Real-time Search Example on Google

The news about Google’s real-time search has been out for a little while now, but many people are still wondering how this is affected by real-life situations.  Well – Matt Cutts was gracious enough to show by example.  He displays exactly how Google tracked a recent mild earthquake and how long it took to show results on Google.

It’s good to see that their real-time search update actually functions as intended, and I can see the potential for it to help in a variety of ways.  Being the top search engine and a huge point where people check on things every day, getting your breaking news from Google (for info relevant to what you’re looking for) may get info to some people (who don’t check the news so often) faster.  Whether or not Google should take this role is not something that’s universally agreed upon, but there are visible benefits.

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Android vs. iPhone – Which is Better?

Now I’m already an iPhone user, but I’ve heard plenty about Google’s Android. And while I’m not able to do a fair comparison, Danny Sullivan (SEO extraordinaire) is, and he did.

He does more of a businessman’s review, as to how each phone worked in an efficient manner (or not), and what his impressions were of each overall.  Check it out if you’re trying to decide between the two.

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Put Business Phone Numbers on Cell Phone Ads

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Google’s made a little tweak to AdWords, so now you can put an ad that will show on cell phones that lists a business number.  If the owner of the phone calls that number, that counts as the click that is paid for.

The benefit of this is that it’s a very quick hot lead for anyone who advertises on the mobile network.  And it’s easy to do, since it defaults to all devices in AdWords, anyway.  To make sure you’re listed, check to see that mobile devices are checked in your settings in the campaign settings in AdWords.

Also, to have your phone number listed, you can either have the business information synched up with your business account or enter it manually, both done inside of the AdWords campaign settings.  Make sure whichever you do that you include your phone number.

Then to see the results, just choose the “Filters and Views” drop-down list and choose “Segment by”->”Click Type”.  This will show which clicks were URL clicks, and which were calls, from either the Ad Group or Keywords tabs.

It’s just an addition Google’s made to AdWords, and sent out an announcement through email to Google advertisers.  This could be a good change for people who use AdWords for markets that actively use their cell phones.

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A Major Element of SEO: PageRank Explained

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Most people view PageRank as that value from 0 to 10 that’s in your Google Toolbar, showing how much reputation your site has on the internet. There are some details that you should know if you really want to understand PageRank. Read more

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Google Shows URLs Blocked by Robots.txt

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Yes, Google will still show pages even if you have set them up to be blocked in your robots.txt file.  Why exactly, you’re wondering, I’m sure.

Google is actually not crawling any of the URLs you have listed as blocked in your robots.txt file.  What they are doing is displaying the page, just not showing your description meta tag or any information from inside that page.  Matt Cutts gets into more detail about that here:

So to prevent Google from displaying your pages at all, you need to remove the page inside your Webmaster Tools or else use a robots meta tag with a noindex value in it for each page.  Then your page will not show up in Google’s results at all.

You can get more details on this information from Quick Online Tips.

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Google New Year Easter Egg

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Just a quick post – try going to Google and hitting the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button without entering a query.  You’ll see a big number pop up.  Google’s waiting for the new year!  I do wonder what will happen when that number reaches zero and you’re on the page.

Just a cool little easter egg.

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Google’s Christmas Present

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Earlier this morning Google sent out a link to some recipients through email, to tell them what they’re doing for the holiday.  I think it’s quite cool to see such a massive company giving something back, and giving in the neighborhood of very large quantites.  Of course, to be non-offensive, they’ve kept their announcement totally secular.  But that’s probably the safest way to do things.

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Power of Suggestion on Google’s Search Line

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Google’s been doing live suggestions for a while now.  But did you know you can actually use wild cards on the search line?  No asterisk required, but you can simply add one character to a word to find any similar words that are searched for.  So looking for “tree”, you could add an ‘a’ to make it “atree”, and Google will potentially show you “apple tree” as a suggestion.

It’s quite powerful and easy to do.  To see some screen shots of how this works, check out this post on Search Engine Land.

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Basics on Quality Score – What It Is

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Just a quick post.  I put a tip on DailySEOTip about Google AdWords’s Quality Score.  I tried to make it short and sweet, although you do need to understand all of the acronyms (CTR, CPC, etc.) to understand it fully.

I do think it’s worth understanding because of the fact it can make a difference between a $0.30 click and a $5.00 click (seriously).  So if you use AdWords at ALL, learn about it – if not from me, then somewhere else, but it’s definitely worth investigating.

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I Saw CNBC: Inside the Mind of Google

I saw it – and it was good. It really was pretty good. They covered quite a bit in an hour, about the development of the company, how it got started, the main people involved. What impressed me was their coverage of some technical details (cloud computing, PageRank) while still keeping it easy to understand.

Naturally, the part I liked quite a bit was their coverage of AdWords.  According to CNBC, Google makes 98% of their profit from AdWords, although I’ve heard differently.  I don’t know for sure what percentage of their profits comes from AdWords – but right now, they’re averaging over 4 billion dollars a year.  They’re doing okay with it.

They did talk briefly about AdWords, talked about how anyone can advertise, and touched on how it operates.  They mentioned PageRank and how it affects positioning for ads (and how quality of a site affects it), but that was about it.  It was impressive coverage for the limited time they had.

They did also talk about Google Goggles – the funny thing was that they mentioned it probably wasn’t ready to go into production for a while.  But they did go live a few days ago – guess it’s in beta.  Although that’s a safe bet for anything Google.

Hopefully this publicity from “Inside the Mind of Google” is something that works out for them.  I really want to believe that they have truly good intentions, and that all of their machinations are to enhance the lives of their customers.  We’ll see what kind of responses come from this extra bit of attention.

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