Matt Cutts Webmaster Video Infographic. French Company Seeks $421M From Google For “Blacklisting” Perhaps sensing “blood in the water,” a French company called 1plusV has sued Google in the Paris Commercial Court for the equivalent of $421 million. (The civil complaint was orginally filed on February 22, 2011.) An operator of vertical search sites, 1plusV is the corporate parent of legal search engine Ejustice.fr, one of three companies (including Foundem and Microsoft-owned Ciao) that filed formal antitrust complaints against Google with European Commission last year. Those complaints led directly to the EC’s decision to pursue an antitrust action against Google, which is now in process. The civil case doesn’t really involve a new set of claims but is a kind of follow-up to Ejustice’s earlier complaint, this time for substantial money damages. 1plusV wouldn’t be entitled to any damages from the EC antitrust action if there were findings against Google. In addition, the company detailed what it said were Google’s anti-competitive or “unethical” behaviors:
Google Says Stop Reading Tin Foil Hat SEO. The Google+ Project. Google Plus: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. When I first logged into Google+ I was a bit underwhelmed, but the more I used and explored the site, the more I liked it. While it has already been deemed Google’s Facebook competitor, it is quite different. I want to share my opinion on the pros and cons of the site to help shine a little light on what exactly Google+ is, and what it does (and doesn’t) do well. The Good Better Privacy Google+ uses a diaspora -like way of sharing content with users by utilizing circles. Facebook is often critiqued for their dubious privacy changes, and Google seems to be catering to those unhappy users with easy to use privacy options in one location. Huddles Google+ ‘Huddle’ is a non-SMS group chat application for mobile phones.
One negative of this is I didn’t see a way to view huddles online in Google+. Hangouts Having worked remotely (at least part-time) for the past 3 years, a ‘Hangout’ has a lot of value to me. Media The integration of media on Google+ is very appealing, more so than Facebook. Mobile. Google Plus Shortcuts & Tips. “the motherlode of Google+ tips for all y’all suckas that don’t know…” – Donny Rhoades I figured it would be useful to put all of the Google Plus tips and shortcuts I have found thus far in one handy place. Please add any additional tips you discover in the comments. NEW! Hitler Explains Google Search Plus Your World Tips Last Updated:9/1/11 7:08am PST - Google+ currently does not support “entities” that are not people, but they will in the future (see this discussion between Danny Sullivan and Brad Horowitz). G+ is now accepting applications for “entities” to participate in a “small experiment to see the effects of brands in the G+ experience”. - You have to click on the “Chat with people on Google+” link to enable chat within Google+ but then you get IM functionality. - When chatting to people you can drag the top of the chatting box to resize the chatting window - Go start a chat on Google Talk on your phone.
. - +Everything:This extension adds the Google+ bar to all websites. - New! - New! . How To See Inside Google+ If You Can’t Get Inside Google+ Google+ has been live for a full day now, and there’s plenty going on within the service, even with the limited number of people in there. Curious to see? Here’s a guide on peeping into Google Plus. Anything that happens with Google+ can be made public with the world, if someone chooses to do so. So when Robert Scoble declared he’d friended over 1,000 people, he made that a public post: Many posts within Google+ are public this way.
In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if soon, someone starts trying to gather them up using one of Google’s search API. For example, all posts live on the plus.google.com domain. Site:plus.google.com post You can get a list of post that many people are making: Now, you could add additional words to that first part of the search (site:plus.google.com) to find posts about particular topics. Site:plus.google.com facebook And you get back matching posts about that topic: The relevancy is pretty poor, of course.
If you want to play, my profile page with posts is here. Googleopoly: The Definitive Guide To Antitrust Investigations Against Google. We’re another step closer to the US Federal Trade Commission launching an expected antitrust investigation of Google. If it does, the FTC will join the EU and Texas in doing broad investigations. But Google’s been examined for antitrust issues many times before this and mostly come through OK. Here’s our comprehensive guide to Google and antitrust actions, over the years. December 2007: FTC Approves Google Purchase Of DoubleClick Perhaps Google’s first real antitrust challenge, it had to fight for approval to purchase DoubleClick.
Plenty of opponents lined up against the deal, but Google won FTC approval in December 2007 and later EU approval in March 2008. Some background stories: Nov. 2008: DOJ Helps Kill Google-Yahoo Search Deal In November 2008, Google pulled out of a proposed deal to power Yahoo’s search results, over fears that the US Department Of Justice would file a monopoly suit against the company, if it went ahead. Outcome? May 2010: FTC Allows AdMob Purchase More, More, More!
Irish Hotel Sues Google For Defamation Over Autocomplete Suggestion. A popular Irish hotel has sued Google for defamation because Google’s autocomplete feature suggests to searchers that the hotel is in receivership. Searchers looking for the Ballymascanlon Hotel — a four-star property that’s reportedly one of the most popular wedding venues in northeast Ireland and is not in financial trouble — see “ballymascanlon hotel receivership” as an autocomplete suggestion as soon as they’ve typed only eight letters of the hotel name.
According to a recent Sunday Times article (quoted here by TJ McIntyre), some brides have contacted the hotel “in tears” after seeing the autocomplete suggestion, no doubt fearing that their wedding plans would have to be scrapped. As Mark Collier writes, the hotel isn’t seeking punitive damages from Google; the suit only asks for an injunction to stop Google from showing the autocomplete suggestion about receivership, and for Google to pay the hotel’s legal fees. Previous Autocomplete Cases How Autocomplete Works. Google Indexing Bing's Cached Image Results. Tristan Savatier, aka loupiote, spotted an interesting issue with Google indexing and displaying Bing's image cached results in the Google Image search index.
He posted a thread at Google Webmaster Help explaining that he found 8 million or so of the Bing search-engine cached thumbnail images being indexed by Google Image search. He then linked to this allinurl command that shows images that contain "mm.bing.net/images/thumbnail.aspx" in the URL. New Googler, Gary Illyes, explained the reason Google is indexing the content is because neither Bing or the original site are blocking Google from indexing it. Two issues with this: (1) Google has gone on record about them not wanting to have search results in their search results. (2) Remember a few months ago, Google accused Bing of cheating because they were sniffing their keyword searches and results? As the forum complaint went: Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help. A Google spokesperson sent us the following statement: Gmail’s ‘People Widget’ Takes On Rapportive, No Browser Plugin Required.
It’s probably not a good sign that I’m this excited about an email widget, but there you go. Google has just announced that it’s rolling out a new feature over the next week called the People Widget — a small sidebar to the right of email messages that features contextual information about the people you’re interacting with in Gmail.
I don’t have the feature active yet so I’m going by the screenshots provided, but it looks like the widget includes each person’s job title, recent email exchanges you’ve had with them, photo, calendar availability, and shared Google Docs. It also includes Buzz updates (hopefully Twitter integration is coming as well). If you only exchange a handful of messages a day then this probably isn’t a game changer for you, but if you’re constantly having to deal with a flurry of projects and hundreds of contacts, then it could be a godsend. Rapportive actually includes information from more sources, including LinkedIn, Skype and our own CrunchBase.
Googlism : Google’s Matt Cutts Riffs On J.C. Penney, Panda Update & Other SEO Topics In Live Webchat. Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed this morning that Google has lifted J.C. Penney’s SEO penalty, that the Panda update will continue to rollout internationally and offered numerous SEO- and search-related tips in a live webchat on the Google Webmaster Central YouTube Channel.
More than a thousand viewers tuned in but, for those who weren’t able to stay for the full 90 minutes, or who missed it entirely, here’s a recap of some of the more important topics.. J.C. Penney Penalty Lifted Responding to several questions about J.C. “We saw a valid reconsideration request” from JCP, Cutts said, and explained that, after reviewing the request, Google found that the company “did quite a bit of work to cleanup what had been going on. In my article earlier this week, I mentioned that many of JCP’s old pages/URLs have returned to high spots in Google’s search results. Cutts said those are “probably old pages that haven’t been recrawled,” and said they’ll “naturally drop down” as the URLs are recrawled. Mining patterns in search data with Google Correlate. It all started with the flu. In 2008, we found that the activity of certain search terms are good indicators of actual flu activity. Based on this finding, we launched Google Flu Trends to provide timely estimates of flu activity in 28 countries.
Since then, we’ve seen a number of other researchers—including our very own—use search activity data to estimate other real world activities. However, tools that provide access to search data, such as Google Trends or Google Insights for Search, weren’t designed with this type of research in mind. Those systems allow you to enter a search term and see the trend; but researchers told us they want to enter the trend of some real world activity and see which search terms best match that trend. In other words, they wanted a system that was like Google Trends but in reverse.
This is now possible with Google Correlate, which we’re launching today on Google Labs. It turns out cell biology isn’t all too popular in the summer time (sorry biologists!). Google, Smartphone Contacts & Social Graphs: Has Eric Schmidt Crossed The Creepy Line Again? Things have been a little quiet — perhaps even boring — since Eric Schmidt stepped down as Google’s CEO to become the company’s Executive Chairman.
The strange quotes and not-so-funny attempts at cracking privacy-related jokes have slowed down in the past couple months. But Schmidt may have just added another one to his collection of so-called “creepy” quotes. It’s in an article/interview from London’s Evening Standard. The reporter asks Schmidt the obligatory question about Facebook and social networking and, in the process of explaining Google’s approach to social, Schmidt appears to suggest that Google has its eyes on something involving contacts stored on smartphones — Android smartphones, that is. From the article, with emphasis added by me: What about Facebook as a competitor?
Of course, not being able to hear the quote directly as part of the overall conversation means there’s a chance this has been taken out of context. (Photo courtesy jolieodell. Google Thinks Facial Recognition Is Very, Very Bad. Except Maybe For Famous People. Google’s Search Team (Finally) Gets Its Own Blog.
Examining Facebook’s “Smear Campaign” Concerns About Google Social Circles. I read the news today, oh boy. The Facebook army had just declared a war. Well, a smear campaign against Google. For the record, Facebook denies that it actually ran such a campaign, but it does confirm it has issues with how Google is using some of Facebook’s social data. Do those allegations stand up? The required prerequisite reading is the Daily Beast article talking about the PR campaign that Facebook attempted.
Let’s start with the allegations. So I read the Daily Beast article. Facebook replied: No ‘smear’ campaign was authorized or intended. OK, as it happens, I know a few things or two about the Google Social Circles product. Google Social Circles Launches Google Social Search — which used the Social Circle feature — launched in October 2009 as an experimental feature. When Google Social Search launched, it allowed you to see things that people you know had created and posted on the public web.
Google Social Search Gains “Social Circle” Feature No Facebook Info Used, Officially. DOJ Investigating Google Ads; $500 Million Set Aside For Potential Settlement. In a regulatory filing this afternoon, Google disclosed that it was taking a $500 million charge in the first quarter, apparently to potentially settle charges related to a Department of Justice investigation of the company. Google didn’t elaborate, saying only that the probe was “into the use of Google advertising by certain advertisers.” The Wall Street Journal was first to report the news.
From the filing: In May 2011, in connection with a potential resolution of an investigation by the United States Department of Justice into the use of Google advertising by certain advertisers, we accrued $500 million for the three month period ended March 31, 2011. Although we cannot predict the ultimate outcome of this matter, we believe it will not have a material adverse effect on our business, consolidated financial position, results of operations, or cash flows.
The $500 million charge wasn’t announced when Google reported earnings for Q1 in April. Report: Google May Pay $500 Million To Settle Complaint Over Illegal Drug Ads. Earlier this week, Google filed a mysterious report with the Securities and Exchange Commission, saying it was setting aside $500 million related to a “potential resolution” of an advertising-related probe being conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice. Now, the mystery may be solved. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the investigation relates to possible criminal charges, alleging that Google knowingly took money from, and displayed ads for, advertisers that violated U.S. prescription drug laws. The Wall Street Journal, like Search Engine Land, got “no comment”s from official sources, but cites information from “people familiar with the matter” in pegging prescription drug violations as the crux of the probe. Though the WSJ says the questionable ads were placed by online pharmacies in Canada and elsewhere that violated U.S. laws, it’s not clear whether they dispensed drugs without a prescription or whether they sold counterfeit pharmaceuticals.
Where Are They Now? Products Announced During Past Google I/O Keynotes. The keynotes at Google I/O — Google’s developer conference — are always filled with such promise. Google TV, Google Wave, music in the cloud! But the products themselves haven’t always gone on to meet expectations. With Google I/O 2011 beginning on Tuesday, here’s a look back at what’s happened with past keynote product graduates. Google I/O Class Of 2008 I didn’t attend the very first Google I/O, held May 28-29 2008. Looking back on the TechCrunch coverage, a Wikipedia round-up and some checking against the official Google Blog, the Google I/O Class Of 2008 appears to have been Google Gears becoming just Gears, Android being shown on a handset, Google Friend Connect, and the Google App Engine opening to anyone.
Google Gears: Dead Gears (originally Google Gears) was held out as a Google-backed way designed to allow web browsers to run software applications natively. Google Friend Connect: Forgotten Google App Engine: Quiet Success? Evidence? Android: Raging Success Google I/O Class Of 2009. Googler Gets Short With Upset Webmaster. “Knowledge” Replaces “Search” For Google. Where Is Google Investing Its Marketing Spend Internationally? Google: Mobile Search Will Pass PC Sooner Than People Think. Legal Woes Mount For Google: “Locationgate,” Skyhook Suit And FTC-Search Probe.
25 Things I Hate About Google, Revisited 5 Years Later. Google Bans Top Contributor From Forums, Community Fights To Get Him Back. Finding more high-quality sites in search. Googler Quits To Build Browser To Block Google Tracking. DuckDuckGo Challenges Google On Privacy With DontTrack.us. Wolfram|Alpha, DuckDuckGo Expand Partnership. Odies (Tech) Android 3.0 Honeycomb Has Google-Built Augmented Reality? Google already knows its search sucks (and is working to fix it)
Matt Cutts Outed As GoogleGuy In New Book, "In The Plex" What Google Still Isn't Saying. Search Optimization and Its Dirty Little Secrets. Google: "Expect Some Big Changes Here Very Shortly" SEM Trends For 2011: What To Expect & What To Do. Video: BBC Airs One-on-One Interview With Google's Eric Schmidt. Priceline.com Founder Sues Google Over Offers Service. How Long Has Marissa M Been Testing Hotspot? Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks.