It’s a well known feature of Google. Start typing in a search, and Google offers suggestions before you’ve even finished typing. But how does Google come up with those suggestions? When does Google remove some suggestions? When does Google decide not to interfere? Come along for some answers.
Since early 2006 I’ve been writing about the “offline future of online shopping.” And since that time a collection of startups has been working, mostly under the radar, to bring real-time local product inventory data to the internet. In November of 2010 Google joined that effort with local product search. Now when you do a […]
Google’s Music Search, which launched with tremendous fanfare in October 2009, has been taken offline. But the company is suggesting that it’s not completely dead. A Google spokesperson tells Search Engine Land: The music search feature introduced in 2009 is currently unavailable while we make some updates to the user experience. Google’s Music Search put […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Google’s Android To Dominate Globally In 2011: Report Tech consulting firm IDC has predicted that Google’s mobile operating system will become the dominant mobile platform this year, achieving a global market […]
It would appear that Amazon is becoming Google’s best frenemy. The company launched its well designed Android app store last week and yesterday surprised a lot of people by introducing Amazon Cloud Drive and Cloud Player. No, it apparently doesn’t work on Apple devices. Beating Google Music to market it offers music storage and streaming […]
An annual study by Universum ranks Google the top place for young working professionals to work at. Google Is No. 1 on List Of Desired Employers from the Wall Street Journal reports the study claimed about one in four of new job applicants would prefer to work at Google over any other company. About 25% […]
Five years ago, I wrote a story called “25 Things I Hate About Google.” It went viral, to my surprise. I thought it was worth revisiting that story on its five year anniversary, to see how many of those “hates” have been fixed. So let’s dive in!
Video watching was down on YouTube during February, but it still holds a seemingly unsurmountable lead in viewers, video views, and time spent per viewer. According to the latest comScore video stats, which cover February 2010, Google sites — i.e., primarily YouTube — saw a 2.1% drop in unique viewers 4.3% drop in viewing sessions […]
Among major brands, those in the automobile, finance, and food service industries attracted the most complaint-related searches in 2010. That’s according to a new study from the marketing agency Web Liquid Group. The 2011 Customer Complaint Index measures search activity in the Google Keyword Research Tool involving complaints (i.e., broad match results for “(brand name) […]
While Apple has reportedly decided to forgo NFC-related hardware/software in iPhone 5 because of a lack of standards, Google is to begin testing NFC-based mobile payments at selected stores in New York and San Francisco according to an article in Bloomberg: The company will pay for installation of thousands of special cash-register systems from VeriFone […]
How can you find a new restaurant, a well-curated boutique, or a artisanal cheese shop, if you never even knew it was there? Local search works well when people know what they’re looking for, but companies like Pelago, with its Whrrl application, are looking for alternative ways to enable those serendipitous discoveries. The start-up company […]
Given the massive number of apps now on both the iPhone and Android some people (especially tech bloggers) complain regularly about the “problem of app discovery.” In fact we don’t know if regular users are similarly vexed. But let’s assume they are. On Android in particular “app discovery” has been less than optimal. Now iPhone […]
Why was he there? Who wasn’t invited and why? What did they talk about? Why was he really there?
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: The State Of Online Marketing In Russia For online marketers, Russia offers two appealing qualities: It’s one of just five countries in the world where Google isn’t the market leader, and […]
SearchReviews has just launched a search engine with more than 40 million reviews in its system, and plans to hit 100 million reviews by the end of 2011. Those 40 million reviews cover about four million products and come from more than a thousand sites such as TripAdvisor, Amazon, Zappos and others. Those are impressive […]
I’m pleased to join you with my first installment for the new Mobile Mondays column. As a long time Analyze This columnist, I appreciate SEL making space for the mobile marketing conversation. Mobile marketers love the data Google announced recently at the “Think Mobile” event. First, they shared that one in seven queries (15%) now […]
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 […]
Searches on Bing-powered engines grew 6.5% in the U.S. from December to January, climbing from 25.77% of total search volume to 27.44%. Google lost 2.5%, dropping from 69.67% to 67.95% of searches. This according to the latest Experian Hitwise Search Engine Analysis report, which looks at U.S. traffic. Bing.com saw the greatest increase in searches […]
Along with everything else going on for Bing’s Harry Shum on Tuesday — a panel about search spam, dealing with Google’s accusations that Bing “copies” Google’s results — Shum dealt with perhaps his most important worry. Reassuring his son that Bing wasn’t “cheating” as a search engine.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Bing: “We Do Not Copy Results. Period.” The war of words between Google and Bing has escalated today with a strong denial about copied search results from Bing’s Yusuf Mehdi, who […]
Google’s Shopper mobile app is being introduced for iPhone. It already exists for Android devices. Shopper allows users to search for products by voice, with the camera, via barcode scan or by text entry. Users can also share products on Facebook, Twitter, SMS or email. Google Shopper shows prices, product reviews and local inventory availability […]
Greg Linden reports that Google has switched the algorithm they use for YouTube’s recommendation engine from their own to a variation of Amazon’s algorithm that was designed in the late 90s. This is an interesting move being that Google has the man power and smarts to build a fairly good recommendation on their own. But […]
According to the latest data from Hitwise, Bing had a very happy holiday season. From November to December 2010, Bing.com saw a 5% increase in search activity, while Bing powered searches also rose 2%, search activity on search.Yahoo.com remained the unchanged. Search activity on Google decreased from 70.10% in November to 69.67% in December 2010. […]
Google has famously undertaken a high-profile initiative to show users where they can buy products offline in local stores. It has also launched a very non-traditional (for Google) shopping site, Boutiques.com. There have been additional improvements in the Google Product Search destination site, including more product-browse capabilities. Then there are product listing ads, which expanded […]
Looking to stream movies or television content from the internet to your TV? There are a variety of streaming media players on the market. The chart below provides an at-a-glance look at how the leaders — Roku, Apple TV, Boxee Box and Google TV — measure up against each other.
Google TV has taken its share of lumps since it launched in October, but it shines bright in one particular aspect, making it simple for Dish Network subscribers to find shows and program their DVRs. Below, a look at Dish integration, as well as some hands-on with the Logitech Revue version of Google TV.
In this week’s Search In Pictures, here are the latest images culled from the web, showing what people eat at the search engine companies, how they play, who they meet, where they speak, what toys they have, and more. I am proud to bring this column back after having it on a hiatus for a […]
Last weekend, rather than read stories about the US diplomatic cables that Wikileaks has released, I decided to read them directly myself. In doing so, I better understood why no one — certainly not the US State Department — is going to shove those cables back into the darkness. Finding Wikileaks My first step was […]
A couple of weeks ago I wrote that Google may have missed its “window” for Chrome OS netbooks (pun intended). That was based on my prior understanding of ChomeBooks as an affordable “second computer” aimed chiefly at consumers. This is generally how Google had positioned the devices a year ago. My thesis going in was […]
Google has announced that Chrome OS laptops are now available to consumers through a pilot program for early adopters who prove themselves to be “right” in various ways. A Chrome Web Store has also launched to allow an easier way to run web apps within the Chrome browser itself.
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: DecorMyEyes Merchant Vitaly Borker Arrested After NYT Piece On Google Rankings Just over a week ago, the New York Times introduced the world to Vitaly Borker, who boasted of being abusive […]
The dust seems to have finally settled on the long holiday weekend, and according to several reports both formal and informal, that dust is largely colored green. Green, as in money: transactions, average order size, revenue, and other metrics are widely reported as being up this year compared to 2009. Here’s a recap of several […]
Google has rolled out its long awaited digital ebooks program, the next step in the company’s ambitious but controversial project to scan and make searchable the estimated 130 million books that exist in print versions. “The next logical iteration for us is to open up a bookstore,” said Scott Dougall, product management director for Google […]
Looking for the Wikileaks website? Having lost one domain, and having its second site going down temporarily, it’s a challenge, even for the search engines.
Shopping.com parent eBay has reportedly acquired local product inventory site Milo.com for $75 million in cash. Milo was aspiring to become the “Google of local product data.” The acquisition is a bit of a surprise to me but problably came out of discussions about a strategic investment. I believe Milo and Shopping.com were in discussions […]
The web is shifting rapidly, again. Search has seen accelerated growth over the last two years, at a quicker clip than any time over the last ten. This has been fueled primarily by innovations at Google. However, Bing is also pushing innovation rapidly and was cited by Google CEO Eric Schmidt as, their “biggest problem” […]
The New York Times has a great, detailed story out today about a merchant with an unusual marketing strategy: be mean to customers. Any publicity, even negative publicity, means a win with Google’s ranking algorithms. Is he right? Maybe. Certainly the story illustrates the fallacy of Google’s “gold standard” search results. Rank Well With Bad […]
I’ve been looking at various internet-to-TV devices as part of my Life With Google TV series. I’ve covered Google TV, Roku & Boxee Box so far. Time for Apple TV! If you buy a lot with iTunes or have an iPhone or iPad, this is a great device. Amazing, in some ways. But the lack […]
Ladies and gentlemen open your wallets — and start your smartphones. The holiday shopping season is upon is. This year more than ever there are scores of sites, apps and online tools to direct you to the right product at the best price. It can all be a bit overwhelming in fact. Below I’ve tried […]
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will be speaking today at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. I’m here and will be live blogging his remarks, when the session begins. Zuckerberg was set to speak at 4:50 Pacific Time, but it’s looking more likely he’ll be on around 5:10. He’ll be interviewed on stage by John […]