At the exact same time (both at 10:50 am PST) Google announced it’s spider (Googlebot) was now indexing a variety of forms Matt Cutts jumped in on his blog with his perspective where raised a great point that hadn’t occured to me. Essentially this new spider function will allow the indexing of form-based drop-down menus which previously were road blocks to search engine spiders. This form of navigation is unfortunately used quite often as primary navigation by web site owners so this recent addition to Googlebot’s super spider powers may mean huge rank increases for such websites.

That said, according to Google this doesn’t always mean this content will be indexed… which begs the question whether form navigation is still a good idea to rely on. At this point I hardly think it is now an acceptable navigational tactic. After all the other search engines first have to jump on board and implement a similar capability or else form navigation will alienate them entirely.

Thanks Matt for your ever wise post. Oh and did you all know that Matt Cutts and I are best friends forever? (BFF)

I am in disbelief. Less than 40 minutes ago the Official Google Webmaster Central Blog announced that Google can now fill out web forms and spider the resulting content. Previously this was not only not done by search engines but it was well known that such content would be useless since it wouldn’t ‘necessarily’ be formatted for the eyes of searchers. Apparently Google is now throwing this concept to the wind. Read more…

What would you do if you suddenly found your private residence plastered over Google Street View, along with photos of your yard, pool, and other private property? Well, this very thing has happened to Christine and Aaron Boring, and they have since filed a lawsuit against Google.

According to The Smoking Gun, when one of the vehicles shooting photos for the mapping service made a wrong turn up a 50 foot private driveway, it also continued snapping photos and those photos made it onto the live version of Google Street View.

Google spokesman Larry Yu told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: “There is no merit to this action. It is unfortunate litigation was chosen to address the concern because we have visible tools, such as a You Tube video, to help people learn about imagery removal and an easy-to-use process to facilitate image removal.”

The Boring’s are seeking “in excess of Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars for compensatory, incidental, and consequential damages, punitive damages, costs, all allowable attorneys’ fees, and all other damages deemed to be just,”

Another home owned by Janet and George McKee also found its way onto Google Street View. This series of photos is far more intrusive, as the vehicle had to drive up a long winding driveway to approach the house. No word yet on whether or not the McKee’s will also be filing suit. More info and photos on this instance can also be seen at The Smoking Gun.

The “Boring” photos have since been removed from Street View, however, the Mckee’s photos are apparently still listed. Searching Google Maps for the Boring’s Address (1567 Oakridge Lane, Pittsburgh, PA 15237), and doing a fair bit of scrolling to the West, you will eventually find their photos have been blacked out and removed from Google.

If you’ve been swayed away from your Microsoft Office products and are now a frequent user of Google Docs you may be interested to know that a select few users will now have offline access to their Google Docs files, as Google begins rolling out their offline editing access.

On Monday Google announced in the Official Google Docs Blog the upcoming functionality to their software. The big push came with requiring the ability to work on your documents when on an airplane, commuting to work, or when your home internet access goes down. Read more…

Earlier this month Google launched a new function which allows searchers to search deeper within existing authority search results.

When searchers enter a query for certain terms, typically brand names such as “best buy”, an additional search box appears next to the authority listing allowing for a deeper site search. This site search will then search the specified site for your next query. This feature has been available for some time using the Google Toolbar, or by entering the command ” site:domain.com”, but was only recently integrated into the actual search results.

Read more…

In order to help curb the possibility of rioting, the Chinese government has blocked all access to both YouTube and Google News to prevent the viewing of news reports and video footage documenting riots and protests in Tibet. Other web properties blocked include giants Yahoo, CNN, and the BBC.

Cnet reported on the blockage over the weekend and many others such as the New York Times have also picked up the story.

Google has before been blocked by the Chinese government. Back in 2002 searches through the internet giant were blocked to the Chinese population leading into a Communist Party congress in November of that year.

In 2002 the Chinese government reported that an estimated 45.8 million Chinese were online. In July of 2007 this number had increased to approximately 137 million. Since then the total of those online has continued to skyrocket. According to Nielsen/NetRatings, and reported at the Register, the communist country, exceeded that of the US and reached an estimated 216 million online users by the end of 2007.

1-800-GOOG-411 is now available in Canada! First, I must admit, this may very well have happened a while ago but if it did I must have missed the news; thanks to Garret Rogers at ZDNet for the heads up. Either way, it is cool and I haven’t heard of anyone in my circle of friends that uses it yet but they really should.

Here is an illustration on how Google’s free entirely voice-activated 411 service works:

Read more…

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…

It appears that YouTube is having some serious problems because it has been unreachable for over an hour now. I checked with a fellow Twitterer and there is no question this is a widespread outtage.

What I find the most odd… Is there isn’t even a error page provided by Google which is highly irregular and does not bode well.

I hope you are all having a great weekend. Tomorrow I am off to Santa Clara for SMX West… I hope to see some of you there. If you want to hookup drop me a note: Ross at StepForth and that dot com thing.