Imagine my shock when I used Bing to search for “Where to buy knockoff products in New York” and found a treasure trove of information on the web leading me to an apparently little-known area of New York City where such products are available around Canal Street: Imagine my further shock to discover that major […]
On Thursday, Google announced a major change to its search algorithm, designed to weed out shallow and low-quality content from its top search results. Content farms were seen by many as the target. Were they hit? Who was hit? Some figures are coming out.
In January, Google promised that it would take action against content farms that were gaining top listings with “shallow” or “low-quality” content. Now the company is delivering, announcing a change to its ranking algorithm designed take out such material. New Change Impacts 12% Of US Results The new algorithm — Google’s “recipe” for how to […]
Yes, Google might consider changing its ranking algorithm in response to an EU anti-trust investigation. However, that would fit in with Google’s general practice of changing its algorithm on a regular basis in response to anything the company thinks will improve its results.
Speaking today at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, outgoing Google CEO Eric Schmidt deflected suggestions that Google is in competition with the likes of Apple and Facebook, and rejected speculation that those fights are the real reason that Larry Page is taking the CEO’s chair. As Forbes reports, Schmidt told journalists that his […]
Google has its eyes on a mobile payment service that would allow users to pay for common goods and services by waving or tapping their mobile phones. That’s according to a BusinessWeek report that cites “two people familiar with the plans.” BusinessWeek’s sources say the payment service could debut this year. It would be based […]
As expected, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has re-filed his patent infringement lawsuit against some of the biggest companies on the web. The suit alleges that 11 companies have infringed on technology developed in the 1990s by Interval Licensing (AKA Interval Research Corporation), one of Allen’s companies. The 11 companies named in the suit are Google, […]
The Telegraph reports Google was sued by a Japanese woman because its Google Street View service displayed an image of her home with her underwear hanging in clear sight. The suit is for over $7,000 US dollars or 600,000 Yen. The woman is claiming psychological distress that has worsened her existing obsessive-compulsive disorder. “I was […]
This’ll make a lot of us feel a lot dumber: Scientists have used Google to prove that Rubik’s Cube can be solved in 20 moves or less. So, that was about two years of my early 1980s life wasted. The UK’s Daily Mail says that a Kent State University professor worked with a Google engineer […]
Factual has analyzed data from 4 million web sites and provided a holiday gift for stats junkies. Did you know 5% of pages have either a Twitter or Facebook link? Or that 28% of sites run Google Analytics? Or 12% of them run Google AdSense? Now you do! The core data comes from CommonCrawl, a […]
As expected, a revised Google Book Settlement has been filed today — about as late as possible. The agreement narrows the scope to the US, UK, Canada and Australia. It alters how revenue generated by “unclaimed works” will be handled. It formally grants retailers who license out-of-print books covered by the settlement — including Google […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Yahoo Adds Products, Businesses, Events, Discussions & News To SearchMonkey The Yahoo Search Blog announced the expansion of the SearchMonkey platform to not only include richer search results for categories such […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: 3 Things I Learned About Business On My Summer Vacation …and how it relates to your business and your SEO. As I write this, I’m on vacation in the Russian River […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Microsoft Lets You Bing Inside Your Hotmail Microsoft has announced the addition of Bing searches to its Hotmail email service. It works via Hotmail’s quick add feature and lets users search […]
Google Operating System, like always, spots that Google has added the creative commons filter to the advanced image search page. In June, Google added the filter through advanced URL parameters, but now it is officially added to the advanced search page. Here is a screen capture of the filter options, but you can learn more […]
Yahoo! recently announced their role in creating and supporting Common Tag, a new semantic tagging format. Yahoo! says that Common Tag makes “web content more discoverable” and enables the community to “create more useful applications for aggregating, searching, and browsing the web.” Their blog post mentions that they want to accelerate the structuring of the […]
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 Images Quietly Adds Creative Commons Filter A couple weeks after Yahoo Images added the creative commons search filter, Google quietly added their own to Google Image Search. The option is […]
A couple weeks after Yahoo Images added the creative commons search filter, Google quietly added their own to Google Image Search. The option is not available in the user interface, but you can set the filter by adding a parameter to the URL. For example: Public Domain Images: Add &as_rights=cc_publicdomain to the URL Creative Commons […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: Live Search Adds Sports Stats & Scores I’m a little surprised that Microsoft is rolling out newish functionality on Live Search given that the Kumo launch is immanent. But the Live […]
The Yahoo Search Blog announced they have added a very useful search filter to Yahoo Image Search. The filter is known as the creative commons filter and it allows searchers to find images that can be reused for commercial reasons or that can be modified (remixed, tweaked, or built upon) with restrictions set by the […]
Google UK recently shared a list of 52 Things to Do on a variety of Google properties (found via Phil Bradley). It’s a collection of tools and tips about using Google products and services for some everyday functions. If you’re a search power user, you probably know most of them already. But Google’s message seems […]
Wikia Search, the “open source” search engine that launched to great fanfare earlier in the year, has introduced a new platform (Wikia Intelligent Search Extensions or “WISE”) that allows third parties to provide an enhanced search result—known as a “WISEApp”—for specific keywords. WISEApps allow publishers or searchers to enhance search results, in a similar way […]
Now that Google Chrome is live, I spent some time looking at the search features within it, especially to see — as I did recently with Internet Explorer 8 — whether Google was going to try to stack the deck in its own favor. Like Microsoft, Google’s playing it straight. As for search features, I’m […]
After six months of testing, Google has formally rolled out Knol, a service designed to let people create pages of knowledge on any topic they choose. While Google says Knol is not designed to compete with Wikipedia — and there are good arguments to back this up — I still think the easiest way to […]
So Firefox 3 has a new release candidate making news, suggesting that the browser is nearly done. May I suggest that the browser is nowhere near being done until the Mozilla Foundation drops its favoritism to Google and allow users to pick their own default search engine? And that Microsoft ought to be among those […]
Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web
Two weeks ago at SMX West, Yahoo! announced a new project code named "Search Monkey" that would enable content owners (and in some cases, searchers) to add rich content to search results. Today, Yahoo has released additional details about the program, which has not yet launched. The announcement describes how developers can provide Yahoo with […]
Last week, our Google Knol – Google’s Play To Aggregate Knowledge Pages article covered the Wikipedia-like Google Knol product that Google is testing and may release in a few months. In that article, I noted how Knol was aimed squarely at services like Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, Mahalo, and Squidoo. Since them, some of those players […]
Everyone’s been talking about how the social graph is the next evolution of search. Search 4.0. The next step forward after Search 3.0’s blended and personalized search. Today, Mahalo is taking that next step and adding a social layer to their search results. Jason Calacanis, Mahalo founder, says that the problem of search will be […]
Suppose I told you about a way to create viral links on Wikipedia without raising objections from the site’s volunteers. Would I have your attention? The key is images.
After attending the recent Search Engine Strategies conference and listening to a number of panels discuss the relationship between content and links, I couldn’t help but notice similarities between what was being said and the principles highlighted in Stephen Covey’s book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Covey’s work suggests people can be successful […]