Posts on State of Search about ‘Google’

How Effective can Google be at Enforcing Copyright?

url-requests

Last week Google announced that the number of valid copyright infringement notices will become a negative ranking factor within the SERPS.  The idea is the more valid copyright complaints they get about a site the more difficult it will be for that site to rank naturally. It’s a great move in many ways however I question the effectiveness for written content and I feel to tackle the problem properly it would need an element of automation.

In the announcement they showed the scale of copyright complaints have spiked alarmingly over the last year. In fact they get more copyright removal notices now in a single day than they got in the whole of 2009. To illustrate the scale of the problem Google got over 5 million requests from the copyright owners in July 2012. The main copyright complainants are unsurprisingly major software and music companies with Microsoft heading up the list of top complainants. (more…)

Matt Cutts: “You shouldn’t put a lot of weight on +1s just yet”

Cutts-Sullivan-Grehan-Tabke

SES San Francisco is on its way for day 2 already and the organizers had a big surprise for the attendees yesterday: Matt Cutts would make a surprise visit to SES San Francisco to talk on stage and answer questions. Something Cutts doesn’t do that often outside of some SMX appearances in the past few years. On top of that Danny Sullivan and Brett Tabke were pulled on stage to participate in the talk. It also had been a while since Sullivan had been on a SES stage as well.

I live blogged the session and ‘cleaned up’ the notes below so it’s a bit more readable. The biggest things that came out of the conversation

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Google+ Starts Rolling out Vanity Urls (Finally)

Google+-vanity-urls

It was one of the biggest annoyances when Google+ rolled out: the urls. A url with a big number after all is very hard to recognise and to promote. As a brand you want to point to http://plus.google.com/stateofsearch not https://plus.google.com/b/101475377013754652573/101475377013754652573. But Google didn’t support that.

There are services who cleverly make use of that by providing redirect urls. For example you can reach the State of Search Google+ account through this url: gplus.to/stateofsearch. But now finally Google is rolling out vanity urls for Google+. It might take a while, but in the end you might have the nice looking url you always wanted.

Google+ employee Saurabh Sharma (Plus number 109179785755319022525) announced on hi G+ page that Google is rolling out the vanity urls for specific brands now and for general usernames in the future. (more…)

Google Continues to Personalize and Change Search

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Want to get your results as personal as possible? Google is going to get you there. They’ve already personalized results in a big way without you having to do anything. In a ‘field trial’ they are now giving you even more personalization: find your e-mail in Google search.

This is just one test which Google is performing, but they are doing a lot more. In a blog post yesterday they announced this trial, but also a new addition to “Knowledge Graph” and enhanced voice search on Android, which will make sure Google understands even a bit more about you. (more…)

Google Must Reveal Which Bloggers They Pay

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Well this is going to be interesting. Google and Oracle have been ordered by a US judge to reveal which bloggers they have paid. They have to open up which bloggers are ‘on the payroll’ before August 17.

The ruling comes out of a hearing about intellectual property in court. The judge is concerned that any payments done to bloggers or journalists might have influenced analysis about the companies.

Google has already told the BBC it will comply with the order, which means they will be telling the judge, and with that the rest of the world, who they have paid. (more…)

Dear Google Analytics…. Please Help us to Help You

Help!

Since the launch of the new Google Analytics platform I have generally been pleased with the updates, but there are still a few issues that keep cropping up that make our lives very difficult.

I have spoken to a number of people in the Digital Marketing industry to get some feedback on what elements of Google Analytics they would like to see updated and have compiled a list in this post.

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Google Indoor Maps & Arctic Exploration on Street View

Explore Scotts Hut on the World Wonders Project

July is turning out to be mapping season for Google. They’ve been rolling out general map updates for more precise coverage of National Heritage areas and coastlines, 3D buildings, detailed ferry routes and timetables to get you over the water easily. Google Indoor Maps also hit the UK, and more Street View history was made with a tour of Antarctica & the South Pole.

So for those of us who can’t find our way out of a paper bag – here are the new updates that you may have missed! (more…)

Google’s EU Anti-Trust headache has just gone mobile

Louis

As I’m sure everyone is aware over the past few months Google has been conducting talks with the EU about the abuse of dominance claims from several companies including Foundem, Microsoft (surprise surprise) and a few others. The complaint largely centres on Google favouring their web real estate in the natural search results over the competition. (more…)

Google Experiment Lets You Share Results Directly on Google+

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A new experiment from Google lets you share pages on Google+ directly from the search results. I personally haven’t seen this option yet but Berian Reed, head of search marketing AutoTrader UK spotted the ‘Share on Google +‘  after performing a search.

As you can see in the screenshot below the option is placed to the right after the URL of the search result  where currently the +1 button is placed. After clicking the button you can add your own comment and choose circles before sharing on Google+.

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Google Using Knowledge Graph on People Search

10 months ago by Bas van den Beld 1 Comment
searching-people

Knowledge Graph is slowly expanding its grip on the Google Search results. Where at the launch of this new Google feature it was mainly aimed at information which was interesting for the public, Google seems to be zooming in right now, even though not all the information is as up to date as it could be.

Now Google will show “Knowledge Graph” or “Direct Answers” information on peoples names, and not just the ‘famous people’, but you and me as well. The information, what else, is a link to the Google+ Profile of a person, giving you information on that person, their latest update and off course in the meanwhile pushing Google+ again. Funny enough it is becoming more and more what I said Google+ (then working title “Google Me”) should be. (more…)

Marissa Mayer’s Move: What the Experts Think

job-offers

Yesterday Marissa Mayer made one of the most surprising moves in this young industry ever. Her move from Google to become CEO of Yahoo is unprecedented and it will be interesting to see what she will make of it over at the former search giant.

The sudden move also triggered a lot of questions: why did she move? Why did Google let her go so easily? What else is going on? And even the question of who is going to replace her when she is getting her first baby in October showed up.

We decided to ask some industry experts on their thoughts about Marissa Mayers move. Fresh into the news they responded: (more…)

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