On The Google Privacy Policy Controversy And The Fantasy Of Opting Out. How to Use Google Search More Effectively [INFOGRAPHIC] Among certain circles (my family, some of my coworkers, etc.) I'm known for my Googling skills. I can find anything, anywhere, in no time flat. My Google-fu is a helpful skill, but not one that's shrouded in too much mystery — I've just mastered some very helpful search tricks and shortcuts and learned to quickly identify the best info in a list of results.
Sadly, though web searches have become and integral part of the academic research landscape, the art of the Google search is an increasingly lost one. A recent study at Illinois Wesleyan University found that fewer than 25% of students could perform a "reasonably well-executed search. " Wrote researchers, "The majority of students — of all levels — exhibited significant difficulties that ranged across nearly every aspect of the search process.
" Thanks to the folks at HackCollege, a number of my "secrets" are out. Infographic via HackCollege Image courtesy of iStockphoto, LICreate. Google Knowledge Graph Could Change Search Forever. Google has a confession to make: It does not understand you. If you ask it “the 10 deepest lakes in the U.S,” it will give you a very good result based on the keywords in the phrase and sites with significant authority on those words and even word groupings, but Google Fellow and SVP Amit Singhal says Google doesn’t understand the question. “We cross our fingers and hope someone on the web has written about these things or topics.” The future of Google Search, though, could be a very different story. In an extensive conversation, Singhal, who has been in the search field for 20 years, outlined a developing vision for search that takes it beyond mere words and into the world of entities, attributes and the relationship between those entities.
In other words, Google’s future search engine will not only understand your lake question but know a lake is a body of water and tell you the depth, surface areas, temperatures and even salinities for each lake. Big Changes Coming Beyond Search. The Good News About Google's New Search Plus Your World. Google launched a major new feature this week called Google Search Plus Your World and many people are incredibly upset about it. The feature presents search results from your contacts on Google's social network, Google+, and the things they've shared. It's clutter, critics say, it's unfair, it's a violation of a sacred contract between users and Google.
Be that as it may, the feature can also be pretty awesome. Below I've listed 5 examples of search queries that were fabulously improved by the availability of the new search results. Sullivan offers evidence that a search for Britney Spears will never be the same and that only a few ambitious brands are highlighted in a search for the word cars. I don't know about you, but when I want to find Britney Spears, I know where to go. But look for business or technical terms and if you've got friends like I do, the new Google search feature is great.
Ok, here are some examples of the new search being a big win. Google to merge user data across its services. As Google grows, it wants to streamline its many products and keep single profiles about each user. Google announces changes to its privacy policyGoogle will soon create a single profile of the data it has about each userThe new policy will take effect on March 1 (CNN) -- Google plans to start combining information the company collects about each user of its various websites and services into a single profile, the company announced on Tuesday.
Previously, Google said it did not create comprehensive profiles across its various properties, including its leading search engine, Android smartphone operating system and YouTube video site. In a statement, Alma Whitten, a Google privacy director, wrote that the changes "will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience. " She added, "Our recently launched personal search feature is a good example of the cool things Google can do when we combine information across products. " First ever look inside Google New York. Internet Freak-out Over Google's New Privacy Policy Proves Again That No One Actually Reads Privacy Policies. How to Turn Off Google Search Plus Your World Results. If you are tired of seeing the pileup of social content from Google+ friends every time you use Google, you can now do something about it.
Here's how to get old Google back and block the personalized results that Google Search, plus Your World spews up. When the Google Search, plus Your World update debuted in January, the new Google feature didn't gain many fans. Twitter and others criticized the enhancement for bumping up Google+ profile pages (images, videos and mentions in posts by the 62 million+ people on the social layer of Google) that relates to your search term. Many thought the search giant was favoring its own links instead of bringing up the most relevant links, tainting the progress of the open web.
SEE ALSO: How Google’s +1 Button Affects SEO Follow the directions in the video to turn off Google's new enhanced search feature. Tell us in the comments if you will disable personalized searches or if you like the Google+-related recommendations. Google Merges Search and Google+ Into Social Media Juggernaut. Now we know Google’s master-plan for integrating Google+ ever more deeply into the Google ecosystem: Pour the whole thing into Google search. Starting today, Google+ members, and to a lesser extent others who are signed into Google, will be able to search against both the broader web and their own Google+ social graph.
That’s right; Google+ circles, photos, posts and more will be integrated into search in ways other social platforms can only dream about. Google calls the search update “ "Search plus Your World. " Jack Menzel, product management director of search, explained that now Google+ members will be able to “search across information that is private and only shared to you, not just the public web.” Google calls this access to “your web.” So instead of all the public information that is already available to everyone searching via Google, so you can see information that you posted into Google’s new social network and on some of Google’s other services like Picasa Web. Twitter Slams Google: Social Search Changes Are 'Bad for People' The social networking war just heated up a few degrees. After Google announced Tuesday morning that it would more closely integrate Google+ into its regular search results , vocal opposition to the changes arrived Tuesday afternoon from an unlikely source: Twitter .
A statement from the microblogging company said Twitter's real-time information was often the most relevant result on Google. "As we've seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter," the company said. "We're concerned that as a result of Google's changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone.
" SEE ALSO: Google Merges Search and Google+ Into Social Media Juggernaut The Google update, known as "Search Plus Your World," blends Google+ pages that have been made public in with regular search results on Google — although the Google+ results are clearly annotated. Still, it evidently got the warning klaxons blaring over at Twitter HQ. SEE ALSO: Mashable's Complete Guide to Google+ Google Fires Back at Twitter: You Took Yourself Out of Search. Not At Any Price: Twitter Denied Data To Google And Bet On Itself. If Twitter continued to sell its firehose to Google, fewer searches would occur on Twitter’s internal search engine where the microblog platform can serve its own ads. That’s why sources familiar with the negotiations tell me Twitter wouldn’t renew the data access deal at any price, or at least set a ludicrously high price to sink the deal.
Cash and increased visibility on Google Search was more valuable to Twitter in 2009 when it was still trying to gain serious traction. But by July 2011 Twitter was more established and ready to try monetizing without Google. A firehose deal would have impeded this, so it’s understandable why Twitter walked away. There are a lot of conflicting reports on exactly how negotiations went down, stirred up by the launch of Google Search plus Your World (Search+) which favors Google+ results. Regardless of the exact details, the underlying fact is that it the inclusion of tweets in Google Search wasn’t the best thing for Twitter. Google Fuses Google+ Into Search — And There Are Bigger Changes Afoot. Since the launch of Google+, Google has been putting a lot of muscle behind promoting and integrating the service into its core products.
Fire up a new Android 4.0 device, and you’ll be prompted to create a Google+ account if you haven’t already. They’ve given it TV ads, not to mention a priceless promotion on its homepage. And today, Google is launching an update to its core search engine at Google.com that continues this trend — and then some. They’re calling it ‘Search plus Your World’.
The short version is that Google search results are going to be automatically personalized (to a greater degree than they were already) for each user, with signals drawn from your Google+ Circles being used to highlight things your friends — or you, yourself — have shared. This is probably easiest to understand with an example, so here goes. For most people, this would probably pull up links to the books, the films, and a variety of fansites. It’s starting small, with Google+ and Picasa integration. Sharks Circle Around Google Search+: EPIC Cries Antitrust, Twitter Provides Evidence. There’s blood in the water surrounding Google Search+ (what we’re now calling Google Search Plus Your World). The Electronic Privacy Information Center recommends the FTC look at Search+ for possible privacy or antitrust concerns.
Meanwhile, Twitter’s General Counsel Alexander Macgillivray provides apparently damning evidence for why Search+ unfairly skews search results towards Google+ content instead of the most relevant results. A search for World Wrestling Entertainment Twitter handle “@wwe” returns 5 Google+ results above the fold, but no sign of Twitter.
But wait, Google Search doesn’t properly process symbols like ‘@’, so searches for “@wwe” and “wwe” produce the same results. Folks asked for examples. So to be clear, the only thing that Macgillivray’s screenshot shows is that Search+ is just piling on an additional Google+ sidebar that doesn’t show Twitter or other relevant social network profiles. New Site Helps You Control Google Search Results for Your Name. Potential employers, clients and dates are all Googling your name. BrandYourself, a new website launching Thursday, helps make sure they find what you want them to. The website guides you in search optimizing the links you want to push up in Google results for your name.
Here’s how it works: You choose the links you want to “boost,” for example your LinkedIn profile. The platform assigns SEO tasks that will help those links show up higher in Google search results. For LinkedIn, suggestions include setting your name, customizing the URL and adding a profile photo. BrandYourself tracks the links you choose and lets you know if their Google rankings change. The startup also provides a profile page where you can link to all your other online profiles. Co-founders Pete Kistler and Patrick Ambron launched the first beta version of BrandYourself in 2008. That one thing – boosting positive links in search results – has been proven to be important.
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, Maravic.