Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft sure do a good job of looking out for sports fans and film enthusiasts. Although each company uses a different name for its feature, all three recently highlighted ways in which users can receive the latest information.
Google Results Polluted By Cybercrooks
UPDATE: Since this post was first published, Google has said an algorithm change is pending to address the problem. Read more about that here.
Google Announces Mobile Product Search Results
Today Google announced Google Product Search for Mobile. Android and iPhone users will now be able to type a product query into Google.com and get Google Product Search Results formatted for their phones.
Google’s Need For Freshness Sours Search Results
Every so often SEO professionals produce a list of what they believe to be the top factors influencing search engine rankings. The latest update to this list of proposed factors looks much like past lists, focusing on traditional factors like links, content, HTML tags, and domain registration age, and some new ones like geographical factors and personalized search history. But one term might be new to many people: link velocity.
Google Adds Sitelinks for More Search Results
Using Google for searching the web, you’ve probably seen some results pages from time to time that have the top result displaying a number of secondary links underneath it. These links go to different pages within the site.
Simply referred to as "sitelinks," such pages might take you to an about page or a help page, or really anything deemed beneficial to the user by Google’s algorithm. The example below for a NASA search displays links for Gallery, Missions, Aeronautics, etc.
Google Referral Change Linked to Faster Search Results Experiment
This week, it was announced that Google was making changes to search referral URLs. Basically, where URLs looked like this before:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=flowers&btnG=Google+Search
They will start looking more like this:
Google Starts Including User-Generated Maps in Search Results
Google has now made it easier to find maps created by others using My Maps. They are starting to show links to completed user-generated maps when they deem it relevant to a query.
FTC To Bar Atypical Results Advertising
The Federal Trade Commission plans to get tougher on advertisers’ use of testimonials and endorsements by requiring more transparency and ending the practice of using disclaimers like “individual results may vary” and “results not typical.”
Using Analytics To Track Results
Knowing how well your Web site is doing is obviously important and in the session "Tracking and Results Analytics" the panel focused on the best ways to measure success.
Coverage of the PubCon South conference continues at Murdok Videos. Stay with Murdok for more notes and videos from the event this week.
Google Maps Blends UGC Into Search Results
The search results traditionally provided by Google Maps might best be described as "straightforward." They were fine so long as users already had a good idea of what they were looking for; they were rather less useful for browsing. But the blending of user-generated content into the results should change all that.