This is one the most bizarre things I've seen come down the pike in a long time. Let's see if you agree: According to this post on Mediadonis, you can check if Google has penalized a domain or not by simply adding the word hyves as a subdomain and then checking the PageRank of that subdomain. Use my two primary blogs as examples: http://hyves.smallbusinesssem.com/ - doesn't exist, but will show toolbar PR7 http://hyves.hyperlocalblogger.com/ - ditto According to the post, using "hyves" as a subdomain will produce one of three results: PR7 means that the domain is perfectly fine P [...]

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

Some webmasters are celebrating, others not so much, as Google closes out 2008 with another toolbar PageRank update -- the first one since September. Google's Matt Cutts confirmed the update via Twitter late last night. There's lots of Twitter talk today about the update, along with discussion on Search Engine Roundtable and Search Engine Journal. It's worth reminding readers that PageRank itself is just one of 200+ factors in Google's ranking algorithm, and that toolbar PageRank is considered to be outdated as soon as it's updated. [...]

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

Break out the birthday candles for Yahoo's Search Assist and Google's Toolbar. Yahoo reminds us today that its Search Assist feature was launched a year ago this month. Search Assist is the feature that suggests words and phrases while you type in the Yahoo search box; it also suggests related concepts -- something, Yahoo tells us, that no other search engine is doing. And Yahoo can celebrate these numbers: Usage of search assist is up 60x since it was launched a year ago, and usage of related concepts has seen a 3x jump, according to Yahoo's blog post. The Google Toolbar, meanwhile, [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Toolbar | Search Features: Query Refinement | Yahoo: Search

Debate continues about Google's war on paid links. But regardless of where you stand, I think most people would agree buying and selling is risky behavior. You don't really want the world to know you're doing it. And if you're going to engage in paid links, I think many would agree you shouldn't be trying to trick people into something that might cause them harm. This week, from my inbox, an example of a company going wrong on both counts. I get requests for us to sell links from Search Engine Land and Sphinn all the time. We don't do that. Personally, I d [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Features: General | Google: SEO | Google: Toolbar | Link Building: Paid Links | SEM Industry: General | SEO: Spamming

Search Engine Roundtable reports based on a WebmasterWorld thread that Yahoo Search is undergoing an update. Several webmasters have noticed significant changes in the Yahoo Search results. We do not have confirmation from Yahoo on this update, while the last Yahoo update was the first week of this month. Also, over the weekend we have reports of a Google Toolbar PageRank update. We have discussion around this update at our very own Sphinn forums. This toolbar PageRank update does not seem to be accompanied by any actual search update at Google, which is now normally the case. I co [...]

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

Google announced that the Firefox 5.0 Google Toolbar is now available for download. The toolbar adds many of the features and improvements Google added to 5.0 for IE several months ago including: Custom buttons with gadget support Synchronized Toolbar settings Google Notebook integration Suggestions for navigation errors Improved AutoFill AutoLink Web History and more... To learn more about the Google Toolbar for Firefox, see over here. [...]

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

Google is currently updating the PageRank values found in the Google toolbar. A post from Google's Matt Cutts announced and confirmed the update is taking place. In addition, Matt said they will be "expiring" some of the penalties with this update. I assume the penalties refer to the toolbar PageRank massacre that began about ten months ago for selling paid links. If you are new to Google PageRank, I suggest you read Danny's What Is Google PageRank? A Guide For Searchers & Webmasters. Once you catch up with that, and you want to discuss the specifics of this particular toolbar PageRank u [...]

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

Matt Cutts of Google has posted another one of his debunking theories post, this time on the Google Toolbar aiding Google in indexing content. Matt said, "if Ken Simpson is implying that the Google Toolbar led to these urls being crawled, then he’s mistaken." Ken Simpson was paraphrased in an InformationWeek article saying, the "Google Toolbar may be configured to pass URLs that one visits to Google for indexing." This is not the first time Matt debunked this theory. He did so in December 2006, but felt it was necessary to do so again. Matt explained he did so again because it is "good [...]

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

Google has launched Google Ad Planner as an invite-only beta. It's designed to allow advertisers to identify sites with demographics they're interested in -- even sites that aren't part of Google's advertising network. The tool provides a greater depth of information about sites than Google Trends For Websites that came out last week. In fact, that's more a "light" version that Google told Search Engine Land was spun off from Google Ad Planner: Initially, we were going to launch only Google Ad Planner. However, when Google management looked at the product, they wanted to make s [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Analytics | Google: Ad Planner | Google: AdSense | Google: AdWords | Google: Analytics | Google: Toolbar | Google: Trends

A new research paper from Microsoft looks at how surfing behavior -- as logged by a search toolbar -- can be used to improve search results. The study used data from the Windows Live Toolbar: For each user, interaction logs were grouped based on browser identifier information. Within each browser instance, user navigation was summarized as a path known as a browser trail, from the first to the last Web page visited in that browser. Located within some of these trails are search trails that originated with a query submission to a commercial search engine; it is these search trails [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Toolbar | Google: Web History & Search History | Microsoft: Bing | Stats: Relevancy | Stats: Search Behavior

U.S. appeals court hands Google patent case setback from Reuters reports a US appeals court has partially overturned the initial ruling in Google favor in a patent infringement case filed by Hyperphrase Technologies, LLC. The court supported the initial ruling that AdSense did not infringe on Hyperphrase patents, but it did not uphold the initial finding that the autolink feature in the Google Toolbar was not a patent infringement. Instead, it sent that portion of the case back to a Wisconsin district court for reexamination. The official decision can be read in this PDF file. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: AdSense | Google: Legal | Google: Toolbar | Legal: Patents

Google Toolbar Dialog Spoofing Vulnerability by Aviv Raff discloses an exploit with Google's Toolbar versions four and five. The exploit comes into play when a user adds a button to their Google toolbar. When added, a hacker can spoof the information displayed in the dialog box and influence that user to download malicious files on to their computers. Aviv has a very detailed and clear example of how this exploit works at his blog. Google is reportedly working on a fix at the time of this release. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Toolbar

Google Blogoscoped reports Google released a new version of the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer. The new version is version five and has new features like integration with Google Gadgets, a "roaming" feature to keep your toolbar settings on any computer you might use, and navigation error handing features. Google has posted a YouTube video demonstrating some of those features: You can view a full list of features in version five over here Postscript From Danny: Browse By Name is listed as a new feature, but Google's had this since version two, from what I can see. This is where if [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Toolbar

Google is rolling out two features today that subtly but meaningfully enhance the level of personalization offered to anyone with a Google account. And while they're tied to your search behavior, they don't directly alter the standard search results you see, even if you've enabled personalization by searching while signed in to Google account. The first feature allows you to add a "recommendations" tab to a Google personalized home page. To enable the feature, simply add a new tab, name it "recommendations" and tick the "I'm feeling lucky - automatically add stuff based on the tab name" che [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Personalized Search | Google: Toolbar | Google: Web History & Search History

Vnunet reports that Google has admitted to the leak of passwords via the Google Blacklist. But Google has also issued a statement saying that they "procedures have been put in place to strip login information from future submissions." As I noted yesterday, this is not the first time confidential information has been found in Google's phishing blacklist, but hopefully, this will be the last time. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Firefox | Google: Security | Google: Toolbar | Search Features: Safety | Toolbars & Add-Ons

Google Blacklist Contained Confidential Information at Techcrunch reports that Google's phishing blacklist, which is publicly available for anyone to see, had confidential information enclosed. Such information included "usernames and passwords of individuals, including credentials for accounts at banks and other financial institutions." Google has quietly removed the information that may put users at risk, but it just shows us that this can happen. Danny discussed the other week, his experience with the Google & Firefox 2 Anti-Phishing Warning when he went to his bank online. The Google [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Firefox | Google: Security | Google: Toolbar | Search Features: Safety | Toolbars & Add-Ons

Today I noticed Live.com trying to get me to search with it in Firefox. Then Yahoo did the same thing. So I guess a new round of "let's change search defaults" is going on within Firefox. That seemed a good excuse for a revisit how the various search engines are trying to pull us as their default choices in both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox. Back in October, I did a big fat article looking at the state of how search worked in Internet Explorer 7 and how search providers were trying to suck you into making them your default search choice. It was Firefox stuff that got me going to [...]

Related Topics: Ask: Promotions | Channel: SEO | Firefox | Google: Marketing | Google: Toolbar | Microsoft: Internet Explorer | Microsoft: Marketing | Yahoo: Marketing

Judge dismisses lawsuit against Google at BusinessWeek covers a patent infringement case against Google over AdSense and Google Toolbar's AutoLink feature being tossed out. The case was brought by HyperPhrase Inc. against Google. The judge dismissed the infringement claims, calling the AdSense claims "nonsense" and finding that AutoLink "performs a completely different function in a different way to achieve a different result." [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: AdSense | Google: Legal | Google: Toolbar | Legal: Patents

Google Operating System reports that Google released a new toolbar for Firefox. The toolbar has many of the features of the Internet Explorer version but also has some features of its own. My favorite new feature is the ability to drag a file on your browser and it automatically add it to Google Docs & Spreadsheets, the supported file types include; doc, rtf, odf, sxw, cls, ods, and csv. Other features include custom buttons, a "Send To" that sends web pages via email, text message (SMS), or blog, Google Bookmarks integration and Google Account Sign-in. A full feature list can be found her [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: Toolbar | Toolbars & Add-Ons