Sync Google Search History With Your Mobile

 

Perhaps Google has taken cue from the very active Bing team, because they’ve rolled several search-related improvements in the matter of hours, and all that in the midst of the official launch of Google Wave. 

Perhaps Google has taken cue from the very active Bing team, because they’ve rolled several search-related improvements in the matter of hours, and all that in the midst of the official launch of Google Wave.

This latest improvement is a small one, but it might come in handy. Google’s Personalized Suggest – the feature that remembers your past searches and offers them in a drop down box as you start typing – now syncs with Google Search on Android (Android), iPhone, and Palm Pre.

 

Anything you’ve searched for on your desktop will now show up on your mobile search and vice versa; if you often repeat searches, you’ll be grateful when you fire up search on your mobile and get exactly what you needed without having to type it all. 

For this feature to work, you need to be signed into the same Google Account on your computer and on your phone when conducting the search. Furthermore, you can switch this option on and off by selecting “Save searches” or “Do not save searches” under Settings on google.com.

Original Post At

Sync Google Search History With Your Mobile

Get Listed In Real-Time Searches

Real-time search is still an emerging concept. At this point, using a real-time search engine will bring you results by time/date. This doesn't always cater to relevancy, which is why there is still a lot of work to be done in this field.

Do you see traffic coming from real-time searches? Comment here.

So, if real-time results are based upon time/date, and the user's query, it stands to reason that time and those queries are the most important components in getting your content found in these types of searches.

1. Use Keywords

This seems obvious, but use keywords in not only your content, but in your titles, and your updates. If you're writing an article, you have to consider what people are going to include in their updates if they share it on a social network, whether this be Facebook, Twitter, or anything else.

More often than not, they are going to include the title. If the right keywords are in the title, then those keywords are also more likely to appear in any ensuing tweets, Facebook updates, etc. If someone searches for those keywords, they will be more likely to find your content in a real-time search.

The same goes for your own Tweets/status updates. Even if you are not sharing an article, if you want your update to be found, use relevant keywords. Again, obvious, but true.

2. Talk About Timely Events

Simply mentioning events that are current will put you directly into the results for any searches having to do with that topic, provided the right keywords are in play. This is a method that could and (surely is) being exploited by spammers, but that doesn't mean you can't provide legitimate conversation and simply put yourself on more people's radars, without throwing links at them every time.

3. Have a Lot of Followers

If you have a lot of followers or friends on social networks, or even just readers of your blog, you are going to get more people sharing your content. The more people sharing your content, the more impressions of your content will be making their way into real time searches.

There is no easy way to instantly get a bunch of legitimate readers/followers. It will take some promotion. Provide useful content that people will link to and it will spread virally. Provide clear ways for them to follow you (like links to Facebook pages and Twitter accounts on your blog).

4. Promote Conversation

Whether on your blog or on a social network, spark conversations. Talk about topics that people are interested in. This is tied to number 2. The more conversations you are involved with, the more retweets (and equivalents on other networks) you are likely to get. And again, this means more impressions in real times searches.

5. Include Calls to Engagement

Retweet button from Tweetmeme I recently talked about why there is more to retweeting than meets the eye for businesses. I mentioned the use of buttons like Tweetmeme's and Digg's. These are buttons you can put on articles that show the amount of retweets/diggs that article has. They kind of act as a meter for engagement.

These buttons are certainly not all-encompassing. They only represent the conversation on 2 channels, and not the web in general. I'm sure there are other buttons that can be used in addition.

More importantly though, they provide a "call to action" to share the content. People can digg or retweet a story with a simple click, and you're one step closer to being found in somebody's real-time search.

Wrapping Up

Real-time search is much more basic (at least so far) than say, Google Search. You're not ranking for relevancy. Really, you could hardly call it ranking it all. It's about visibility. That means, you have to get people talking about your content/updates.

Social media by nature is viral. Real-time search is nothing more than putting things in chronological order. You have to keep people talking to stay relevant to "right now."



Source : webpronews.com

Caffeine Update : Google Seeks For Feedback

Google may have a huge lead over its competitors in terms of market share, but the search giant isn't resting on its laurels. A next-generation infrastructure codenamed "Caffeine" has been unveiled, and it's already available for individuals to test.

Fair warning: don't expect Caffeine to introduce natural language recognition, search results from Twitter, or anything else too fancy. Matt Cutts cautioned, "The Caffeine update isn't about making some UI changes here or there. Currently, even power users won't notice much of a difference at all. This update is primarily under the hood: we're rewriting the foundation of some of our infrastructure."

Still, he continued, "[S]ome of the search results do change, so we wanted to open up a preview so that power searchers and web developers could give us feedback."

Head over to http://www2.sandbox.google.com if you intend to take Cutts and Google up on their invitation. Keep an eye on characteristics including accuracy, comprehensiveness, and - perhaps especially - indexing speed. Then, if you've got anything constructive to say, use the "Dissatisfied? Help us improve" link at the bottom of the page and include the term "Caffeine" in your response.

Initial impressions have, as you can see below, been mostly positive.

Caffeine is likely to hit the mainstream in the near future. Cutts referred to this sneak peek as "a preview of how the search results will change over the next few weeks and months."


Source : webpronews

Facebook Just Became More Important to Search

Launches Real Time Search After FriendFeed Acquisition

Facebook has begun rolling out a new version of its search feature, which it began testing with a select few last month. Of course, this would be real-time search, in the company's latest effort to move into Twitter territory.

Of course the announcement of Facebook's real-time search comes hot off the heels of their big announcement about the acquisition of FriendFeed, which comes with a pretty nifty real-time search engine of its own. But that's a different story.

With regards to Facebook's own search, the company's Akhil Wable says, "You now will be able to search the last 30 days of your News Feed for status updates, photos, links, videos and notes being shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages of which you're a fan. If people have chosen to make their content available to everyone, you also will be able to search for their status updates, links and notes, regardless of whether or not you are friends. Search results will continue to include people's profiles as well as relevant Facebook Pages, groups and applications."

Just search like normal, and then use the filters on the left side of the screen (on the results page) to adjust your results to view by people, pages, groups, apps, events, your own friends, etc.

I would speculate that at some point, this real-time search functionality would incorporate more of what FriendFeed brings to the table. Searching FriendFeed gives you access to real-time results from all kinds of social networks - whatever the service's users are sharing.

Facebook could bring masses of people into the mix on that front, and make it far more useful as an all-encompassing real time search engine. We don't know what they're going to do with that yet though. Facebook does say that FriendFeed will continue to operate independently, but it will no doubt become integrated into Facebook in some capacity.

As far as Facebook's new search feature, the company reminds users that if they don't want their stuff to show up in other people's search results, they can adjust thier privacy settings accordingly. They're still in the process of rolling the feature out, so you may not be able to use it just yet, but rest assured, it's on the way.



Source : webpronews.com

Bing/Google Overlap on the Decline

WebProNews received some interesting data from Compete, looking at how searchers are using Bing, with regards to how this use overlaps with the use of other search engines.

We have seen that Bing's search market share has edged up a bit since its launch. We don't know if Google is sweating bullets, but they have certainly indicated that they're not ignoring it. This data is really something to pay attention to though, because I think it is an often-overlooked fact that just because somebody uses Bing (or Yahoo, or any other search engine), it does not mean that they have stopped using Google.

Some standout stats from Compete:

- 97% of the Bing.com audience overlapped with Google Search in the week prior to launch (5/24 – 5/30).
- 30% of the Bing.com audience overlapped with Yahoo! Search during Bing’s launch week (5/31 – 6/1).
- The percent of overlap between the Bing audience with AOL, Google, and Yahoo! has changed little between launch week and last week.

What's good for Bing is that overlap with Google appears to have fallen significantly (since Bing's launch week). While it hasn't fallen an incredible amount with Yahoo, and has actually grown a bit with AOL, we all know that Google is where Microsoft really wants to make a dent.




Source : webpronews.com

New Ways to Search on YouTube

YouTube Adds Wonder Wheel and Improves Advanced Search

Youtube is supposedly the second largest search engine. It only makes sense that the video site's search capabilities should be expanded. that is just what YouTube has been working on. This week, they have added some new ways to customize your search experience, and hopefully better find the videos you are looking for.


The Wonder Wheel

You may recall that Google introduced its new search options a while back, which gives users of the search engine a lot more control over the results they see for any given search. One of the features in this release was the "wonder wheel," which is basically a visual representation of related searches that you can use to navigate through your search experience.

YouTube has now incorporated this into its results as well. When you perform a search on YouTube, you may see a link on the right side above the results that says "wonder wheel". Clicking it will bring up something that looks like this:

Wonder wheel doesn't appear to be an option for all searches. When I search for "social media" I am not presented with the option, but when I search for "Facebook" as in the above image, I am.


Improved Advanced Search

When you go to search something on YouTube, and you click the "advanced options" link, you will now be presented with more options.

"Let's say you want to narrow down your search for a video and be more precise about what you're looking for," explains the YouTube Team. "Advanced Search allows you to specify many more details than our normal search, including when a video was uploaded, the location it came from, and its length. We've reworked Advanced Search to be easier to use and to better reflect the range of content on YouTube (lots of new stuff!)."

To be honest, I'm not really sure what all features were available here in the past, but now you can find results using queries and specifying to use all words, an exact phrase, one or more words, or none of the words. You can request results based on videos, channels, playlists, shows, movies, or all. You can request results to show only HD, annotations, closed captions, or partner videos.

You can also refine your search by duration, language, upload time (general - anytime, this month, this week, or today), location, and category.

Other recent features added to YouTube include a remaining time display on the upload progress bar, the ability to download MP4 files of your own videos, and YouTube XL, which is designed to give users a more television-like experience. YouTub'e mobile app is also now available in French, UK English, Italian, Spanish, German, and Dutch.



Source : webpronews.com