Posts on State of Search about ‘News’

Get your comments, by Facebook: Social Network preparing commenting system

Facebook has big plans. The Social Network is slowly but surely moving away from ‘just’ being a Social Network into becoming a controller of the web. It looks remarkably like the path Google has taken: each time make more services which are available outside of your territory.

Now Cnet reports that Facebook is planning to launch a new service which will not be running on the Social Network itself, but as a third party service. In a few weeks it is said that Facebook will be launching a third-party commenting system. This system would allow blogs to be using Facebook’s commenting system on their website. (more…)

Away with the copycats: Google anti-spam algorithm change launched

One of the most active departments within Google is the anti-spam department, run by Matt Cutts. Even though it seems to be very difficult to ban all the spam from the search results, they are trying hard.

Just before the weekend Matt Cutts announced that changes to the algorithm which should “help drive spam levels even lower” are now live. The changes were announced on the Google blog ten days ago. (more…)

Google censoring torrent sites like BitTorrent and Rapidshare

It’s a fine line between freedom on the web and piracy when it comes to torrents. The little files help exchange movies, music, software and much more. Sometimes it is a bit shady whether or not this is right or wrong, sometimes its obvious.

Google is now, starting today, actively censoring torrent terms. This is also aimed on sites and terms like BitTorrent, utorrent, RapidShare and Megaupload. (more…)

@Yoast announces SEO Royale, a high profile SEO event in Amsterdam

Yesterday during our Webmasterradio podcast show Joost de Valk (@yoast) briefly joined the show to announce a new search event: SEO Royale. This event will take place the two days prior to Queensday in Amsterdam. The conference has the same format as SEOktoberfest (which was the most popular amongst attendees last year): a small group of attendees and a small group of high profile speakers.

At this point Yoast has already found a few speakers: Bob Rains, Frank Watson, Marcus Tandler and Dennis Goedegebuure will be speaking at the conference, sharing their most intimate secrets when it comes to SEO. When it comes to partying the show also goes the same direction as SEOktoberfest: Queensday is the biggest party of the year in Holland. (more…)

Don’t want personal ads? Google lets you opt-out

There has been a lot of discussion over the past few months about cookies. Yes, the cookies on the computer. Those that register what you do online. And those that provide you with content which is much more personal then it was in the past.

But not everybody likes that. In fact, it has been the debate in the European Union for the past year whether or not we should all be opting in for the cookies, meaning we would be accepting (or not) cookies by clicking on an acceptance button every time we visit a webpage. This debate ran not only in Europe, but also in the US where the FTC looked into a mechanism that could help to easily opt out of the cookies.

One of the biggest ‘targets’ in the discussion has been Google. The search giant has been aimed at by privacy commissioners all over the world. And now that company announces a new extension on Google Chrome which does exactly what the FTC wants: opt out of ad tracking cookies. They launch the “Keep My Opt-Outs” extension. (more…)

Eric Schmidt steps down as CEO of Google

Pretty hot news coming from the Google headquarters in Silicon Valley: Eric Schmidt will be stepping down as CEO of Google to become “Executive Chairman,” with Google, whatever that role may mean. His position as CEO will be taken by Founder Larry Page.

I don’t have the time at the moment to write up an analysis of what and why but a quick overview of the facts:

Schmidt announced on the Google blog that he is stepping down as of April 4th. Day to day business will then be taken over by Larry Page. Sergey Brin will be working on strategy. Schmidt will be focussing on deals, partnerships, customers and broader business relationships, government outreach and technology thought leadership. (more…)

Is the 3rd largest Advertiser on Facebook a Bing Affiliate Scam?

Don’t you hate it when you click on a link or an ad all of a sudden your browser is taken over? You can only search using a specific search engine and you get banners and pop ups all the time? You don’t want that. Still, there are ‘advertisers’ (if you can call them that) out there which lure you into the clicks and then take over, that’s what we sometimes call a scam.

These kind of ‘advertisers’ are usually found on untrusted sites. Websites which you should not even be visiting in the first place. If you go there, than it’s your own fault. But what if it happens on the World’s largest site? What if a Facebook advertiser does this? How would you like that?

Google’s anti-spam boss Matt Cutts did a shocking discovery yesterday. He found that the 3rd largest Advertiser on Facebook seems to be pulling these kind of stunts. And to make it even worse, it turns your default search engine into Bing. Not that Bing is bad, but from then on every search you do is making the advertiser money. Again, not a bad thing. But maybe they should tell us? (more…)

Update: Facebook postpones sharing of phone numbers and addresses

Yesterday I wrote about a new ‘feature’ in Facebook which meant that third party developers would now be able to easily pick up phone numbers and addresses from Facebook. To be honest, I wasn’t the only one writing about it.

Just shortly after their announcement on the subject last Friday Facebook now pulls back. The feature will be changed and until then the feature is “on hold”. It looks like Facebook listened to the criticism. (more…)

Google puts Hotpot closer to Google Maps

Last November Google launched Hotpot, in an effort to get a step closer to actually being social, combined with the local elements. As many “Social” products from Google it hasn’t really seen a lift off yet.

Google now wants to make another move into making Hotpot more interesting for its users. If you are using Hotpot you might see the most recent rating and review activity of your Hotpot connections integrated in Google Maps. (more…)

Wow, Google is linking to video competitors!

There is much discussion on the integrity of Google. They have the motto “Don’t be evil”, but there are many who believe that is a farce. Those people also don’t like the fact that Google puts their own sites in the search results or even on top. Whether or not that is done by hand or that it is justified is a different discussion.

The critics will now be at bit more silent if they read the latest update Google did last Friday on the results for music videos. A search for an artist or song which returns a YouTube video now has links to other video sites and search engines next to the results. If you search for the artist you will see links to sites like Dailymotion, vimeo, but also to search engines like Yahoo and Yandex. (more…)

An analysis of the battle between Google and Seznam: a close call

If you project all of Google’s market share in Europe on to a map most of Europe would be covered with the colors of Google. Even worldwide there are few countries where Google is not the dominant force.

One of the countries in which that is the case is Czech. There Seznam has been the number one for years. Web measurement service Toplist however now suggests that Seznam has been taken over by Google. Seznam however believes the numbers are not right at all. Has Google taken another step in world domination or are they just closing in on the local giants? (more…)

Germans (again) believe Google Analytics is illegal, they are serious now

In Europe we all know that the ‘marriage’ between German officials, government and other regulators, is not the best marriage you can have. They keep having issues. The Streetview blockage of specific houses is one of them, but a bigger problem is how the German regulators look at Google Analytics. Now the marriage seems to have been busted all together.

In an interview with German newspaper “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” the German commissioner for data protection in Hamburg Johannes Caspar stated that the regulators have stopped talks with Google and that the use of Google Analytics should be illegal. (more…)

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