a free app that helps you remember Get inspired. Get organized. Get more done. Get Started Get Started Get the App Get the App 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. 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.
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).
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: 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:
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? 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.
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.
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