Posts on State of Search about ‘News’

UPDATE: Black Navigation Bar here to stay?

Google-black-navigation

Update on this post (originally called Two new SERP tests: Black Navigation Bar and Urls on top – May 26 2011): More and more people are seeing the black navigation bar we talk about below. It looks like this might be here to stay. Google hasn’t announced anything on it so far, but the number of people seeing the black navigation bar (which looks a lot like the one you see when logged in to WordPress) indicates Google might be already rolling this out. The url above the search results is also seen more often so it seems Google is actually serious with these changes.

The constant testing in the Google SERPS is hardly news anymore. We saw many of them already and last week showed some tests that hadn’t made it. Today we can again show you two tests in the SERPS.

First we see the black navigation bar, second Google seems to be testing with urls above the snippet result instead of below. (more…)

+1 Button is coming to Europe, but might slow your site down

+1-button

I implemented the +1 button in my Google Search on Google.com as soon as it became available. Why? Because I wanted to see what it did and if it worked or not. And I got used to it pretty quickly. Last week I was doing a lecture and talked about the +1 button there. Nobody had used it, a few had heard of it and only one or two had actually seen it. It shows how we live in a different world. But more important it shows Google’s US focus, after all, it was only available on the .com. So far at least.

Google has now announced it will be rolling out the +1 button ‘around the world’. Yet that ‘around the world’ should be taken with a grain of salt: they are starting off with four other local Google search pages. The others will follow “soon after”. (more…)

Facebook now second-most popular in UK

facebook-europe

UKOM/Nielsen reports that for the first time ever Facebook surpassed Microsoft to become the second-most popular website in the UK. They grew 7 percent compared to a year earlier to 26.8 million visitors in Britain in May.

With that Microsoft falls back to the number three spot. MSN/WindowsLive/Bing sites combined were still good for 26.2 million visits from Brits. Google is still leading the dance with 33.9 million. Nielsen came to these numbers by looking at their panel of 50.000 people. (more…)

Google Now Warning WordPress Users They Need To Update

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If you own a WordPress website and you haven’t updated your WordPress version lately you might be getting a warning soon. And no, this is not the warning you get when you open the WordPress CMS, it is a warning from Google.

Last week the first people started noticing that Google had sent them a message within Google Webmaster Tools saying they should update their WordPress versions. I myself today got an e-mail from GWT saying one of my sites needs an update. (more…)

New Google Tests Suggest Change Come Fast

Google-buttons-gone

Again some new Google tests have been found ‘in the wild’. The tests again are focused on the design. This time the changes came from around the globe, not just the US, which suggests they might be more than ‘just’ tests and that we could be seeing these changes go through a lot quicker than you might expect.

The biggest changes to the design in the tests which came out were the drop of the “I’m feeling lucky” button and the grey area on top and on the left in the text from the sidebar and a blue search icon. Some changes have been seen before which also is an indication that Google is getting more serious with this. (more…)

Facebook connection ends trial and possibly sends juror to jail

facebook-jail

A remarkable story in Manchester shows that nothing can be done secretly on Social Networks, or more specifically Facebook, anymore. A female juror will probably be going to jail herself instead of the defendant because she friended the defendant on Facebook.

The juror is now charged with contempt which could mean she could go to jail for a maximum of two years. Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice, seems to be tempted to make a statement that a line has crossed, not only for the juror at trial, but for every juror out there. (more…)

EXCLUSIVE: Raventools to integrate Webmastertools

Raven-tools

There used to be a time you had a tool for everything. These days are behind us. Many of the (search) tools we use are starting to give you the ‘full experience’. Do all the things you have to do around your website in one place. And why not. It is much easier to do everything within one surrounding than to have ten different places where you need to perform ten different tasks.

Sources say that next week Raven Tools will announce that they have made another step in this direction: they are integrating Google Webmaster Tools into their own tool. You can then do many things you can do within GWT also within Raven Tools. (more…)

Google +1 Button is here, Get your Data to Google!

+1-on-site

After the launch in beta of the +1-button Google yesterday finally launched the official button. Now everybody can put the +1 button on their website. On their blog Google showed how you can put the button on your site. The code which before was discovered by a Dutchman now is publicly available.

Most probably we will be seeing many sites implementing the button over the next few days. Chances are that the button will replace the Google Buzz button which still can be found on many sites, doing nothing.

The button will help make the pages on your website more visible for people who have friend who recommended the page. The page will then be visible in the SERPS via the “XXX +1′d this” tagline below the result. (more…)

UPDATE: Did Google kill the option for Non-logged in users to clear their web history?

Google-gears-button

A very interesting find by one of our regular readers Brandon Moreau, who before did two guestposts for us. It seems as if Google has, without telling anybody, turned off the possibility to turn off your search history personalization for those who are not logged in.

As you may know Google tracks you. Based on your web- and or search history (depending on the level of personalization you allow Google to go) Google serves you personalized results. This means that you will most probably see different results, or a different order of results, than your next door neighbor or even the colleague sitting next to you. Since late 2009 Google decided to turn this on for everybody, including those who are not logged in to any Google account (SEL reported on it here). Something every SEO has to keep in mind.

You have however always been able to turn this feature off. You can still do this when you are logged in, but when you are not logged in this possibility is now gone. (more…)

Agency Caught Trying to Blackmail Companies in Places

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At SASCON last week we talked about Negative SEO and the tactics that can disrupt competitors, we carried on that discussion on our radioshow Tuesday. Some of them were funny, some were nasty and others seemed harmless. There are cases however that you are not talking about ‘negative SEO’ anymore, but now a case has come to light which touches closer on extortion than on Negative SEO.

Linda Buquet, a blogger about local and Google Places, yesterday found about a hundred results in Google Places with in the title “Awaiting Removal”. At first it seemed as if they were getting penalized by Google, it turned out to be a company trying to fraud unknowing business in Places. (more…)

Dutch researcher downloads 35 million Google Profiles

google-data-connections

Aren’t they lovely, the new Google Profiles? And you can put so much information in it. Information which everybody can see. And download… We’ve discussed the privacy matters around the profiles before and I will be talking about the presentation I did at SMX about the profiles soon too. But there is a lot more to the Google Profiles. A Dutch researcher was able to download, export and import 35 million Google Profiles, with data.

The researcher Matthijs Koot, working for the University of Amsterdam, is writing a research paper about anonymity and privacy. For that research he decided to look at the Google Profiles. He noted that a lot of the information can be downloaded pretty easy. (more…)

UK Cookie Law Deferred for One Year

no-more-cookies

The BBC is today reporting that UK websites have been given one year to comply with EU Cookie Laws by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).  So what does this mean for UK business websites? Put simply it means that no business website will be charged for not complying with the EU Guideline until the UK agrees on a workable solution.

In fact, it seems that the UK that the Department for Culture, Media and Sport is currently working with browser manufacturers to offer the cookie blocking/acceptance  feature into their technologies – indeed they have said that is the only option they are currently considering. (more…)

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