September 3rd, 2010
Google Maps for Mobile has a new feature that could help you get exactly where you want to be. Earlier this summer they introduced Expendable Map Ads that appeared in both applications and mobile web. This app provided a banner from paid advertisers that once clicked on, a user would see a map with options to call the business or get directions to it. The only thing that could have been a problem with that is the fact that locations were identified based on IP targeting.
However with Google Maps for Mobile, targeting capabilities will come from GPS and triangulation, just like regular Maps does. Another change is that the ads that will appear will be based on user search queries, thus make the experience more personalized. Once a user begins a search, a banner will appear allowing the searcher to click on it and then giving them the ability to call or get directions; the directions function will integrate into Google Navigation.
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Google Brings “Search-to-Store” to the Mobile Web
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September 3rd, 2010
Yesterday I posted about a video being shown on a jumbotron in Times Square that showed Google CEO Eric Schmidt as a privacy peeping Tom; gathering information from unsuspecting children as he offered them “free” ice cream in his Google ice cream truck. Well Business Insider made an interesting discover today that calls out Consumer Watchdog for their hypocrisy. What did they do that is hypocritical you may ask? They use Google Analytics to track the behavior of users on their company’s site.
Sigh.
CW’s privacy policy does state that they track user cookies, but it insists that they don’t do anything else with it but use it for informational purposes. That is all well and good, the issue that BI and, I am sure, everyone else that saw/heard the video and thought it was a little extreme will take with this bit of information is that Consumer Watchdog takes a huge stand against companies (especially Google) sending this information to third-parties – and that it just what they are doing.
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Consumer Watchdog Uses Google Analytics to Track User Behavior…Wait, What?
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September 3rd, 2010
Google has decided to give it’s privacy policy a little bit of a makeover. According to the Google Blog they are not changing any policies, just combining some of its more redundant product-specific policies and making their main policy a bit easier for users to understand.
Some of the policies to get combined with each other are: Gmail, Calendar, Talk and Docs, since contacts are shared between all of these platforms. Also they are cutting out some of the more obvious lines of legal jargon. For example: “The affiliated sites through which our services are offered may have different privacy practices and we encourage you to read their privacy policies” is being taken out because Google associate general counsel, Mike Yang, feels that it is a pretty needless statement.
The blog post says that these changes will take effect on October 3 and they have put up a FAQ page that should answer any questions users might have regarding the new policies.
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Google Makes Changes to Their Privacy Policy That We Can All (Almost) Understand
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September 3rd, 2010
In June Google started beta testing it’s Local Shopping inventory feature which allows merchants to submit a list of products that they currently have in stock so that users can easily locate these goods when performing a search. They have since received a lot of positive feedback from searchers and have an influx of retailers that want to participate. With all that said, they announced on Wednesday that they were opening up their documentation to potentially become a part of the listings to the public.
Google says that while not every merchant can be accepted at this time, they will keep all the documentation on file for a later date. Applicants need to make sure that their store is listed on Google Places, after that they will need to submit an up-to-date and detailed data feed.
This feature being open to the public will be very beneficial to all Googlers; whether you are looking for something that might be pretty hard to find (like the very specific tea from the Google Merchant blog anecdote) or just the closest place to get your favorite ice cream.
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Google Opens Local Merchant Inventory Feature to All
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September 3rd, 2010
Since the release of the newest version of Digg, v4, launched last week, the less-than-warm reception has caused a massive influx of traffic to their rival – Redditt. Launched less than a year after Digg, Redditt hasn’t been as popular, but they did have very loyal users. However, starting Sunday night, the four-person team has seen the amount of new users, uniques, and page views increase in staggering numbers.
Senior programmer, Chris Slowe, states that the unique page views alone have increased 50% – they have been averaging about 900,000 a day since Monday morning. Also, they are reporting between 13 and 14 million total page views per day. Approximately 25% of the sites visitors were people who went on to register for the site and become “baby redditors” as Chris calls them on the site’s blog.
With their numbers growing so rapidly, the folks over at Reddit were honestly surprised that the site didn’t go down. Their blog also says that most days they are performing around peak capacity for the site and they “never could have survived an unexpected surge like that.”
Evelyn Rusli of Tech Crunch talked with Slowe and he says that they are currently working on new features to keep the “Redditors” happy and to make sure the site can sustain it’s new, larger user base, including redesign of the UI.
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Reddit Prospers From Digg v4 Debacle
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September 3rd, 2010
I’ve said it many times and I’ll say this again: Excel if the ultimate SEO tool that can help you in any task (if you know how to use it right). I have already shared the huge collection of Excel tips and tricks for SEOs and web marketers – that post helped me to discover another awesome tool I was hugely impressed by.
ASAP Utilities is a powerful Excel add-in that fills the gaps in Excel and automates frequently used tasks. The addin can be paid but I was planning with its free edition.
Below I am sharing the most useful (for me) options I have found inside. But before that, I’d like to warn that you might need to tweak your Exel security settings before being able to use the tool. I was using the tool’s prompts to set my settings, so you are unlikely to have any problems. On top of all, to make sure the addin is going to work, navigate:
File -> Options -> Trust Center -> Trust Center Settings
And there:
- Make sure macros are enabled (in “Macro Settings”)
- Make sure the addins are NOT disabled (in “Add-ins”)
1. Find (and Remove) Duplicate Key Phrases: Clean up Your List
It often happens so that you have merged data from various keyword tools and now need to clean up your list (or just find the duplicated key phrases).
First select the range containing all your keywords (or just select the column with the keywords) in the Asap Utilities tab click “Range” menus and there select either:
- “Count and /or color duplicate in selection”
- OR “Clear duplicated values in the selection”
2. Play with Advanced Sorting: Group Your Keywords
The Advanced Sorting options found under Range menus lets you sort on many more properties than just the cell values.
- Value
- Number format
- Cell Color
- Cell Color Indexnumber
- Font Color
- Font Color Indexnumber.
- Font Size
- Font Name
- Bold
- Italic
- Underline
- Strike-through
- Text Length
- Random order (shuffle)
- Formula
- Email address host (@…)
- Alphanumeric content based on the numeric portions
- Year-Month-Day
- Year-Day-Month
- Month-Day-Year
- Month-Year-Day
- Day-Year-Month
- Day-Month-Year
- Day of the week (start on Sunday)
- Day of the week (start on Monday)
For example, if you were using my previous tip on finding and coloring the key phrases based on the base word or modifier, you may end up with the column colored (or formatted) based on the keyword in it:
Now, with ASAP utilities you can sort the whole table based on your colors:
3. Round Numbers: Make your Keyword Performance Data Easier to Understand
One thing that kept bugging me about exported Google Analytics report is the huge numbers that are too hard to consume. Asap Utilities offer a three-click solution to the problem:
- Just select the column you want to work on;
- Navigate: Numbers -> Round Numbers
- Select the number of decimals to be left
Done!
Bonus! Other Tool Options I Was Happy to Discover:
1. Create a separate index sheet linking to all other sheets within a document (think how easily it is now to impress your client with multi-sheet Excel reports enhanced with an index page!)
2. Color each n-th (second, third, fourth) row or column in selection: for better readability and just to make your reports prettier!s
3. Change, extract, unlink hyperlinks:
- Easily extract all hyperlinks and send them in a a separate sheet (or in a separate column)
- Activate all hyperlinks in selection (i.e. make them clickable)
- Remove all hyperlinks;
- Change the hyperlink formula:
Of course, this just the tip of the iceberg. The addin has plenty more awesome features to cover any needs you may have. I was listing only those I was instantly impressed by and found particularly useful (for the tasks I come across). You are most likely to discover other features you will love. Good luck!
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ASAP Utilities – SEO and Productivity Addin for Excel
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September 2nd, 2010
Yahoo Search blog announced today that it is introducing a new Search Assist that is enhanced with the ability to provide users with geographically-closer suggestions as you are typing. This new feature is suppose to help searchers save a little time while typing their query because Search Assist will take into account the location you are searching from.
The office where I work is located in the Citrus Park/Carrollwood area of Tampa, Florida so I begun conducting a search of the closest mall – Citrus Park Town Center. I typed out “citrus p” and the first two results were for the place I was seeking; three out of the five results listed had something to do with my query.
This enhancement seems like it will be pretty useful and will definitely shed some seconds off of your search time. Getting back even just a few seconds of our lives here and there could be pretty beneficial to most of us in the long run.
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Yahoo Search Gives Users Geographically Relevant Suggestions
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September 2nd, 2010
On a 540-square-foot jumbotron in Times Square an ad by Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, is playing 36 times a day. The subject of this giant advertisement? Google’s invasion of the public’s privacy.
The video portrays Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt as the creepy driver of an ice cream trunk, branded with the Google logo. Schmidt extracts personal information from children under the guise of giving them free ice cream. These claims are based on the cookie-tracking issue (which allows for personalized advertisements based around a user’s browsing patterns), that Business Insider states is “overblown”.
At the bottom of the video a phone number is provided for those people that want to obtain more information about the issue, but the reply you will get asks for your name and email address. Odd? I would say so.
What do you think about the issue? Are you afraid of Google acquiring all of your personal information for malicious intent?
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CEO Eric Schmidt Creepily Portrayed in Consumer Watchdog’s New Anti-Google Ad
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September 2nd, 2010
Google has announced that they are now going to be indexing SVG documents and files. SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) is an XML-based graphics format specifically for vector graphic, both dynamic and static and graphics can be made and edited in any text editor since they are XML files.
You can, however, block your SVG files from being indexed by using the Robots Exclusion Protocol.
Their Webmaster Blog says: “We index SVG content whether it is in a standalone file or embedded directly in HTML. The web is big, so it may take some time before we crawl and index most SVG files, but as of today you may start seeing them in your search results. If you want to see it yourself, try searching for [sitemap site:fastsvg.com] or [HideShow site:svg-whiz.com]
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SVG Files and Documents Are Now Indexed by Google
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September 2nd, 2010
After almost a decade of being in a search partnership, Google and AOL have announced this morning that they have come to a five-year contract renewal and expansion agreement. With this partnership, Google will continue to power AOL’s searches in addition to providing mobile search. Also, YouTube has agreed to to bring AOL videos to its site as part of the expansion.
This renewal can definitely be seen as a win in Google’s column, seeing as how Bing was after the deal as well. However, AOL says that Google sends more traffic to AOL sites.
“Today is another important step in the turnaround of AOL,” said Tim Armstrong, AOL’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “AOL users will be getting a better search and search ads experience from the best search company in the world – Google. After nearly a decade-long partnership in search, we’re looking forward to expanding our global relationship to mobile search and YouTube. All aspects of our partnership will be improved by this deal.”
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Google and AOL Renew and Expand Long-Time Search Partnership
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