Google To Acquire GrandCentral

Google is in acquisition discussions with telephone management startup GrandCentral, we’ve learned, and we have a high degree of confidence that the deal has actually been closed. We are trying to nail down the acquisition price. Just last week I flagged this company as the most exciting startup we’re currently tracking.

The basic idea around GrandCentral is “one phone number for all your phones, for life.” As we change jobs, homes and cell phones, there are a lot of phone numbers to keep track of, and keeping everyone up to date with your most recent phone numbers is a real cost. If you use GrandCentral you can give out a single phone number. What happens when that person calls that number depends on his/her relationship to you, and what you are doing at the time.

The company, which has raised less than $6 million in capital from Minor Ventures (the exact amount has never been disclosed), beta launched just last September. Earlier this year mainstream press and blogger attention heated up.

The company may have received too much press attention before the product was ready, and we reported on some backlash from beta users abandoning the service in March. Still, the company pushed ahead, launching a mobile product and other features.

GrandCentral was recently pitching a second round of financing to Silicon Valley venture capitalists, but broke off discussions abruptly as the Google talks heated up.

I’m speculating on where Google will use GrandCentral, but the synergies with Gmail and GTalk are fairly obvious and could be the next step in Google’s competition with Skype and other instant messaging platforms.

This is, in my opinion, a great move by Google. Grand Central is an awesome productivity and simplifies the lives of users with multiple phones by giving them a single phone number and letting them handle calls via rules. It’s a natural fit with GTalk and Gmail.

Google won’t comment on this story. I have an email in to GrandCentral to see if they’ll confirm.

Source

 
Google To Acquire GrandCentral

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

Google's Bid Simulator Tool Helpful For Adwords Keyword Bidding !!!!!!

PPC (pay-per-click) search advertisers often speculate about what would happen when they increase their CPC (cost per click) bids. How many more impressions, clicks and sales or leads would they get when they increase the keyword bid price? With the new Google Bid Simulator feature, advertisers will now be able to get a prediction of the number of times an ad would appear in the search results, the position the ad would have been shown in for a particular bid price and the number of clicks the ad would have received at that position.

Bid Simulator Benefits

The Google Bid Simulator tool is aimed to show "missed opportunity", adds a level of transparency to the Google Adwords auction-based PPC system, provides advertisers with a better picture of the trade-off between cost and click-through volume, simplifies the bidding process by eliminated trail and error and gives advertisers insight so that they can make more informed bidding decisions.

How Bid Simulator Works

When Google Adwords advertisers access their Adwords account, they'll see a blue Bid Simulator icon next to keywords' Maximum CPC Bids label. Clicking on that icon will bring up the bid simulations for that particular keyword. The Bid Simulator uses data from the previous 7 days from a particular keyword and based on that information, it will show up a couple of different "simulations" for that keyword. For keywords that receive a low number of impressions the Bid Simulator shows an approximate number of impressions, estimates the number of clicks, the click cost and the average position for a bid that keyword may have generated based on a higher or lower maximum CPC (cost-per-click) bid. If a keyword receives a minimum number of impressions below a certain threshold the Bid Simulator icon may not appear.

Within the Bid Simulator advertisers can select any of the bid prices that are presented and change the bid within the tool. While this may be increasing the transparency of a "black box" auction-based bidding system, this is hardly going back to the days of knowing what you had to bid to get a certain position. Google stresses though that this is just a projection; and that advertisers won't necessarily get exactly those results. The Google Adwords blog cautions that "past performance does not guarantee future results." There are so many factors that go into keyword bidding that there's no way to predict future campaign performance.

While the Bid Simulator isn't an exact blueprint for a bidding strategy, but what it can do is make projections so that advertisers don't not have to. Advertisers could look back at their past results and use them to predict what effect bid changes will have on the keywords in their campaigns. However, for the keywords that get sufficient traffic, Google is doing that already with the Bid Simulator. And, because Google has access to information about the campaign quality score advertisers can be sure that their projections are going to be a lot more accurate than any they could have come up with on their own. Advertisers can use this information to their advantage when plotting out future budgets for their campaigns.

However, for the keywords that get sufficient traffic, Google is doing that for them with the Bid Simulator. Since Google has access to quality score information of all advertising accounts advertisers can be sure that their projections are going to be a lot more accurate than any they could come up with on their own. Advertisers can use this information to their advantage when plotting out budgets for their future advertising campaigns.

It's interesting to note that Yahoo has a similar tool, which has been active ever since they launched the new Panama system three years ago. Yahoo refers to it as "bid forecasting" and it's available by clicking on any keyword in a Yahoo Sponsored Search campaign. Once again, the projections are based on previous data, so the more traffic a keyword gets, the more information the program can use for the forecast. Yahoo offers up a few more metrics in their projections (average position, CTR) but the projections are thought to be less accurate. Again, the best way to use this tool is to make future projections, not necessarily take it at face value as a keyword bid recommendation.

The Bid Simulator is being touted as a great addition to the tools Google Adwords already has at its disposal. Once again they are overshadowing Yahoo, despite the fact that Yahoo already has it's own version of the tool. The Bid Simulator tool is coming across as making the auction in Google Adwords more transparent, but advertisers should be cautious. Remember that there are other factors like ROI that dictate how advertisers should direct their bidding strategy. When used as a projection tool and as a measurement of missed opportunities, the Google Adwords Bid Simulator can be a powerful tool in the hand of a skilled Google Adwords advertiser. 

Original Source At

Google's Bid Simulator Tool Adds More Transparency to Adwords Keyword Bidding

Google Might Be On Home Page Of Yahoo

Senior director's comments elicit big "huh?"

The Yahoo search experience might at some point change in a very surprising way.  That Bing may take over, we've come to accept.  But at least one high-ranking Yahoo employee thinks Google could get a shot, too.

Let's talk about said employee for a moment.  Burke Culligan is the senior director of product planning and strategy over Yahoo's front page and My Yahoo, so he's in a good position to discuss significant adjustments.  Also, Culligan's worked for Yahoo since October of 2005, so it's not like he's some newbie who doesn't know the score.

Judge the next bit for yourself, then.

Joseph Tartakoff reported, "During an update on the status of the home page, Yahoo senior director Burke Culligan told analysts that the company was not opposed to letting users replace Yahoo search with Microsoft's Bing or even Google."

Culligan apparently explained, "Right now, we're not doing that but long-term that may not be out of the question.  We want to provide the best experience for the user and, in some way, if that was the best experience for the user we might be open to that."


This led Kit Eaton to speculate that the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo deal is falling apart.  Or perhaps Culligan was talking about what will happen after it expires in ten years.  Regardless, his comments were rather striking, and we'll keep an ear out for any denials or clarifications that follow.

 

 

Google Might Be On Home Page Of Yahoo

Google Launches “Google Internet Stats”

It appears Google has pulled together a bunch of statistics throughout the web and created a small landing page named Google Internet Stats on the Google UK front. The page explains that this service “brings together the latest industry facts and insights together in one place.” Google collected this data from many third party vendors, on a wide range of topics. In fact, you can submit your data using this form.

Here is a picture of the mobile technology internet stats from this tool:

 

 

The categories of statistics include: - 

Consumer Trends – Community – Entertainment – Information – eCommerce - Macro Economic Trends – Rest of the World – UK - Media Consumption – Changes in Media Usage – Demographic Usage – Media Consumption Stats – Media Multi-tasking – Personalised Media Experiences - Media Landscape – All Media – Online - Technology – Broadband – Devices – Mobile – Speed

The current data providers include B2Bonline.com, BARB, BusinessWeek, Coke, Commission of the European Communities, Comscore, Core Metrics, Datamonitor, Deloitte, The Economist, eMarketer, Enders Analysis, Eurostat, Film Distributors Association, Financial Times, Forrester, GFK, Google Insights for Search, Greenbee.com, Guardian, HarvardBusiness.org, Hitwise, IAB, IFPI, IMF, Internet Retailing, Internetworldstats.com, JP Morgan, KMPG, Media & Marketing, Mediascope Europe, Mindshare, Motorola, Net Imperative, New York Magazine, Nielsen, NMA, Ofcom, Opsos MediaCT, PriceWaterhouseCoopers, QuickPlay Media Inc., Retail Week, Reuters, TGI Net, Times Online, TNS, Verdict Research, Wall Street Journal, WARC, YouTube, ZenithOptimedia, and GM.

Postscript: A Google UK representative answered some of my questions, clarifying the following:

• There are no plans to launch this tool elsewhere at the moment. This is a UK-only initiative.
• Any stats submitted by users will be verified by Google’s market research teams
• Google license data from a number of sources, as well as bring together publicly reported facts and stats from the web (sources shown on the site)

Google has an official blog post on this new initiative at their Google Barometer blog.

Original Post At

Google Launches “Google Internet Stats”

Google Wave + Twitter = Twave

Google Wave, released earlier today, is already generating a lot of buzz, and for good reason: it’s a potential game changer in the realm of of email, IM, and project management. But there a few key features that really speak to Google Wave’s potential. Specifically, the fact that it is open-source and can be fitted with extensions and applications.

Today, the Google team showed off a few extensions for their new communication platform. One of the most interesting ones, though, was Twave, a Twitter extension for Google Wave. The integration makes sense: Google Wave and Twitter are both forms of real-time communication, so why not bring them together? The result, though, speaks to the potential applications of Google’s newest product.

Twave is an extension based on a Google Wave robot, which is an automated participant in a conversation. It is basically how an extension can perform tasks within Google Wave – in this instance, a Google robot, named “Tweety.” The result is a full stream of your Twitter feed within Google Wave. Not only can you see tweets, but it looks like you can manage them like you would email, with replies, archiving, and even Google Wave’s awesome playback feature.

There were several other great extensions and robots that were demonstrated today. Here’s just a few of the coolest ones:

- Debuggy: A robot that responds with debugging information about each event on a wave

- Stocky: Automatically detects stock quotes and provides real-time stock information

- Bloggy: Pushes wave content to a blog

- Maps: Allows for collaboration on a Google map to plan events

- Bidder: You can turn a Wave into your own eBay

- Ratings: All Wave participants can rate and review items – then it will show you a tally of the results.

These innovations are only the beginning of the many additions that developers will build for Google Wave. The web is truly transforming into a real-time engine, and Google Wave + Twitter is only the beginning. Not only can we expect a slew of great Twitter applications within Google Wave, but some really innovative use of Google’s new real-time conversation platform.

Update: We’ve included another screenshot, this one showing a little more of what the Twave and Google Wave robots can do in general.

Source : mashable.com

Submitting Your Website to Search Engines

If you have a web-based company or if a considerable part of your business is done on the web through your website, then the best advertising and marketing is done by submitting to a search engine. No amount of press release, newspaper or radio ad, banner ad, spam email or newsletter will achieve the same results, although, maybe effective in a small proportion.

Be careful of companies that assure automatic compliance of your website to hundreds of search engines which are but only fake promises. The best way to submit your website for search engine ranking and addition is to do it yourself or to hire an expert to do it manually, by contacting the search engine companies and directories.

Before you begin to submit your website to search engines ensure your websites are thoroughly designed to the professional quality using the right key words, good graphics and pictures and the relevant content. Don’t submit websites that are incomplete. When you submit site or blog to search engine, be careful for details for your website, keywords and any other information that may be pertinent, including the name and contact information of your business.

Mere submission to search engine companies does not assurance that your site would be immediately listed and the ranking will be high. As there are thousands of fresh websites upcoming up all day and it might get quite a little bit before they take up your site for review by human editors. One significant issue to keep in mind even as submitting site is to take in a site map of your website which makes the crawling easy for the web robots. Search engines like ‘http://www.google.com’ hardly considers submissions without sitemaps.

There are a lot of online companies that recognize search engine submission services. You can select to do it by hand with a software package and service like this one:

http://www.webposition.com/order/trial.asp?WT.mc_id=google%3A%7Bifsearch%3Asearch%7D%7Bifcontent%3Acontent%7D%3A%7Bcreative%7D%3Atrial%3A%7Bkeyword%7D&WT.srch=1

Or if you want professional help try the following sites:

http://www.addpro.com/professional_submission

http://www.submitawebsite.com/aboutus.html

Don’t use the automatic submission services.

Here is a list of the most well-liked Search Engines and directory companies:

Search Engines
Go.com/InfoSeek AltaVista
Google, HotBot
Excite/Webcrawler

Directories
AOL Search Inktomi
Lycos Open Directory
MSN, Yahoo!
LookSmart Snap

Apart from the above there are thousands of search engines and directory companies, where you can submit your website to as many companies as possible. The next links give information on extra search engines and directories:

http://websearch.about.com/library/searchengine/blsearchenginesatoz.htm

http://websearch.about.com/library/tableofcontents/blsearchenginetableofcontents.htm

Source : professionalseoindia.com

Comparing Google With Google Caffeine

Since Monday’s launch of the Google Caffeine sandbox, there have been numerous articles and posts offering ideas on what’s different between “regular Google” and the new results in Caffeine. But good luck finding any consensus at this point.

Since few seem to agree yet on what’s changing and how dramatic the changes might be, why not do your own comparisons? Though it’s only been two days since the Caffeine sandbox opened up, there are already a couple tools that make it easier to test the results yourself.

1) Facesaerch Caffeine Compare

This new tool from the makers of the facesaerch image search engine shows both “old Google” results and Caffeine results side-by-side in frames.

2.) Google Caffeine Bookmarklet

Released yesterday on The Google Tutor blog, this is a browser bookmarklet with a simple premise: After you do a search on Google.com, you click the bookmarklet and it runs the same search in the Caffeine sandbox.

If there are any other Google/Caffeine comparison tools out there already, please leave a comment below.

Postscript, late Wednesday Evening : The sandbox will be offline temporarily.




Source : searchengineland.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

How to Counter Web Spam-Matt Cutts

It is not a secret for now that spammming pollutes Web sites as well as inboxes of email users. It is a hot topic in many SEO Forums among Web site owners and webmasters and they have taken many steps and actions to combat it that sometimes work an sometimes not.

According to post at news.com you can find Google's pointers on countering Web spam from Google's Matt Cutts head of Google's Webspam team and an engineer who's been working on the problem for eight years.

During a speech at the Web 2.0 Expo Matt Cutts expalained about countering Web spam as-
"Spammers are human," Cutts said. "You have the power to raise their blood pressure. Make them spend more time and effort...If spammer gets frustrated, he's more likely to look for someone easier."
How? Forthwith, some tips for those who manage their own or others' Web sites.

• Use captcha systems to make sure real people, not bots, are commenting on your site. He uses a simple math puzzle--what's 2 + 2?--but he also likes KittenAuth, which makes people identify kitten photos.

One blogger merely requires people to type the word "orange" into a field. "The vast majority of bots will never do that," Cutts said.

• Reconfigure software settings after you've installed it. A little modification of various settings will throw bots off the scent. "If you can off the beaten path, away from default software installations, you'll save yourself a ton of grief," he said.

• Employ systems that rank people by trust and reputation. For example, eBay shows how long a person has been a member and how satisfied others are with transactions with that person.

• Don't be afraid of legitimate purveyors of search-engine optimization services. "SEO is not spam. Google does not hate SEO," Cutts said. "There are plenty of white-hat SEO (companies) who can help you out."

Registering your Web site at Google's Webmaster Central site can help find bogus search-engine optimization tricks others may use on your site, such as keywords written in white text on white backgrounds, he added.

Source : coolslko.blogspot.com

Google Image Search Gets Some New Features

Google has added up various features with options in its search engine. This feature has now been added into its Image Search property feature also. This is a very simple feature but could save on a lot of time by searching the most accurate results. This image search options makes it essential for users to combine search options to get the best search results faster with provision of introducing more new features in the future as well.

This new feature will give one the same layout as that of Google search with various options listed on left side of image search results page. These image search options would include color, size, and type.

Color option would let one specify the different colors of image which one is searching for and includes the various colors which include red, pink, green along with black and white features.

The size option which lets you specify different sizes aside from usual image sized that users are searching for.

The type option which lets one specify image types whether one wants to have clipart, photo, face or line drawing within the image search results.

Source : seoupdatesdaily.blogspot.com

Google Wants to Pay AdSense Publishers Faster

Recommends Electronic Funds Transfer

Google has taken an opportunity to remind North American AdSense publishers that the fastest way to receive payments is through Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT).


"We want to get you paid by the fastest means possible," says Elizabeth Ferdon of the AdSense Payments Team.

AdSense "EFT is quick and easy to set up. When payments are issued, there's no need to wait for the delivery in the mail -- the funds appear in your bank account shortly after they're issued," she adds. "That means if we processed a payment for you this month, your earnings would be in your bank account already."

Signing up for ETF through Google is a three-step process:

1. Enter your bank account info

2. Find your test deposit

3. Enter the test deposit amount in your AdSense account.

To enter your bank account info, just go to "my account" and click the "edit link next to the "payment details" header. Then in the Electronic Funds Transfer section, select the "add new bank account" radio button, and click continue. Enter the requested info and save the changes.

Test deposits can take a few days, and on your bank statement, they will be labeled as one of the following:

- AFS RE GOOGLE
- AFS RE GOOGLE ADSENSE
- ARVATO FINANCE SERVICES LIMITED
- BFS FINANCE LTD
- CITIBANK IRELAND FINANCIAL SERVICES
- Google AdSense Payment

Once you have your test deposit amount, click the "my account" tab, and in the "payment details" section, click "verify this account." Enter the test deposit amount that you received in your bank account in the box, and click "next." Your bank account will be approved and you can select it as your default payment method.

Currently, Google offers Western Union in 23 countries and courier service in a number of others as payment options. Other regions where EFT isn't offered are reminded that Google is continuously working on expanding payment options in more places.

Google Wants To Save Your Life (Or Help End It)

Pushes Google Health and advance directives

Health issues are highly personal. Some folks, for example, are scared of living for years on end without control of their bodies. Others are terrified that a plug will get pulled moments before they make a total recovery. And a certain search giant thinks both of these attitudes represent great reasons to start using Google Health.

A post on the Official Google Blog tells readers, "An advance directive allows you to determine your end-of-life wishes so that your family and doctor can honor them if you get sick and are unable to communicate." It has the ability to save all sorts of people all sorts of pain, and whatever your age or condition, is something you should consider completing.

Google just wants to make sure its software is part of the equation, and as it turns out, Google Health can now process scanned paper documents.

So the post continues, "Google Health is now working with a leading advance directive provider, Caring Connections, that provides a free, downloadable form customized for all 50 states. To complete your form, download it, print it out, complete it, scan it, and upload it to Google Health. Once you've uploaded the signed form, Google Health makes it easy to share it with your caregiver."

Admittedly, this seems morbid and a bit opportunistic. But the issue's an important one, and this may prove an effective tack for Google to take.

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

Google Maps Gadget Aims To Help Businesses Be Found

Will provide on-site, user-specific directions

Let's be honest: someone who's incapable of copying and pasting an address into Google Maps may not be worth having as a customer. But most companies like to make things easy on people, and a new Google Maps gadget should ensure that it's easy for would-be clients to find businesses.

A post on the LatLong Blog explains, "This simple gadget allows webmasters to add customized Google Maps directions to their business locations. . . . The gadget allows you to pre-fill the 'To' field with one or multiple addresses. Customers are then able to print their directions with a single click."

This should increase the convenience factor of businesses' sites, even as it allows firms to make sure potential shoppers don't wander away. A nice touch is that companies can keep messy street addresses out of the "To" fields, as well - it's possible to use more recognizable names and aliases.

As you can see, Legoland California's already taken advantage of the Google Maps offering. More serious entities like Emeril Lagasse restaurants and Harvard have put it to use, too.

The gadget's available in 23 languages, so it's probably just a matter of time until businesses all over the world are on much better terms with Google Maps.

Source : webpronews.com

Facebook Calls Out Intel, AMD

Facebook has more than 200 million active users, and as you might imagine, keeping all of their information available (never mind the stuff pertaining to less involved people) requires some serious hardware. Yet according to the company's vice president of technical operations, certain manufacturers are falling short of the mark.

Jonathan Heiliger was interviewed onstage during GigaOm's Structure 09 conference, and in response to a question about unexpected problems, said, "The biggest thing (that) surprised us is . . . less-than-anticipated performance gains from new microarchitectures -- so, new CPUs from guys like Intel and AMD. The performance gains they're touting in the press, we're not seeing in our applications."

Stephen Lawson reports that Heiliger also stated, "Google has done a great job designing and building its own servers for this kind of use."

So we seem to have Facebook either really lighting a fire under its suppliers, or perhaps leaning towards the DIY route. And of course, both alternatives could lead to improved performance for less money.

Finally, a third possibility would involve some sort of lawsuit, but it sounds like Facebook is more at a stage of identifying issues than seeking reparation.




Source : www.webpronews.com

Don’t Panic! No-Do-Follow-You Pagerank Linking Problem Solved!

Is anyone else confused by the whole Google ruckus going on right now with regards to “nofollow” links?

What the dickens is going on?

Well, to prevent blog comment spam, Google implemented “nofollow” years ago as a parameter webmasters and blog owners could use in links to stop the link passing PageRank and being counted as a “vote” for the site the link pointed to. There was much rejoicing in the blogosphere as the dastardly blog comment spammers were defeated (or not).

Anyways, the dastardly SEO optimisers used “nofollow” in links to their privacy pages, legal pages and other webpages to “conserve” PageRank and send the wonderful “Google juice” to the pages they wanted to rank highest in the search engines. Google accepted this as pretty much a side effect of the introduction of “nofollow”, and all was well and jiggly with the world.

Until Matt Cutts (a Google uber-meister, engineer, or somesuch), recently said that nofollow now doesn’t work like the SEO guys thought it did. Instead of helping conserve PageRank, nofollow voids what would have been passed through the link had it not be nofollowed. Well, that threw a spanner in the works and everyone in the SEO world howled in rage! It didn’t help when Matt added that the change had already been implemented, and no-one noticed… “we figured that site owners or people running tests would notice, but they didn’t“.

Leslie Rhode said, “no way dude” (ok, he actually said, “First, the entire idea is just competely silly to start with and would have noticiable and really really bad ramifications that every SEO on the planet would have already noticed.”) and various other SEO’ers put forth ideas for working with Google and their new way of working with nofollow. One analysis I particularly like is Dr Andy Williams’ explanation of the changes and their effects, here.

So, what should you do?

Relax. Link to people who provide good content, nofollow any links that may potentially link to bad content (like your user-generated links) and then create more great content yourself in the time you would’ve spent worry about “pagerank bleeds”!




Source : neilshearing.com

Google Maps : Voice Search Feature for Android Device

Recently Google announced that you can search Google Maps by your voice using Android device.

These new feature includes:

1) Voice SearchingGoogle Maps Voice Feature
2) Transit and Walking Directions Talk
3) Reviews and business details
4) Updates for various Latitudes


Google fixed the latitude background location updates and that will continue to update.

But there are various things which need to kept in mind while using these facilities:

1. Google Maps Update will be useful for users with system updates for SDK 1.5+ version called as CupCake version.

2. If you experience the Installation error for Package file, then it is because your device is not on a user build identified as kila-user, opal user etc. If you have a user debug build then these update will not be installed on your system.

3. Street View was not removed but it is now available within Maps as its own mode. If these mode is available then you will have the option of seeing the imaginary view along with rest of options for that location.


Source : seoupdatesdaily.blogspot.com

New gPhone (myTouch 3G) Coming in Early August

T-Mobile has announced that the successor to it's semi-popular G1, the myTouch 3G, will become available in early August.

The myTouch 3G will be extremely customizable, unlike Apple's iPhone. Users will be able to choose menus, wallpapers, icons, themes and skins. Will being customizable be enough to lure iPhone users away?

Has the myTouch 3G already lost to the iPhone, even before its release? Tell us what you think.

The phone will come in three colors: black, white and maroon ... err... sorry, I meant distinctive "Merlot". (Why is Merlot a distinctive color?)

A new exclusive app that T-Mobile is hyping is called Sherpa. Below is some detailed info...

Created by Geodelic, Sherpa features GENIE (Geodelic ENgine for Interest Evaluation), a learning engine that automatically customizes itself to the user’s preferences. Through behavior and user feedback, the application learns a person’s likes and dislikes, prioritizing recommended retailers, restaurants and attractions. Seamlessly blending behavior recognition, a recommendation engine and location relevant information, this combination of learning is exclusive to Sherpa and unlike any experience currently on the market.

Below are two lists, the specs and Google services offered on the new myTouch 3G...

* 3.2-inch HVGA touch-screen
* Virtual keyboard (portrait or landscape)
* 3.2 megapixel camera
* Music player (pre-installed 4GB microSD card)
* Enhanced video capabilities
* Google Search
* Google Maps (with Street View)
* YouTube
* Picasa
* Gmail
* Google Talk

Sure, the myTouch 3G sounds good on paper... but how, or will, it compete with the iPhone? Ali asked this question the other day, and got some pretty good feedback.

This will be the true test for T-Mobile.

If you're interested in the myTouch 3G, T-Mobile will begin taking pre-sales on July 8th. The phone itself will be released in early August.




Source : webpronews.com

Google Web Analytics How important Is It ?

Web Analytics have major importance in on line business. Tracking the history of visitors and keep doing research on analytics is must and should. We can know about visitors and their views through these analytics.

Analytics usage are increasing day by day. Analytic professionals have higher demand in the market. Everyone can't become an Analytic expert. It needs great thinking, visualization and case study.

Every On line business should take care about :

Bounce rate :

Bounce rate is something which will helps you to know that how visitors are going away from your site. Higher bounce rate means visitors aren't interested on your site. Lesser means visitors are happy to stay on your site. It's always better to make bounce rate 0%, however it's not possible, so it's better to keep it less.

Visit Length :

How long visitors are staying on your site in average? If most of the visitors are staying good amount time on your site means they are reading some thing on your site which is useful for them. So visit length always matters to know the interest of viewer on your site. According to this metrics you can optimize your site.

Visit Depth :

Visit Depth means "Are the visitor is showing interest in visiting the other pages of your site too?" If a visitor visited most of the pages on your site and spent good amount of time on each page says your site awesome. visited all pages and spend less amount of time is not good. Not visited other pages is bad. So higher visit depth helps to grow your business as well as brand.

Returning Visitors :

More returning visits means you have loyal readers for your site. If a visitor come again and again to your site means he liked your site and found it useful. These kind of readers are called as loyal readers. More loyal readers you have, that much popular your site is. It's very important to have more returning visits. Always try to increase the number of normal visits as well as returning visits.

... Most of the search engines will consider all these factors, to show up your website in top search engine results for a particular keyword. So it's important to make note of all these topics and keep working and optimizing it to succeed in your business. Comment your thoughts :) ...



Source : seodailyupdates.blogspot.com