Have you ever typed a company name into Google and been instantly greeted with words like ‘scam’ or ‘complaints’ by Google Autocomplete? That can’t be good for business, and it is a situation that more and more organizations are finding themselves in. Being part of a firm that is heavily involved in Online Reputation Management (ORM), we take on a wide range of tasks. There is a bit of everything, from helping individuals clean up search results for their names to partnering with corporations to identify and fix reputation problems. One of the most common issues we get now, fro [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Enterprise SEO | Google: APIs | Google: Instant | Google: Suggest | Google: Toolbar

After only eight months, the Google Related toolbar is headed to the dead pool. That's one of several Google products being phased out in the company's latest "spring cleaning" announcement, along with the One Pass payment system for news publishers, Google Patent Search losing its own home page and Google Flu Vaccine Finder. Google Related is was a browser toolbar that offered contextual information about the web page being displayed in the main browser window. For example, when looking at a restaurant's website, Google Related would show a map/address, reviews and similar restaurants/bus [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Patents | Google: Toolbar | Google: Web Search | Top News

There has been a lot of discussion and scare on Twitter and within the SEO forums that Google has disabled the Toolbar PageRank scores from working. The truth is, no they have not. As several sites have reported already, PageRank is still alive in the Toolbar, but Google changed the lookup URL. This change has prevented third-party tools that check PageRank from looking up a page's PageRank. If you use Internet Explorer and turn on the Google Toolbar, you will still be able to look up the Toolbar PageRank score. But you may not be able to do so if you use a third-party tool, not until they [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Toolbar

In a new Matt Cutts video, the Google engineer answers why webmasters are likely to see a toolbar PageRank drop for their site. He mentions three reasons: (1) You simply lose a link from a third party page that had a lot of high PageRank. (2) You have weird canonicalization issues with your site and domains that caused confusion. (3) The most common reason, Matt said, was because the site is selling links and thus Google will demote the PageRank of that site in order to remove the incentive from link buyers to purchase links from that site. Here is the video: Matt also expl [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Toolbar | Google: Web Search

Google has just released a new info discovery tool named Google Related that allows users to find and access content that's similar to what they're viewing in their web browser. Before the brief overview below, we need to point out that we're writing this post without having had an opportunity to actually use Google Related. In other words, we're reporting on what we saw in a demo and in screenshots. How Google Related Works If related material (websites, videos, products for sale, maps, etc.) is available (as determined by an algorithm) it can be viewed in a toolbar found at the bott [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: General | Google: Toolbar | Top News

Google has announced the end of supporting the Google Toolbar for Firefox. Google said the Google Toolbar works in versions of Firefox 4 or younger, but not the new version 5 of Firefox. Google explained, "many features that were once offered by Google Toolbar for Firefox are now already built right into the browser." So Google has decided the toolbar doesn't offer enough of a value-add on Firefox and thus is no longer supporting it. The Google Toolbar was first introduced over years ago for Firefox. Then later came to Internet Explorer. As you know, Google has their own browser, Chrome, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Firefox | Google: Toolbar | Top News

Google announced they have launched a new URL shortener just for official Google use. The new URL is g.co. Google said this URL will only be used to link to official Google properties, explaining it is reserved "just for Google websites." Google explained that "you can trust that it will always take you to a Google product or service." Back in December 2009, Google launched a URL shortening service at goo.gl for public use. Google said that non-Google properties can be linked to using the goog.gl URL shortener but g.co is only for Google use. TechCrunch says that single letter .co [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Toolbar | Search Engines: Social Search Engines

Google Instant continues to spread. The company has just announced that it's one of several new features on Google Toolbar 7 for Internet Explorer 8 and 9. Google Instant has to be activated via the Toolbar Options menu, and once it's on, Instant works the same way it does on Google.com. The Escape button on your keyboard takes you back to the page you were on before you started searching. Another new feature is personalization on the toolbar -- the tools you use most will remain visible, while others will be moved to a "More" button. Finally, Google has collected all of its priva [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Instant | Google: Toolbar

Yes, Google uses data from its Google Toolbar to improve its search results. But no, Google reasserts, it doesn't use its toolbar to mine search behavior on other search engines in the way that Bing does. Bing Toolbar & Google's Results Questions about Google's toolbar came up in the wake of Google's accusations that Microsoft's Bing search engine was copying some of Google's search results by monitoring how people search on Google, through installations of the Bing toolbar and the Suggested Sites feature in Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Bing has rejected those copying allegations, e [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Copygate | Google: Toolbar | Top News

Part of this week's debate over whether Microsoft's Bing search engine is learning from Google involves data that Bing gathers through Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Google has suggested Microsoft isn't giving fair disclosure. I disagree. To better illustrate, let's turn the tables and look at the Google Toolbar and disclosure. Over the past week, Google has pushed at least three times that Bing is somehow gathering data via Internet Explorer to improve Bing's search results without fairly disclosing this to IE users. Microsoft Does Disclose The first time was during my initial meeting wi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Copygate | Google: Toolbar | Top News

Google has updated the PageRank values of many sites within the Google Toolbar. This is the first toolbar PageRank update of the year, and arguably the first one in almost 9 months. There have been minor updates, where some sites have seen their PageRank change during 2010, but I believe the last huge PageRank update was in April 2010. I posted the news at the Search Engine Roundtable yesterday, where there are close to 40 comments in less than 24 hours on the PageRank update. Honestly, I am a bit upset to see so many SEOs and webmasters interested in this update. As we know, Toolbar P [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Toolbar

Jason Weber is suing Google over how the Google Toolbar in the past sent data to Google even while the toolbar was turned off. The suit was filed on November 5th by Webner and his attorneys, KamberLaw, based in New York. The plaintiff is suing on his "personal" experience and claims that the toolbar was still transmitting page data to Google in the background even when the enhanced toolbar was turned off. They claim that Google knew about the problem for months but did not fix the issue until much later. Much of this case cites Ben Edelman's findings back in January 2010, where disabli [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Business Issues | Google: Legal | Google: Toolbar

Ben Edelman uncovered evidence that even if you disable the Google Toolbar, Google may still be tracking your web browsing behavior. Edelman documents how he disabled the Google Toolbar within the preference, then visited a web page and captured how Google was sending browsing data from the toolbar to Google's servers. Edelman first clicked the "X" icon at the top left of the Google Toolbar. Then he selected "Disable Google Toolbar only for this window," and clicked "okay." While in the same window, requested the Whitehouse.gov site. He noticed that his network monitor showing that th [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Security | Google: Toolbar | Legal: Privacy | Legal: Security

On February 11, 2009, we reported Google penalized Google Japan for selling links. It resulted in Google.jp having their toolbar PageRank score drop from a 9 to a 5. Shaun Anderson noticed today that Google.jp now returns a toolbar PageRank score of 8. He said prior to December 31st, it was still a PageRank of 5. He asked if this means that most PageRank penalties last 11 months? No, I don't think so - it depends on the situation. But in this case, Google clearly wanted to make a case of themselves and did so. 11 month PageRank penalty is a long time and can set a nice precedent for f [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Toolbar

To kick off the 2010, Google is currently exporting the PageRank values to the Google Toolbar. Yes, there are major reports of a Google Toolbar PageRank update taking place right now. This may become a New Years tradition for Google. Last year, Google pushed out a PageRank update for New Years 2009. I wonder why they make the push right before New Years? Maybe because it is slower for Googlers and less going on? I am not sure. In any event, I hope that most of you can add this to your new years celebration. If not, I wouldn't fret, see our explanation of Toolbar PageRank vs. real [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Toolbar | Google: Webmaster Central

Google announced a new URL shortening service Goo.gl. It doesn't replace Bit.ly and others because it only works right now with the Google Toolbar (and Feedburner) and you can't directly access it as you might one of the established tools: Google URL shortener is not a stand-alone service; you can't use it to shorten links directly. Currently, Google URL Shortener is only available from the Google Toolbar and FeedBurner. If the service proves useful, we may eventually make it available for a wider audience in the future. The Google Toolbar for IE and Firefox also now allows users to share an [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Facebook | Google: Toolbar | Search Engines: Social Search Engines | Top News

My piece this morning, Google Removes PageRank Data From Webmaster Tools from the Search Engine Roundtable has sparked a lot of discussion on Twitter. Google had indeed removed the PageRank statistics from Google Webmaster Tools. I believe it was removed when Google released the Webmaster Tools Labs features earlier this week. PageRank being pulled from the crawl stats, has gone mostly unnoticed until I wrote about it this morning. Susan Moskwa from the Google Webmaster Central team explained it was removed because Google keeps telling webmasters "that they shouldn't focus on PageRank s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Toolbar | Google: Webmaster Central | Top News

The Google Blog announced the latest version of the Google Toolbar for IE (Internet Explorer) has new "advanced translation" capabilities. The translation features include: Automatic detection of languages other than your default language One click translation Client side (does not communicate with Google) language detection Automatic language translation on page clicks Real-time translation for dynamic content Auto translation feature (bypass click for translation) for frequent sites you visit There are 41 different languages currently supported, including: Albanian, Arabic, Bulga [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Toolbar | Google: Translate

Knowing where a searcher is when s/he conducts a search is one of the big promises and opportunities in mobile search. Advertisers want the precise targeting, and it's also a convenience for the user who doesn't need to indicate a location when looking for products and services. There are already several tools and services that include location as part of the mobile search experience, but Google has added location-based web searching on the desktop via a new, beta version of the Google Toolbar. The new toolbar includes Google's "My Location" technology, which was introduced in 2007 for mobi [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Labs | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Google: Toolbar | Top News

Google announced the release of the Google Toolbar 6 for Internet Explorer. This toolbar, when installed, adds the Google Quick Search Box (QSB) to the task bar of Windows computers. This is by far the most visible difference with this version of the toolbar. Other changes include enhancing the search suggestions and a new tab page feature that gives you quick access to your most viewed sites, recently closed tabs and bookmarked pages. Let me take a closer look at the Quick Search Box. When I installed it on my PC, it added the Google icon to my task bar: Either clicking on this [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Toolbar | Top News