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Thursday, September 13, 2007
Cricket scores on Google
I'm running out of reasons to ever visit the BBC site now - live Cricket international scores are now available on Google by searching for 'cricket'. The scores, provided by Cricbuzz are updated real-time; as convenient as this is I can't help feeling every time Google screws around with the search results like this they are moving further away from their simple user interface.
I'm running out of reasons to ever visit the BBC site now - live Cricket international scores are now available on Google by searching for 'cricket'. The scores, provided by Cricbuzz are updated real-time; as convenient as this is I can't help feeling every time Google screws around with the search results like this they are moving further away from their simple user interface.
Labels: cricket, google, search
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Friday, August 24, 2007
Flickr photo top result in Google in 2 hours
I posted this photo on Flickr at 11.37 this morning. 2 hours later I was wondering what used to be on the site and I remembered reading a blog last year that covered wastelands all over Liverpool (great blog if you can find it). So, I searched for 'wasteland lodge lane' and the first result on Google was my Flickr photo! I've noticed Google indexing blogs quickly recently but I've never noticed this for Flickr before.
Labels: flickr, google, moblog, search
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Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Google agree hyphens as good as dashes for urls
It seems that good things do come to those who wait. A few months ago I was gutted to come across this post from Google blogger Matt Cutts on the use of hypens in urls. I've always used underscores to separate words but, as the post lays clear, google wouldn't differentiate words when they are joined by an underscore (it was something to do with the fact that the google algorithm began as a way of searching through code).
We considered switching all our urls on a pretty large site, but decided against it, partly because the work involved would have been a pain and partly because we felt that underscores were a more sensible way to separate words than hyphens. Looks like our foresightedness/laziness has paid off, Matt Cutts anouncing Google will soon treat underscores as appropriate word separators. ¶ Permanent link 0 comments
We considered switching all our urls on a pretty large site, but decided against it, partly because the work involved would have been a pain and partly because we felt that underscores were a more sensible way to separate words than hyphens. Looks like our foresightedness/laziness has paid off, Matt Cutts anouncing Google will soon treat underscores as appropriate word separators. ¶ Permanent link 0 comments
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Time to move over to Yahoo Image Search
I'm always a bit bewildered by how many referrals sites I work on get from Google Images. I don't really use it myself, the results are terrible. Yahoo have finally done the sensible thing and intregrated their Flickr photos into their search results.
I'm not sure that this really shows how good a development this is, but the first results now for an image search on 'Catharine Street Liverpool' are photos from inside my flat.
I'm not sure that this really shows how good a development this is, but the first results now for an image search on 'Catharine Street Liverpool' are photos from inside my flat.
Labels: flickr, google, search
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Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Business reviews on Google Maps
Google are trying to incorporate review technology into Google Maps but they're doing it in a really haphazard way. Have a look at the entry for Liverpool's Everyman Theatre below:
The Everyman is given a review of 0.5 out of 5, pretty damning. Click on the link 'one review' and you are taken to this bland tourist information page on Enjoy England. It's not a review in the conventional sense and it certainly isn't negative.
Interestingly, there's also an option to write your own review. To write a review you need to sign in using your Google Account and write at least 100 characters. These user-generated reviews may become increasingly important for businesses and cultural organisations in the near future.
The Everyman is given a review of 0.5 out of 5, pretty damning. Click on the link 'one review' and you are taken to this bland tourist information page on Enjoy England. It's not a review in the conventional sense and it certainly isn't negative.
Interestingly, there's also an option to write your own review. To write a review you need to sign in using your Google Account and write at least 100 characters. These user-generated reviews may become increasingly important for businesses and cultural organisations in the near future.
Labels: google, googlemaps, liverpool
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Thursday, June 07, 2007
Google's improved webmaster guidelines
Google's Webmaster guidelines have for a long time provided a simple outline for optimising content for their rankings. Google believe in being transparent about the techniques needed as it helps them produce better results - their biggest problem being web content that is incompetently optimised rather than spam content that is overoptimised.
Earlier this week Smashing Magazine produced a good introduction to the basics of Page Rank, today I read on Phillip Lenssen's excellent Google Blogoscoped that Google have updated their webmaster guidelines.
Included in the guidelines for the first time, I think, was an explicit warning not to include pages that install viruses, trojans and badware. ¶ Permanent link 0 comments
Earlier this week Smashing Magazine produced a good introduction to the basics of Page Rank, today I read on Phillip Lenssen's excellent Google Blogoscoped that Google have updated their webmaster guidelines.
Included in the guidelines for the first time, I think, was an explicit warning not to include pages that install viruses, trojans and badware. ¶ Permanent link 0 comments
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
Tanzania National Park and Harry Belafonte's daughter
I'm sure Alta Vista were doing this 10 years ago, Google developed Google Trends today by adding Hot Trends, with a top 100 for any particular day. These aren't the top 100 search terms today, they are the search terms whose occurence has increased most compared to their usual occurence.
Most are hard to understand but there is a Google group dedicated to trying to explain them.
Judging by the speed that Google indexes blog posts (a couple of hours usually) you could gain a lot of traffic by following this each day. ¶ Permanent link 0 comments
Most are hard to understand but there is a Google group dedicated to trying to explain them.
Judging by the speed that Google indexes blog posts (a couple of hours usually) you could gain a lot of traffic by following this each day. ¶ Permanent link 0 comments
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