New AdSense options look to help publishers and developers better target their users. AdSense for search ads only lets publishers include ads on pages and include them in native search results — above, below or beside the results. In the past, publishers could only use AdSense for search within Google results.

AdSense for Ajax solves the problem of serving relevant ads when content of a page changes. When a user is on an Ajax-heavy website, they can now be served changing ads based on the changing context within the page. In the past, new ads were only served when the page was refreshed. As Ajax does not require refreshing the page even when the context of the page changes, relevant ads were a problem.

There’s an added benefit of AdSense for Ajax. From Google, “In addition to the ads refreshing, you might wonder why the subject of the ads changed since the crawlable content on the page didn’t change much when the tab changed. The second benefit of AdSense for Ajax is that it allows you to provide hints about your site’s uncrawlable content with each refresh.”

Google Font API and Directory:

Google’s Font Directory and API are now available, providing “high quality open source Web fonts” for everyone. The fonts are enabled by CSS3 @fontface standard, hosted in the cloud and sent to browsers as needed.

Each font is cross-browser compatible, fully searchable and accessible to users with screen readers. Utilizing search-engine friendly fonts is a nice way to separate your website from others and provide a little “flair” for users to enjoy.

Google Wave (Labs):

Wave might have started slow, but Google’s new Wave (Labs) announcement might turn the tide. Wave is now open to businesses, schools and organizations. The focus is on collaboration within organizations. Members of a wave can play back previous developments within the wave and remove the discussion when the project is complete. Also, new extensions (such as maps and voting gadgets) allow for more collaboration, and developers can develop custom extensions within Wave to suit their needs.

More information about Wave is available, as is registration for a webcast that will detail new additions and answer user questions.

Over-optimization may have played the biggest part in the dropping of many sites from the top 50 Google results. Filtering out web sites that have had readability sacrificed for optimization is a growing trend at Google. It started with the Sandbox Effect in late 2004, where relatively new sites were not being seen at all in the Google results even with good keyword placement in content and incoming links for about 6 months.

One aspect of search engine optimization that is also affected in a roundabout way is link popularity development. After observing the effects of strictly relevant link exchanges on many of our client’s sites recently, we’ve noticed incredibly fast #1 rankings on Google. It seems Google may be looking out for links pages designed for the sole purpose of raising link popularity and devalues the relevance of the site. After all, if a links page on a real estate site has 100 outgoing links to pharmacy sites, there has to be a lot of content on that page completely unrelated to real estate. Not until now has that been so detrimental to a site’s overall relevance to search terms. It goes back to the old rule of thumb: Make your visitors the top priority. Create a resources page that actually contains useful links for your site users. If you need to do reciprocal linking then keep it relevant and work those sites in with other good resources.

Keeping up with the online search world can be overwhelming for the average small business owner. Constant Google changes, MSN coming on the scene in a big way, and all the hype around the new Become.com shopping search function can make heads spin. But just keep things simple and follow the main rules that have been around for years. Google, as well as other search engines, won’t ever be able to ignore informative, well written content along with good quality votes from other web sites.

“With this latest version of Google Earth you can not only zoom into whatever part of our planet’s surface you wish to examine in closer detail, you can now dive into the world’s oceans that cover almost three-quarters of the planet and discover new wonders that had not been accessible in previous versions of this magical experience,” said The Honorable Al Gore at this morning’s launch event in San Francisco. “Moreover, with the new historical imagery feature, you can look back in time and see for yourself the unprecedented pace of change taking place on the Earth — largely because of human influences. For example, you can watch the melting of the largest glacier in Glacier National Park—the Grinnell Glacier—image by image, for the last decade.”

“In discussions about climate change, the world’s oceans are often overlooked despite being an integral part of the issue,” said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. About one-third of the carbon dioxide that we emit into the atmosphere ends up in the oceans. Furthermore, biodiversity loss in our oceans in the next 20-30 years will be roughly equivalent to losing an entire Amazon rainforest, but this goes unnoticed because we can’t see it. This is why today’s launch of Google Earth 5.0 is so important - it gives us an opportunity to change everyone’s perspective.”

Ocean in Google Earth combines sea floor terrain and expert content to provide users with an opportunity to explore some of the most difficult-to-reach parts of the world. Virtual travelers to Hawaii, for example, can examine underwater volcanoes, see videos about the exotic marine life of the region, read about nearby shipwrecks and contribute photos and videos of favorite surf spots.

The ocean feature is on by default in the newest version of Google Earth. As users zoom in on the ocean they will see a dynamic water surface, and once they dive beneath the surface they can navigate 3D sea floor terrain. The feature includes 20 content layers, containing information contributed by the world’s leading scientists, researchers, and ocean explorers.

“What this project helped me begin to understand,” said John Hanke, Director of Google Earth and Maps, “is the role the ocean plays in global climate change and the impact that humans are having on the oceans and the creatures that live in it. It was a serious omission on our part not to include a better treatment of the oceans when we launched Google Earth, and I’m very happy that we’ve been able to address that. We now have a good substrate for publishing and exploring data about the ‘other’ two-thirds of the planet.”

The new feature was developed in close collaboration with oceanographer and National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle and an advisory council of leading ocean advocates and scientists.

“I cannot imagine a more effective way to inspire awareness and caring for the blue heart of the planet than the new ocean in Google Earth, ” said Sylvia Earle. “For the first time, everyone from curious kids to serious researchers can see the world, the whole world, with new eyes. In a stroke, Google Earth brings life and character to the blue part of the planet, and makes obvious the many ways land, water, atmosphere and living systems connect. Many ‘aha!’ moments are sure to come as people discover new patterns, new correlations, and countless personal discoveries while vicariously diving into the waters of the world.”

The announcement was made this morning at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, one of the nation’s leading institutions for scientific education and research. Following the announcement, local fourth graders participated in an interactive lesson on marine ecosystems, designed specifically by Academy educators to use the new ocean feature. “Information technology is key to the work that Academy scientists and educators do, and Google Earth is a leading example of such technology,” said Dr. Greg Farrington, Executive Director of the Academy. “Ocean in Google Earth opens up a new world of opportunities to explore and educate the public about the least understood parts of our planet.”

Also launched today:

Historical imagery: In previous versions of Google Earth, users could only view only one set of imagery for a given location. Now users can activate a time slider to see both newer and older satellite imagery from around the globe, enabling them to observe a single location’s development over time.

Touring is a simple new way for users to create narrated tours of imagery and content in Google Earth. By simply pressing the “record” button, users can fly from place to place, zoom in or out and click on content balloons, providing voiceover narration along the way. Whether creating a tour of one’s family home or an in-depth study of environmental change, the tours are easy to create and even easier to share.

Google Mars 3D is the latest stop on Google’s virtual tour of the galaxy. Users can travel to Mars with the click of a button and see high resolution imagery and 3D terrain. They can fly to the top of Olympus Mons, the tallest volcano in our solar system, read geo-located excerpts about different locations on the planet from A Traveler’s Guide to Mars, observe where various Mars Rovers and Landers have touched down and much more.

GPS Tracking - Previously only available in the Plus and Pro versions of Google Earth, now all users can upload tracks from GPS devices (including many Garmin, Magellan, and NMEA-compatible devices) to Google Earth, making it easy to visualize and record running, hiking and biking routes.

Google Earth 5.0 is now available in 41 languages (previously 26): English (US), English (GB), French, Italian, German, Spanish (Spain), Spanish (Latin America), Dutch, Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese (Brazil), Russian, Polish, Turkish, Thai, Arabic, Swedish, Finnish, Danish, Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Hungarian, Hebrew, Indonesian, Czech, Greek, Norwegian, Vietnamese, Bulgarian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Slovak, Filipino, Slovenian, Serbian, Catalan, Latvian, Ukrainian, and Hindi.

Product descriptions, visuals and more can be found at http://sites.pressatgoogle.com/ocean

Broadcast quality b-roll is available at www.thenewsmarket.com/google.

About Google Earth

Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google’s search service to make the world’s geographic information easily accessible and useful. There have been over 500 million unique downloads of Google Earth since the product’s launch in June, 2005. Google Earth can be downloaded for free at http://earth.google.com/.

A joint eye tracking study conducted by search marketing firms Enquiro and Did-it and eye tracking firm Eyetools has shown that the vast majority of eye tracking activity during a search happens in a triangle at the top of the search results page indicating that the areas of maximum interest create a “golden triangle.”

The first phase of the study was conducted with 50 people in Eyetools’ eye tracking lab in San Francisco, California and presented panel participants with 5 distinct scenarios that would require the use of a search engine. Google was used as the search engine in all of the instances.

Key Preliminary Findings of the Study included

The key location on Google for visibility as determined by the eye activity in the study is a triangle that extends from the top of the results over to the top of the first result, then down to a point on the left side at the bottom of the “above the fold” visible results. This key area was looked at by 100 percent of the participants. In the study, this was referred to as the “Golden Triangle”. Generally, this area appears to include top sponsored, top organic results and Google’s alternative results, including shopping, news or local suggestions.

Visibility dropped quickly with organic rankings, starting at a high of 100% for the top listing, dropping to 85% at the bottom of the “above the fold” listings, and then dropping dramatically below the fold from 50% at the top to 20% at the bottom.

Organic Ranking Visibility

(shown in a percentage of participants looking at a listing in this location)

Rank 1 – 100%
Rank 2 – 100%
Rank 3 – 100%
Rank 4 – 85%
Rank 5 – 60%
Rank 6 – 50%
Rank 7 – 50%
Rank 8 – 30%
Rank 9 – 30%
Rank 10 – 20%

Eye scan and click through behavior changes dramatically as users moved “below the fold” to the section of results that required scrolling down. At the top of the page, the amount of eye movement declined rapidly through the top 4 or 5 results, and then at the bottom of the screen, tends to become more consistent through to the end of the page.

In searches where top sponsored results are returned in addition to right sponsored ads, the top ads received much higher visibility, being seen by 80 to 100% of participants, as opposed to 10 to 50% of participants who looked at the side sponsored ads.

On side sponsored ads, the top ranked results received much more in the way of both eye activity and click through. About 50% of participants looked at the top ad, compared to only 10% who looked at ads in the 6, 7 or 8th location on the page.

Side sponsored ad visibility

(shown in percentage of participants looking at an ad in this location)

1 – 50%
2 – 40%
3 – 30%
4 – 20%
5 – 10%
6 – 10%
7 – 10%
8 – 10%

There seems to be a “F” shaped scan pattern, where the eye tends to travel vertically along the far left side of the results looking for visual cues (relevant words, brands, etc) and then scanning to the right if something caught the participant’s attention.

These results come from an initial analysis of the results and were presented during sessions at the Search Engine Strategies conference in New York. While interesting, the study’s main findings are still to come and will required detailed analysis of individual behavior patterns.

Did It’s Kevin Lee said, “At this point, we weren’t too surprised at what we’ve seen in the study. We suspected much of this to be true prior to conducting it. However, there is tremendous value in confirming these suspicions, especially in a way that’s so visually compelling. It also proves that our methodology will hold up for phase 2 of the research. On the sponsored search side, data indicates that it is the clear branding and visibility advantage offered by gaining top positions, especially Google’s top sponsored links. Unfortunately, these aren’t always presented with a search. Google is a little fickle in this regard.”

Enquiro’s Gord Hotchkiss added, “We see a marked difference in how people say they search and what they actually do. Previous research had indicated that people were considered searchers and spent some time before choosing a link. The past few studies we’ve done, this one included, shows that there’s a huge importance placed on where the eyeballs end up on the page. Clicks happen pretty quickly. It just shows that search marketing is a real estate game. It’s all about location, location, location.”

Eyetools’ CTO Greg Edwards also commented, “Eyetracking is the enabling tool that fills in the gaps to understand why people click or don’t click — by quantifying what people consider before the decision to click or leave is made, companies can start to better anticipate and design to satisfy people’s needs. Applying this in the search results arena enables companies to better plan their marketing communication and increase conversions.”

This research is ongoing and the phase 1 results are highly encouraging. After further analysis is done, the results will be made available to the public through white papers. Further findings will be announced as they become available.

Only public data

The API returns web addresses of public pages and publicly declared connections between them. The API cannot access non-public information, such as private profile pages or websites accessible to a limited group of friends.

Based on open standards

We currently index the public Web for XHTML Friends Network (XFN), Friend of a Friend (FOAF) markup and other publicly declared connections. By supporting open Web standards for describing connections between people, web sites can add to the social infrastructure of the web.

The article covers how Google had to pull the ads on Orkut back in August due to them showing up next to “pictures of naked children and abused animals.” From the article:

The head of Google’s Brazilian operation is facing criminal contempt charges for refusing to turn Orkut users’ data over to police. And next month there is a hearing in a case brought by a São Paulo prosecutor threatening daily fines of $100,000 or the shuttering of Google’s Brazil office. “We have won,” says Thiago Tavares Nunes de Oliveira, a 28-year-old Brazilian law professor who wrote the graphic report and has crisscrossed Brazil making the case that Google allowed Orkut to become a redoubt of criminal activity, including child pornography and racist speech.

That kind of 24/7 advertising engagement — on a phone, no less — may sound like a nightmare. But what if you could determine the kinds of products you get pitched? Or when your flight gets canceled in a faraway airport, text messages pop up for the best hotel deals in town? No random insurance ads or airline deals for trips to places you never visit.

Best of all: Watch or read the custom ads, and your phone minutes are free.

For big cell carriers, that’s the real nightmare. And it may be coming in the form of a Google phone.

Wireless-industry consultants and marketing executives with knowledge of Google’s plans say it has been showing prototypes of a new phone to handset manufacturers and network operators for a couple of months.

Its plans have been kept top-secret, but Google (GOOG, news, msgs) is expected to tap a company on the Pacific Rim that specializes in mobile design and manufacturing to build a handset to its specs. Google could then apply its expertise in operating software and user applications, says Paul Catalano, a partner at consultancy RelevantC Business.

Google officials won’t talk about phones, and industry sources don’t expect one before the second half of 2008.

Seeking to derail the purchase of the online ad firm, Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith said in prepared oral testimony that if the government allowed the "GoogleClick" merger, "It will be bad for publishers, bad for advertisers, and most importantly, bad for consumers."

Microsoft itself had been eying a DoubleClick acquisition in March, according to reports published in the Wall Street Journal. In May, the Redmond, Wash., software giant offered to buy online ad firm aQuantive, a DoubleClick rival, for $6 billion in cash. That deal closed last month.

Despite that acquisition, Smith testified today that Google remains poised to dominate the overall online search market.

He said Google is already the leading company in search advertising, with 70 percent of global spending on search-based advertising going through its AdWords unit. Allowing Google to buy online display advertising firm DoubleClick would give the company nearly 80 percent of all spending on non-search ads as well, his testimony read.

It would also make Google the "overwhelmingly dominant pipeline for all forms of online advertising," Smith said in his testimony.

He also sought to raise privacy concerns over giving a single company control over what he called "the largest database of user information the world has ever known." Specifically, that suggests Google will establish a database tracking not just searches, but movement across sites serving DoubleClick ads.

"With this merger, Google seeks to record almost everything you see and do on the Internet and use that information to target ads," Smith said. "This merger will create a whole new meaning to the term ‘being googled.’"

Microsoft’s lawyer concluded his testimony by reminding the committee that since the passing of the Sherman Antitrust Act, "no one is permitted to buy success by purchasing its largest competitors."

It’s this point that Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond primarily addressed in his prepared rebuttal testimony.

"Our purchase of DoubleClick does not raise antitrust issues because of one simple fact: Google and DoubleClick are complementary businesses and do not compete with each other," Drummond said. "DoubleClick does not buy ads, sell ads, or buy or sell advertising space. All it does is provide the technology to enable advertisers and publishers to deliver ads once they have come to terms, and provide advertisers and publishers statistics relating to the ads."

Microsoft first protested Google’s acquisition in April. Since then, both have been able to rally third-party support to their cause. For its part, Google cited analysts and columnists quoted in the media.

Additionally, Thomas Leonard, a Senior Fellow at the deregulation-friendly Progress and Freedom Foundation, argued today that online advertising remains in a nascent state, and that "government interference with this evolving market, which is still in its infancy, could be quite harmful to consumers."

On the other side, Microsoft helped sponsor an AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies research project to show how display and search advertising dollars come from the same pool, thus enabling Google to dominate the entire ad market.

Also in the anti-GoogleClick camp, Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), testified before the committee to present the deleterious effects a Google/DoubleClick merger would have on consumer privacy.

"We believe that the commission should act to block the deal or to impose substantial privacy safeguards as a condition of the deal’s approval," Rotenberg’s testimony read.

In addition to the Senate Judiciary committee, which has yet to weigh in on the proposed acquisition, the DoubleClick deal also remains under Federal Trade Commission regulatory review.

Earlier this year, EPIC, along with the Center for Digital Democracy and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US PIRG), filed complaints with the FTC over privacy implications in the merger.