Home > News and Views > Newsletter > February 2007

Google Bombing, Video Search Engine, Yahoo SiteExplorer, Keyword Suggestion Tool, Gmail for all, Google Webmaster Central out of Beta

1. The end of Google Bombing?

   • Google have announced that they have recently implemented an algorithm which counteracts many Googlebombs.
   • Google maintain that it is due to inproved link analysis and not manual changes and that there have been no false positives.

2. Google to build video search engine

   • Google has started integrating items from YouTube into its video search results as it starts to build a comprehensive video search and content platform.

3. Google Reader now lets you know how many subscribers you have

   • Google have announced that they now list the number of people subscribed to the feed in Google Reader / Google Personalized Home Page in the request, for example:

     " User-Agent: Feedfetcher-Google; (+http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html; 4 subscribers; feed-id=1794595805790851116) "

4. Google update?

   • There are a lot of fluctuations in the SERPs which suggest a recent Google algorithm update.

5. Google release tool to let you see your site backlinks

   • Google have announced that the Google Webmaster Console will now let you see backlinks to your site. The tool splits the data into internal and external backlinks, and lets you export it to a data file too. They state that what it shows might not be 100% of external backlinks.

6. Yahoo! Siteexplorer new features

   • The key features are:

     "

     1. Site Authentication using META tags: For those of you who cannot upload an authentication file to your site, such as a blog, you will now be able to authenticate your site in Site Explorer by including an authentication key as part of a META tag on the home page of your site. This is in addition to the existing mechanism of putting a file on your site home directory.
     2. Detailed Authentication Errors: We now provide detailed errors on authentication failures, making it much easier to diagnose possible problems.
     3. Delete URLs: For your authenticated sites, you can now delete any URLs from the index. Simply locate the URL in Site Explorer and click on the 'Delete URL' button. The URL and all its subpaths will be deleted shortly thereafter. This is meant to work in conjunction with the robots.txt file while providing greater responsiveness. Please continue to use the robots.txt protocol to ensure that our crawler does not crawl pages you want to keep out of our index.

     "

7. Yahoo! launch new ranking model for ads

   • Yahoo! have announced the launch of their new ranking model for ads. Unlike the old system for ad ranking, which was essentially a 'pay for placement' model, the new model takes into account both advertiser bids and ad quality, including user click feedback, resulting in ads that are more relevant to a user's query.

8. Google Makes It Personal For Everybody

   • Google has announced that it is turning on Personalized Search for everyone, meaning that as long as you are signed in with a Google account, you will get personalized Google results. This might annoy some users, but Google has recognized that personalization is the next evolution in search, and forcing its users to come along is the only way to take things to the next level.

9. Different user bases

   • The list of the top ten searches on each of Google, Yahoo! and AOL gives an interesting insight into the relative users.

10. Wordtracker Keyword Suggestion Tool

    • As Yahoo! are announcing (again) that they are about to update Overture, Wordtracker have launched a very useful keyword suggestion tool.

11. GMail now open for anyone to sign up worldwide

    • Google have announced that GMail (whilst still in beta) is now open for anyone to sign up, wherever they live in the world.

12. Google Webmaster Central comes out of beta

    • Google have announced that their webmaster tools are now out of beta. They've also enabled comments on their Official Google Webmaster Central Blog.

13. Msn launch mobile search

    • Msn have announced that they've made an official release of their client software for Live Mobile Search.
    • Interestingly, they are providing versions for both Windows Mobile devices and also J2ME (Java-based) devices, a sure sign that they don't yet control the handheld market!

14. Google loses Belgium newspaper case

    • A Brussels court said Google Inc. violated copyright laws by publishing links to Belgian newspapers without permission and ordered the company to remove them, setting a precedent for future cases in Europe.
    • Google, the owner of the world's most-used search engine, must pay 25,000 euros a day until it removes all Belgian news content, the Brussels Court of First Instance ruled today. There's 'no exception' for Google in copyright law, the court said. Google said it has already removed the content and will appeal the ruling.

15. Google 'Agent Rank' patent

    • Google have filed a patent entitled 'agentrank' which applies weight to specific areas of a page, rather than the entire page, depending upon the author, which is ascertained using digital signatures.

16. Google formally aquires in-game ad company Adscape Media

    • Google has bought in-game advertiser AdScape Media for a reported $23 million.
    • Adscape Media is the in-game advertising company, and the developer of the world's first dynamic in-game advertising technology. Adscape Media's patented technology, AdverPlay™, allows advertisers and publishers, measurable in-game advertising opportunities.

17. Microsoft produce their own 'YouTube clone'

    • Microsoft are attempting to take on the flash video community market with soapbox.
    • It doesn't seem to have many users yet and didn't work in firefox (Feb 2007).

18. Google translate lets you suggest correct translations

    • Google Translate offers you a "Suggest a better translation" field where you can offer a better suggestion, when translating web pages in some languages.

19. Google roll back Google Images UI change

    • Google Images has reversed the change where they only showed detailed image information when hovering over the image, after an outcry from their users. Google have made a number of changes recently (such as the site:www.site.com behaviour) which they have rolled back after users complained.

20. Google announce Google Apps Premier Edition, including a free trial till 30th April

    • Google have released Google Apps Premier Edition, an enhanced version of Google Apps For Your Domain, and are offering a free trial until 30th April.