Google Places “Discovering the Web” link on their Homepage

With the continued buzz of Bing, Google is taking precautionary measures to make sure they maintain their position as being the #1 search engine. Google hasn’t had to do much to hold this spot in the past. They have now added to their homepage a link saying: Discovering the web: Explore the world of Google search. When you click this link you are taken to a page that outlines Google’s features. This page seems to be very useful for beginner internet users. Google has had help pages before, but the help pages have never been featured on the Google.com homepage. Many of the features that Google offers are also available on Yahoo and Bing.

Google Webmaster Tools Adds Change of Address

Google has added a new feature to their Google Webmaster Tools where you can notify Google when you are moving from one domain to another. For example, let’s say that Getupdated.com was going to move to GetupdatedUSA.com, we would now be able to login to Google Webmaster Tools and specify the change. According to Google this is going to allow them to update their index faster and will make the transition of changing domains smoother.

To check out this new feature login to your Google Webmaster account, click on a website, then Site Configuration, and finally Change of address.

For the best results, follow the steps that Google recommends on the Change of address page and then submit your new URL.

(Click on image for larger view)

Google Rolls Out “Search Options”

On Tuesday Google rolled out a new feature which they call “Search Options.” This feature gives visitors the opportunity to narrow down their search to help them find exactly what they are looking for. Now, after you type in a query on Google you will see a link called “Show Options.” When you click this link the options will appear on the left hand side of the page. The options are as follows:

Here is a video from the Google blog that walks you through the new feature.

I find the options to be incredible helpful and am very happy that Google put out this new feature!

Doodle 4 Google: Vote for your Favorite Google Doodles

Doodle 4 Google is a competition for children in grades K-12 to use their artistic and creative sense to come up with their own version of the Google homepage logo around the theme “What I Wish for the World.”

You can vote online between May 11th - 18th from the regional winners. On May 21st the winner will be announced on Google.com.

To vote for your favorite Doodle, vote here!

Google Attacked By Forbes.com CEO Jim Spanfeller

Forbes CEO Jim Spanfeller claims (without proof) that Google makes $60 million off the Forbes brand and boosting “quality publishers” like Forbes would help Eric Schmidt’s web sewage problem. This is from the publication that sells paid links that helps the sewage rise in Google?

Danny Sullivan has written an insightful piece about this over at Search Engine Land.

Danny Says Google sends Forbes and other publishers millions of visits for free. Usually smaller publishers complain if for some reason they lose that traffic due to a ranking change. Newspapers and magazine publishers seem unique in being upset that getting all those free visitors simply isn’t enough. Perhaps Google itself isn’t being properly compensated?

Danny goes on to say “If they’re going to attack Google, then I want an attack that’s organized, that can’t be so easily shot full of holes and which warrants serious attention. Or I want them to stop attacking Google so it can be attacked, when it deserves it, on far more serious issues without such distraction.”

Use Google Alerts to Monitor your Name

If you regularly Google your name, instead of having to manually go search for your name on Google you can create a Google Alert. A Google Alert is an email update that is sent to you when there are new Google results for your keywords. So, for example, you can setup a Google Alert to automatically email you either once a week, once a day, or every time there are new results for your name.  This takes less than a minute to setup, and will save you time during your day. You also have the option to select which type of alerts you wish to receive. The options are News, Blogs, Web, Video, Groups or Comprehensive. I always opt for Comprehensive so I am sure not to miss out on anything!

Click here to setup Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts

Google Offering Free Google Profile Business Cards

Last week I wrote a blog post titled, “Do you ever Google your Name?”, and I discussed Google Profiles. Now, Google has a special offer where they are giving away a set of 25 Google Profile business cards to the first 10,000 people who claim them. All you have to do is confirm the information on your card, enter your shipping/email information, and you are good to go. The cards are completely free! (They aren’t even charging for shipping costs.) I just ordered mine this morning and should receive them in the next 10-12 days.

So if you are interested in ordering these business cards for free, act fast today! Here is the link to order them: http://www.google.com/profiles/me/bizcards

Here is a screen shot of what mine will look like:

Google Gadget Clones Digg’s Core Features

Google has added a new feature to their personalized home page which clones the core features of Digg and StumbleUpon. These core features are embedded into a Google gadget that is accessible from within the web desktop.

This new feature, which Google is now showcasing in its directory, is called “What’s Popular.” Using this Google gadget folks can submit links either anonymously or publicly and vote other submissions up or down.

According to Google, the What’s Popular gadget “uses algorithms to find interesting content from a combination of your submissions and trends in aggregated user activity across a variety of Google services, like YouTube and Google Reader.”

There’s more to it than that though. Clicking on the maximize link causes the gadget to expand into a canvas view which sorts the submissions into different categories - e.g. stories, videos and images.

Google Search Update: More Local Results!

Google has officially confirmed that they have made updates related to the local searches that you see when you type in a keyword. Prior to this update, you would only see local business results and a Google Map when you type in a location with your keyword(s). Now, Google will give you local search results even when you don’t type in a location. Google determines where you live based on your IP address.

For example, now if you type in the keyword “pizza”, Google will give you local business listings and a map for pizza shops in your area. This is Google’s attempt to further give it’s users what they are looking for. They realized that many people don’t necessarily type in a location when they search, so they want to make sure users are able to find what they are looking for easily.