Google Launches Web Elements

Internet giant Google took the opportunity at its own Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco to launch Google Web Elements. This tool will allow site owners to integrate widget-like Google tools into their own Web pages.

The widget-style tools, announced May 27, gathers together 8 Google widgets on a single page - Calendar, Conversation, Custom Search, Maps, News, Presentations, Spreadsheets, and YouTube News. Even though many of the widgets offered on the Web Elements page are old news, at least putting them all in one place is helpful.

The company is flaunting the user-friendliness of this new feature since it allows the code for the tools to be integrated into the site via cut-and-paste. For example, the News element adds headline news about the topics you choose to any page. You just need go to the News element page and use the wizard to update the live preview as you change the topics and pick the best size for your site. When you like what you see, simply copy the short embedded code and paste it into the HTML of your page.

Don’t Stress! Google May 2009 Toolbar PageRank Update

There seems to be quite a lot buzz in the SEO community and throughout the internet pertaining to the Google Toolbar PageRank update last night. As of May 27th, 2009 people began noticing that the small green pixels in the Google Toolbar began updating, AGAIN.

A Toolbar PageRank update means nothing in terms of your organic search engine rankings changing anytime soon. So everyone out there who thinks that PageRank toolbar is the bee all end all, do not stress out. The PageRank scores shown in the toolbar are outdated and have zero direct impact on your Google rankings. That doesn’t mean that PageRank has no influence, it is just that the toolbar score does not have any influence on them.

The last PageRank update was in early April 2009, so this one is coming in right on the heels of the other one. Typically Google updates the PageRank value in the Toolbar every few months or so, but I guess they felt the need to update it a bit earlier this time.

Google Suggest Tool Makes Improvements to Help Search Engine Marketing

Google is improving its Google Suggest Tool so that it can better aid the efforts of search engine marketing. The Google Suggest Tool was introduced as a way to speed up the process of finding particular information that web users are looking for.

In an official blog post product managers, Matt Kulick, Jonathan Effrat and David Kadouch said that a number of new features will be added to Google Suggest.

The first new feature will be that while suggestions were previously only offered while making queries from the Google homepage, now suggestions will also be provided to users when making further search queries from the result pages.

Google Suggest will also show relevant past searches when users have web history enabled, thereby allowing them to repeat some of the searches that they carry out most often.

Finally, sponsored links will appear in the list of suggestions. This could be beneficial for companies looking to reach those most interested in their products and services with search engine marketing and pay per click ads.

Google Adsense Link Units Pages Now Showing Image Ads

The Google Adsense Blog reported that images ads (or banner ads) have now been added to Google Adsense link units pages. Link units are a form of Adsense that show a list of topics that are related to your page, instead of the standard text ads. The image ads that were added to these pages are contextually targeted and can be bid on at a CPC or CPM basis. They are shown at the bottom of the pages.

For advertisers heavily involved in banner advertising, this is a great new opportunity to explore.

Microsoft’s New Search Engine, Bing?

Back in April, I blogged about Microsoft Rebranding their Search Engine. Well, next week Microsoft is scheduled to launch this new search engine, rumored to be called Bing. Microsoft is planning on spending $80-$100 million promoting it through TV, print, and radio. This is a sizable marketing campaign, considering the fact that Google only spent $25 million on all their advertising last year.

In the meantime, Microsoft is going to unveil the revamped search engine at an industry event starting today in San Diego. At this event we will likely hear the confirmed name of the search engine. Microsoft plans to generate a lot of buzz about this new search engine, but will it really be able to directly compete with Google, the #1 search engine?

Check out Ask.com’s Homepage

Ask.com is sporting a new homepage skin today. When you go to ask.com, you will see a large ad for the latest Night at the Museum movie. According to Ask.com, this ad will be featured on their homepage for 2 days and is the result of a partnership between Ask and Fox.

I can only imagine how much money Google would make off of advertising on their homepage!

Doodle 4 Google Winner

Congratulations to Christin Engelberth, the winner of the Doodle 4 Google contest. Her doodle is featured today on the Google homepage.

Christin won some large prizes including a $15,000 college scholarship, a laptop, and a $25,000 technology grant for her middle school.

Almost 6 million people voted online for the contest, and this one seemed to convey the right message to American’s during this time of hardship. Christin’s doodle was titled “A new Beginning” and her wish was “out of the current crisis, discoveries will be found to help the Earth prosper once more.”

Getupdated’s Blog Posts Now Available in Audio Format

Blog update! Now our blog posts are available in an audio format so that you have the option to either read or listen to our posts. When you click on any of our blog posts you will now see a “Listen Now” button under the date of the post. When you click that button, the post will be read to you.

Try it out and let us know what you think!

Google Adwords Trademark Policy Changes

Google is now allowing advertisers to use trademark terms in their PPC ad text in the United States. Previously, advertisers were only allowed to bid on trademark keywords and not use them in their ad text. This made it very difficult for advertisers looking to sell a specific product and weren’t able to write the brand name of the product in the ad text.

Google has outlined the following guidelines describing the ways in which the trademark terms can now be used:

-Ads which use the term in a descriptive or generic way, and not in reference to the trademark owner or the goods or services corresponding to the trademark term.

-Ads which use the trademark in a nominative manner to refer to the trademark or its owner, specifically:

• Resale of the trademarked goods or services: The advertiser’s site must sell (or clearly facilitate the sale of) the goods or services corresponding to a trademark term. The landing page of the ad must clearly demonstrate that a user is able to purchase the goods or services corresponding to a trademark from the advertiser.

• Sale of components, replacement parts or compatible products corresponding to a trademark: The advertiser’s site must sell (or clearly facilitate the sale of) the components, replacement parts or compatible products relating to the goods or services of the trademark. The advertiser’s landing page must clearly demonstrate that a user is able to purchase the components, parts or compatible products corresponding to the trademark term from the advertiser.

• Informational sites: The primary purpose of the advertiser’s site must be to provide non-competitive and informative details about the goods or services corresponding to the trademark term. Additionally, the advertiser may not sell or facilitate the sale of the goods or services of a competitor of the trademark owner.

If you adjust your ads based on this new policy, the ads will not show until June 15th. For more information, visit Google Adwords Support.

Wolfram|Alpha is Live

After much anticipation amongst SEO’s and active internet users, Wolfram Alpha has finally launched.

As stated on the search engine, “Wolfram|Alpha’s long-term goal is to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable and accessible to everyone. We aim to collect and curate all objective data; implement every known model, method, and algorithm; and make it possible to compute whatever can be computed about anything.”

I have been playing around with this search engine today and find it very cool. I have asked many questions and will share some of the data I have obtained. The first question I asked was: What is the weather in Fort Lauderdale? As you can see, I received the temperature and conditions, followed by graphs, then weather station information and comparisons. I found this information to be very beneficial.

I then typed in a math equation: 2345677/765. As you can see, they provided me with the answer to the question, and even offered to show me the steps on how to solve it! I wish this search engine would have been available when I was in high school or college!

This search engine appears to be very advanced. Since it is so new there are still some issues here and there, but overall I am impressed. Try it out and let me know your thoughts.

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