Google Confirmed Testing Frames For Search Options & Search Results

Google ConfirmedTesting Frames For Search Options & Search Results

Google has confirmed a new user interface test on the search results page where the left side search filters are in a scrollable frame, and the middle of the search results are in their own scrollable frame. Technically, they are not frames, but rather some form of AJAX or HTML5 like interface. I am honestly not sure, since I did not see it myself.
I reported this at the Search Engine Roundtable and posted a video from a spanish blogger that captured it. Here is that video:

The Spanish blogger also notes you can try this yourself by changing your cookies. I have not tried this, nor do I recommend it, but if you want to take the risk, here is what you do.
(1) Use Chrome (2) Download this chrome extension (3) Then modify your cookies and in the field it says NID use

50=RbHwrmdgEAl6v3XPDKfJey5zpW7n84oRvsTZOK0LuYwW0m0UDFcPmts2HqKaZc2-Rdo7iLsrYKOUVKV4ztyb7JMDWavDVmvsyC2UldBcyFKsmyM_4Qhr761WpGHfoZPZ

A Google spokesperson confirmed this as a new test, saying “Google is always experimenting with new features.”

source: http://searchengineland.com/confirmed-google-tests-framed-search-filters-search-results-89909

10 more ways to help you get the most out of your Google+ account.

Take a look through the gallery and share in the comments any suggestions you have for improving the G+ experience.

1. Check Your "Added to Circle" Notifications

A good way to ensure you don't miss any important circle additions is to hit up the "People who've added you" view every once in while.

To see this on your profile, click on the circles tab and then select the option. Once you're in this view, you can click on the drop down menu to view "Not yet in circles."

This will bring you the people that have circled you, but that you haven't circled in return. It's an at-a-glance method to catch anyone that might have slipped through your circle net.

2. Filter Your Notifications

The main "notifications" view is useful but it can be a little cluttered to work through with all of those overlapping updates in one list

You can actually filter those notifications by clicking the "More" drop-down option at the top right of your page.

Being able to view mentions, photo tags, posts by you, posts by others and circle additions is a lot more useful than the default view.

3. Select the Correct Thumbnail

When you add a link to a post, Google+ doesn't always automatically select the correct thumbnail to go with the content.

Before you hit share, make sure the thumb is right. If it doesn't, click on the arrows that appear on the top left of the image to scroll through the options.

Alternatively, hitting the "X" removes the thumbnail from your post altogether.

4. Save Time With the Notifications Toolbar Icon

The handy notifications icon on your Google+ toolbar can save you tons of time.

Once you've hit the icon, you can see more notifications by using the left and right arrows to scroll. You can even save time by adding comments from the notification window.

5. Tag People in Photos

It's not immediately obvious how to tag people in your Google+ photos.

To tag people, you have to open your photo in the lightbox viewing mode. To do this, go to your photos tab, select the album, then click on the photo. This should load it up in lightbox view, at which point you'll see the option to "add tag."

An important note: If you tag someone in a G+ pic they will have access to view the entire album in which that photo appears.

6. Enable High-Res Video Chat

High resolution video chat is available in Google+ but you need to take some steps to enable it. Click on the chat's drop-down menu and select settings. Now, check the "Enable high-resolution video" box.

7. Lock Down the Dimensions of Your Profile Pic

Google+ profile photos are 200 pixels by 200 pixels. Rather than chop down a larger pic, or worse still, stretch a smaller one, we suggest resizing the image you want to use as a perfect 200 x 200 pixel square before you upload it. This means your image will appear exactly as you want it to.

8. Display Your +1's

The default setting on Google+ is that your +1'ed pages from around the web will not show up on your profile. However, you can change this to let people see what you've been liking.

Go to your profile tab, click "edit profile," then click on the +1's tab. You will now get the option to "Show this tab on your profile."

9. View Your "Nearby" Stream on a Computer

One of the most popular features of the Plus mobile app is the "Nearby" functionality that lets you view public posts in your vicinity.

Until this makes it to the web version, we have a workaround that lets you view the location-based stream on your computer.

The URL for the mobile version of Google+ is

m.google.com/plus, however, entering this in your browser will just redirect you to an info landing page about Google mobile

Entering https://m.google.com/app/plus/, however, will load up the mobile version proper and let you tune into those local posts.

10. Send Invites Without an Email Address

Google+ makes it possible to send invitations to join the service without even needed an email address.

This is ideal for enticing friends and followers over from Facebook and Twitter respectively. The "Send invitations" option on the right of your Google+ screen now generates a link to invite up to 150 people.


We hope these tips would be helpful to all of you. Please be care full.

source : http://mashable.com/2011/08/10/google-plus-tips/?WT.mc_id=obinsite#228211-Check-Your-Added-to-Circle-Notifications

Now Appearing in Your Email Signature By Google+ Updates

  Now Appearing in Your Email Signature By Google+ Updates

Email signature startup WiseStamp has enhanced its Chrome and Firefox extensions Thursday with an email application for Google Plus.
The G+ email application will let you include your latest Google+ status update in your email signature. Your email recipients can then view your update and add you to their Circles directly from the message.
The Google+ update was included in the version 2.7.1 release of WiseStamp. Chrome users can instantly install the new email application. Firefox users will need to do a manual upgrade, pending approval of the release.
WiseStamp offers email senders a wide selection of social applications to spice up their personal and professional signatures. The startup’s interactive and social signature tool has appeared in more than 207,000,000 sent emails

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/08/18/wisestamp-google-plus/

Can Google+ Challenge Facebook for Social Gaming Dominance?

 Can Google+ Challenge Facebook for Social Gaming Dominance?

Technology expert Scott Steinberg is the CEO of high-tech consulting firm TechSavvy Global, and a frequent keynote speaker and media analyst for ABC, CBS and CNN who’s covered the field for 400+ outlets from NPR to Rolling Stone. A celebrated author and entrepreneur, he also hosts video series Gear Up and Game Theory, hailed as “the smartest take on the video game industry.”

Google has ignited a firestorm of interest in the social gaming space following its announcement that social network Google+ will play host to a variety of new video game experiences. But the question remains: Can the online search giant’s latest foray into social networking, despite being the fastest-growing service of its kind, give Facebook and its massive online arcade a run for the money? Based on initial selections such as Angry Birds and Bejeweled Blitz, we wouldn’t bet our PayPal account on it, but then again, looks can be deceiving.
In the latest episode of new technology video series Tech Industry Insider, we examine the space pioneered by companies like Zynga, Playdom and Crowdstar to see if there’s room for more than one Internet titan to play. Google’s determined to break Facebook’s stranglehold on the social games market by undercutting its rival on fees to game developers, but what’s in it form them? And will the gamble pay off? As we reveal in the video above, the answers may surprise you. Tune in to find out what the future of social games has in store.

Source: http://mashable.com/2011/08/18/google-plus-games-video/

Google+ Hangouts Can Now Be Initiated From YouTube

Google has quietly rolled out yet another feature of its Google+ social network, letting users click Share from any YouTube video, revealing an icon that suggests watching the video with friends in a Google+ hangout.
Google didn’t formally announce this new feature, instead revealing it via product manager Brian Glick on — where else — Google+, where he casually mentioned it like so:

You can now start a Google+ Hangout with a YouTube, directly from YouTube. Watch with your friends. :)
Just click on “Share” underneath any video, and then click on “Start a Google+ Hangout” in the bottom right-hand corner.

A few weeks ago, YouTube Live product manager Brandon Badge quietly mentioned the upcoming ability to enable hangouts from YouTube with live streaming video, and this must be the first stage of that initiative.
As we mentioned then, it’s been possible to watch videos with friends since the beginning of Google+, through a more complicated manual process that must be initiated in Google+. But this new button allowing you to initiate hangouts from YouTube with a couple of clicks makes it considerably easier.
[via TNW/Google+]
source : http://mashable.com/2011/08/18/watch-with-friends-youtube/

Will Google penalize sites which only link using the nofollow attribute?

As many webmasters are linking only in nofollow killing the natural way of links do you think Google will penalize people who only link out with nofollow attribute in the future?

This will also be helpful for you. Just stay with for more SEO Updates.

How do PageRank updates work?

On what basis you are increasing the PR for each PR update?

 

I hope this video will be helpful for understand how do page rank updates work?

Some Important Tips About Google Plus Circles, Hangouts, Huddle and Mobile

What are Circles ?
Google wants to make sharing online more like sharing in real life - different things with different people. For example, you might want to catch up with your pals about your drunken Saturday night out, but you don't necessarily want your parents in your chat. You can keep your conversations separate by putting your contacts into 'circles' such as 'Work crew', 'Uni mates' and 'Parents'.

Google+ hangouts

What are Hangouts?

As the name suggests, this feature is all about hanging out with your buddies, virtually, or couse. You can choose specific friends, or circles, to invite for a face-to-face video chat and anyone in the Hangout can invite others to join as well. According to Google's demo: "Until teleportation arrives, it's the next best thing". We're not sure about that - it's basically just video calling.

The Google+ project: Instant Upload



GOOGLE + +Huddle

What is Huddle ?

You know when you're trying to arrange a night out by having several different text conversations with a number of friends? If so, you'll know how long-winded and confusing it can become. The idea behind Huddle is that you can turn all these exchanges into one big group chat to save you time.

Privacy
Most social networks, Facebook included, have run into trouble over privacy concerns at some point or another, so what is Google+ doing to address it? You'll be able to alter your visibility settings so that only your name and photo will appear online to people that aren't in your network. However, if you're in a circle on a friend's public profile, then your picture will appear on there (but clicking on it wouldn't go anyway if your privacy settings are on). You'll be able to assign different levels of visibility to different aspects of your profile. You can also choose whether your profile is indexed by search engines and, as with Facebook, you'll be able to block people

Google Plus big feature is Backing up data

One of the biggest worries with uploading photos to Facebook is that one day the site will retire from public life, taking our cherished memories with it. Obviously canny computer users already make sure that anything they upload is backed up at home and likewise, Google+ has recognised that we don't all want to live exclusively in the clouds.

You can use Google Takeout (google.com/takeout) to download data from your Google+ products to your home computer - that includes PicasaWeb albums and photos, your Google profile, Google Contacts, Stream and er, Google Buzz.

Easily available on Mobile

Supported by the Chrome, IE, Firefox and Safari browsers, Google+ will also be available on mobile devices - a vital element for any social networking platform. As well as sharing your thoughts and location from your mobile, you'll be able to check into places and make use of the group messaging feature, Huddle.

Making photo-sharing as simple as possible, images and videos taken on your phone will upload themselves automatically to Google+. That might sound a tad scary - what if you don't want everyone to see your snaps or footage? Don't panic - they'll be uploaded directly to a private album and you can then specify who (if anyone) you choose to share them with.

You can already download the Android app and there's an iOS 4+ app due to hit iTunes soon. You can also access the basic Google+ mobile site (m.google.com/app/plus) on Android handsets (1.5+) and Apple devices (iOS 3+) as well as on  BlackBerry (6.0+), Nokia/Symbian and Windows Mobile. The Android app currently offers a wider range of functions than you'll see on the mobile sites.

There are no tablet specific versions of the project at present, but this is something that Google plans to work on in the future.

When can I get it?

Google+ can currently only be accessed with a special Field Trial invitation, which Google has been sending out at random to Gmail users. There's no set date for a full launch, but we would guess that it won't be too long before Google+ goes live to everyone. In the meantime, you can check out the demo, as long as you have a Google ID.                    

Article source:  http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/40785/what-is-google-android-iphone-apps

Do robots follow links on a page which uses rel="canonical" to point to a different page?

On a website, if a page B implements a rel="canonical" link tag with URL of page A, do robots follow every links in page B? Ad, Paris

We hope this video will be helpful to you. If you have any questions or confusions. You can visit Google Webmaster Help Forum  http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en

 Please stay in touch with us for more latest google algorithm changing news and matt cutts SEO News, SEO Tips,  and Videos.

Matt Cutts talks 301 redirect limits & New Webmaster Tutorials Series Launches by Google

 

Google’s head of web spam, Matt Cutts, has been answering webmaster questions in short videos for quite some time now. The videos have often been quite informative, and have tackled numerous issues that common webmasters face on a day-to-day basis.

Now, Cutts is appearing in some longer more tutorial-driven videos.


Over the past couple of years, we’ve released over 375 videos on our YouTube channel, with the majority of them answering direct questions from webmasters. Today, we’re starting to release a freshly baked batch of videos, and you might notice that some of these are a little different. Don’t worry, they still have Matt Cutts in a variety of colored shirts. Instead of only focusing on quick answers to specific questions, we’ve created some longer videos which cover important webmaster-related topics. For example, if you were wondering what the limits are for 301 redirects at Google, we now have a single video for that:


Article Source: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/08/new-webmaster-tutorial-videos.html

Algorithm change launched

I just wanted to give a quick update on one thing I mentioned in my search engine spam post.

My post mentioned that “we’re evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content.” That change was approved at our weekly quality launch meeting last Thursday and launched earlier this week.

This was a pretty targeted launch: slightly over 2% of queries change in some way, but less than half a percent of search results change enough that someone might really notice. The net effect is that searchers are more likely to see the sites that wrote the original content rather than a site that scraped or copied the original site’s content.

Thanks to Jeff Atwood and the team at Stack Overflow for providing feedback to Google about this issue. I mentioned the update over on Hacker News too, because folks on that site had been discussing specific queries too.

Article source: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/algorithm-change-launched/

My thoughts on this week’s debate

Earlier this week I was on a search panel with Harry Shum of Bing and Rich Skrenta of Blekko (and moderated by Vivek Wadhwa) and the video now live. It’s forty minutes long, but it covers a lot of ground:

One big point of discussion is whether Bing copies Google’s search results. I’m going to try to address this earnestly; if snarky is what you want, Stephen Colbert will oblige you.

First off, let me say that I respect all the people at Bing. From engineers to evangelists, everyone that I’ve met from Microsoft has been thoughtful and sincere, and I truly believe they want to make a great search engine too. I know that they work really hard, and the last thing I would want to do is imply that Bing is purely piggybacking Google. I don’t believe that.

That said, I didn’t expect that Microsoft would deny the claims so strongly. Yusuf Mehdi’s post says “We do not copy results from any of our competitors. Period. Full stop.”

Given the strength of the “We do not copy Google’s results” statements, I think it’s fair to line up screenshots of the results on Google that later showed up on Bing:

compared with

and

compared with

and

compared with

and

compared with

and

compared with

and

compared with

and

compared with

I think if you asked a regular person about these screenshots, Microsoft’s “We do not copy Google’s results” statement wouldn’t ring completely true.

Something I’ve heard smart people say is that this could be due to generalized clickstream processing rather than code that targets Google specifically. I’d love if Microsoft would clarify that, but at least one example has surfaced in which Microsoft was targeting Google’s urls specifically. The paper is titledLearning Phrase-Based Spelling Error Models from Clickthrough Data and here’s some of the relevant parts:

The clickthrough data of the second type consists of a set of query reformulation sessions extracted from 3 months of log files from a commercial Web browser [I assume this is Internet Explorer. --Matt] …. In our experiments, we “reverse-engineer” the parameters from the URLs of these [query formulation] sessions, and deduce how each search engine encodes both a query and the fact that a user arrived at a URL by clicking on the spelling suggestion of the query – an important indication that the spelling suggestion is desired. From these three months of query reformulation sessions, we extracted about 3 million query-correction pairs.”

This paper very much sounds like Microsoft reverse engineered which specific url parameters on Google corresponded to a spelling correction. Figure 1 of that paper looks like Microsoft used specific Google url parameters such as “&spell=1″ to extract spell corrections from Google. Targeting Google deliberately is quite different than using lots of clicks from different places. This is at least one concrete example of Microsoft taking browser data and using it to mine data deliberately and specifically from Google (in this case, the efforts of Google’s spell correction team).

That brings me to an issue that I raised with Bing during the search panel and afterwards with Harry Shum: disclosure. A while ago, my copy of Windows XP was auto-updated to IE8. Here’s one of the dialog boxes:

I don’t think an average consumer realizes that if they say “yes, show me suggested sites” that they’re granting Microsoft permission to send their queries and clicks on Google to Microsoft, which will then be used in Bing’s ranking. I think my Mom would be confused that saying “Yes” to that dialog will send what she searches for on Google and what she clicks on to Microsoft. I don’t think that IE8′s disclosure is clear and conspicuous enough that a reasonable consumer could make an informed choice and know that IE8 will send their Google queries/clicks to Microsoft.

One comment that I’ve heard is that “it’s whiny for Google to complain about this.” I agree that’s a risk, but at the same time I think it’s important to go on the record about this.

Another comment that I’ve heard is that this affects only long-tail queries. As we said in our blog post, the whole reason we ran this test was because we thought this practice was happening for lots and lots of different queries, not simply rare queries. To verify our hypothesis, rare queries were the easiest to test. To me, what the experiment proved was that clicks on Google are being incorporated in Bing’s rankings. Microsoft is the company best able to answer the degree to which clicks on Google figure into their Bing’s rankings, and I hope they clarify how much of an impact clicks on Google affect Microsoft’s rankings.

Unfortunately, most of the reply has been along the lines of “this is only one of 1000 signals.” Nate Silver does a good job of tackling this, so I’ll quote him:

Microsoft’s defense boils down to this: Google results are just one of the many ingredients that we use. For two reasons, this argument is not necessarily convincing.

First, not all of the inputs are necessarily equal. It could be, for instance, that the Google results are weighted so heavily that they are as important as the other 999 inputs combined.

And it may also be that an even larger fraction of what creates value for Bing users are Google’s results. Bing might consider hundreds of other variables, but these might produce little overall improvement in the quality of its search, or might actually detract from it. (Microsoft might or might not recognize this, since measuring relevance is tricky: it could be that features that they think are improving the relevance of their results actually aren’t helping very much.)

Second, it is problematic for Microsoft to describe Google results as just one of many “signals and features”. Google results are not any ordinary kind of input; instead, they are more of a finished (albeit ever-evolving) product

Let’s take that thought to its conclusion. If clicks on Google really account for only 1/1000th (or some other trivial fraction) of Microsoft’s relevancy, why not just stop using those clicks and reduce the negative coverage and perception of this? And if Microsoft is unwilling to stop incorporating Google’s clicks in Bing’s rankings, doesn’t that argue that Google’s clicks account for much more than 1/1000th of Bing’s rankings?

I really did try to be calm and constructive in this post, so I apologize if some frustration came through despite that–my feelings on the search panel were definitely not feigned. Since people at Microsoft might not like this post, I want to reiterate that I know the people (especially the engineers) at Bing work incredibly hard to compete with Google, and I have huge respect for that. It’s because of how hard those engineers work that I think Microsoft should stop using clicks on Google in Bing’s rankings. If Bing does better on a search query than Google does, that’s fantastic. But an asterisk that says “we don’t know how much of this win came from Google” does a disservice to everyone. I think Bing’s engineers deserve to know that when they beat Google on a query, it’s due entirely to their hard work. Unless Microsoft changes its practices, there will always be a question mark.

If you want to dive into this topic even deeper, you can watch the full forty minute video above.

Reference Source: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

Google launches two-factor authentication

Google just launched two-factor authentication, and I believe everyone with a Google account should enable it.

Two-factor authentication (also known as 2-step verification) relies on something you know (like a password) and something you have (like a cell phone). Crackers have a harder time getting into your account, because even if they figure out your password, they still only have half of what they need. I wrote about two-factor authentication when Google rolled it out for Google Apps users back in September, and I’m a huge fan.

Account hijacking is no joke. Remember the Gawker password incident? If you used the same password on Gawker properties and Gmail, two-factor authentication would provide you with more protection. I’ve also had two relatives get their Gmail account hijacked when someone guessed their password. I’ve also seen plenty of incidents like this where two-factor authentication would have kept hackers out. If someone hacked your Gmail account, think of all the other passwords they could get access to, including your domain name or webhost accounts.

Is it a little bit of extra work? Yes. But two-step verification instantly provides you with a much higher level of protection. I use it on my personal Gmail account, and you should too. Please, protect yourself now and enable two-factor authentication.

Reference Resource : http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/