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.
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.
Yahoo To Begin Anonymizing User Data Within 90 Days
Yahoo today announced that they would begin to anonymize user data within 90 days. This includes search log data as well as page views, page clicks, ad views and ad clicks. Previously, Yahoo had kept unanonymized search log data for up to 13 months. Google currently keeps search log data unanonymized for up 9 months and Microsoft keeps it for up to 18 months. Yahoo says that there will exceptions to the limit for “fraud, security and legal obligations.” Anne Toth, Yahoo’s Vice President of Policy and Head of Privacy, said that the new limit is the “minimum amount of time we need to retain data in order to respond to the needs of our business while deepening our trusted relationship with users”
Microsoft To Begin Testing Updated Search Crawler
Microsoft has announced that they will be testing an updated MSNBot, the crawler for MSN/Live Search, in the coming weeks. The crawler will use the user agent string msnbot/2.0b (+http://search.msn.com/msnbot.htm) and will be crawling a slow speed during testing according to a post on the Live Search Webmaster Center Blog. No details were given as to what updates the crawler has received. MSNBot’s last update was in February when it began supporting HTTP compression and conditional gets.
WordPress 2.7 Released
The finalized version of WordPress 2.7 was released yesterday, coming one day after the second release candidate. The most visible change in 2.7 is the admin interface, which has received a new look and is highly customizable. The new Quick Edit option in the Edit Posts page allows for changing quickly changing posts titles, categories, publishing status, and other post options without having to open each individual post. The new version also adds the ability to automatically update WordPress and to install plugins from inside WordPress. Some of the other new features include comment threading, sticky posts, and replying to comments in the dashboard. According to a post by Matt Mullenweg on the WordPress Blog, the high volume of feedback during the testing of 2.7 led to the delaying the release for a month to incorporate revision based on the feedback. Matt also said that he expects the interface remain largely the same during 2009 and that changes to WordPress next year to revolve around other areas including media handling, widgets, theme changes, and improved help.
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.
Opera 10 Alpha Released
Opera has released the first alpha version of Opera 10, which introduces a new version of the Presto engine, according to a post on the Opera Desktop Team blog. The new version of Presto, 2.2, receives a perfect score in the Acid3 test, a test of compliance with web standards. The only other engine that has reached that score is Webkit, used in Safari and Chrome. The new engine also adds support for Web Fonts, a feature of CSS 3 that specifies where to download a font if the computer of the website’s visitor does not contain it. Opera claims that Opera 10 is 30 percent faster “on the real web.”