Search Engine Optimization News Blog

Google has combined its local business listings with Street View inside of Google Maps. I used this the other day to show hubby exactly what landmarks to look for when searching for a biz in another state. How cool is that!

The online word processing system and the one that helps users to use spreadsheets online, Google Docs, is now offering translation service using which the user would be able to translate the documents in to 42 different languages. However, the service is not yet available for spreadsheets and the users would not be able to translate the spreadsheets as of now. The main aim based on which Google has introduced this service is that this would increase the amount of local content that is available over the web and that would eventually increase the number of local population that would be using the web and the services of Google.
This translation service that has been offered by Google Docs would certainly help users who need to translate documents into multiple languages. However, the fact that is noticed many of the automated translation services is that the context of the sentence would be lost when a sentence is translated from one language to the other. When tried by users, it was noticed that the translation service works to be fine except for cases that it does not translate uncommon proper nouns. But this is not at all bad, as this would reduce loads of work for users who mainly deal with tasks that needs automatic translation. Moreover, it would also reduce the amount of time that the users would otherwise be spending on using different tools to translate the document into different languages. In this case, this would be much easier as the users would be able to use a single mechanism to translate.
Transliteration is not yet introduced by Google Docs. If this as well were implemented, it would be of great use to the users, as this would even help the users to use the same old English keyboard to type a document in a foreign language. Google Docs latest translation service does not even support the Transliteration bookmarklet that was introduced by Google itself as of now. But it might include it any time or even introduce some enhanced features in Google Doc, as it has been a specialty of Google to introduce varied and useful features in their applications. However, there are other transliteration services that are available online that allow users to transliterate documents in to few number of languages but they are all not as huge as Google Doc as it is offering translation services in 42 languages. This shows that it would not be difficult for it to upgrade its system and include the transliteration service for all these 42 languages or even include more languages to the list. As of now, with the services that are currently available with Google Docs, users would be able to translate their personal and official documents without any difficulty.

Are you as smart as a third grader? Apparently Google Wave is applicable both to schoolchildren and web developers, and is getting better all the time…

Google tends to be the source of ire for many European countries who feel that the US based company plays favorites on the one hand or doesn’t follow their own rules closely enough on the other. The latest in the long string of ‘Google Hate’ comes from Italy, where the newspapers claim that Italian news is being unfairly treated by Google.

The AGCM of Italy (which is an agency similar to the US federal trade commission) is an organization that investigates alleged antitrust behavior. Unlike a court, a ruling can be handed down at any time. The allegation in this case is that Google is punishing Italian newspapers by not giving them enough information about how the ranking takes place. They also object to the banning of the news sites from Google if they are not present on Google news.

The New York Times reports that the accusations imply because Google is not giving details about their ranking methodology, the leading newspapers cannot gain enough revenue from online advertising.

Google does present information about some of their ranking factors into public, but naturally full disclosure is not possible due to the very real possibility of reverse engineering, or gaming of the system. Neither Italian newspapers nor any other advertisers would truly benefit from such an entire disclosure, as it would simple become a battle of ‘who has the sneakiest black hat SEO tricks’.

Google is actually protecting genuine publishers by taking an unpopular stand on the issue, and presents a valuable option in the form of a separately managed area for news; in fact, this is an exclusive service open to only selected publishers for news articles. Italy doesn’t seem to get it, and still objects to the policy of news needing to be in Google News for best rankings.

Analysts who were interested in throwing out their long list of questions would have to meet through series of webcasts as the analyst day for the year has been planned to be conducted online rather than a usual and a traditional on-site analyst day.
The search engine giant has officially announced about its decision. It has been announced that it would meet all the analysts and investors online on the analyst day and not in an on-site traditional meet. The first webcasts on ‘search and monetization’ has been scheduled to take place on September 9. The on-site in-person analyst day at Yahoo Inc is scheduled to take place on October 28 of this year.
Google spokeswoman Ms. Jane Penner speaking about the change said, “We felt having a series of webcasts on specific topics would be more dynamic and inclusive than a traditional analyst day, where shareholders must travel long distances and absorb everything in one sitting,”. She also said that there would be a question and answer session in this new way of dealing with investors where the users would be able both submit questions and also vote for the questions that they feel should be asked. This process would be executed using Google Moderator that would users to submit and vote.
The change has raised questions in most of the analysts’ minds. Few of them say that Google Inc has made this change to check and estimate the current quarter’s earnings prior to its release this time as the estimates were too bad for the last quarter and had fallen down badly. Some others feel that Google is making out this plan in order to target top advertisers and to increase the popularity and demand for its products and operating system like software development tools for mobile devices, YouTube, Chrome and Android. One of the analysts from Brigatine Advisors Mr. Colin Gillis has asked, “Growth has ground down to 3 percent in the June quarter. What reignites growth? (Google) just had its fifth anniversary as a public company – how do we get back to 20 percent, 30 percent growth?”
Questions like these that are raised now sound to be reasonable, as this sudden change in plan has changed the plans of many of the analysts who had planned their trip well in advance. If it had been announced earlier, there would not have been so much of chaos and the analysts would not have become so suspicious about the change. However, Google stills says that it has made the change in order to be different from the usual traditional way and in order to make it more comfortable for the analysts to ask more questions on their doubts but by staying at their own locations.