Archive for 'Google'

Google’s desktop software set, Google Pack, has been updated to be even more useful. It now includes Norton Security Scan which provides basic but adequate protection, especially when combined with Spyware Doctor (which protects against spyware and adware). Yes - I am a Linux user but I also have a laptop running Windows XP Home and a girlfriend, so some protection is definitely required.

Google Pack has become pretty extensive and perhaps an essential collection of software to install for any PC user now; it saves time by bringing together many great pieces of software. The software included is now:
Read more…

Google has quite a few blogs, almost 40 of them in fact (possibly more as I can’t guarantee this list is comprehensive), but there was not one central (and official) list that I could find (perhaps I need to look harder?) nonetheless I did usefully find a feed of all the blogs and also an OPML file containing all the blogs (this can be imported in to your favourite feed-reader). However, while this is useful many readers won’t be interested in every blog so below I have included below a list links for official feeds in order to make it easier for you to choose which ones you’re interested in and subscribe.

Read more…

There is a lot of fuss about Page Rank in general, but in particular the current "update". The update has seen many sites lose Page Rank; some sites lost Page Rank due to penalty and of course some sites lost Page Rank indirectly due to the penalties. What does this mean?

Site A is a vote for Site B however Site A has had a penalty due to the current update and Site B has a PR reduction as Site A’s vote is not as strong as before. The reduction in PR does not necessarily mean your site was targeted directly by Google but rather the reduction was due to the recalculation due to other sites’ losses in PR. A simple way to look at it is: previously, your vote was 4 + 4 + 4 and this gave you PR4. However, due to the penalty on the other websites the vote changed to 2 + 3 + 2 and this caused your Page Rank to be recalculated to 2. (Please note: I do realise that Google does not use such a simplistic equation; this was just an easy way to give an example of what is going on.)

Read more…

Google has recently updated their Webmaster Tools to provide even more useful information for Webmasters. Perhaps most usefully, there were changes in "Statistics > Top search queries". In particular, there is now access to historical data (up to 6 months) which can be helpful in analysing trends in how, in terms of keywords, visitors (using Google) are finding your site and what content they are interested in so you can deliver more relevant and related content to further satisfy your visitors’ requirements.

Additionally, top search queries and top clicked queries has a new column (%) showing the percentage that the search/clicked queries ranks for out of the top 20, e.g. searches for "google webmaster tools" may account for 34% of your top 20 search queries and "yahoo site explorer" for 16%.

Read more…