosen. “However, you may be interested in understanding how your customers interact with your other online channels too.”
If that is the case, Google is hosting another webinar dealing with Google Analytics’ Multi-channel Funnels on August 9.
“Google Now gets you just the right information at just the right time,” Google says on the page. “It tells you today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, when the next train will arrive as you’re standing on the platform, or your favorite team’s score while they’re playing. And the best part? All of this happens automatically. Cards appear throughout the day at the moment you need them.”
Luckily, Google provides a small look at those cards on the landing page. Perhaps more interestingly, Google tells us what data it uses for each one. Google Now is kicking off with 10 cards. These are for:
1. Traffic (Shown based on current location, location history and Web History)
2. Public Transit (Only shown if location services enabled)
3. Next Appointment (Shown based on synced calendars and current location)
4. Flights (Only shown if location services and Web History enabled)
5. Sports (Shown based on Web History)
6. Places (Only shown if location services enabled)
7. Weather (Only shown if location services enabled)
8. Translation (Only shown if location services enabled)
9. Currency (Only shown if location services enabled)
10. Time At Home (Only shown if location services enabled)
With the traffic card, Google Now will let users see traffic conditions and alternate routes before you go to work. It also shows traffic to your next “likely destination”. The Public Transit card, shows when you’re near a bus stop or subway station, and what buses and trains are next. The Next Appointment card checks traffic so you know how long it will take to get there, and gives you notifications for when you should leave. The Flights card keeps you up to date on flight status, like when there are delays (and presumably cancelations), and gives you traffic conditions to the airport, for flights you’ve recently searched for.
The Sports card updates you on what Google thinks are your favorite sports times, based on search history, and gives you live scores and upcoming games. You can also buy tickets from the card.
The Places card suggests nearby restaurants, bars, and other places of interest. Users can jump to Google Maps for more info, get reviews, and make reservations.
The Weather card is pretty self-explanatory, but it shows weather for your current location, as well as work.
The Translation card translates words, the Currency card lets you quickly check local conversion rates, and the Time At Home card simply lets you know what time it is at home when you’re traveling.
Google Now, so far, appears to be largely about making travel more convenient, but Google says it will be adding more cards. It will be interesting to see what they come up with.
Google’s new version of Android, Jellybean, comes with improved Knowledge Graph visualization, a Siri competitor, and something called Google Now, which may be how Google is looking at search from here on out.
“We’ve redesigned search from the ground up in Jelly Bean, with a new user interface and faster, more natural Voice Search,” says Andy Rubin, Senior Vice President of Mobile and Digital Content at Google. “You can type your query or simply ask Google a question. Google can speak back to you, delivering a precise answer, powered by the Knowledge Graph, if it knows one, in addition to a list of search results.”
“Today’s smart devices still rely on you to do pretty much everything—that is, until now,” adds Rubin. “Google Now is a new feature that gets you just the right information at just the right time. It tells you today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, or your favorite team’s score as they’re playing. There’s no digging required: cards appear at the moment you need them most.”
Google has been talking about this concept for years: pushing information to you before you even have to search. Google has long been all about speeding up the search process. What’s faster than giving it to you before you even know you needed it? That appears to be the strategy with Google Now. It will be interesting to see if the execution matches the concept.
Google Now uses your search history, your location history, and your calendar to decide what information you need to know. Remember that big privacy policy consolidation Google announced earlier this year? That allowed Google to use your data between services more easily, and this seems to be a big feature that will benefit from that.
Google Now, as the company explained in a keynote speech, figures out when you commute from home to work, and back, and will tell you how long your route is. It will give you a faster route if there is a lot of traffic. Let’s hop you don’t get in an accident looking at your screen. For public transit, Google Now tells you when the next bus or train will arrive.
Google says Google Now will help you get to appointments on time. It will tell you when to leave, based on bus times, and how long it will take to get to the bus stop, how long the bus ride will take, etc. It will tell you if you have an upcoming flight you’ve searched for, and Google will keep you up to date on the status of the flight (delays, cancelations, etc.).
Google Now also hows you bars and restaurants around you as you walk down the street, and will recommend things to order at them when you actually go to one. That Zagat acquisition is looking even smarter now.
Google’s greatest threat is decreased dependence on search. A source from the company has indicated in the past that he agreed. It seems interesting, then, that Google itself is launching a product, which could actually decrease the user’s dependence on search.
Google knows people will use other apps and services for very specific things in instances where they may have once used search. If Google can get you the things you need in front of you before you even have a chance to seek them out using other apps, I’d call that a win.
Again, however, it will be in the execution.
Out of all of the things Google announced today, this could very well be one of the most significant in the long term.
He told us that Google has rolled out lots of “me too” announcements and that it is “trying to differentiate itself by copying.”
