Old on the left, new on the right
It appears that Google is testing a new design for the header of its mobile search website, featuring a much more spread-out interface including a larger text entry box, navigation tabs, and Google logo. The size and placement of the actual search results seem to be identical, however…
The Wall Street Journal today reported that Google plans to launch a new “buy now” button this week. The button will be incorporated directly into its shopping search results. The report echoes a similar report from The Wall Street Journal earlier this year, in which it was reported that Google wanted to enter the online commerce and more seriously battle Amazon and eBay.
Google’s fleet of self-driving Lexus cars have notched up a total of 140,000 miles on public roads, and the company is now ready to begin road-testing its first purpose-built autonomous cars.
We first saw the cute-looking cars almost a year ago, when the company explained that they were not intended to ever make it to public sale. Their purpose is to see how people respond to a next-generation driverless car before later seeking partners to actually bring the technology to market.
We learned earlier this week that Google’s existing Lexus fleet has been involved in three low-speed accidents, none of them the fault of the car, but the company still isn’t taking any chances in this latest phase …
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The controversy over the ‘right to be forgotten‘ by Google has often seemed destined to run forever, Google arguing that it was being asked to make “difficult and debatable judgements” based on “very vague and subjective tests,” while European courts said that the company wasn’t fully complying with the law.
Google said that it was complying with court orders by removing “outdated or irrelevant” sensitive information about individuals from its European sites, while leaving the .com site untouched. European courts want Google to remove results from google.com also.
A piece in the WSJ suggests that a compromise may be reached, however, as Google revealed examples of what it described as easy and difficult cases …
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In a post on Google+ this evening, Google has announced that it is adding a new feature to its search engine that will make it incredibly easy to quickly order food on the go. Google says that starting today, if you search for a restaurant that is integrated with Seamless, Eat24, GrubHub, Delivery.com, MyPizza.com, or BeyondMenu, you will be able to order a meal directly from the search results.
As you probably could have expected would happen eventually, Google this evening has revealed that more searches are now performed on mobile devices than on desktops. In a post on the Inside AdWords blog, Google wrote, “more Google searches take place on mobile devices than on computers in 10 countries including the US and Japan.”
The head of a British exam board has said that students should be allowed Internet access – including the ability to carry out Google searches – during exams. The head of the OCR school examinations board Mark Dawe told the BBC’s Today program that this would accurately reflect the way they would work after leaving school.
“It is more about understanding what results you’re seeing rather than keeping all of that knowledge in your head, because that’s not how the modern world works,” said Dawe.
He compared the idea to the debate about whether to have books available during a test, saying: “In reality you didn’t have too much time [to consult the book] and you had to learn it anyway.”
The Oxford, Cambridge & RSA board’s chief said that while permitting Internet access during exams would not happen in the next weeks or months, it was “inevitable” at some stage …
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The Knowledge Graph is a controversial—but now fundamental—part of using Google, and for most casual browsers of the web, it’s nothing but an added convenience. It already does a great job of figuring out which pieces of information are most important and accurate, and gives them to you directly within the Google search page—there’s no need to go digging through countless results to find what you want. I myself even find it useful very often, usually when I’m searching for specific facts. Something like “When was George Washington born?” is a great example.
But I’m also wary of how intelligent it has gotten in recent years, and how much more integral to the Google experience it is becoming. Not only is Google pulling content from crowd-sourced Wikipedia articles, it is now getting smart enough to pull some of the content I’ve written on this website. Knowledge Graph has been known to bring death to many pages hosting all kinds of content, with lyrics websites being the perfect example. But what happens when Knowledge Graph and its Quick Answer box are so smart that you don’t need to browse the web at all?
Google hasn’t always enjoyed the best of relationships with news websites, publishers arguing that search results often show a large enough excerpt from the story that people don’t need to click through to the site, especially within the Google News tab. This has been especially true in Europe, where non-English publications are fighting for a much smaller potential readership.
The conflict came to a head in Spain last year, where the government passed a new law which would have required it to pay Spanish news sites for the excerpts shown in its search results, and Google responded by closing Google News in Spain. Although an unofficial compromise was found, grumblings by news sites have continued.
Google now believes its Digital News Initiative offers a three-pronged approach to tackling the “truly radical and challenging changes” being experienced in the media business within Europe …
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Republican presidential contender Marco Rubio answered a selection of questions posed in the top Google searches related to his name in a new video posted by his campaign.
Like the autocomplete-based “Google Feud” game that hit the web a few weeks ago, Rubio used Google’s crowd-sourced search term suggestions to determine some of the most popular questions about himself, such as his nationality, religion, reasons for running for president, and whether he’s a twin, and answered them in a one-minute video.
You can check out the full video below:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1Hx_jqw4Zk&feature=youtu.be&ab_channel=MarcoRubio]
To celebrate Earth Day 2015, Google has added a quiz to its search engine for visitors. By clicking the Earth Day themed Google Doodle, users are directed to a search results page with a quiz at the top. The quiz claims to answer the question, “Which animal are you?”
Google writes on its Doodle explanation page:
You can search Google for answers to all kinds of animal questions: What does an aye-aye eat?Where do narwhals live?How long is a toco toucan’s beak? And this Earth Day, you can turn to Google for the answer to something that you’ve always needed to know: which animal are you???
Clicking on this year’s Earth Day logo (or searching for “Earth Day quiz”) presents one of the Internet’s favorite pastimes: a totally scientific and 1,000% accurate personality quiz. Take the time to answer a few questions to determine and share your Earth Day animal. And, of course, you’re only a search away from learning more about nature’s precious pals and interesting inhabitants (fyi: kakapo is the heaviest parrot).
Happy Earth Day to you today and everyday,
The Earth Day Doodle Crew
The quiz consists of 5 questions and allows you to share your results to social media at the end. Take it here and tell us what animal you are when you’re done. Apparently, I am a honey badger….
Google is set to debut a reworked version of its search result ranking system tomorrow, Fortune reported today. The new rankings will place websites with mobile-friendly designs ahead of those that work best on desktop machines in search results.
The decision to make this change was prompted by the fact that over 60% of Google’s search traffic now comes from mobile devices, the company said. The modification was first announced in a post on Google’s Webmaster Central blog earlier this year.
As part of its commitment to being transparent about the data Google holds on you, the company has long allowed you to view your search history. It’s now gone one better, letting you download that history.
You can download all of your saved search history to see a list of the terms you’ve searched for. This gives you access to your data when and where you want.
I’m not quite sure why anyone would want to do this, but given the company’s numerous run-ins with various governments over data privacy, it probably wants to play safe.
Via Google Operating System and TNW
Microsoft’s Bing isn’t the most popular search engine around, but—at least according to the latest from comScore—it’s gaining ground slowly but surely. For the first time, Microsoft sites have surpassed the 20% milestone, meaning more than one fifth of overall search traffic is now owned by the Redmond, Washington company…
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As expected, the EU has formally accused Google of abusing its dominant position in search to favor links to its own products over those offered by competitors. The complaint takes the form of a Statement of Objections: a formal method of announcing that it believes Google has acted illegally and that a full investigation is underway.
The Commission’s preliminary view is that such conduct infringes EU antitrust rules because it stifles competition and harms consumers. EU Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said that “Google now has the opportunity to convince the Commission to the contrary. However, if the investigation confirmed our concerns, Google would have to face the legal consequences and change the way it does business in Europe.”
Google has not wasted any time in attempting to convince the Commission otherwise, arguing in a blog post that the evidence shows that Google has not harmed traffic to competitor websites …
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The Wall Street Journal reports that Google is currently in talks to allow advertisers to target ads towards existing customers in search results. According to the report, Google has approached advertisers with the idea of them sharing customer information that Google would then use to target the ads.
According to a report today out of the Wall Street Journal, there’s a small team now working on battery tech within Google[x]—and it’s being spearheaded by former Apple battery expert Dr. Ramesh Bhardwaj. The group was originally started in 2012 with an intention of researching how other companies’ tech could be integrated into Google’s products, but “people familiar with the matter” say that the four person group has expanded to research technology that Google might “develop itself.”
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Half of a 2012 FTC report on Google’s business practices has been “inadvertently disclosed” in an open records request by the WSJ. Bizarrely, what was leaked was every other page of the report. MarketingLand’s Danny Sullivan has been busy reading the report and tweeting some of the things revealed by it.
The FTC eventually concluded that Google had not violated antitrust laws by favoring its own services over that of rivals, but found it was “a close call.”
[tweet https://twitter.com/dannysullivan/status/580634396618698752/]
Google did, for example, promote its own services in search results …
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The Wall Street Journal today published a report highlighting an investigation done by the Federal Trade Commission that began in early 2013. The investigation centered around how Google skewed search results in an effort to promote its own services over competitors. Google, according to the FTC report, was accused of boosting its services for shopping, travel, and local businesses.
Google today, in a post on its Webmaster Central Blog, has reveled that it will soon launch a ranking adjustment to search results to better address sites that “maximize their search footprint without adding clear, unique value.” This problem occurs when a user searches for a topic and sees a page of results all from the same website, which Google says creates for a frustrating user experience.
As reported on by The Next Web, Google at South by Southwest this weekend gave an interesting look at its plans for Google Now. Aparna Chennapragada, Google Now’s Director of Product Management, discussed Google’s personalized predictive data service and revealed some details regarding the future of the product. Chennapragada revealed that the company soon plans to launch an open API for Google Now that will allow third-party services to integrate it into their apps.
Google today has announced a new partnership with Routehappy that adds more detailed information to Google’s Flight service. As part of the partnership, Google Flights will show what Routehappy calls “Happiness Factors,” which include things such as legroom availability, in-seat power, and WiFi.
Routehappy calls the information it sources “Flightpad” and claims that it is the most comprehensive and accurate database for flight information.
Routehappy researches and verifies flight amenities by aircraft, cabin, schedule, and route on a constant basis from hundreds of disparate sources to create Flightpad, the most comprehensive, accurate comparable product attribute dataset for flights worldwide. Flightmatch is a set of powerful and intelligent algorithms that dynamically match and score Happiness Factors, duration, and ratings for billions of possible flight combinations
The information will start to appear now in Google Flights results. You can view them yourself on the Google Flights site now.
Google has been beefing up Knowledge Graph a lot lately, and now it appears that they’re adding yet another useful set of information to the top of your Google searches: cocktail recipes. Most recently, the Mountain View company added social links for brands, fact-checked health information, and even full song lyrics.
As more information is being added to Knowledge Graph, users going to Google to search for information are needing to go past the search results much less often. This has been a problem particularly with the introduction of lyrics to the Graph, after which many sites that depended on Google traffic surely saw a significant dip—and some may have even gone out of business.
While cocktail recipes in Knowledge Graph may not be as comprehensive of a substitute as lyrics were, there’s probably a little bit of threat here to sites that servce up cocktail recipes as well.
Google is testing an interesting new feature in search, as spotted by one Matt Gibstein on Twitter. As you can see in the above screenshot, there’s a small “Chat” icon next to the phone number of a business called “Dizengoff” in Philadelphia—and it looks like clicking it will launch you into a chat session directly with that business via Hangouts.
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