Posts on State of Search about ‘News’

New Google Interface Tests Show Up

We know that Google is constantly testing new stuff. Whether it is a new feature or a new design, they always test ‘in the wild’, meaning that actual users get the new features or design to see how they respond.

Now a new test has shown up, one which is mainly about the User Interface, the design of the search result page. In particular the navigational part. In this design the sidebar is completely gone and we see a new type of top navigation. (more…)

Google Supporting Gay Marriage With Easter Egg?

A few weeks ago Eric Schmidt told a group of Dutch students that Google always tries to be impartial when it comes to political matters. They feel they shouldn’t take stand and even though Eric Schmidt has been linked to the Democrats before and Obama has spoken at Google, they claim not to have a preference.

On one matter however Google has always been clear: it supports the gay community and gay marriage. Sergey Brin actually took a pretty solid stand towards Proposition 8 in California in 2008.

At the moment the discussion about gay marriage again comes up in the US and it might seem as if Google again is taking stand. The fact that its in the news is actual a coincidence with what happens if you do a search for “Gay” or “Gay marriage” on Google you will get this result:

As said, this is not directly related to the news, it is something which Google has done in different formats over the years as you can see on the screens on Michel’s post on his own blog. But it is a nice coincidence for those supporting the purpose.

Google+ Snippets Show up in Site Connected Search Results

Google wants Google+ to be a succes, after all it is the idea that everything Google does moves over to the Google+ infrastructure. That means the more people use it, the better. Also because that is the data that Google gathers to then give us back information in for example the search results which is tailored to our needs.

As Maile Ohye explained in a video earlier this week one thing which is important here is trust. As searchers we want to see what the people we trust are sharing. As a website owner we want people with authority to share our content. And in search all the identity and trust levels are integrated.

Today I did a search on Google and found the result below:

(more…)

Bing Testing New Design in the UK

We sometimes catch Google tests in the wild, even though most of the State of Search bloggers are based in Europe. That is because Google tends to test broader than just the US (even though US does get the most attention from Google).

With Bing its different, since they focus mainly on the US, maybe because of the market share. So when they do test here its news. Maybe not big news, but still news.

It now seems as if Bing is testing the new designs, which they have been testing in the US already, in the UK. According to Webpronews a version is being tested which has a new homepage design and in which the search results are cleaner. (more…)

How To Connect Your Google+ Pages and Website

Authority is one of the main aspects on which Google is focussing. And authority comes in different ways. There is the authority of those around you, there is the authorship, which has another big reason for Google: to determine which content belongs where. On top of that Google makes sure you are indeed connected to a Google+ page, which means they are able to much better determine your connections.

And then there is the connection with your Google+ Business Page, which also has ‘authority’ which you can make stand out in the search results. And content you put on your Google+ page also shows up in for example the search results.

Until now getting your content connected to your Google+ (business) page and showing your image in the SERPS was quite a difficult process. Especially if you want content which is on your website to be connected to your Google+ page and showing up connected in the search results.

But now Google has made things easier by creating an easy method of linking your website to your Google+ page. (more…)

Euro 2012: Google Streetview Lets You be There

So Euro 2012 is well under way, the first matches have been played, each country knows where it stands. Our traveling blogger Jo has already seen the first matches with locals, keep an eye on that. There is a lot going on around the games and there are many fans from the different teams present in the Ukraine and Poland. However, most people watch the games from home or in the pub. They don’t get to see the stadiums from inside.

Luckily there is Google Streetview. Somehow the Streetview cars have made their way inside the stadiums and they took pictures. You now can virtually walk around the grounds on which your countries team is playing. We’ve lined them up for you below.

Ukrain stadiums

NSC Olimpiyskiy (Olympic Stadium), Kyiv

Donbass Arena, Donetsk

Metalist Stadium, Kharkiv

Arena Lviv

Poland Stadiums

National Stadium, Warsaw

Municipal Stadium, Poznan

PGE Arena, Gdansk

Municipal Stadium, Wrocław

Noticed Something? Google’s Panda Had a Refresh

Even though Twitter and Facebook now seem to be a continuous stream of webmasters asking if other webmasters have seen drops or changes in their rankings it still is an indication of something changing at Google’s algorithms. Webmasters and especially SEOs are constantly looking for signals to find out if Google is ‘up to something’ again.

The ‘rumors’ got stronger this weekend with webmasters seeing changes again and yesterday Google confirmed that indeed something was going on: Google’s Panda Update has had a refresh on June 8th, so before the weekend.

Google immediately added to their tweet that less than 1% of searches would be affected in the US and about 1% world wide. This indicates it is a small update, but knowing the number of searches being done on Google (towards 3 billion a day) it might still be an interesting number of searches being affected.

Update, not algorithm change

It is important to know that this is not a new algorithm change. It is a refresh, which means the same algorithm is run again. Different sites can be hit, but it is not as if this changes the rules again.

Google is now on a schedule which has an update to Panda and Penguin every six weeks or so. So the next refresh (this one was numbered 3.7) we can expect end of July.

Winners Scholarship to the International SEO School

When the International SEO School was first announced we were pleasantly surprised by the number of positive reactions. Now the first series has already taken place, with a lot of enthusiastic responses.

Also when we sent out the possibility to get a scholarship for the International SEO School we didn’t expect to get that many applications. You can surely say: international SEO is ‘hot’.

Now it is time to announce the winners of the scholarship!

The organization of the International SEO School decided on the two winners for this scholarship:

Gary Wells (Belfast Telegraph) and Michael Rurup Andersen (iProspect)

Congratulations to these two lucky people!

Future series and scholarships

Did you miss out? Or forgot to apply? Take a look at the upcoming series of the International SEO School and keep an eye out here for more scholarship options, the school is likely to offer scholarships again in the future.

Start Integrating Google Places With Google+ Local

With the launch of Google+ Local it was immediately clear this was the end of Google Places as we know it. Updating your current Google Places page might be a useless bit of work so it seems, something we also discussed in yesterday’s hangout. You can however be one of the first to have both your Google+ Local and Places pages integrated, see below how.

If you look in the search results it seems as if Google+ Local there already has taken over from Places. Do a search on “pizza London” for example and you will see map results which have reviews as well as Zagat ratings going to the Google+ Business Page, not the Google Places Pages anymore.

Integrating the pages

The management of the two pages however isn’t integrated yet, you still need to maintain both pages or you have to start moving things over. But Google is planning on integrating both, as we suspected before. And you can be one of the first.

You can now already request Google to be one of the first to be considered for upgrading your listing early. In order to be considered you must have your business verified in Google Places for Business and have created a local Google+ page, after that you can apply here and wait for Google to respond.

Reviews: a tip

As mentioned yesterday in the hangout, one of the most important things you need to do to get your business page visible for local search is to get as many (positive) reviews as you can. This means people will be asking for reviews a lot from now on probably.

Mike Blumenthal gave us a handy tip on how to get people to write a review for you. You can add ?review=1 to the end of a G+Business page and the review box will open directly once people will click the link.

The link will look like this: https://plus.google.com/101475377013754652573/posts?review=1

Google Changes Behaviour Chinese Search Engine

Google this week reported they had reports from users on the mainland of China that the search engine (rerouted through Hong Kong) is not always consistent and reliable, this depends from query and browser.

Users are getting errors on a regularly basis saying that the search engine is not available or that the connection was reset, if this happens users can’t access Google for a minute or longer. In the video below Google gives a demonstration of the phenomenon.

After receiving these reports from users Google went searching for problems in their own systems but after thoroughly doing research they didn’t find any problems. It turned out the interruptions where related to certain search queries, as you would guess: censorship, even though Google doesn´t use this word (on purpose I guess). That’s why Google decided to adapt the search engine and do something about these interruptions, warning users that there is a chance for an interruption.

When a user from the mainland of China types in query from which Google thinks (knows) that the query will cause an interruption Google will mention this below the search bar. The user then knows the risks and can continue with the search or can edit the query. To learn more users can click the link in the message to a help centre article. Screenshot from the homepage below.

Google Easter Egg: Lionel Richie: “Hello, is it me you’re looking for?”

Not a very spectacular Easter Egg this time like the recently discovered game Zerg Rush but a small one, designed to put a smile on your face (if you would notice), especially for those from a certain age.

The Easter Egg is related to the recently introduced Knowledge Graph, the big database from Google with all sorts of information about persons, places and other things which is used to show extra information related to a query right next to the normal search results.

This is exactly what the latest Easter Eggs is related to. When searching for the singer-songwriter Lionel Richie Google will show as the title of the information on the right, “Hello, is it me you’re looking for”. This off course referring to the line from the famous song “Hello” from mister Richie from 1983.

Ok, it´s very small Easter Egg, but it is funny and probably there are more of these Knowledge Graph related eggs hidden in the search engine. The Egg currently only works on Google.com.