A new Google patent was awarded today named Systems and methods for detecting hidden text and hidden links. The patent was filed on August 25, 2009 by Google's Matt Cutts and Fritz Schneider. It was awarded today after being in pending status for over 3 years. The abstract reads: A system detects hidden elements in a document that includes a group of elements. The system may identify each of the elements in the document and create a structural representation of the document. The structural representation may provide an interconnection of the group of elements in the document. The syste [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Employees | Google: Patents | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | SEO: Spamming

Google is hiring a new product marketing manager for search with one of the key goals being to find ways to get people to sign-in while they search. The job description says: As Product Marketing Manager within the search growth team, you will be responsible to developing plans, creatives, campaigns and programs to increase the number of user's signed in. Brian Ussery spotted this first and posted a screen shot of the job posting: As you know, the number of "not provided" terms listed in Google Analytics because Google is blocking the search query parameter from analytics programs [...]

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Google's head of search spam, Matt Cutts, a name familiar to most of the readers here, was inducted into University of Kentucky's Arts and Sciences Hall Of Fame last Friday. This was reported in the Kentucky Kernel. The article explains that Matt Cutts attended the University of Kentucky while working for the Department of Defense as part of the university's co-operative program. During that time, he became very interested in information retrieval and search engines and became one of Google's first 100 employees. On Friday, Matt Cutts visited the University's Student Center to talk to [...]

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Google's head of search spam, answered some questions in the Power Searching with Google Hangout on Air #2 on October 2nd. In that video, he was asked by fellow Googler, Dan Russell a Search research scientist at Google, will search spam go on forever? This question was asked about 36 minutes into the video, where Matt basically said he's team has done a great job but search spam will go on forever. Here is the video and the transcript (I did my best transcribing): Dan: There is this constant Spy vs Spy kind of thing… Matt: Yes. Dan: And you're the good spies and then there [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Employees | Google: Web Search | Google: Webmaster Central | SEO: Spamming

Popular social news site BuzzFeed, has uncovered a stash of images that allegedly leaked from an internal meme generator within Google intranet. The majority of the images appear to be pro-Google and rib at rivals Facebook, Yahoo! and former Google exec Marissa Mayer. All of the images were sent in from a tipster who stated that they were from "memegen," a meme generator found within Moma, the Google intranet.  Buzzfeed pointed out that a few Googlers have mentioned memegen previously in social media. The majority of the memes were in good clean fun and most touted Google's servic [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Search | Google | Google: Employees

Wow. Wow. Wow. That's all that keeps running through my head as I digest the news that long-time Google executive Marissa Mayer is to take over as president and CEO of Yahoo. Smart move for Mayer. Smart move for Yahoo. And as I'll explain more, perhaps a move that finally takes Yahoo out of the search game, but takes it out in a smart way. A Force To Be Reckoned With I've known Mayer since she started at Google in 1999. Until she moved off of being vice president of search in 2010, Mayer was the Google executive I had the most contact with. When we were first introduced, my reaction to Googl [...]

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Marissa Mayer is leaving Google today, and will take over as Yahoo's President and CEO as of tomorrow. The 37-year-old Mayer was Google's 20th employee and has been responsible for a number of Google products over the years. Most recently, she oversaw development of Google's local products and services. Yahoo has struggled to find a leader in recent years, going through several CEOs including Carol Bartz, Scott Thompson and the current interim CEO, Ross Levinsohn. The news comes via CNBC's Andrew Ross Sorkin and was shared via a pair of tweets just now. BREAKING- Sorkin: Yahoo names Ma [...]

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I had an interesting email hit my inbox, someone showing me how a Google employee was "100%" sure there had been no Penguin Update. There was, of course, and it's a reminder that just because someone is a Googler, that doesn't mean they know how Google Search works. Google has nearly 25,000 employees (according to a search I did on Google just now), and they're involved with all types of projects. Many have nothing to do with search. In the email I saw, a Googler (yes, it really was someone who worked for Google) was asked about the Penguin update, if they knew anything. Response? I as [...]

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Gabriel Stricker is still listed on Google as Director of Communications, Search. However he's now VP of Communications for Twitter. He follows Karen Wickre, Google's former Senior Media Liaison, who joined Twitter about seven months ago. And quite some time before that, Carolyn Penner left Google's PR team for Twitter. I also noticed that Shailesh Rao, who was once director of local for Google and then later the managing director of Google India recently became VP of International Revenue for Twitter. Stricker was at Google for more than 5 years, when many people start to get the "w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Google: Employees | Twitter | Twitter: Business Issues

Two articles appeared today that reflect on the first year of Larry Page's return to the CEO role at Google. Bloomberg's Brad Stone does a Q&A with Page in which he discusses the larger competitive challenges Google faces and some of his management philosophy. The other piece is from Wired writer Steven Levy and is a bit of a counterpoint to the mostly upbeat Bloomberg story. Stone declines to query Page about privacy, antitrust and Google's myriad problems with regulators and governments around the world. In his answers about a range of issues, Page is confident and seemingly reflectiv [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Android | Google: Antitrust | Google: Business Issues | Google: Employees | Google: Legal

Glassdoor has released their 2012 survey of best places to work in 2012 and Google has beat Facebook for the first time in four years in that survey. Google scored a 3.9 overall by their employees while Facebook scored a 3.7. In 2011 Facebook scored a 4.2 and Google scored a 4.1. Although Facebook employees earn about $3,000 more on average than Google employees and although the interview process is harder at Google than Facebook, Googlers in 2012 are more happy with their company than Facebook. Googlers seem to complain less about long hours and work/life balance issues than Facebook. I [...]

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Susan Wojcicki, Google's SVP of Advertising, spoke at our recent SMX West search marketing conference in a keynote conversation with Search Engine Land's Danny Sullivan and Chris Sherman. The conversation covered many different topics -- not just the advertising side of Google where Susan is most heavily involved -- from privacy issues to mobile marketing to how Google started in Wojcicki's garage. While we already provided coverage of the keynote via Greg Sterling's live blog of the conversation, we also have several video clips that our readers may have missed -- and that attendees may wa [...]

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Kara Swisher reports Google's first employee, Craig Silverstein, has decided to leave Google after about 14 years at the company. He is leaving Google to join the Khan Academy. Craig helped Google's co-founders, Larry and Sergey, build the original Google search engine. He did this while in the Stanford University dorm rooms. Now he has been acting as a mentor to other Googlers. His title at Google most recently was director of technology. The picture on this story is from a picture at Google featuring some of the prominent Googlers on cereal boxes. Craig is "Special Kraig" thir [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Google: Employees

Amit Singhal is the man who is responsible for Google web search. All the searches done on Google are technically under his watch. So when an interview was posted named The human search engine, where Mark Prigg from the London Evening Standard interviewed Amit Singhal, I got excited. The interview shares some insights into Amit's role at Google, how Google tests new algorithms, and what the future for Google search is. I though it would be fun to categorize the quotes into those three groups and simply quote the story: Amit At Google: I came in and said 'I'm a search academic, why don't y [...]

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When Larry Page took over the CEO role at Google last year the company was doing well. Now it's doing better and so Investor's Business Daily has named him "CEO of the Year." The publication summed up its rationale as follows: [Page] reorganized the company's management structure, redesigned the face of the company's products and pushed forward with a multibillion dollar deal to acquire a cellphone manufacturing outfit. He also launched two other products aiming at Groupon, the leader of online coupons, and Facebook, the top social networking site. Google (GOOG) in the past two quarters [...]

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A new Dilbert cartoon makes fun of the Google employee 20% time to work on whatever they want. As many of you know, Google has a policy to let their engineers spend 20% of their time work on anything they want. Products like AdSense came from it. But is the 20% time really all that great? The Dilbert cartoon pokes fun that although Googlers do have 20% time, they also on average work 60-plus hours per week. This is not the first time Google was featured in Dilbert, here are some of the other times: Dilbert Cartoon: Caught For Paid Links On Google Dilbert Cartoon Says "No" To [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Consumer | Google: Employees | Google: Parodies

Glassdoor.com, a job and career web site, announced their annual best places to work in 2012 study. Facebook tops Google with the number 3 listing, whereas Google moved up for their 2011 spot of 30 to number 5. In 2010 Google was rated number 14, and in 2009 Google was rated number 7. Glassdoor.com developed a 20-question company survey that captures employees' attitudes about: Career Opportunities, Communication, Compensation & Benefits, Employee Morale, Recognition & Feedback, Senior Leadership, Work/Life Balance, and Fairness & Respect. This survey is what makes up the final score f [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Google: Business Issues | Google: Employees

Cadbury posted on their Google + page a picture of their latest milk chocolate bars named "Dairy Milk+ Bars." The Milk+ bars come in two flavors, Sergey Brin & Larry Page - i.e. the co-founders of Google. As part of a social media experiment, Cadbury posted this on their Google + page, saying: Remember our 1kg Dairy Milk+ Bars? We've had some special personalised ones made, including these delicious ones for Google founders Larry & Sergey. Whose name would you like to see on a bar? Hat tip to WebProNews for spotting this first. Related Stories: Google+ Is Slowly Invading Goog [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Google: +1 | Google: Employees | Google: Other

Google's hiring process is pretty infamous. Multiple interviews. Sign-off at the very top. And those crazy interview questions! It's a wonder that anyone gets a job. The folks at Jobvine have put together an infographic illustrating the hiring process at Google, along with some interesting employment stats about the company, including salaries and growth in employees, over time: Want the infographic for yourself? You'll find it here: What does it take to get a job at Google? [...]

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Google now has its own version of the Yahoo "peanut butter" manifesto, where Google staff software engineer Steve Yegge wrote a "family intervention" memo about Google's failure to build accessible platforms, leaving it vulnerable to the likes of Facebook. There are some harsh words about Google+, but the memo is broader than that. It offers an intriguing look inside Google, including being a place where engineers, as least, can send such strong declarations around the company without fear of retribution. Accidental Release Yegge didn't intend for his post to be public. That was an ac [...]

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