Google is planning to rename two of its popular services soon: Blogger will become Google Blogs and Picasa will become Google Photos. That's according to Mashable, which says the changes are due in the next six weeks. Google's YouTube property will not be included in the company's rebranding efforts, but other products beyond Picasa and Blogger could be. We reached out to Google for more information, but the company told Search Engine Land it would not be commenting on the report. The last time Google rebranded one of its existing and established properties (i.e., not a new or recent [...]

Related Topics: Google: Blog Search | Google: Blogger | Google: Picasa

Google has added a new filter to its blog search option that makes it easier to find blogs themselves, not just individual blog posts. The filter is part of Google.com search, not Google's specific Blog Search service at blogsearch.google.com. The filter appears in the left-side menu. When you choose the Blogs option after your search, it defaults to showing individual posts. But below that is the filter to see posts or home pages. While Google's full Blog Search site doesn't have this filter, it does list blog home pages at the top of the search results. And, as you can see, the blo [...]

Related Topics: Google: Blog Search | Google: Search Customization | Google: Web Search | Top News

With a final "fairness hearing" scheduled for February 18, the US Department Of Justice has filed briefs (PDF) in opposition to the Google Book Search Amended Settlement Agreement ("ASA"). The DOJ commends the parties for their efforts to reach an amended agreement that addresses some of the problems with the original settlement but concludes that there are still fundamental anti-trust issues with the ASA: Despite the commendable efforts of the parties to improve upon the initial Proposed Settlement, many of the problems previously identified with respect to the original settlement remain in [...]

Related Topics: Google: Blog Search | Google: Critics | Google: Legal | Legal: Copyright | Top News

A lot of the innovation in search these days is all about What's happening right now? Twitter is the poster child where real-time search is concerned, and despite its ongoing spam problem, Twitter Trends has become one of the primary places to get a snapshot of what's happening now. Google Blog Search is getting in the game with its announcement today of "Hot Queries," a new addition that appears in the upper right corner of the Google Blog Search home page. It shows 10 queries that are "happening now" -- or, "currently popular" in Google's words -- in Blog Search. What we don't know is if [...]

Related Topics: Google: Blog Search

There's no official announcement (yet), but Google tells Search Engine Land that it's made several improvements under the hood of Google Blog Search. In an email conversation, Google's Jeremy Hylton -- head of the search quality group in Google's New York office -- explained how the changes impact the "clusters" of stories that appear on the blog search home page. "We're doing a better job of choosing the blog posts to include in clusters," Hylton says. "We're also working on changes to expand the number of posts we consider for clustering." One of the algorithmic changes is aimed at [...]

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