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Articles and Topics pertaining to Google and it's products and servicesGoogle launches realtime search
Posted on :: Aug 26
Google launches Real-time Search, but it's not a question of will it be used, will NON-Technical Users Use this powerful tool?
R.I.P. :: Yahoo! Search
Posted on :: Aug 24
Last week Yahoo! began transitioning certain back-end functions for its Search product over to Microsoft's search platform. The transition is now complete. If you follow the world of SEO closely, welcome to a two-horse race.
IE 7 and Google Maps :: A Quick Fix
Posted on :: Aug 3
I was fixing a Google Map at my job, when it was reported by one of our Clients, that the Google Map was 'Broken'. The client reported that the map was only half-displaying.
I opened up Safari, Firefox and Chrome and everything seemed to work fine. That’s when I realized I forgot to test the site in IE.
Google API Playground :: Learn AJAX APIs Easier
Posted on :: Jul 21
Google released a new tool that will make learning and testing code for Google's Javascript APIs a lot easier. Google's interactive AJAX API Playground gives developers an easy to use interface to write some basic Javascript code for Google's eight motion charts based on Google spreadsheets, slideshows based on Media RSS feeds, and various ways of manipulating KML files for Google Earth.
Improving Adwords ROI
Posted on :: Jun 29
A surprising number of people who have tried AdWords and given up, or are only dipping their little toes in the water. And the reason I hear most is that Google AdWords is overpriced.
The plain truth is that AdWords is indeed overpriced — if you aren’t doing it right. But it doesn’t stop there. A lack of AdWords success could be a symptom of a greater problem.Getting Your Video in Google News
Posted on :: Jun 3
Google has released six tips to getting your Web video included in Google News -- a big boost to your site, should it happen.
Google dumps Windows
Posted on :: Jun 1
It comes as no surprise that Google would want its employees to use its products, including the forthcoming Chrome OS. But months before the operating system is released publicly, the company has reportedly started pulling the plug on internal use of Windows computers. going so far as to require special permission to use Microsoft’s OS.
Google Makes Five Announcements for Developers
Posted on :: May 21
Google IO kicked off this week, and among their many announcements are a few for developers, designers and publishers. There will be much more news to come, but for now here are five items of interest, currently in development.
Google App Engine for Business, AdSense Upgrades, Google Font API and Directory, Google Wave (Labs) & WebM
Google Expanding Tag Advertising
Posted on :: May 7
Google has added 11 U.S. cities to the tag advertising component of its revamped local business program, Google Places. The new locations are San Francisco, Washington D.C., Chicago, Houston, Atlanta, Seattle, San Diego, Austin, San Jose, Boulder, Colo., and Mountain View, Calif.
For $25 per month, local businesses in these cities can incorporate photos, coupons or other information for customers into yellow tags that are highlighted on their listings on Google and Google Maps. A Google representative said that the company is anticipating quick feedback on the product while it works on new features.
Google Buzz:: Privacy concerns grab gov't attention
Posted on :: Feb 17
Google Buzz continues to draw headlines - and that’s not necessarily a good thing.
the Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a complaint (PDF) with the Federal Trade Commission, arguing that Buzz violates consumer protection law. That group is calling for more changes to the service, including greater control over the service’s settings.
SEO for Google
Posted on :: Jan 22
It is common for many companies to not only want to have the top search engine rankings on Google™, but to stay there as well. So what is a top ranking? In short, it means having your company show-up on the first page of the Google™ results page for any targeted search. This is because 90% of people will not look past of the first page of results when doing a search.
Will Google become a hardware company in 2010?
Posted on :: Dec 17
First, Google was preparing to launch its own Google-branded smartphone. Now, there’s a Google laptop on the way?
That’s the plan, according to TechCrunch.
New Google Analytics Code For Better Load Times
Posted on :: Dec 4
Google Analytics has recently announced a new asynchronous tracking code that can "optionally" be replaced with the old one.
The new code does not block the website while it loads which will improve the loading times.
It also aims to provide more accurate results as it can be installed inside
<head></head>tags (rather than before the</body>tag) and will be able to collect data from visitors that quit the webpage before it loads fully. This way, "any possible tracking errors from dependencies when the JavaScript not being fully loaded" are also eliminated.Google Chrome OS will give Microsoft a run for their money
Posted on :: Nov 20
The new operating system is designed for netbooks — those mini computers that you can buy for as low as $150. In a demonstration today, Google showed how fast the new operating system is — booting in somewhere between 5 and 6 seconds — and explained their vision to the world.
Google isn’t looking to replace all computers or operating systems — they are looking to make something that will work very well for most people. They are targeting those who want fast, hassle free, zero worry, web capable computing.
In a 3 minute YouTube video, Google explains how their operating system is different from traditional computers — and they do it very well. The concept explained in the video is easy enough for anyone to understand and “buy”, and that’s part of the reason why I think Microsoft should be worried.
Netbooks are typically “companion” devices — they are typically purchased to supplement existing computers. Google Chrome OS is all these computers should need.
It’s going to be a really long time before Microsoft can ever create a version of Windows that cold boots in 5 seconds, gives users 100% security, is free, and has the entire open source community behind them.
Google Using RSS/Atom Feeds To Discover New URLs
Posted on :: Nov 3
Google announced a new feature last week that uses RSS and Atom feeds for the discovery of new webpages.
Using feeds for discovery allows Google to index new pages more quickly than traditional crawling methods. According to the announcement, Google may use “many potential sources to access updates from feeds including Reader, notifications services, or direct crawls of feeds.What can your Phone Number do?
Posted on :: Oct 7
What can your Phone Number do, indeed. That's the introduction to Google's newest service Voice.
It's currently only available via Invite at the moment, however I've recieved one and it's a rather cool service.
One number for all your calls and SMS
Why you should be glad about Gmail failures
Posted on :: Sep 25
Gmail is having problems again today and some users are squirming while others aren’t worried.
Of course it’s a hassle when Gmail’s not there any more — I found my work rhythm was interrupted and instead of writing and sending some emails as I’d planned, I had to switch to another task and they’re still sitting on my to-do list now. But the way I look at it, every Gmail outage is a small investment I’m willing to make towards a future when I’ll be able to take its reliability utterly for granted.
With every Gmail fail, Google learns more about operating a cloud-scale, enterprise-class email infrastructure. While it may be true that Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail have more registered users and traffic, neither of them are trying to attract enterprise customers as Google is with its Google Apps suite (of which Gmail is the flagship application). That means no one has ever attempted what Gmail is now doing, and with each slip-up along the way, it learns how to do it better.
Google's PageRank Explained
Posted on :: Aug 31
From here on in, we'll occasionally refer to PageRank as "PR".
How Google Sitelinks are Created and Managed...
Posted on :: Aug 31
Google shows sitelinks for results when we think they'll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn't allow thier algorithms to find good sitelinks, or they don't think that the sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user's query, they won't show them.
At the moment, sitelinks are completely automated. They're working to improve thier sitelinks algorithms, and they may incorporate webmaster input in the future.When Competitors Cheat - How You Can Tell and What You Can Do About It
Posted on :: Aug 7
Not every company or website operates with a sense of integrity and ethics. When it comes to your competition, sometimes they take the easy way out and cheat when it comes to SEO tactics.
How Your Competition Cheats
Unfortunately, black hat SEO practices are out there. Black hat SEO uses spam techniques to increase PageRank (PR) quickly. It’s the equivalent to a “get-rich-quick” scheme. In the case of black hat SEO, it’s the “let’s get our site crawled and indexed FAST” scheme.
Your competition might be one of those unscrupulous companies who think black hat is the quickest and easiest way to bump their SERPs. It’s not a wise decision for your competition to take this risk, yet they still do it. If caught, they face permanent elimination from search engines.
Be on the look out for these unethical “spam” SEO practices:Google Analytics and Adsense Get Married
Posted on :: May 1
Publishers using both Google Analytics and Google Adsense can now officially integrate their accounts.
Marrying the accounts takes just a few minutes. Publishers need to log into AdSense, select the "Integrate your Adsense account with Google Analytics" on the Reports > Overview tab and simply follow the on-screen instructions. Once complete, publishers will find an AdSense-specific meny under the "Content" section of Analytics containing reports on the top Adsense Content, top AdSense referrers and AdSense Trending. The last reports lets publishers analtize how a site generate revenue during different times of the day and different days of the week.
Using GMAIL for your ColdFusion Server's SMTP
Posted on :: Apr 28
I had discovered that is is possible to use Google's GMAIL smtp server to server your ColdFusion Server Mail system. Really.
It's not a complicated as one would think.Configuring CF8 to use Google Apps
Posted on :: Apr 21
The biggest issue I have with running my own server is dealing with spam blockers, email servers, DNS servers, etc. For some of you this is easy, and a no brainer. I personally run from it like a screaming banshee. I use google hosted services for all my email needs. They make it easy, rarely ever have downtime, and the spam filtering is second to none!
Google works fine for sending email from my desktop mail client or through the web, but sending mail via scripts programatically has always been a pain in the butt in my experience. That is until today.
Google RESTful Ajax » JSON Search in ColdFusion
Posted on :: Apr 15
A Friend of mine was hacking and cursing his way through a routine to convert RSS feeds in to HTML, I had an idea. I thought, "Wow, maybe there's another way to do this ..." Converting RSS can be messy so I opted for a much easier and cleaner solution ... JSON. For those Ajax pros out there ... have a heart ... I'm definitely a nOOb at JSON ... I just wanted to share my experience because the introduction and experience was enlightening ... at least to me it was.
Google Penalty Advice
Posted on :: Feb 11
In this article, we provide free SEO advice to assist in recovering from a Google penalty and explore the most common causes, providing a useful penalty checklist.
To check for Google penalties with any degree of certainty can be difficult. For example, if your website experiences a sudden reduction in ranking for its main keyword terms it can be caused solely by a Google algorithm change or search results (SERP) update.
With any algorithm change or Google SERP update, there are always winners and losers, and when a sudden drop in rankings is experienced Google penalties are often incorrectly blamed.