Posts About ‘Google News’

Zerg Rush Easter Egg from Google, defend your search results!

good_game_google

Recently Google is occasionally hiding bigger Easter Eggs in the Search Engine. This started last year with the query ‘Do A Barrel’ roll which still works and lets you turn the page, short after that around the holidays the query ‘let it snow’ made it actually snowing on the page with results with a Defrost button to bring the results back.

In the past more smaller subtile Easter Eggs where hidden by Google in the search engine and other products. For example, for some time in many doodles there was a little triforce, YouTube contained serveral ‘eggs’, Google Maps at this moment has a small kayak Egg and currently on the homepage of Android.com there is a small Easter Egg hidden in the footer. (more…)

Google Does Take Manual Action On Webspam

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Maybe you already follow the webmaster videos from Googles Matt Cutts in which he answers questions from webmasters. Matt is doing this for several years now and which I think is a good thing. There are a few hundred videos now and he even answered one of my questions once :-) .

In his latest video Matt answers a question from himself. “Does Google take manual action on webspam? Does manual action result in a removal or can it also be a demotion? Are there other situations where Google will remove content from its search results?” (more…)

Google Consumer Surveys Could Be Worthwile To Try

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On the 29th of March Google introduced a new product called Consumer Surveys. A new product aimed on both large and small companies who would like to do market research in an easy way in order to make certain decisions. These online surveys can be about everything, for example how many hours users watch TV or which kind of packaging they prefer for a certain product. (more…)

Users Make Good Use of Whitespace Google+ [Fun]

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And now for some after-weekend fun :-) . As you must have noticed last week that Google introduced a completely redesigned interface for Google+. Say what you want about the new interface but almost instantly there were a lot of comments about the extra whitespace which shows especially on bigger screens and lead to the trending topics #whitespace en #usesforwhitespace on the social network.

Soon after this Google+ boss Vic Gundotra announced that there are plans for this space but what functionality Google has in mind he wouldn’t say yet (please not ads!).

Many users with bigger screens made fun of the whitespace by showing on pictures what you can do with it. For example, you could put bacon in here but also a new browser window with Facebook seems to fit nicely, or what about a lavalamp. We collected some funny pictures from users below, if you want to see more of these pictures head over to, of course, Google+. (more…)

Google Analytics To Be Used For Measuring Google+ Pages

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On the Dutch website Dutchcowboys Arvid Bux spotted a photograph of a presentation from Google with information about measuring Google+ Pages. The photograph shows that actually quite logical Google Analytics will be used for measuring activity on Google+ Pages.

I was able to find the original presentation (Google Confidential) from Google with some more information about connecting Analytics and a Google+ Page.

To measure a page you only have to make a new profile in Analytics and then paste the unique tracking ID in the settings from the Google+ page, this is the same way you can currently measure Picasa Web Albums. Also there is a button to make a new Analytics profile directly from within the page. By measuring a page this way the statistics are separately from a existing profile so you can’t combine it with a existing profile from your own company website. (more…)

Email and PDF Google Analytics For All Users In New Interface

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It has taken a long time for Google to integrate this but the company finally announced that sharing reports by email and export rapports to PDF is now available for all users of the new interface. The new options were announced last month but as usual the roll out goes in phases. Also the beta label is still on it because Google is still working on some finishing touches.

If you are currently using the option to schedule a report to send to clients then this is the time to slowly start migrating these reports to the new interface. All scheduled emails in the old interface are not automatically available in the new interface because Google practically build the new system from the ground up.

This means you have to set all scheduled rapports again if you still want to send them. It will be a while before the old interface will sunset and by that time Google of course will send you a notification but if you have a lot of clients it might be good to start early.

On the other hand this also has a advantage (look at the bright side): you now have a moment to clean up all your scheduled rapports because maybe some mails can be dropped :-)

New Options

With the new system you also have some new options. First you can now decide which day to sent the rapports and you can set an end time under the advanced options (don’t know why this is advanced), for example you can set that you want to stop sending emails after six months.

Google Shows UEFA Champions League Matches And Results

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Getting ready for tonights Champions League games? If you are a soccer fan then the newest addition to Google might be something for you. Google announced that from now on, when searching for “UEFA Champions League” or simply “Champions League” you will get match scores and schedules in your search result. At the top under the website from the UEFA Google will place a OneBox. Behind each match there is al link to the specific match on UEFA.com. Above the OneBox there are links to Standings, Matches, Clubs and Statistics.

By clicking the link ‘Show more games’ you will see more matches that already have taken place and more upcoming matches. A very nice feature for if you want to search which teams are playing on what dates. At this moment this only works on Google.com and Google.co.uk. I´m not seeing it yet on local versions.

It was already possible to find information with Google about previous and next matches in local competitions for clubs also delivered by UEFA.com. For example if you search for FC Barcelona or AC Milan you will see the result from the last competition match and you will see when the next match will be including date and time. (more…)

Restricted Users In Google Webmaster Tools

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I think most of us use Google Webmaster Tools to get extra information about websites and to add different kind of sitemaps. For some years now it’s possible to add extra users to a specific website in Webmaster Tools so that they can see the collected data to, edit settings, etc. At first it was a big hazzle to add new uers but since the beginning of March 2010 this is easy to do by just adding somebodies email address. (more…)

Google Adds Upcoming Concerts To Search Results

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Google has added more concert information to the search results. When you search for a specific artist, information about upcoming concerts can be shown right under the official website of the artist you were looking for. Google only shows this information if an upcoming event will take place in your area, otherwise the information won’t appear.

In the screenshot below you can see the information directly below the Black Keys (an American rock band) website. The first concert will take place on Friday, May 4 in the Oracle Arena in Oakland. Below the location there are links to websites where you can find more information and buy tickets. By clicking the little ‘plus’ icon you can show more upcoming concerts in your area from, in this case the Black Keys. (more…)

Google+ Badges For Personal Profiles

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Last year when Google introduced Google+ Pages Google also introduced badges. Badges can be easily generated and embedded on a website to show you are a member and to get people to ‘follow’ you. As a company this gives you a way to offer your visitors a quick way to let them add your page to their circles.

Until now the badge was only suited for companies and brands but now Google has made a new badge specifically for personal profiles. So if you have a personal website and, of course a Google+ profile, you can embed a badge now so that visitors of your website or blog can add you to their circles. (more…)

Google Wallet Account Requested When Signing Up For A New Google Account

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Last week I attended Search Engine Strategies London (Full coverage by other State of Search Bloggers here) so I wasn’t directly able to post about this but I think it was remarkable enough to do it now.

We’ve seen before that  Google is pushing Google+ to new users by requiring them to sign up for the social network when signing up for a new Google account. Now spotted by Twitter user Robert Matei is a experiment where Google tries to push Google Wallet to new users. When registering for a new Google account Google will ask in the third and final step if you want to also sign up for or connect to Google Wallet. As you can see in the screenshot below you can enter your credit or debit card on the right but there is also an option to skip this step. (more…)

Google Tries A New Mobile Interface

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As you know Google recently made serveral changes to the interface. At first a revamped navigation was launched and rolled out last year but later Google decided to pull back the new interface. After giving it some thoughts earlier this month the company introduced a combination of the current black bar and the new interface launched in November last year. This new interface is here to stay (at least for now).

Mobile Interface

But where the new menu, which could be reached through the Google logo is not in the desktop versions of products anymore Google still tries to keep it, but then on the mobile version. In a new experiment a new interface was spotted for Google Mobile. In the screenshot you can see that the menu with links to several products is opened by hitting the Google logo. You can view more products by clicking the “More” link. (more…)

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