search engine
Recipe and Shopping Features added in Yahoo Search
Now it’s the time for Yahoo to carry out the changes and yahoo has made some promising changes in their search results just in time for the holidays.The new redesigned search results allow users to to do advanced searches for recipes.
Users can also use Yahoo for a quick comparison shopping and get richer updates for entertainment queries.Users now will be able to see rich results at the top of the page while searching for a recipe.Mouth watering images along with star rating of the dishes,the recipe source and links to required ingredients and preparation time are contained in the results.
Users have also the option of using “filter by ingredient” option at the top right.Interesting contents can be shared in Facebook with just a few clicks.Apart from rich results in SERP,the “Recipes” tab allows users to sort and filter content based on star rating, ingredients,prep time and more.
New Shopping Searches
New shopping features were added in Yahoo as buying frenzy of Thanksgiving will kick start in couple of days.New options were added to search where products like like cameras and watches can be easily compared along with the buying guides.
Comparison of five core products is allowed along with the specs,warranty information and more.They can also post the contents in Facebook asking for the feedback from their friends
Verbatim Searching Introduced by Google
A new tool has been added in Google that explicitly searches for exactly and only your search terms.Personalized,corrected,suggested,related search results were removed in this verbatim.
About Verabtim Tool
Users can make use of this feature to the left menu on the SERP and choose Verbatim from “More Search Options”. Clicking on Verbatim will direct the user to a new search results page.
The Verbatim page will display only results that include:
1. Match their exact spelling
2. Include all their search terms
3.Use the same verb from(e.g running and run will be distinct)
4.Use the same plural vs singular from(cap and caps will be distinct)
5.Use same tense(e.g “is” and “was” will be seen as distinct)
Normal results won’t be appearing and some pages that will be omitted in this case would be those that use syanonyms,alternate forms and tenses and use synonyms based on the history and social connections of the user.
The “+” functionality in search queries will be replaced by Verbatim and while entering a phrase in quotes will fetch results that use exact search phrase and spelling.This feature in Verbatim will strip the results to a greater degree.
Mobile Metrics and PDF Exporting added to Google Analytics
It’s yet another announcement from Google and now we can able to see mobile ad performance metrics in Google Analytics.A new toggle has been added to Adwords reports containing tabs namely “All”,”High end Mobile” and “Tablet” ads.
All these features will be available in Google analytics interface. There has been a lot of people using tablets and smart phones,with this new feature the insight information on customers need can be obtained.
PDF export functionality and email scheduling are the new features that will be added in the new interface.In a couple of weeks these changes will be rolled out.
Phil Mui of the Google Analytics team wrote “The old Google Analytics interface as well as all existing scheduled emails will be sunset starting in January 2012,” . “We believe that the new Google Analytics interface provides significant advantages over the old version, including access to Real Time Analytics, Multi-Channel Funnels, Social Plugin Analytics, & Flow Visualization. And hope you’ll find enough value in these new features that you’ll switch to the new version well before then.”
Music Store from Google launching Tomorrow
There has been a lot of speculation going around for the launch of Google Music Store as Google has scheduled a press conference tomorrow. Screenshots of Music Store have also been leaked.
Google Music Store will be competing with iTunes and will be selling songs and albums for digital download.Sources say that Google has yet to secure licensing deals with all the major labels.Sony or Warner have not given any indication of a licensing agreement.
Google has the reach,social capabilities and hardware through Motorola and the Android Os.Both Google and Apple has been fighting fo territory with especially Apple launching the iOS.
This has been a long wait as Google has been working on licensing deals with labels that would allow Google to become an MP3 seller. There has been a new featured called “music locker” that has been rumoured to be included in the Music store.
Music Locker would match user uploaded songs with high quality tracks and when a song matches Google would automatically play back the higher quality version of the song.
Let us wait and watch how Google can match Apple Istore.
Startup Apture acquired by Google
There seems to be no end for Google’s acquistion this year.Google’s 23rd acquisition this year Apture will give the ability to monetize every page on the web.
Founders of Apture Tristan Harris and Can Sar along with their employees will join the Google Chrome team according to the announcement on their company’s site homepage.
Since 2007, all of us here at Apture have worked hard to add new dimensions to the web. We’ve always believed that by transforming flat web pages into interactive multimedia experiences, we could enable readers to see, hear and truly experience the ideas on the page.
After enhancing more than a billion pages with our products, we think now is the best time to expand our efforts with another team just down the road that shares our vision of making the web better. That’s right — we’ve been acquired by Google and will be joining the Chrome team to continue driving innovation and creating a better user experience on the web. The modern web is an amazing platform, so stay tuned for even more enhancements to your Chrome browsing experience.
Apture’s browser plugin has been already removed from Chrome store and all the Apture plug-ins will be shut down in the coming months.Apture’s browser plug in will allow users to highlight words and phrases and bring up results that includes news,videos and images in a small time window.
The users can explore many topics without leaving the page and this feature has also been used in sites like Financial Times and Economist.com.a single line of Javascript is used.
The purchase amount has not been disclosed and with this new feature Google offers enhanced on page search to 200 million active users.
Sites will be penalized by Google for too many ads
Sites that making it life tough for the visitors to find good content and comprising of heavy ads will be penalized by Google.This was said by head of Google’s web spam team during his keynote session at PubCon.
”What are the things that really matter, how much content is above the fold,” Cutts said. “If you have ads obscuring your content, you might want to think about it,” inferring that a if a user is having a hard time viewing content that the site may be flagged as spam.
Google has been dropping ranking for sites with too many ads since it has been updating the algorithm over the past couple of months.
Cutts also said all the sites that have been marked as spam should not have been marked as spam and asked the webmasters to report to Cutts and his team.
In the pubcon Cutt responded to audience doubts that there won’t be any threat to SEO and SEO is here to stay.Search will always be getting better and more personalized for each one of us.He also told “Google will be always be striving to get the best results possible while getting fresh real time results”.
Business and Brands can now create Google+ pages
The wait is over and today Google+ officially announced the pages for brands and businesses which the marketers have been eagerly anticipating for months.
If “Create a Page” is visited,it’s likely you will be greeted with this message : “but we haven’t finished releasing them to everyone. Please check back soon.” Currently twenty Google+ pages are available and these numbers will increase making it available to all as part of its worldwide rollout.
Google+ Pages are Google’s version of Facebook pages that allow brands to connect with customers and fans.In Google+ pages you can post updates ,communicate with customers or fans and check your +1 counts.A personal Google+ profile is needed to create a Google+ page and you need to pick one of the five categories for your page.
1.Local Business or Place
2. Product or Brand
3.company,Institution or Organization
4. Arts, Entertainment or Sports
5.Others
Google users will be able to find and follow pages like public profiles via Google’s search results.Also, with a Pages admin account, you can use Google+ circles and take part in video chat Hangouts.
Mobile-Friendly Site Initiative launched by Google
Google has launched HowToGOMo.com in an effort to tempt webmasters to create mobile friendly sites.Visitors can able to view their website as customers see it on their smartphones and also find mobile site developers.
Google Mobile Ads team has find out that 61 percent of the users are unlikely to return to a website that is not optimized for mobile browsing.The site has a feature called GoMoMeter which analyzes your website and gives customized recommendations in downloadable part.
A feature called “Mobilize” was added by Google in July which allows users to build mobile friendly sites.Last month in “From Why to How” mobile webinar,Google announced that mobile optimization will be factored into Adwords quality score for mobile ad campaigns.
See the following video for how GoMo works
Redesign made to Gmail and Google Reader
Gmail and Google Reader will now get crisper and cleaner designs with some functionality added to Gmail. Reader is losing many of its social features in favour of Google+ integration
The preview format of the look and feel has been available for several months and the actual update is around the corner.The following features will now be available in Gmail very soon
1. Allow users to resize different panes within Gmail (including the chat and label panes).
2. Automatically adjust to fit any screen or window size.
3. Choose between three levels of compactness for their layout.
4. Pick one of several high-resolution themes.
5. Use an all-new conversation structure.
There has not been any news about the official release and given the current state of readiness we are looking at a November release.
Reader now Cleaner after Shedding Weight
Quite a number of functions are being sweeped by Google and user can expect the clean look that has implemented elsewhere.
Expect a different look in Google Reader and several functions are making it’s way out.To help those who want to migrate to alternative RSS services instead of getting started with Google+, Reader’s subscription export will now allow this social data to be exported as well.
Google Adwords in UK and Germany
Adwords Express will now be available to all UK and Germany advertisers as a way to help local businesses get more traffic to their websites and places pages. With the help of Adwords Express you can search customers to for your website or Google places listing. Basic Information like business information,ad text and monthly budget is provided to Google.
Once the initial set up has been done,Google will manage the campaign for you.AdWords will target and figure out which searches your ad should be showing on much like their new Dynamic Search Ads program that they launched last week.
The whole process to set up Adwords Express takes around 5-10 minutes depending on how long it takes you to come up with ad text.Another important thing on Google Express is that it will give you an estimated
monthly budget based on local competition,estimated clicks and how much the customer can get out of the advertiser.
When the customers search for your business or places account,the ads will appear in the Ads section above or to the right of Google’s organic search results.A blue pin will be displayed in Google Maps rather than the red pins non-Adwords advertisers receive on the desktop.
This is one of the perfect move by Google for the local business to get more traffic.With its availability in UK and Germany,local business can get more traffic without having to learn about Adwords.
Have a look at the following video.