Google ads FOR your own site ON your own site? What the heck?

This is one of those things where you wonder why there isn’t something to prevent this.
Webmasters are wasting money. If you are already on Digitalpoint and then see ads on top that say Digitalpoint, I am quite sure that a few not so bright ones click on those thinking “this must be the real deal”.
Either way, Google is wasting webmasters’ money. Do something about it, Google.

Yahoo! Buzz BETA

I like what I see. Yahoo! Buzz BETA provides us with a mixture of several web phenomenons which have proven to be popular as well as useful to the internet users worldwide.
What makes this however quite unique is the way that it combines so many of its features and somehow even the half hearted attitude we’ve been used to from Yahoo! now disappears, because this just makes sense:

The best of the best - chosen by people like you.

* The buzz can be about anything - a great story on a major news site, an extraordinary bit from an obscure site, an intriguing video, or a fantastic blog that shouldn’t be missed.
* Instead of editors, people like you determine the top-rated stories.

How it works.

* First, we determine the most popular topics that people are searching for on Yahoo!.
* Then, we showcase the most popular stories within those topics, based on activities like voting and emailing stories to friends.
* Stories with most Buzz may be published on the Yahoo! home page - you can impact what millions will see on Yahoo!.

The only problem is that you need to have something where the searches can link to news stories and somehow something like this will not turn into a neverending dead-end where you wind up clicking on a link that says Barack Obama Young and the results of the regular search do not deliver. Same difference on the top right where top searches go back to the regular searches and not the news.
Would be so much smarter to have the top searches go to the news articles about the top search topic.

Google Technology to Combat Child Pornography

The San Jose Mercury News did an interesting feature today on some new Google technology that is being used to fight child pornography. The same technology that the company utilizes to block copyrighted videos on YouTube has now been employed to help track down predators online.

This innovative project comes out of the company’s infamous “20% percent time”, which Google encourages its employees to use to work on projects of their own creation and choosing. Four software engineers at Google collaborated to adapt the YouTube software to search for patterns in child pornography found online. Read more

First Look at SearchMe Beta

So it’s pretty obvious that we can’t get enough of SearchMe here at SearchFeature. It’s hands-down the coolest new innovation in search. It may be just a fad, or it could change search as we know it. It’s too early for me or anyone to predict, but many people who’ve seen it already have had good things to say about it.

SearchMe, for those of you who haven’t been following along, is a cool new visual search engine that’s right now in private beta. You can sign up for an invite to be amongst the select beta testers on their site, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get in. So for those of you who are still waiting on invites, we’ve got a quick first look for you. Hopefully these screenshots will hold you over until you’re able to check it out for yourself. Read more

Google’s Search Within a Search Has Retailers & Website Owners Upset

A recent addition to Google’s stash of search tools which allows consumers to conduct a search-winthin-a-search for many popular websites has resulted in a mass of angry website owners that would rather Google stay out of their site-search altogether. When you conduct a search on Google for, let’s say, Wal-Mart, you’ll get your standard search results, but below the Walmart.com listing, there’s a new search box that lets you “search walmart.com”. Read more

Mobile Googlebot - Allow or Disallow

Some of our sites have already been crawled by something that looks like

Nokia6820/2.0 (4.83) Profile/MIDP-1.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.0 (compatible; Googlebot-Mobile/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

It’s the new Googlebot-Mobile using Nokia.

I have a mobile site. How can I add it to Google’s Mobile index?
How do I block or allow Googlebot?

I remember being told about mobile searches coming up in 2005 at the SES Convention in San Jose, California.

Building sites  with mobile searches in mind is going to gain importance, so this is the time to get familiar with what it takes to rank high.

So what I personally believe is that in order for a site to be doing well in the mobile searches, instead of using html you have to use something called WAP.
Let’s say you want to have a blog that targets mobile searches more than anything:
The whole interface needs to be redesigned, it’s actually a lot of work. Depending on what you are using, you might want to find if they have WAP compatible plugin.
WAP is Wireless Application Protocol.

It is really a simplified display so that people using wireless can quickly access what they need without having to download a bunch of pictures and javascript and other stuff used to make website “nice”.
As an example, WAP is used on Google, Yahoo!, and stock trading websites to allow people to quickly access what they need.
But as wireless phones get faster and mobile systems get better, such as iphone, WAP may one day be unnecessary. As for now, you can brand a site by using the advantage of being mobile optimized and dominate mobile searches if you’re working on it.
If you have some experience with mobile search results which you would like to share, feel free to leave me a comment.
This information has been compiled with the assistance of Mr. Winson Chu from Fone Leads.

Google Shows Off Android Phone

I like search, but what I like even more is gadgets. So when a company primarily known for their search engine comes up with something to revolutionize my mobile phone - I listen up.

Google has developed applications for mobile use, and have now gone into actually creating an open-source mobile operating system that threatens to take a bite out of the dominance currently enjoyed by the likes of Symbian and Windows OSs. Known as Android, the OS is based off Linux and was developed by Google and the Open Handset Alliance, a consortium of 34 hardware, software and telecom companies that are devoted to advancing open standards for mobile devices.

Read more