Posts on State of Search about ‘Google’

Pirate Bay is out of Instant Search, ‘Bisexual’ back in?

TPB-instant

Two years ago Google introduced “Google Instant”, which was an extended version of Google Suggest. Now not just the suggestions showed up, the page actually changes when typing in your search query, making that some people might decide to stop typing and pick a result which seems to be to their liking.

These suggestions ‘help’ people make their choices. But not all choices are good choices, according to Google at least. Which means the search engine banned specific sentences or searches from showing up in Google Instant. For words with for example sexual intent, that makes sense, you can for example search for the word “porn”, but there will be no suggestions there. If you want to see results on that term you first need to hit ‘enter’ to see the results.

Google now has banned another term: Torrentsite The Pirate Bay is taken out. On the other hand a much discussed term might be returning: bisexual. (more…)

Google Launches UK Insurance Comparison Ads

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Over a year after Google bought insurance comparison site Beat That Quote the search giant has now rolled out insurance comparison ads in the UK.

Similar features already exist for credit cards and mortgages, so it’s no surprise Google has expanded this to insurance. Insurance comparison is a highly profitable business, with insurance companies paying big money for valid insurance leads.

Google has recognised the revenue potential in insurance comparison and seems to have decided it’s more profitable to cut out the middlemen. Instead Google now offers these services directly on its own properties. Undoubtedly Google will continue to collect heaploads of money from PPC advertising on these insurance-related keywords, as advertisers will now have to compete directly with Google as well as with other insurance websites. (more…)

Google Rolling Out Knowledge Graph Carousel More Widely

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In August this year Google announced to be rolling out the Knowledge Graph to countries where English is the main language and at that moment the Knowledge Graph carousel was introduced on Google.com. Google is now rolling out the feature worldwide to all English users of the search engine.

The carousel will show additional lists and collections to a search query above the search results if this is relevant. The list and collections are used when the answer to a query cannot be shown as a single entity (person or thing). (more…)

Star Trek: The Original Series Google Doodle

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Google yesterday placed a very cool doodle because of the 46th Anniversary of Star Trek. Star Trek was created by Gene Roddenberry and the first episode was broadcasted on September 8th 1966, after that 79 episodes followed (although 80 where made) and the show retired on September 2nd 1969. If you are a big fan of The Original Series you can explore space on the homepage and boldly go where no one has gone before.

It’s a interactive doodle with Captain James Tiberius Kirk played in the show by William Shatner at the front behind the console and left to him ‘live long and prosper’ commander Spock. At the right, next to the captain you can see Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu, in the series played by George Takei who later also played in the science fiction show Heroes. I guess the guy at the right is Montgomery Scott (Beam me up, Scotty) and between Scotty and Sula must be Leonard McCoy. (more…)

Search Success Rates are Declining – don’t worry that’s a good thing

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Search success rate is a funny old metric. At Experian Hitwise we define a “successful search” as a search which resulted in a click through to a website. This used to be a good measure of how competent search engines were at delivering relevant results to users – the theory being that if a consumer couldn’t find what they were looking for on the SERP they would have to make a further search to access the information they were after.

This was all well and good until search engines started getting smarter and realising that they could start offering information to us first hand. Let’s take a simple example of exchange rates. If I want to find out what the current exchange rate is between the pound and the euro and type “pound euro exchange rate” into Bing I don’t need to click through to a currency conversion website anymore, the search engine gives me the information I need directly. (more…)

Google’s “racial profiling” issue hints at invasive ad targeting

Google Spy

Yesterday Google was once again on the receiving end of bad publicity. An article in the Telegraph, one of the UK’s biggest newspapers, appears to show that Google uses racial profiling in its advertising algorithms.

A year ago a Huffington Post article appeared to show racial profiling at work in the ads Google shows alongside emails in Gmail. The Telegraph replicated this experiment recently in the UK, and it reports similar findings:

“The results were stark, and similar to the original experiment – for example, an email sent by “Robert Howe” saying “Need Cash” gets foreign exchange solutions for business advertised to him; the same email sent by “Segun Akinkube” gets offered Payday Loans. Neither of the ads repeated in each other’s preferences; Segun & Robert got completely different ads served to them, when all other factors were the same.”

(more…)

Google Penguin – 2.0 or 1.2?

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During SES a couple of weeks ago, Matt Cutts warned of a significant update to Penguin in the not too distant future – something which drew a mixed response across the industry. Given the impact of Penguin on launch, one would have to suggest that those types of words would spread fear across the industry, it seems that this has been meant with more of a sense of gentle caution.

One of the words I have seen used was the words “propaganda” following Matts quote last week, something both Huomah founder, David Harry and fellow State of Search Editor Sam Noble were keen to suggest otherwise – and suggested that for many in the industry have been expecting this for a while. I think for many of us, now familiar with the iterative updates of Panda, a similar approach to Penguin is certainly not unexpected, and looking at a lot of the crap still in the SERPs there is obvious work for Googles algorithms still to do. (more…)

Yes, Google Was Down, Don’t Panic, Google is Cleaning

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Some excitement on Social Media this morning, something which rarely happens seemed to be happening at the moment: Google seemed to be down for many. It was first noticed when Gmail couldn’t be reached, but it seems more Google products were down, even Google.com.

The ‘glitch’ took only about five minutes, but there immediately were responses on Social Media of people being worried about what was happening with Google. It showed once again how reliant people are on the Google services. The last time Gmail was down was in April when about 400.000 people were out of Gmail for about 2,5 hours. This time it was just a few minutes.

It could be that the outage had to do with the closing of some products by Google today. (more…)

New Options To Monetize Embedded Google Maps

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If you use the Google Maps API on your website you can easily connect Google AdSense via the Maps Ad Unit so you can monetize your map. The Maps Ad Unit was introduced within the Maps Javascript API V3 four years ago. Google now added two new extensions to the Maps Ad Unit which means more choices to monetize your map.

The fist addition is the possibility to use a link unit instead of direct ads. As you might know a link unit consists of links / topics related to the content of the page. After clicking a link Google will show a separate page with relevant ads. Note that as a publisher you will get paid for clicks on the ads on the separate page, you will not get money for clicks on the topics itself. (more…)

A Next (Small) Step of Google+ Integration in SERPS

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When Google+ rolled out first we all knew it was about more than just a social network. Sooner or later it would be about integration of that social element into the search engine result pages (SERPS). Step by step we have seen that happening and we now know for sure Google+ is more than ‘just’ a social network.

The latest addition to this integration is one which shows how ‘social’ Google has gotten in the past few years. We all are familiar with the birthday reminders you get on Facebook, showing you which of your friends has a birthday. It does help me sometimes to remind me of birthdays I forgot. Now Google is integrating that same functionality. But not ‘just’ into Google+, into Google.com. (more…)

I’m feeling Lucky Easter Egg on homepage Google

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Google placed a new small Easter Egg on the homepage of the search engine which can only be seen on the American homepage (Google.com). It’s about the well-known, historic I’m feeling Lucky button. When you place your mouse on the button the text will change to something else, for example, I’m Feeling Puzzled or I’m Feeling Hungry. There are eight different kind of buttons this way and every button has his own destination.

The I’m Feeling Trendy links to Google Trends and the I’m feeling puzzled links to Google’s own game A Google a Day, several buttons are linking to random Google Doodles. (more…)

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