Sep 13, 2011 at 4:54pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google announced that the blocking sites feature introduced in the US based results in March this year, is now available internationally. Google's Johannes Henkel said "starting today, you can now block sites on most Google domains." Here is a picture of blocking Matt Cutts blog in Google France: As discussed before, there is a dashboard to manage sites that you block. So you can add new blocked sites, remove sites you blocked and so on. Google did not specify which international Google properties this does not work on, but they did say it should work on "most Google domai [...]

Confirmed: Google Showing Google +1 Counts To Logged Out Users

Jun 22, 2011 at 9:38pm ET by Barry Schwartz

Google is now showing the Google +1 counts for logged out users. When the Google +1 feature launched in March, searchers were only able to see who in their Google network +1'ed a search result. Now, if you search while logged out, Google will show you the total +1 count for some search results. This may help Google promote the Google +1 feature and encourage additional users to try it. Search Engine Watch spotted the change earlier. Google has since confirmed to us that it is new and showing to all signed-out users. "We're now showing aggregate +1 annotations for signed-out users in sear [...]

Google Gathers Your Map Activity Under “My Places” Tab

Jun 15, 2011 at 3:33pm ET by Matt McGee

While Google.com can store your search history, Google Maps is now storing and offering what you might call "map history" under a new tab called "My Places." It's a convenient way to access the different types of activity you might've had inside Google Maps: My Maps you've made Business listings you've starred Businesses you've rated/reviewed It's just those three options for now, but there's room for more. I'd love Google to add a sort of address book in there where I could store the street addresses that I look up most often (for getting directions, etc.). Yahoo has had an [...]

Study Asks, Can You Trust Google’s Personalized Search Results?

Feb 14, 2011 at 12:33pm ET by Chris Sherman

New research designed to analyze Google's personalized search results and make the process the search engine uses more transparent has generated interesting and controversial findings. The study examined a number of commonly held notions about personalization, including the idea that personalization is subtle, that it can often surface more long-tail results, and that personalization is based exclusively on a person's past search and web browsing behavior. Among the key conclusions: Despite personalized results, for most people search quality has been declining, results are less personal, refl [...]

Upstart DuckDuckGo Challenges Google With Strong Privacy, Cool Tools & Quackpot Name

Jan 26, 2011 at 4:55pm ET by Chris Sherman

Here at Search Engine Land we regularly hear from people who have created "radical," innovative," "next generation" search technology, promising to "fix" the "broken" search we all allegedly pitifully struggle with today. In virtually every instance that I can remember, these promises over-hype and under-deliver, rarely offering something that becomes part of my regular search arsenal. But the bizarrely-named DuckDuckGo is different, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it's actually a very good search engine—and it truly can do useful things. Second, the creator of DuckDuckGo has [...]

Become a PRO member and see all articles in our Google: Web History & Search History archives!

PRO Members get unrestricted access to all archives - and more!

Get Our News, Everywhere!

Follow @sengineland

Got a tip? Tell us here!

Most Likes
Most Tweets
Comments

Our Stories Being Liked on Facebook

Search Engine Land Sponsors

Advertise With Us

Free Daily Search News Recap!

SearchCap is a once-per-day newsletter update - sign up below and get the news delivered to you!

Click to watch SMX conference video

Join us at an upcoming SMX event:

North America

SMX Advanced - June 5-6, 2012
SMX East - Oct. 2-4, 2012
SMX Social Media Marketing - Dec. 5-6, 2012
SMX Toronto - April 2013

EMEA

SMX Paris - June 7-8 2012
SMX Stockholm - Oct. 15-16, 2012
SMX Munich - Apr. 9-10, 2013
SMX London - May 2013

APAC

SMX Melbourne - Sept. 5-6, 2012
SMX Sydney - May 2013

Search Engine Land produces SMX, the Search Marketing Expo conference series. SMX events deliver the most comprehensive educational and networking experiences - whether you're just starting in search marketing or you're a seasoned expert.