Archive for the ‘Google’ Category
Google Mobile Search
September 11th, 2007
MatthewGoogle quietly launched a page explaining all of their mobile search features at mobile.google.com. Anyone who has gone to www.google.com on their cell phone or portable device in recent times might have noticed that you were being shown a different user-interface than when you were using a normal browser. That’s because google has been forwarding mobile devices to a WML gateway to make using Google on your phone/PDA a more pleasurable experience. From what I’ve seen of Google’s XHTML mobile search — available at http://www.google.com/xhtml if your phone’s browser won’t automatically redirect from Google.com — they’re using many of the same methods along with some upgrades to make phone-searching as easy as possible.
American Airlines Sues Google
August 21st, 2007
MatthewAmerican Airlines filed suit against Google in federal court late last week, alleging that the search giant’s AdWords program infringes on American’s trademarks. Without authorization or approval, Google sold the right to use American Airlines’ trademarks and service marks, the complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northwestern District of Texas, asserted.
According to the suit, Google’s search engine is helping third parties "mislead consumers" and "misappropriate" the American Airlines marks by using them as keyword triggers for AdWords campaigns and by displaying the trademarks in the actual ad text, the airline claimed.
The airline pointed to several ways in which Google is violating its trademarks but reserved its greatest ire for Google’s policy of selling trademarks as keyword triggers for other companies’ ad campaigns. The complaint includes screen shots that show the AdWords system recommending American Airlines trademarks for an ad campaign
Read More About this here.
Google Gets Personal
August 6th, 2007
MatthewThe basic principle behind personalized search is simple. When you go to Google and type in a search query, Google stores the data. As you return to the engine, a profile of your search habits is built up over time. With this information, Google can understand more about your interests and serve up more relevant search results. For instance, let’s say that you have shown an interest in the topic of sport fishing in your search queries, while your neighbor has shown an interest in musical instruments in his search queries. Over time, as these preferences are made clear to the engine, your personalized search results for the term “bass” will largely be comprised of results that cover the fish while your neighbor’s results for “bass” will be comprised of results that primarily cover the musical instrument.
At present, you need to have signed up for a Google service for your results to be personalized. Such services include Gmail, AdWords, Google Toolbar, and many others. By default, as long as you are signed in to one of these programs, your personal search data will be collected. The term “at present” is used because Google certainly could implement personalized search on any user of the engine, regardless of whether he or she has a Google account. Google already places a cookie, or unique identifier, on the machine of anyone who types in a search query on Google - it would not be hard for them to use that information, rather than the Google account, to collect individual user data and personalize results. It is quite possible that Google is testing the waters of personalized search with people who have opted in to one of its services and will expand the system to all users if there is limited uproar or government intervention.
Unless the government intervenes, the question will probably be decided by personal preference. As it becomes more common knowledge that Google (and other engines) store this type of data to enable personalized search, many users will take measures to block its use.
Is this an invasion of personal information?? It looks like only time will tell.
Google buys another business
July 24th, 2007
MatthewGoogle has announced the acquisition of Clayton, Missouri based ImageAmerica
, a company that builds high-resolution cameras for the collection of aerial imagery.
ImageAmerica has previously provided images for Google Maps and Earth, including high-resolution black and white imagery of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
Stephen Chau, Project Manager of Google Maps and Earth said in a statement that Google was excited “about how ImageAmerica’s technology will contribute to [Google’s] mapping services down the road.”
The acquisition price was not disclosed.
Google’s Ad-Free Site Search
July 18th, 2007
MatthewYou have a clean, attractive website. But you also have loads of content and pages that your visitors may need help finding. Previous versions of Google Custom Search would allow you to place a search box on your site - albeit with Google branding and AdSense all over the results page. Google’s Custom Search Business Edition now includes ad-free search, where you can employ a Google search box on your site to search only those sites, pages or portions of your website that you determine. After a search query is entered, only results will be returned, not Google ads that can disrupt the feel of your website. It’s a nice way to use the power of Google site search without sacrificing your site design or exposing customers to ads that may cheapen the look of your site or worse, drive traffic away. And, some can argue, AdSense on your site gives visitors the impression that you’re a small-time business, looking to coax as much revenue as possible from your website.
Simply sign up, customize your search box, add the sites to be searched and get the code to place on your site. The fee is on a sliding scale, starting with $100 annually for searching 5,000 pages and up to $500 for up to 50,000 pages.
is the web all that it appears
July 2nd, 2007
admin
Internet advertising is huge
With the growth of information on the internet, the amount of time people spend on it has grown as well, which has in turn generated a new market for internet advertising. Some of the wealthiest companies in the world have made sure that they get a piece of the internet marketing pie, and for a good reason.
Internet advertising is targeted
As a company looking for advertising opportunities to a specific market, internet advertising offers some targeting methods that insure that those who see your ads are the ones most likely to buy. Programs like Google’s AdWords and AdSense match up advertisers with content that their target market peruses regularly. Forget the costly machine-gun strategy of newspaper advertisements, internet advertising is targeted towards the clients you hope to reach!
Internet adverting enables good conversion tracking
It’s impossible to get a good idea of how many people see advertising through traditional means. Tracking the reach of newspaper and television advertisments is difficult. However, internet advertising allows the advertiser to track the number of impressions an ad gets (how many people see it), and how many visits their business web site gets from particular ads, making it easy to see what kind of conversion rates internet advertisements are getting.
Internet advertising has a lower entry-level fees
If you have a limited budget, internet advertising can be much more in reach than traditional methods. A small yellow-page ad can cost several hundred dollars. However, you can bid for advertisements on Google and Overture on a performance basis. That means that you only get charged when visitors click on the advertisement, and bidding starts at a nickle or dime a pop.
Internet advertising can be much cheaper
Because of the targeted nature of internet advertising and the ability to track the effectiveness of ads, conversion rates from internet advertising is typically much better than traditional mediums.
Internet advertising has greater range
One more benefit is that, since the internet spans the globe, pockets of your target market scattered around the world can all be targeted at once, rather than trying to find different publications, radio stations and television stations that cater to a particular geographical area.
On the whole, internet advertising can be a great way to get the word out there about your service or product in a cost-effective, efficient way.
Google Adds Blog Search
June 29th, 2007
MatthewBlog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs. Google is a strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves. Whether you’re looking for Harry Potter reviews, political commentary, summer salad recipes or anything else, Blog Search enables you to find out what people are saying on any subject of your choice.
Your results include all blogs, not just those published through Blogger; our blog index is continually updated, so you’ll always get the most accurate and up-to-date results; and you can search not just for blogs written in English, but in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korean, Brazilian Portuguese and other languages as well.
There are a few different ways you can get to Blog Search:
- blogsearch.google.com (Google-style interface)
- search.blogger.com (Blogger-style interface)
- The Blogger Dashboard
- The Navbar on any Blog*Spot blog
It’s the same search in each place, no matter how you get to it. The Navbar, however, provides two buttons: one to search the blog you are currently viewing, and one to search all blogs.
Google Gets A Clue
May 29th, 2007
MatthewGoogle Pay per action arrives. No more click fraud?!! Increase your advertising reach while paying only for actions that you define. Advertisers will need to define an action, set up conversion tracking and create ads that will motivate publishers in Google content network to place ad units on their sites.
To sign up: click here
Google 411
May 23rd, 2007
Matthew“Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.
To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.
Using this service, you can:
-search for a local business by name or category. You can say “Giovanni’s Pizzeria” or just “pizza”.
- get connected to the business, free of charge.
-get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone. Just say “text message”.
And it’s free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider.
Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We’re fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing your requests. It’s currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings.”