Google has released an update to the PageRank values shown in the Google Toolbar. Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s Webspam team, confirmed the update in a tweet. The toolbar PageRank is a simplified snapshot of Google’s internal PageRank , with the toolbar PageRank values rounded to whole numbers from 1-10. The toolbar PageRank is updated every 3-4 months. PageRank is based on incoming links to a page and is one of the over 200 factors that Google uses for crawling, indexing, and ranking.
Category: Google
Google Image Search Expands Search By Style Option
Google has expanded the option to search by style in their image search. Google already provided the ability to search for images with faces, images from news articles, and to only show photos. Today they announced the option to only show clip art or line drawings. Microsoft’s Live Search Images provides the option of displaying only photos or illustrations, as well as the option of displaying only images that include faces or head & shoulders.
Google Expands AdSense Program for Parked Domains
Google has opened up AdSense for Domains, it’s advertising program for parked domains, to all English language AdSense publishers in North America. Previously, the program was only available to “large domain portfolio owners.” The program provides the ability for owners of parked domains to generate revenue from those domains by allowing Google to display ads, links, and search results on the parked domain. According to a post on the Inside AdSense blog the program will be expanded to publishers in “ additional regions and languages in the future.”
AdWords Reduces U.S. Alcohol Related Restrictions
Google announced that they have reduced the restrictions on advertising hard alcohol and liqueur through AdWords for ads that target the United States. Previously, there was a complete ban on advertising hard alcohol and liqueur. Under the new policy, advertising that promotes information, such as recipes and brand messages is permitted, but directly promoting the sale hard alcohol and liqueur is not permitted. Earlier this fall AdWords began permitting the promotion of the sale of beer. According to a post on the Inside AdWords blog there are plans to expand the new policy “to other countries in accordance with local regulations are expected in the coming weeks.”
Google Adds Option to Target Ads to iPhone and T-Mobile G1
Google today announced the option to target ads to phones with full (HTML) Internet browsers in AdWords advertising system. Currently only the iPhone and the T-Mobile G1 are supported, but according to a post on the Inside Adwords blog, as additional devices enter the market they will be available to target. The new targeting option supports advertising on searches as well as text and image ads on the Google content network. Google already provides the option to target advertising to phones using WAP browsers.
Google Provides Greater Control of Googlebot Crawl Rate
Google has changed the crawl rate setting in Google Webmaster Center to allow for more control of the rate that Googlebot crawls a website. Previously, the crawl rate could set to normal, slower, and in some cases faster. The new setting allows for setting the crawl rate based on the number of request per second or seconds between requests. The range of values that are available “is based on our understanding of your server’s capabilities” and “may vary from one site to another and across time based on several factors” according to post on Official Google Webmaster Center blog. The post also says that setting the rate higher than the default value “won’t improve your coverage or ranking.” Yahoo and MSN/Live Search already allowed setting the seconds between requests made by their crawlers with craw-delay directive in the robots.txt file.
October U.S. Search Share Results
Nielsen Online today released its rankings of U.S. search share for October. Overall search decreased 2.0 percent year over year to 7.8 billion searches. Google had year over year growth of 8.1 percent and received 61.2 percent of searches. Google’s percentage of searches was it’s second highest reported by Nielsen Online, only surpassed by April of this year when it received 62.0 percent. Yahoo had a year over year decrease of 12.0 percent and received 16.9 percent of searches. Microsoft had a year over year decrease of 19.0 percent and received 11.4 percent of searches.
Google Introduces New Search Based Keyword Tool
Google has released a new keyword tool that uses search data relevant to a specific site to provide keyword suggestion for advertising and other purposes according to a post on the Inside AdWords blog. The tool looks at a site’s pages and then identifies “keywords that potential customers are searching on to find your products or services.” The tool lists how many searches the keyword receives as well as the amount of competition and suggested bid for that keyword in Google’s AdWords search advertising program. While the tool is designed to work with AdWords, the tool can be used without and AdWords account. The tool currently provides data for United States and United Kingdom, but will expand to additional languages and countries in the “near future” according to Google.
Google Releases Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
Google today released the Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide (pdf), which details basic search engine optimization techniques. The 22 page guide discusses best practices for title tags, description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, heading tags, quality content, links, images, robots.txt files, and links. According to a post on the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog, the guide was created because “we thought it’d be useful to create a compact guide that lists some best practices that teams within Google and external webmasters alike can follow that could improve their sites’ crawlability and indexing”. Google also said that they “plan on updating the guide at regular intervals with new optimization suggestions and to keep the technical advice current.”
Google Withdraws From Yahoo Partnership
In a post on the Official Google Blog, Google announced that they were withdrawing from the search advertising partnership with Yahoo that was originally announced in June. In a press release the U.S. Justice Department stated that Google withdraw “after the Department of Justice informed the companies that it would file an antitrust lawsuit to block the implementation of the agreement”. The Justice Department said that the agreement “would likely harm competition in the markets for Internet search advertising and Internet search syndication” due to the companies accounting for over 90 percent of both markets. In Google’s post they stated they withdrew because of the risk of a protracted legal battle as well as “damage to relationships with valued partners.”