Following on from several recent design tweaks (YouTube, Analytics, their favicon……), Google have now launched a brand new user interface for Google AdSense. Even though the update doesn’t really include any big changes to functionality, Google hope that the new look will be much easier to follow. (more…)
Facebook Search is not the best search engine out there. Still for many it is a starting point when looking for people, pages or apps. That’s why it is an interesting area for advertisers to be in. After some initial tests Facebook is now rolling out sponsored results in the search results.
On the developer blog Facebook has announced the new feature as one of several updates they made this week amongst which an SDK for iOS Update and changes to profile pictures, but this one is the most interesting one. The feature will make that when you start searching for a name you might not see a person first, but a sponsored result. (more…)
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…)
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…)
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…)
We’re in the middle of summer (or at least, that’s what the Calendar says) but already it is business as usual for many, including some conference organizers. As you know State of Search is the place to be when it comes to events in the search industry so we want to keep you updated on what is going on around those events. (more…)
The BBC reports that in China three employees of Baidu, the biggest search engine of China and by many seen as a possible ‘Google killer’ once they would expand, have been arrested “on suspicion of having accepted bribes to delete posts from its forum service”.
The three, together with a fourth employee, were fired by Baidu when it became clear they had deleted posts in return for money, but now they also were arrested for this. Apparently they accepted thousands of euros in return for the deletion of certain posts. (more…)
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+.
What is the best place to share your content when its newsworthy? What is the best place where your news gets shared most quickly to the biggest audience possible? It is something which every marketer wants to know and it is especially something where those ‘making the news’ are very much interested in.
So what do you think is the best place? Twitter? Facebook? Google+? The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism decided to find out and used YouGov to research a European audience to find out where that audience shared most of their news. The shocking news: Facebook is most popular all around and even E-mail beats Twitter. (more…)
We’ve reported not too long ago on the fact that Google was testing out a new feature in a special Google+ Group. Today Google is rolling out this feature to everyone. This feature changes the +1 button to become a recommendation button.
Until now the button was mainly used for acknowledging a page is to your liking and you could share through it as well. Now Google is adding recommendations.
The recommendations will be from the site you are visiting and will mean another boost for the usage of the +1 button without a doubt, because it suddenly became interesting for website owners to persuade you to click the +1 button, because it will show you more from that specific site. (more…)
Google recently introduced the Knowledge Graph, a big database filled with information about persons, places and more. Currently the Knowledge Graph is only implemented within Google.com, if it’s relevant the search engine will show more information related to the query.
For some time now Google Image Search has got a functionality to search by uploading an image. After you upload an image Google will try to recognize the image and gives back the best guess for the image and visually similar images plus search results related to the best guess.
These two things, Knowledge Graph and Search by Image are now combined. When Google recognizes the uploaded image the Knowledge Graph will kick in if relevant next to the search results. You can see this below in the screenshot, I uploaded a picture of Chuck Norris and immediately Google show more information about the world-famous actor from the Nineties. (more…)
Today Eric Sykes died. For many outside of the UK that won’t mean a lot. For those in the UK it means that an illustrious figure passed away. As always events like this however also tell us a lot about the world we live in.
The online world now gives us instant insights in how we respond to events like this. It shows how engaged we are or not and it also shows how quickly some online players can respond. We saw for example that Google’s newest feature, direct answers, is not as quickly up to date as some others are. (more…)
Stay up to date with the latest articles