Tag Archive for: Google

5 Recent Google Search Changes That Have Slipped Under The Radar

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With Google’s constant updates, it is easy to miss some of the new features they roll out with less publicity than their biggest products receive. However, even the smaller revisions to Google Search make a huge affect on how we search and use the internet in general. Jessica Lee recently rounded up some of the less talked about changes Google has been making so you can be sure you haven’t missed anything lately.

1) Date Selector in Hotel Carousel Search Results

The Carousel results box at the top of localized searches for hotels and restaurants has only been around for a few months now, and Google is already making regular updates to the function. While most of the work has gone into normalizing what queries get carousel results.

But, they’ve also implemented some new, interesting features such as a date selector for hotel searches. Now, you can easily weed out hotels that aren’t available on the days you will need lodging.

hotels-in-new-york-date-selector-google-carousel

In a statement to Search Engine Land, Google said:

We’re always adding features to search to help people find what they need and get things done faster — you can now more easily research hotels when planning a trip and filter by user ratings and hotel class, as well as select specific dates.

2) Cards for Local Results

“Answer Cards” have slowly been spreading across Google’s platform for a while, but they were largely reserved for specific questions or brands. You needed a specific and targeted search to wind up with the convenient card at the top of the search results. But, lately the cards have begun to deliver more detailed answers such as the address of a nearby retailer. Mike Blumenthal highlighted the change with an example of searching for a brand name + location (Dress Barn locations Amherst):

dress-barn-amherst-answer-card

But, queries with multiple results still get the traditional pack results:

dress-barn-pack-results

3) Answers to Complex Questions

The answer cards have also gotten better at providing answers for trickier questions in general. The people running the Google Operating System spent a good amount of time trying to stump Google’s answer feature, but they’ve found the task has gotten much harder as the feature has been improved.

In their words:

Google used to only answer simple questions like “who’s the prime minister of Canada?” or “what’s the population of China?” Thanks to the Knowledge Graph project, Google can answer more complicated questions like “who played Batman?”, “what’s the latest album of Celine Dion?”, “what are the main attractions in Spain?”.

To test this out, one of the authors asked Google a question without a definitive answer: what is the “distance to Mars”.

google-direct-answer-distance-to-mars

Google can even tell you why the sky is blue.

google-direct-answer-why-is-sky-blue

4) Distance Results

Google is able to tell the distance from most locations other than planets. In fact, Google announced on Google+ that users can now get the distance from any two locations on earth, no matter how far apart they are. The example Google offered was the “distance between Siberia and Hawaii.”

google-how-far-is-it-from-hawaii-to-siberia

5) Streamlined Search Options

The Google Operating System blog explained how they have updated search options to be more responsive to your individual search query:

Google removed a few specialized search options that were usually displayed in the “more” drop-down: recipes, patents, discussions, blogs, places. The list of links to services like Maps, Images, News, Flights, Shopping is reordered based on your query. This isn’t a new idea, it was implemented a long time ago by Google, but now it’s used more often.

search-options-google

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Google Gives AdWords a New Look and Feel

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Over the past year Google has been pushing to streamline the look and functionality of many of their products. They have redesigned several of their products, and replaced many tools webmasters rely on with new tools with better performance. AdWords is the next tool on their list for an overhaul, as Google announced earlier this week while highlighting “more screen real estate to the tools and reports you love.”

Their announcement also assures you, “By updating AdWords to the look and feel that we use across Google, you’ll spend less time getting where you want to go in your account, and more time focusing on growing your business.”

The redesigned AdWords will be implementing several stylistic and functional aspects from Google’s broader network, such as moving navigation links like billing, help, and account setting into the gear icon.

adwords-menu

They have also shifted key campaign information above the fold in the dashboard, so you won’t have to scroll to get to the information you’re looking for. You can also quickly see who is signed in for accounts with multiple users

On the purely aesthetic side, Google has brought more white space into the page, especially within charts and tables. They also softened their color palette to make AdWords “easier on the eyes.”

adwords-charts

You can expect to see the changes appear within the next couple of weeks. In the meantime you can acclimate yourself to the updates with a short video Google released focused on navigating the redesigned AdWords.

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Google Maps Lets You Explore The Tardis and Warns You About Walking Into Mordor

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Everyone knows that Google is a fan of hiding little easter eggs throughout their services, especially in Google Maps and Google Earth. Many of the most well known “secrets” of Google Maps involve objects that actually exist in real life, such as the popular giant pink rabbit in Italy. However, Google also creates some fun little tricks on their own. I learned of two such treasures this week and thought I would share them with you.

The first has been around for a few years, but it recently began making the rounds again. Michael Gray on Twitter noticed that Google Maps gives a particularly funny response if you happen to search for walking directions from The Shire to Mordor, as you can see below.

mordor-google-maps-1389877244

It is a good time for the little trick to be popping back up, considering the new The Hobbit film is just now leaving theaters, with one more on the way. Plus, many like me never saw it when it was first discovered in earlier versions of Google Maps.

Tardis-Google-Maps-Street-View-640x333

The other secret Google Maps holds is much newer, but equally (if not more) exciting for the fans of Doctor Who. It seems the Tardis was hiding inconspicuously along Earl’s Court Road in London when the Maps team was in the area, because stepping into the blue police box sitting nearby when using Streetview.

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If you click on the double-white arrow, you’ll notice the police box is bigger on the inside, and you can explore the (limited) depths of the Tardis, The Doctor’s infamous time machine. Of course, it doesn’t have the endless new rooms and corridors that often appear in the show, but you get a good look at the controls and interior.

What is your favorite Google Maps easter egg?

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Google Responds To Mass Hotel Local Listing Hijacking

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Yesterday we reported on the mass hijacking of thousands of Google+ Local listings. In short, over a short period of time a huge number of hotels with business listings for Google Maps and Search. The story was broke open by Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land, who attempted to track down the source of the spam attack, with no concrete evidence to suggest who the culprit actually is.

While the issue could have a big affect on many businesses it the hotel sector, it is more notable for showing that other attacks could happen in the future. Even worse, no one outside of Google has been able to explain how this could occur, especially with the number of big hotel chains affected. The hotels hit with the spam weren’t mom-and-pop bed and breakfast places. Most of the listings were for huge hotel chains, such as the Marriott hotel shown in the example of a hijacked link below.

If Google does know how this was able to happen, they aren’t telling. In fact, Google has been terribly quiet on the issue. They’ve yet to issue an official public statement, aside from telling Sullivan that he could confirm they were aware of the problem and working to resolve it.

The only direct word from Google on the hijackings is a simple response in an obscure Google Business Help thread from Google’s Community Manager, Jade Wang. If it weren’t for Barry Schwartz’s watchful eye, it is possible the statement would never have been widely seen. Wang said:

We’ve identified a spam issue in Places for Business that is impacting a limited number of business listings in the hotel vertical. The issue is limited to changing the URLs for the business. The team is working to fix the problem as soon as possible and prevent it from happening again. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

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Google+ Local Listings For Thousands of Hotels Get Hijacked

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Yesterday, thousands of hotels with Google+ Local listings had their pages manipulated to replace their links to official sites with links leading to third-party booking services. Google+ Local listings are what Google uses to provide local results in Google Maps and Google Search.

It currently appears to be isolated entirely to hotels, and Google has already said they are aware of and fixing the problem, but Danny Sullivan’s research into who is responsible for the hijacking has yet to turn up anything concrete. What we do know is that thousands of listings were changed to point to either RoomsToBook.Info, RoomsToBook.net, or HotelsWhiz.com.

Source: Search Engine Land

Source: Search Engine Land

The problem is, we can’t be sure any of these companies are actually directly responsible. Only one person responded to Sullivan’s inquiries. Karim Miwani, listed on LinkedIn as the director of HotelsWhiz.com, replied saying (sic):

We have recently seen this issue and have reported to Google webmaster already. If you have seen any links please forward it to me and I will submit the request.

Our team is already in the process of blocking list of certain domains and IP addresses from back-linking us.

Thank you for pointing this out if you have any more external domains acting in aboce manner please report it to us on

You can get all the details on the hijacking from Danny Sullivan’s investigative report into the issue, but this event has a broader relevance outside of the hotel industry. The mass hijacking of Google’s local listings suggests their is a security flaw in the Google+ Local listings which needs to be addressed and resolved. It may explain why Google has largely remained mum on the subject aside from confirming that it occurred.

You most likely have nothing to worry about with your own local business’s listings, so long as you don’t work in the hotel industry. However, it could have implications about the future of Google+ Local listings. Either the security flaw that allowed this to happen will be fixed, or issues like these could affect other industries on a larger scale.

Considering how important these listings are to Google Maps and Search, a larger attack could be a serious problem for Google.

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Rap Genius Returns to Google After Link Scheme Penalty

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Recently Rap Genius, a popular lyric website focused on hip-hop music, became the talk of the internet as they basically disappeared from Google’s search results. They were hit with a penalty for link schemes, and the event may have been one of the most talked about SEO stories in recent history.

Now, 10 days after they were essentially removed from the search results, Rap Genius is ranking when searching for it on Google by name. It should be noted, the site was never completely removed from Google, but their content was showing up six and seven pages back in the results, which is pretty much just as bad.

Rap Genius

Source: Search Engine Land

We know the site lost a huge amount of traffic when they were penalized, but it is unclear how they are faring now that they are back. Most likely, Rap Genius will still struggle to regain their former foothold, at least temporarily. When searching by name, the actual website for Rap Genius is still listed below several news stories about their SEO troubles.

The site is also not ranking as well for many lyric searches they previously would have been listed for. Some lyric searches show Rap Genius, but Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Land shows they are still stuck on page seven for several searches.

Rap Genius is definitely the most publicly discussed SEO penalty so far. It has been reported on by Rolling Stone, NBC News, Huffington Post, and several other major news outlets. It is also the perfect case study for why you should never attempt to game the search engines for better rankings.

Rap Genius has been consistently transparent about the issues that occurred and what they have done to fix them, as well as what they can do in the future. You can read their initial apology here, as well as their more detailed blog post here. The blog post also concludes with an apology:

To Google and our fans: we’re sorry for being such morons. We regret our foray into irrelevant unnatural linking. We’re focused on building the best site in the world for understanding lyrics, poetry, and prose and watching it naturally rise to the top of the search results.

Rap Genius is seeing a relatively quick return to the search results, thanks to their dutiful efforts to fix the problems and their transparency. However, it will still be a long time before they reach their former status. It just shows that illegal SEO may get you results in the short-term, but you will eventually get caught.

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The 11 Most Important Google Search Updates of 2013 [Infographic]

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Google Updates Banner

No matter what you personally think about Google, there are two undeniable facts about the massive company. They are the number one source of online searches by a wide margin, and they are constantly changing. Trying to keep track of all the individual updates from Google can be dizzying. It seems every time you are almost adjusted to one change, there is a new update popping up.

But, following the changes over at Google is important for anyone running a website. There are some pretty clear patterns in Google’s updates over the past year, and if you want your website to be successful through 2014, you will need to be prepared for the types of changes on the horizon.

To assist you in reviewing the changes from last year, E2M Solutions produced an infographic that covers a few of the most important updates on Google Search during 2013. As you might expect, Penguin and Panda are both big parts of the infographic. But, there are also some less known search updates such as Google Hummingbird.

The infographic isn’t perfect however. Search Engine Land points out that Hummingbird was not rolled out on August 20, 2013, as it is listed. Also, “Link Devaluation” has never been confirmed by Google, and thus it is only speculation. It is arguably pretty clear that links have lost some of their power in the past year, but it can be debated how that was actually implemented.

You can view the infographic below, or over at E2M’s website.

 11-Most-Important-Google-Algorithm-Changes-2013

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What Happens When You Try To Cheat Google? Learn From Rap Genius

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More and more businesses are attempting to establish themselves online, but when you’re working with limited resources it can be tempting to cut corners. It can sound easy to manage the basics of SEO with some cursory searching, and many SEO guidelines are either woefully out of date or simply preach bad practices which can lead to short-term success.

Experienced SEO professionals have learned how to keep up to date with the latest changes in search and avoid being smacked with a huge penalty, but those who are new to the industry or are trying to handle SEO as a hobby can end up walking their site right into the fire. If you don’t believe bad SEO can be so dangerous, just look at the recent headlines about the lyric website Rap Genius.

Rap Genius is similar to any other website you’ve gone to for the lyrics to your favorite songs, but (as the name suggests) it is almost entirely focused on hip-hop music. What made it distinct from the other lyric resources out there was the ability for community members to annotate the lyrics with context or explanations which can make more abstract songs easier to understand.

Rap Genius Affiliate Post

Over Christmas, Rap Genius also became notable for being the first popular lyric website to be hit with a massive Google penalty which has wiped their website off of the search results almost entirely. If you Google any for of Rap Genius related topics right now, you won’t find any results from rapgenius.com anywhere on at least the first four or five pages. You can still find links to their Twitter account, Facebook profile, and Wikipedia page, but the majority of the results at this point ironically focus on the SEO scandal.

Rap Genius has been using link schemes to manipulate Google’s rankings, and it appears they have been for a while. It could explain their quickly growing popularity up until this point, but their tactics were brought to the attention of Google’s search spam team, and soon after they were gone from the listings. It appears the scheme that got them into trouble was an “affiliate” program which encouraged bloggers to share  links with keyword heavy anchor text directing to Rap Genius in exchange for tweets from the lyric site.

The founders of Rap Genius issued a (sort of) apology, saying:

We effed up, other lyric sites are almost definitely doing worse stuff, and we’ll stop. We’d love for Google to take a closer look at the whole lyrics search landscape and see whether it can make changes that would improve lyric search results.

Rap Genius Traffic Lost

They still defend their actions, though they have sworn not to continue them, so it can be hard to take their resolve all that seriously. Even if they haven’t learned from their SEO problems, the stats since the penalty should be enough to convince you not to follow in their footsteps. Since the outage, Rap Genius has lost 80% of their traffic, and they are down in search visibility by 92%.

Simply put, shady SEO tactics might find you short term success like what Rap Genius enjoyed, but you will also suffer the same downfall for not following the latest guidelines or trying to game the system.

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Does Google ‘Control’ Content On The Internet?

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Keymaster

Source: Jason Tamez

Does Google control the internet? Of course no one has control over the entire existance of the internet, but the major search engine has a huge influence in how we browse the web. So, it is interesting to hear a Google representative entirely downplay their role in managing the content online.

Barry Schwartz noticed the statement in a Google Webmaster Help forums thread about removing content from showing up in Google. It’s a fairly common question, but the response had some particularly interesting information. According to Eric Kuan from Google, the search engine doesn’t play a part in controlling content on the internet.

His statement reads:

Google doesn’t control the contents of the web, so before you submit a URL removal request, the content on the page has to be removed. There are some exceptions that pertain to personal information that could cause harm. You can find more information about those exceptions here: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2744324.

Now, what Kuan said is technically true. Google doesn’t have any control over what is published to the internet. But, Google is the largest gateway to all that content, and plays a role in two-thirds of searches.

This raises some notable questions for website owners and searchers alike. We rarely consider how much of an influence Google has in deciding what information we absorb, but they hold some very important keys to areas of the web we otherwise wouldn’t find.

As a publisher, you are obliged to follow Google’s guidelines in order to be made visible to the huge wealth of searchers. It is an agreement which often toes uncomfortable lines as the search engine has grown into a massive corporation encompassing many aspects of our lives and future technology.

When you begin marketing and optimizing your site online to become more visible, you should keep this agreement in mind. A lot of people think of Google as a system to take advantage of in order to reach a larger audience. While you can attempt to do that, you are breaking the agreement with the search engine and they can penalize your efforts at any time.

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Nelson Mandela is Google’s Top Global Trending Search of 2013

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Mandela 2008

Nelson Mandela in 2008
Source: WikiMedia Commons

Not to be outdone by Bing, Google published their top ten lists of the year, centered around their list of global trending searches of 2013 and their annual “Year-End Zeitgeist” page. The list is dominated by public figures and huge events, but it also features a few entries from popular electronics released this year. However, unlike many other lists, the public figures are exclusively male, and mostly associated with tragedy.

Both Paul Walker and Cory Monteith, two star actors who passed at young ages, are on the list, and the highest ranked trending search of the year was awarded to Nelson Mandela, the recently deceased South African leader who has made such a huge impact on his home country and around the world. As Google says:

It’s perhaps unsurprising that the #1 trending search of 2013 was an international symbol of strength and peace: Nelson Mandela. Global search interest in the former President of South Africa was already high this year, and after his passing, people from around the world turned to Google to learn more about Madiba and his legacy.

Google’s Top 10 Trending Global Searches of 2013:

  • Nelson Mandela
  • Paul Walker
  • iPhone 5s
  • Cory Monteith
  • Harlem Shake
  • Boston Marathon
  • Royal Baby
  • Samsung Galaxy s4
  • PlayStation 4
  • North Korea

Along with their Trending Global Searches list, Google published their Year-End Zeitgeist page, which lists more than 1,000 top ten search lists from over 70 countries. It includes topics such as the most searched celebrity pregnancies (Kim Kardashian), most searched Fortune 500 (Google), most searched for movies (Man of Steel), and the most searched TV shows of the year (Breaking Bad).

Of course, Miley Cyrus made a serious impact in search after her notorious MTV VMA performance, by contributing to the most searched “What is…?” question, which was “What is twerking?” She also won the most searched person of the year, showing controversy always leads to a surge of interest.

To top it all of, Google released a video to spotlight all of the highlights of the year:

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