As part of Google’s continued expansion of advertising to it’s various search products they have now added text ads to search results pages on the Google News search. This follows the introduction of text and display ads to Google Image Search last year. The ads are currently displayed only in the United States. According to post on the Google News Blog, Google has in recent months “been experimenting with a variety of different formats, like overlay ads on embedded videos from partners like the AP” in Google News search.
Category: Google
Google Showing More Locations On Google Maps Searches
Google has begun displaying additional locations for local searches on Google Maps. Previously, only the ten locations listed in the results panel to the left of the map were displayed on the map. Now up to 1,000 locations can be displayed on the map, according to a post on the Google LatLong blog. The locations listed in the results panel are marked with the standard teardrop icon, while the rest of the locations are marked with a small circle.
Search Engines Announce New Tag To Reduce Duplicate Content Issues
Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft have announced support for a new tag to help reduce duplicate content issues. One source of duplicate content is when the same web page can be accessed from multiple URLs. The new canonical link tag specifies what is the preferred URL for the webpage. While search engines will use this as strong hint, they will use algorithmic mechanisms to compare the URLs to deal with improper use or abuse of the tag. The URL must be on the same domain, but can be on a different subdomain and can use relative or absolute URLs. The tag should be in the following format: <link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com” /> and should be placed in <head> section of the webpage. Google currently supports the tag, Yahoo says that it will implement support “over the coming months”, and Microsoft says that it will provide “full support in one of our upcoming releases.”
January U.S. Search Share Results
Nielsen Online today released its rankings of U.S. search share for January. Overall search increased 27.5 percent year over year to 9.5 billion searches. Google had year over year increase of 40.8 percent and received 62.8 percent of searches. Yahoo had a year over year increase of 8.7 percent and received 16.2 percent of searches. Microsoft had a year over year increase of 18.3 percent and received 11.2 percent of searches.
Study Finds Over Half of Users Use Multiple Search Engines
A new study by Forrester Research found that 55 percent of U.S. online adults use multiple search engines each week. 20 percent of users only used Google each week, 8 percent only used Yahoo, 3 percent only used AOL, 2 percent only used their ISP’s search engine, 1 percent only used MSN, and 1 percent only used Ask.com. The study also found that 69 percent of users used Google each week, 50 percent used Yahoo, and 14 percent used MSN. Finally, the study found 30 percent of users identified Yahoo as their home page, 23 percent identified Google, and 7 percent identified MSN. The study was based on a survey of over 4,800 individuals.
Google Error Claimed All Websites Contained Malware
For an hour on Saturday morning Google’s search results page flagged every web page listed as containing malware and blocked access to those web pages through links on the results page. When Google detects that a website contains malware, it warn users when a page from that website is listed in search results by placing the message “This site may harm your computer” under the listing for a page and by placing an interstitial page when the link for that page is clicked. According to a post by Marissa Mayer, Google’s Vice President of Search Products & User Experience, on the Official Google Blog, all websites displayed the warning due to a change in the manual list of websites containing malware. Mayer explained that “the URL of ‘/’ was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and ‘/’ expands to all URLs.” Google list of websites that contain malware also includes websites that are listed through automated processes.
Google Universal Searches Tripled in 2008
During the Google’s fourth quarter financial conference call, Google’s Senior Vice President for Product Management Jonathan Rosenberg disclosed that the number of search queries that had displayed universal search results tripled in 2008. Universal search displays image, video, new, blog, and book results integrated with the standard website results. Rosenberg also said that Google had made 350 “search quality improvements” in 2008, with the “biggest addition” being the substantial increased size of the index. He also stated that mobile search traffic went up “substantially” during the year and peaked at the end of December. Finally, he said that ad coverage, the amount of queries that display ads and the number of ads displayed for those queries, had reached the level that it had been in the beginning of 2008 after having dipped during the year.
December U.S. Search Share Results
Nielsen Online yesterday released its rankings of U.S. search share for December. Overall search increased 19.6 percent year over year to 8.6 billion searches. Google had year over year increase of 33.5 percent and received 62.9 percent of searches. Yahoo had a year over year increase of 13.7 percent and received 16.8 percent of searches. Microsoft had a year over year decrease of 15.5 percent and received 9.8 percent of searches.
Local Business Ads Get New Features on Google Maps
Google has announced that AdWords has added new features to the local business ads that appear in Google Maps. The info window that is displayed when a listing is clicked now provides links to get directions, view a street view, and save the location to user’s My Maps. The option for the user to receive the business’s information on their phone on in an email will be added “shortly.” Advertisers will not be charge for users using these new features. Local business ads currently are available for businesses located in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, and Spain. In addition, Google will begin to provide reporting of user interaction with local business ads ” in a few weeks.”
November U.S. Search Share Results
Nielsen Online today released its rankings of U.S. search share for November. Overall search increased 9.6 percent year over year to 8.1 billion searches. Google had year over year growth of 21.7 percent and received 64.1 percent of searches. Google’s percentage of searches was it’s highest reported by Nielsen Online, surpassing it previous high in April of this year when it received 62.0 percent. Yahoo had a year over year decrease of 1.4 percent and received 16.1 percent of searches. Microsoft had a year over year decrease of 16.7 percent and received 9.1 percent of searches.