It's the first Friday of the month, and that seems to be when Google has decided to push out its monthly update of search tweaks from the prior month. The January update is out and it contains a few interesting nuggets. Panda In The Pipelines There's a mention of the Panda algorithm update that we wrote about last week, but it also includes a somewhat cryptic reference to being more integrated into Google's "pipelines." We improved how Panda interacts with our indexing and ranking systems, making it more integrated into our pipelines. Sounds like Panda is baked into things even mor [...]

Related Topics: Google: News | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Top News

In June, Google dropped the option to search the general web index from the Google News search box. Google redesigned the Google News search box to add the ability to search the general web index. Here is a screen shot: As you can see, you can click on the last result in the suggestions, you will be taken to a general web search. Plus, as short cut, you can hit the enter key to search Google News or Shift+Enter to search the web. [...]

Related Topics: Google: News

You can no longer search for articles from specific authors in Google News. As Barry Schwartz reported this morning on Search Engine Roundtable, using the author: firstname lastname command at Google News brings up no results now, and Google has disabled it on purpose. If you think it has something to do with the rel=author movement, it seems that you're correct. Here's what a Google employee named Erik explained in the Google News help forum: The author: search operator is no longer available. For author-specific Google News content, I would recommend use of the Authorship capabilities [...]

Related Topics: Google: News | Google: Rich Snippets | Top News

The Google News Blog announced that the Spotlight section on Google News may contain stories that your Google + friends and Gmail contacts have +1'ed. If you are logged in while using Google News and your friends or contacts have used the Google +1 button to like the stories in your Spotlight section, that information will show up in the Spotlight section near the article. It will even let you click on the name of your friend/contact to see their social profile on Google. Google said: Starting today, the Spotlight section will sometimes include articles that your Gmail contacts and peop [...]

Related Topics: Google: +1 | Google: Gmail | Google: Google+ | Google: News | Top News

Google News will soon start highlighting journalists' profiles in Google News. But rather than highlighting the profiles from their primary website/writing venue, Google will be highlighting their Google+ profiles. In a blog post today, Google showed an example of how the profiles will be featured within Google News. The journalist has to first have a Google account that's linked to their articles, and when that's the case, Google News will show the journalist's Google account profile photo along with information about his/her from Google+ -- how many followers and an "Add to circle [...]

Related Topics: Google: Accounts & Profiles | Google: Google+ | Google: News | Google: Rich Snippets