After a lot of will they won’t they, Google have finally rolled out their new look user interface.

So what has changed?

Old Layout

New Layout

There are some colour changes to the layout. The black bar across the top is the most noticeable, with a change of font and positioning the other.  left hand navigation for instance is now lo longer justified left with the search options carrying logos, and the user details etc below it indented in, and in a different font and colour.

Looks like google are trying to make people aware of the Geo location option, which previously was not known. (personally I still believe they should have a large YOUR LOCATION chunk of text if they are to improve this integration of local data serving. This is a fantastic service, but it relies on the automatic detection of location, and or the user overriding this.  Read the rest of this entry »

It seems that Google are again testing a new look page payout, and not everyone likes it.  The look to me appears pretty Bingy (is that a word?) Google have alread pinched some Binginess (there I go with that word again) when they added the page preview a month or two ago. but is seems that the Google Bods have listened to the masses who have complained about it gewtting too cluttered. Here are some images posted by techcrunch recently

As you can see, if a site has sitelinks it is really and I mean REALLY dominant, I think that sitelinks will now become a real click catcher, if this is what Google roll out.

Compare the above to the current layout and formatting as seen below, and you can see just how much cleaner and usable the new layout is. Will it work? Will it be the final layout and formatting? Only tests will tell, and Google appear to be testing this currently.

Google +1? whats that all about then eh?  Nah it isn’t Google1.1 it is the new (unless you have ever used Facebook) revolutionary idea (unless you use facebook) idea of likes. You know when you hit a button and ‘like’ something. Well Google have now got this for their search results. Well I blogged about this a few weeks back and now it appears we are only a few weeks away from it gogin live.

The beauty of this system is that it can be inserted into websites to encourage people to +1 them.

Google announced today on the Google Blog that they have rolled out the infamous Panda / Farmer update to all English Language users. On top of this they have included the new feedback signal to ‘help people find better search results’. Google believe that their tests show that user feedback is trustworthy enough to reply on for ranking purposes, not only on your own Search, but the results others see, in short, overnight Google has pretty much changed its algorithm into a user controlled algo. Or to put it another way, spammers heaven.

So what happens if your baby gets thrown out with the bathwater? Fear not because Google say If you believe your site is high-quality and has been impacted by this change, we encourage you to evaluate the different aspects of your site extensively

So what will they do if an innocent site owner loses their business because of some poorly written algorithm that decided because the person who scraped his content has also spammed for links, the copy site is the one true originator? fear not because… Well actually fear a LOT because they go on to say

While we aren’t making any manual exceptions, we will consider this feedback as we continue to refine our algorithms.

So there you go, your business will just have been flushed down the pan, but don’t worry because you will have helped to refine the algorithm.

Oh and there is always Google Adwords

Today on their Google blog Google announced a major step forward in user interaction with regard the Search Engine Results, namely +1. In short this is a social recommendation.

Google have produced a video here that better illustrates the system than my ramblings.and you can watch the Google +1 video by clicking that link.

While I applaud Google for this initiative, I can’t help thinking that once again some smart coders will instantly abuse this by creating a script, and that a trade in ‘+1′ liking will spring up.

Social recommend on a social forum where interaction is the name of the game is one thing, but social recommendation in a billion £££ marketplace is another. Google have of course thought long and hard about this, and I would guess they will take their core algorithm of citation, apply it to the social web, and then export it to their known data. For example, they know who I am, I have analytics on sites, I have an AdSense account, they have my bank details, They know all the interaction that goes on with regard my account.   This alone allows google to sift the wheat from the chaff with regards fake social profiles.

Personally I think it is a great step forward in the fight against pure link spam, although it does put additional reliance on social interaction, and we have all seen how a negative facebook campaign can give false results. I would hate to see a small number of activists having a detrimental affect on the Serps by ‘deciding’ who appears top via orchestrated social media campaigns, such as the one that prevented the X factor single from hitting the number one spot in the UK.

OK so the world of search has had something juicy to get its teeth into for the last week or so, in the form of what Danny Sullivan named the ‘farmer update, mainly because it was meant to remove content farms from dominating the SERP’s.

Wired.com got a great interview with Matt Cutts & Amit Singhal, who are the head of spam, & quality for Google. I am not going to go into too much depth, as those who want to read the full transcript can read it here.  So here is the salient elements, some known, some suspected, but all now confirmed. Read the rest of this entry »

Google have just announced on their blog that they are waging war on content farms in a big way. Spun content has been the throrn in the side of the famed Google algorithm for some time, and it seems that when all said and done, when the techno dust settles, Google have decided the best person to work out what YOU want to see and don’t want to see in your search results is YOU.

The Chrome extension dowloadable here allows you to exclude sites from the search results
The personal blocklist extension will transmit to Google the patterns that you choose to block. When you choose to block or unblock a pattern, the extension will also transmit to Google the URL of the web page on which the blocked or unblocked search results are displayed. You agree that Google may freely use this information to improve our products and services.

Two years ago I appeared on the BBC as a Google Expert talking about the future of search, when asked by the interviewer “where does google go from here?” My reply was that Google will move into personalised search and more specifically that you would be able to click a button and say “never show me results from this site again” , looks like Google agree with me

First off let me say this Flash is GREAT.

There you go I have said it. Flash is not the spawn of the devil, it is not some mad dog roaming the streets frothing at the mouth. It is a well behaved dog, that is ideal for purpose. PURPOSE, that is the keyword where flash is concerned.

A common question across forums and other resources is with regard the way Flash works with optimisation.  put simple flash SEO is it possible?

The answer as with many things SEO related is yep, possibly. The first thing to do is to make a clear distinction between full blown flash websites, and the use of flash as elements within a site. Below are the main considerations. Read the rest of this entry »

So Google finally start to react to low level spamming on a high volume, by announcing the first opening shots of the war on duplicate content scraping and mashing.

Originally posted over at the Google Blog was information about Google search and Search Engine Spam. An interesting post that reveals Google have increased their Size (the number of documents in the index), and also (and more importantly in my mind, their ‘freshness’ the speed at which pages are churned.

The follow up post by Matt Cutts on his blog  goes to further explain that in fact google are looking to weed out duplicate content only providers, and this could have a great affect on those sites who really don’t produce much new content themselves, they just rehash the content that other people originate.

This is something I like but my old friend Jill Whalen raises a good point in the following

Does this only effect scraper type, unauthorized use of content? Or will it also effect those articles where the third party has permission to republish the content.

For instance, I have many articles where I have allowed other sites to run them, but I would still presume that my original article would be the one that shows up in a relevant search. It seems this is not always the case (even with your new algorithm…assuming it’s in place.

Do we give up that right when we allow others to republish our work?

 No real reply to that one as yet, so the jury is still out. Google are facing pressure from many sides, not least of which is from the search and big internet players themselves.  I think that 2011/12 will be a landmark time for Google, it will be the years that truly define just how big they will get.