Google Looks To Shutter China Search Operation As Talks With Government Reach “An Impasse”
Yesterday I speculated about whether Google would be able to have it both ways: to remain in the Chinese search market and still live up to its bold proclamation that it would no longer comply with Chinese government censorship rules. The Chinese, all along, have given no indication that they intend to change their hard-line [...]
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Google Goes Live With “In-Stock, Nearby” Mobile Shopping
In the range of thigs discussed at Google’s Search Evolution event in December Engineering VP Vic Gundotra demonstrated mobile shopping with real-time inventory information. Now Google has announced that product is live.
Google is working with a limited number of retailers for the time being but is inviting others to apply to become part of the [...]
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Google Testing New TV Search Service?
I will let you in on my new system for posts. If the post title has a question mark there is good reason to suspect that it will fall in the realm of rumor. In this case, the source of the information, The Wall Street Journal, tends to report on things that are as “real” as they can be. On this one, however, there was enough evidence that while Google may be up to something it’s not ready or prime time.
What gave it away? This line in the WSJ article
A Google spokeswoman said the company doesn’t comment on rumor or speculation.
That was easy. OK, now that we have that out of the way let’s talk about what Google may or may not be doing with TV search. The Business Insider tells us a little more as well
Google is testing a new TV search service with Dish Network, the no. 2 U.S. satellite TV provider, the WSJ reports.
The service lets you search TV shows and Web video, including YouTube videos
, the WSJ’s Jessica Vascellaro reports. The service runs on set-top boxes “using elements of Google’s Android operating system,” and is currently being tested by Google employees and their families, according to the WSJ.
Google TV search makes sense of course because if anything can be searched then it can be better managed. Also, Dish Network is the perfect candidate for this kind of service because their battle with DirecTV is heating up. Dish has troubles because DirecTV owns the sports side of the ledger so if Dish could create a more compelling experience overall then it has something to battle with.
So what’s the net-net of this? Well, it’s apparently that Google is doing what it always does which is to expand its horizons and to get into more areas to make money. You gotta figure that not all of the 20,000 employees at the Goog are working on search right? Something is always brewing. I guess the lesson to learn here is that if you can be friends with the right Google employees you may get to be part of their informal product tests.
Google Testing TV Search Service With Dish Network
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google is testing a new TV programming search service with Dish Network:
The service—which runs on TV set-top boxes using elements of Google’s Android operating system—allows users to search content from Dish as well as other Web video, like YouTube, and to personalize a lineup of shows, according to these [...]
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Google Adds Public Data Search Tool To Labs
Google has announced a new tool called Google Public Data Explorer that’s now available in Google Labs. The tool is a follow-up of sorts to last year’s announcement that a limited amount of public data would be used in response to certain Google.com search results.
The Data Explorer tool includes data from the original three sources [...]
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Google Getting Even More Personal–Starred Results
For once, an advance in Google personalized search I actually like. They’re adding the same stars we’re so used to in Google Reader and Gmail to personalized search results. The starred results let you mark favorite sites to show up at the top of future posts—and it doesn’t appear to affect the rankings of the rest of the organic results.
As Google puts it:
With stars, you can simply click the star marker on any search result or map and the next time you perform a search, that item will appear in a special list right at the top of your results when relevant. That means if you star the official websites for your favorite football teams, you might see those results right at the top of your next search for [nfl].
The stars are replacing an old feature in personalized search: SearchWiki. Says Google, “In our testing, we learned that people really liked the idea of marking a website for future reference, but they didn’t like changing the order of Google’s organic search results.” (Which probably isn’t to say they actually disliked reranking sites, but just that they didn’t do it very much. Seriously, it just wasn’t super useful.)
Any SearchWiki notations you made will be saved in your Google Account. If you want to continue to make notations in SERPs, Google recommends Sidewiki, its browser-based, publicly-edited sidebar wiki for commentary launched back in September. Last we heard, Sidewiki hadn’t really taken off—maybe this is Google’s push to create new, passionate users.
The stars are all set to go and will be rolling out for all signed-in users in the next few days. So far, there’s no indication starred Google Reader items will have any relationship with this effort beyond the passing similarity.
One big drawback for marketers, of course, is that every step forward in personal search may mean we’re less likely to be able to rank a site universally—or even tell if our site is showing up for most signed-in users. Plus, we may have to sign out to get the “neutral” results for reporting (although if you’re starring a client’s competitor in your SERPs, “sumbuddy’s doin it wrong”).
What do you think? Do you like the idea of stars and the simpler interface to mark sites you’d want to see in SERPs again? Or do you worry about personalized search affecting marketing? Would you like to see your Google Reader starred items showing up for relevant searches?
AT&T Picks Yahoo Over Google To Provide Search On First Android Phone
Yahoo has scored a spot as the default search engine on the new Motorola Backflip, AT&T’s first phone using the Android operating system. The web site Android and Me quotes this hands-on report from Engadget:
Yahoo has replaced Google as the default search provider throughout the phone. It’s crazy: the home screen widget, the browser, everything’s [...]
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Warning: Your Google Indexed Site Has Been Hacked!
Don’t panic! Don’t panic!
There’s a good chance that your site has not been hacked. However, if in the future, your web site were to suffer at the hands of some malicious hacker, Google Webmaster Central will alert you to that fact.
Starting this month, we will notify more webmasters of more potential issues we’ve detected on their websites, including:
Starting this month, we will notify more webmasters of more potential issues we’ve detected on their websites, including:
- Spammy or abused user-generated content
- Abused forum pages or egregious amounts of comment spam
- Suspected hacking
These notifications are meant to alert webmasters of potential issues and provide next steps on how to get their sites fixed and back into Google’s search results. If it pertains to a hacking or abuse issue, the notification will point to example URLs exhibiting this type of behavior. These notifications will run in parallel with our existing malware notifications.
The notice will look something like this:
Google also suggests that it is considering these alerts to include "other types of vulnerabilities or abuse issues." What that means, who knows? I know you shouldn’t hold your breath that Google’s going to tell you how to improve you rankings any time soon. 
Google Helps You Find Things Nearby
Google recently made search improvements as your roam around by adding the My Location option to mobile search. The idea is to help everyone find things that can be visited, used or accessed right then and there based on your location. While there is plenty of concentration on the mobile side of search they have not let the local aspect of search from the desktop get stale either.
Last year Google started to give Google map results even if there was no local qualifier in the search which moved local search to the next level. The latest enhancement allows you to look for things that are nearby but with a slightly different twist.
Starting today, we’ve added the ability to refine your searches with the “Nearby” tool in the Search Options panel. One of the really helpful things about this tool is that it works geographically — not just with keywords — so you don’t have to worry about adding “Minneapolis” to your query and missing webpages that only say “St. Paul” or “Twin Cities.” Check it out by doing a search, clicking on “show options” and selecting “Nearby.”
This can come in handy in planning trips or a variety of ways. By creating more options on the geography that are not anchored to specific keywords this certainly adds more power to the local search capabilities of the search giant.
Here’s my question though. How many people does Google think will adopt this option? Most users of search are so unsophisticated that they will have no clue that this option exists. How many times have you seen someone type in a full URL into a Google search rather than into the browser?
I suppose these things are good to have as more people get educated regarding search but most people just type in their basic needs and either refine from there or get frustrated and move on. If I were Google I would work to educate the true masses about what they can actually do with Google. Right now I think that they feel that by telling the “industry” that it’s enough. Trouble is it’s not. If the ‘regular’ searcher doesn’t even know these things exist is Google missing the full value of these offerings? Just a thought.
Yes, More Are Seeing A New Google Look-And-Feel
We’re getting more and more reports from readers who are seeing a “new” Google look-and-feel for its search results. This is a three column design that Google’s actually been testing for some time. That testing appears to be accelerating.
Google Tackles Its “UI Jazz” Problem, Tests Streamlining Search Options Feature is our story from [...]
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