Go Inside Search to get the most out of Google

On Tuesday, they held a media event in San Francisco to introduce new and faster ways to search using your voice, an image or Instant Pages. They also launched Inside Search, a new website that hosted a live stream of the event. Inside Search contains a wealth of information about search and they wanted to let you know more about it.

When providing detailed information about a new search feature, they often link to an official landing page from the blog post (such as this one for Google Instant or this one for Google Images with sorting). Since there wasn’t one central place you could find all that information, they created a one-stop shop for all search-related features, tips and tricks. Thus, following the release of the new Inside Search blog, they bring you a deeper look Inside Search.

Whether you’re a beginner to web search or a search master, you’ll find all the search shortcuts you need under the Features section of the site. For example, most people don’t realize that the Google search box is a calculator, a world clock and a unit converter. You can also discover tips like how to use translated sites to search for [crepe recipes] on French sites or how to use an asterisk in a phrase or question so Google can fill in the blanks.

In addition, if you ever wonder how search takes your query and delivers results, you can use Inside Search to get an under-the-hood look at the technology behind Google Search. There are interactive diagrams with information on how far every query has to travel to get an answer back to you, how often they run experiments (they ran over 6000 in 2010 alone), how much time has gone into developing the algorithm and more. They’ve also included the Search Globe, an interactive display of searches around the world, on this page.

Inside Search also takes advantage of HTML5 to create a more interactive experience throughout the site, so instead of just clicking to read a list of search facts, you can do something a little more fun, like pick up a test tube with your mouse and pour the solution onto the Google homepage to reveal interesting facts about search:

Finally, be sure to visit the Playground section of the site. There, you can try your hand at theA Google a Day trivia game, browse our gallery of past Google doodles and be on the lookout for new fun additions coming soon. 

To learn new search tips, get a behind-the-scenes look at Google technology or find out more information about the announcements from Tuesday’s event, visit the new site at www.google.com/insidesearch. 

Article Src:- Google Official Blog

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It’s a Slam Dunk For NBA Web Searches

It’s a Slam Dunk For NBA Web Searches 

Way back in 1946, the Philadelphia Warriors beat the Chicago Stags in the first professional basketball league championship. Plenty has changed since then, including the name of the league (BBA to NBA), the team names (who are the Stags?!) and the length of the uniform shorts. But there are still some certainties in hoops—the rim remains 10 feet high, there are still five guys per team on the court—and at its core, basketball remains the same. 

In fact, sometimes it even repeats itself. This year’s finals series between the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat is a re-match from five years ago. When they take a look at the data in our Insights for Search tool, it seems that sports fans across the U.S. are much more interested in the match-up this time around, as searches for both teams are currently far outpacing their 2006 levels. 

Basketball has always been a game of big stars—with just 10 players on the court at any one time, one player can change the game in a major way. Looking at players like [kobe bryant] and [tim duncan], they can see the professional league’s best players have shined during the NBA Finals. This year is proving to be no exception as the big names in the playoffs dominate people’s basketball searches. Mavs forward Dirk Nowitzki is the most popular Maverick and Lebron bests his fellow super-stars, Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade, as well as the rest of the Heat players.

While Lebron “King” James and Dirk “The Diggler” Nowitzki are the top dogs on their respective teams, it’s another player, Jason Kidd of the Mavericks, who is really the breakout star of these Finals. The 17-year NBA veteran has visited the Finals before (with the New Jersey Nets in 2002 and 2003), but he’s never won a championship; in fact, Kidd has played in more playoff games without winning a championship than any other active player. With his team currently up 3-2, this year might finally be his to win. While he’s had a career worthy of the Hall of Fame, the veteran has seen a resurgence in interest from U.S. sports fans this season, as you can see in the chart below.

Another way to look at NBA Finals search trends is geographically. As you’d expect, foreign-born players are seeing interest spike in their homelands. Dirk Nowitzki is popular in Germanyand Joel Anthony, a Canadian playing center for the Miami Heat, is generating lots of interest from Canuck hoops fans.

It’s not just the two cities with teams left playing that are searching for info on the series. Cleveland—the jilted former home of Lebron James—has taken a bigger interest in the [nba finals] than ever before. It seems both lovers and haters are paying attention to their former star’s fate.

To understand the fan frenzy in Dallas, they need look no further than how the team stacks up to the traditional fare for most Texans: barbecue. In the Dallas area, [mavs] searches are currently outpacing [bbq] searches. When basketball is outpacing ribs in Texas, you know something big is going down in the Lone Star State.

Though I’m neither a Texan nor a Floridian, with just two potential games left in a neck-and-neck series I’ll be settling in to watch Game 6 this Sunday hoping for another historic NBA Finals moment.

Src:- http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/its-slam-dunk-for-nba-web-searches.html

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Introducing schema.org: Search engines come together for a richer web

Today They’re announcing schema.org, a new initiative from Google, Bing and Yahoo! to create and support a common vocabulary for structured data markup on web pages. Withschema.org, site owners and developers can learn about structured data and improve how their sites appear in major search engines. The site aims to be a one stop resource for webmasters looking to add markup to their pages.

Search engines have been working independently to support structured markup for a few years now. they introduced rich snippets to Google search in 2009 to help people find better summaries of reviews and people, and since that time they’ve expanded to new kinds of rich snippets, including recipes and events. they’ve been thrilled to see content creators across the web—from stubhub.com to allrecipes.com—add markup to their pages, and today they’re able to show rich snippets in search results more than 10 times as often as when they started two years ago.

They want to continue making the open web richer and more useful. They know that it takes time and effort for webmasters to add this markup to their pages, and adding markup is much harder if every search engine asks for data in a different way. That’s why they’ve come together with other search engines to support a common set of schemas, just as they came together to support a common standard for sitemaps in 2006. With schema.org, site owners can improve how their sites appear in search results not only on Google, but on Bing, Yahoo! and potentially other search engines as well in the future.

In addition to consolidating the schemas for the categories they already support, schema.orgalso introduces schemas for more than a hundred new categories, including movies, music, organizations, TV shows, products, places and more. As webmasters add this markup to their sites, search engines can develop richer search experiences. With webmaster feedback, they’ll be able to regularly publish new schemas for sites to use and, in turn, expand the list of queries with rich results. For webmasters who have already added microformats or RDFa currently supported by rich snippets, their sites will still appear with rich snippets on Google. You can learn more on our Webmaster Central Blog, Help Center and on schema.org.

Schema.org provides a wide variety of vocabularies webmasters can use to mark up their pages.

While this collaborative initiative is new, they draw heavily from the decades of work in the database and knowledge representation communities, from projects such as Jim Gray’sSDSS Skyserver, Cyc and from ongoing efforts such as dbpedia.org and linked data. They feel privileged to build upon this great work.

They look forward to seeing structured markup continue to grow on the web, powering richer search results and new kinds of applications.


Src :- http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/introducing-schemaorg-search-engines.html

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Introducing Google's official search blog

The thirst for knowledge is as old as humanity. It's only in the past decade that the Internet has made knowledge ubiquitous, and they want to help you find the answers you’re looking for, whether it’s the best price on a new microwave, where to find a great bike ride—or even information about the Internet itself. 

Generally, they help you answer questions by refining our algorithms, but today they’re taking a slightly different approach: they’re starting a blog—“Inside Search.” Here you’ll find regular updates on our algorithms and features, as well as stories from the people who work to improve Google every day. 

In the past they’ve published information about search on the Official Google Blog (more than 400 posts about search and more than 50 weekly wrap-ups), and webmaster-oriented posts on the Webmaster Central Blog (more than 300 posts). They also operate a help center for searchand another for webmasters. That’s not to mention the search help forums which have more than 50,000 discussions, and the webmaster central help forums with more than 90,000. Combine this with YouTube channels and search conferences, and it’s safe to say they talk a lot about search.

Even with all these channels, they still felt they were missing something. They didn’t want to flood the Official Google Blog with smaller stories and announcements, and the Webmaster Central Blog is really meant for, well, webmasters. They started our series “This week in search” to provide a way to share information about some of the smaller updates they’re making, but they got feedback that people wanted their search news and information as it happens, not just weekly. So, they’re starting Inside Search as a place where you can find regular updates on the intricacies of search and our team. They have more engineers working on search than any other product, and each one of us has stories to tell. 

A glimpse inside the weekly search "quality launches" meeting, during which they approve the roughly 500 improvements they make to search every year.

On behalf of the team, welcome!

Src:- http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/introducing-our-official-search-blog.html

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Sort By Subject In Google Images

When you’re searching for images, sometimes it can be hard to come up with exactly the right words to describe what you have in mind. For example, when you think of London, you might picture the iconic clock tower or the big Ferris wheel. You may not always remember the names of those landmarks, but you can visualize them in your mind. To make it easier for you to find images in situations like these, you can now use Google Images with sorting.

When you search for [london], by default you’ll see image results ranked by relevance. Click on “Sort by subject” in the left-hand panel and you’ll see images organized into categories that will narrow down your search and help you find the exact image of London that you want.

Sorting by subject shows that some of the most popular images associated with London are the London Eye, Big Ben, Tower Bridge and the city at night. This organized view helps you find the images you were visualizing more quickly, so you might realize, “Ah, that big clock tower is called Big Ben, that’s what I was looking for.” You can then can click on the Big Ben group to find the best image within that subject group.

You can also use this feature to explore categories of a general topic that may be easier to learn about visually, like flower varieties or dog breeds. For example, if you want to get flowers for someone but you only know what their favorite kind looks like, not the name of it, you can sort by subject to learn different flower types and discover the name of the type you’re looking for. Watch this video to learn more about how sorting can help you find the image you’re seeking:

Google Images with sorting HQ Video

Sorting by subject uses algorithms that identify relationships among images found on the web and presents those images in visual groups, expanding on the technology developed for Google Similar Images and Google Image Swirl. By looking at multiple sources of similarities, such as pixel values and semantic relationships, and by mining massive amounts of data, we can make meaningful connections and groupings among images.

Sorting will be rolling out globally to nearly every domain and language over the next week. Whether you have a particular image in mind or you’re just exploring a general topic, sort by subject can help you find the image you need—even if you don’t have the exact words to describe it.

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Google Running Instant Ad Previews Experiments

Google had added Instant Preview options for mobile and video recently. The company is now running experiments on Instant Previews for Ads. The Instant Ad Previews, just like other previews (mobile and video), lets users to preview the destination landing page of the given link for an ad before clicking it. Instant Ad Previews also has the magnifying glass icon on which the user must click to view the preview.

The preview of the landing page that appears after you click the magnifying icon on the right side of the also has the orange boxes that highlights the search query. For instance, run a simple 'dell alienware' search at Google.com. The returned results have a magnifying glass next to the ad (on the right). If you click on it, you can see the preview of the landing page that contains your all or some or one of the keywords of your query. Google highlights them in the preview window using the orange boxes, offering a quick and easy way to spot your query.

A user opines that “It could optimise PPC wastage but I am not sure if the majority of users will notice the feature.” While another commented that it is a “Good way of forcing advertisers to point their ads to relevant landing pages and optimize their copy. LOVE the orange boxes.” at Search Engine Watch. Well, if you can see it in your area, try it and find out how useful it is.

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This Week In Google Search 4/22/11 Updates

This is part of a regular series of posts on search experience updates that runs on Fridays. Look for the label "This week in search" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

This week, we sped up search by bringing more predictions to autocomplete and enabling Google Instant in the new Google Toolbar 7 for Internet Explorer. You’ll also find more personalization for the tools you use most in this new version of Toolbar, as well as in Google News, which we updated with new features to help you find more articles on topics you’re interested in.

More predictions in autocomplete

One of the main ways autocomplete predicts searches while you type is by looking at the most popular searches on Google. This week we improved autocomplete for less common, longer and more complicated queries so that now we make predictions based on the last word or words of your search, getting you results even faster.

For example, previously you wouldn’t have gotten a prediction for [online store with underwater gadgets] since few people have searched for that exact query. But many more have searched for [underwater gadgets], so by looking at just the last part of what you’ve typed into the box, we can now generate a prediction for “gadgets.” You’ll see a dropdown box below the end of your search with predictions for just that word. This change is currently available for all google.com users in English.

Google Toolbar 7 with Toolbar Instant

We continued to bring the speed of Google Instant to more places with this week’s launch of Google Toolbar 7 for Internet Explorer 8 and 9. Once you enable Instant under “Toolbar Options,” you’ll see search predictions and results appear as you type in the Toolbar search box. The new Toolbar also sports a cleaner look, and is more personalized—showing you only the tools you use the most. It’s currently available in English, but we’ll be bringing it to other supported languages over the next week. Visit www.google.com/toolbar to download the new Google Toolbar 7.

Automatic personalization and Recommended Sections in Google News

Yesterday, the U.S. English edition of Google News got two new features: automatic personalization and a recommendations gadget. When logged into your Google account, you’ll now see stories based on your news-related web history. For instance, if you click on a lot of articles about baseball, we’ll make sure you get a chance to see breaking baseball news. In the new Recommended Sections in the right-hand column, you’ll see suggested topics to follow based on stories you’ve clicked before. Learn more about personalization features in the Help Center.

Finally, before you head off for the weekend, don’t forget to test your search skills and try solving today’s A Google a Day question at www.agoogleaday.com:

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More Predictions In Autocomplete

The feature that provides predicted searches while you type. When you combine autocomplete with Google Instant, you can really accelerate your searching. Because it is so important to your search experience, we’ve been looking for ways to provide predictions for even more queries. Today we’re improving the predictive powers of autocomplete, helping you search for things even when no one else in the world has.

One of the main ways autocomplete works is by looking at the most popular searches on Google. For example, most people who type “w-e-a” are going to search for [weather], so Google can make that prediction. What’s tricky is that a huge percentage of the queries we get have almost never been typed before, so this makes it difficult to provide predictions based on popularity. For example, very few people have searched for [florida state senate building], so until today, even when you typed nearly the whole search query, you wouldn’t get a prediction.

Now what we’re doing is making predictions based on only part of your search—specifically, the last word or words. While few people have searched for [florida state senate building], many more have searched for [state senate building]. By looking at just the last part of what you’ve typed into the box, in this case “state senate bui,” we can generate a prediction for “building.” You’ll see a dropdown box below the end of your search with predictions for just that word.

As before, to search for the predicted query you simply click the prediction or arrow down and hit enter. The feature can be particularly helpful for long queries, since the query is likely to be more unusual. For example, if you’re trying to figure out [how many stairs to climb the arc de tri]... now you’ll actually get the prediction for “triomphe” (a good thing, too, because there’s no way I’d spell that right). Or, if you’re looking for an [online store with underwater gad], you can save that extra second while you’re shopping for “gadgets.”

We’ve been experimenting with this change for a couple weeks and it’s currently rolling out to all users on google.com in English. As we continue to improve the feature and test additional languages and locales, I can predict with high probability (pun intended) that we’ll be expanding globally.

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Google fending off criticism from Microsoft and others after Panda update

Google's latest update to its search engine algorithm, named Panda, rolled out 11 April in order to weed out content farms - websites that take content from other sites to get more hits. However, this has led to accusations Panda also has downgraded the rankings of other, more legitimate sites.

In an official blog post, Google stated the purpose of the update: "This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites - sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful."

"At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites - sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on."

Yet some websites have had their rankings marked down in what they consider an unfair way, including Ciao.co.uk, a shopping and price comparison website owned by Microsoft and leading an EU competition case against Google.

According to the Searchmetrics, Ciao's ranking in Google fell by 94 per cent. A similar review by Sistrex showed an 81 per cent drop for the site.

Microsoft then claimed Google used their dominant position in the search engine market to limit the rankings of their rival's products, in this case, the Redmond-owned Ciao.co.uk

Google's Scott Huffman, when interviewed by the AFP news agency, denied his company had done anything wrong: "If you think of the scale of what we are talking about, it is almost absurd to say we could rig results."

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Information About the Recent Google Panda Update

The recent Google Panda ranking algorithm introduced new changes for bloggers.

On April 11th, Google globally released their new Panda algorithm. According to Google, the new algorithm is designed to increase the quality of searches and reduce rankings for low-quality sites.

When Panda went global, many websites experienced changes in traffic. Some websites gained more traffic while others lost some. According to various reports in some cases websites lost more than 90% of traffic.

If you were affected by Google's recent update, Google provides insight on how to get your websites back on track.

Google Forum for those affected by the new Panda: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=76830633df82fd8e&hl=en

Other useful links:

Official Google Blog: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html

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Free Search Engine Submission | Free Submission

Search Engine have become a very popular way for people to submit their site to various search engine and directory. Most people usually submit their site to many search engine and directory as they can. This is a great way to get traffic from search engine , but sometimes it is a little impractical when it comes to sending site to more than 30 Search Engine manually.

This is where we can help! Rather than having to visit many search engine and directory and after that submit your site (one by one). You are going to waste a lot of time. But simply use our online tools to prepare your website url to be submitted to many Search Engine and directory. Please note that some search engine required email for confirmation. Please make sure you insert your real email. Do not use the fake email.

Go to this link

http://official.my/addurl.php

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