Google has added a “search box” for sites chosen to have “a high probability that a user wants more refined search results within that specific site”. Without leaving Google’s results page the “search box” will help find information within that website and hopefully the exact page people are looking for within a site. The “search box” will gather query specific results from within the site and display them on a new refined results page.

Facebook is currently translated into English, French, and Spanish and is now in the process of being translated into German. Sehr gut!

An interesting article about how top newspapers are spreading their news and brand via social media sites. The findings are that UK newspapers stories are making it to top positions within sites like Digg because they are considered authorities when it comes to breaking news.

Yesterday the Official Google Blog rather quietly announced the availability of Google Calendar Sync; a program for synchronizing Google Calendar with Microsoft Outlook. Now this is something that many of us have been eagerly waiting a long time for so I have to say the rather itty-bitty post is a bit uncharacteristic… perhaps I missed the first unveiling or something?

Anyway, this update now brings Google Calendar to a new level where user adoption will increase because it now can coordinate with Outlook; the most popular email client in use today. Here is Google’s complete tutorial for setting up Google Calendar Sync.

Ahh yes, yet again Google has found a way to wiggle its way a little further into our daily lives. Read more…

According to an interview Search Engine Watch’s Kevin Newcomb had with Ask spokesperson Nicholas Graham, the search engine is still committed to search and denies allegations that Ask is “dead”. In fact, apparently the search community overreacted.

Kevin has more of the interview feedback in his article but these quotes sum up Ask’s position nicely:

“The idea that we’re going to become a women’s site is just plain wrong. We know that a sizable group of our core user base is women, and we know they come to us for a certain kind of search: to get answers, often in areas of reference, health and entertainment,” Graham said.
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“We want to address the answer-seekers, who put things in a search box in certain ways,” Graham said. “We think it’s smart to identify who our most active users are. It’s smart to identify the kind of searches they’re looking for, and focus on building that up. We want to be the first place our core customers come when they’re looking for answers.”

Read more…

On Feb 28th at SMX West I was fortunate to spend some time with Jeremiah Andrick, Program Manager of Live Search Webmaster Center. To start I let Jeremiah give an introduction to Live Webmaster Tools and soon after we began discussing some of the latest additions to the tools and he gave an inkling that some major stuff is coming down the line. I hope you enjoy the interview because I had a lot of fun doing it. Microsoft is very lucky to have a talented down-to-earth guy like Jeremiah on the team. I am surely going to hit him up for more interviews in the future but he won’t get off quite so easily… I will have more pointed questions next time around This, however, is a great introduction to Jeremiah and the tools that Live Search Webmaster Center provides. Read more…

Today the Wall Street Journal broke incredibly sad news… indeed I think it is one of the saddest moments in my SEO career. Ask.com is letting go of 40 employees and conceptually restructuring itself by moving away from mainstream search and focusing on question-related searches for their supposed primary audience “middle-American, predominantly female consumers.” Read more…

When building a new site you want to create a powerful and respected reputation on the web. A company or individual can do this by having a great homepage (lots of great content and a blog), finding the appropriate communities to share their expertise, creating publicity, and building their brands image (expanding community).

A structured social media campaign can provide lots of traffic to your site. Social media can be indexed in organic listings and provide links to your site. The important point brought out in this article is to not just make a few attempts at social media but to keep on trying. A business should be encouraged to consistently provide new content to social sites because its a great way for their content to be promoted.

Social media ideally helps to find the best (current, peer reviewed) information available on the web. To be seen as “highly important information” people must be able to find it, want to link to it, and it should be so good that people want to share it with people who have similar interests. The best way to do this is to provide informed, engaging, and unique content.

More and more people who grew up with the web are using it as a trusted space to find unbiased news. Surveys have shown that people are becoming frustrated with traditional news sources because they lack quality and are out of touch with today’s generation.

Youtube will be allowing live video this year. That means that people can broadcast themselves and what they are up to 24/7 and promote it to an already large user base. It should make for some interesting content and provide an exciting new venue for people to interact.