Category — google

So when is Google’s Birthday? They’re going with September 27th…but apparently there are different dates you could go by, like when the incorporated, September 7th, when they registered their domain name, September 15th, but over the years they’ve randomly celebrated on September 27th, but chose that date to the expansion of the index size.
This taken from the Google blog:

We wanted something special for our birthday…
9/26/2005 09:14:00 PM
Posted by Anna Patterson, Software Engineer

Google opened its doors in September 1998, and we’ve been pursuing one mission ever since: to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. For our seventh birthday, we are giving you a newly expanded web search index that is 1,000 times the size of our original index.

I’m proud of everything we’ve accomplished in the years since Larry Page and Sergey Brin set up the first Google data center in Larry’s dorm room at Stanford. Today, along with web search based on Larry and Sergey’s original BackRub search engine, we offer specialized search for everything from satellite images to academic papers, local business info to your own computer. We’ve also built software for email and mobile services, photo management and computer-to-computer voice calling, to name just a few things.

But search remains our heart and soul, so I’m especially pleased by this latest expansion of our index, which makes Google more than 3 times larger than any other search engine. See for yourself how effective the new Google search index can be. Come up with a search query that’s special to you (your name, your elementary school, and your favorite animal, for example) – a combination of words that is likely to exist on just a few web pages out of the billions we’ve indexed, a few needles scattered in the Internet’s endless haystack. Ready? Let’s go.

9-10-10 Update on Google Instant: I just noticed that you can shut Google Instant off if you think it to be too annoying like that Google logo they had a few days ago that spun around and moved whenever you moved your cursor through it.
Anyway, after you’ve searched something in Google, you’ll notice to the right of the Google logo on the results page there’s a little link that says: "Instant is on", simply click that and select Off (press Enter to search)…that last bit is pretty funny…it’s as if they’re trying to make it sound so laborious…Oh My God, I have to press enter to search…that sucks! hahahaha!!!
Original Post Starts Below:
Google Instant has been rolled out. Some of you have probably noticed that when you type a query in Google, it now gives you instant results and they change with every word you type in.
I was checking rank for a keyword for a client I had just run a rank report for to make sure that it was accurate before telling the client, because it popped 20 spots from page 3 in Google to page 1 to the number 5 spot (the top 5 is the new top 10) , the phrase I was checking started with San Diego and as soon as I typed in San, it assumed I was going to type in Diego for the rest of the query and Google Instant immediately brought up Google Maps in the OneBox, and then as I typed the rest, different results started coming up.

For those of you who don’t know what the OneBox is, it’s the box at the top of Google’s organic results, that will either show a map, or movie times, airline reservations and things like that. The most common is Google maps…the others will show up once in a while depending on your query. I just typed in movie times and this showed up, notice it gives you the most current movies and ratings:

I also noticed, this may or may not be new, that when you type in the search box, not only do the suggestions drop down (this is old), but the first suggestion appears in gray…not the whole thing, but the unfinished part of what you’re typing.

EXAMPLE: I started typing Google and the first suggestion was Google Maps, but even before I finished the word Google, the rest was grayed out so it looked like this: Google Maps (not that this has anything to do with anything, I just never noticed it before).

I also noticed that the paid search results started changing as well…I wonder what types of problems this will cause if any. Are impressions for paid ads going to have false numbers now? I sent a message to a friend of mine who’s a paid search expert…we’ll see what he has to say.

Google Instant, another step in Google’s efforts to bring you the most relevant results the fastest on their quest for world domination!

Finally someone has updated the Google Numbered Results Firefox plugin.

This hasn’t been updated in quite some time, one of Google’s updates made the last version of the plugin not work. You’ll have to install Grease Monkey first and then install the plugin.

This plugin is great for all those who drive themselves nuts by checking rank every 5 minutes!!

Download and install Grease Monkey and then download the Google Numbered Results plugin, or simply click the install button on the page.

It seems as of the last big Google Algorithm change, (Caffeine), that Google has gone back to some of the SEO basics…one in particular that was thought to be dead and buried was Keyword Density. I still don’t think it has an extreme amount of importance, but enough that our old friend Keyword Density should be paid attention to.

I first came about this theory, because that’s all this is, is a theory, when the last change started moving things around and I noticed that some of the rank I achieved had slipped…normally I don’t have knee jerk reactions, and I didn’t in this case either, but when the rank didn’t return to the spot that it was in previous to the slip, I started thinking something was up.
(Note to all you knee jerkers: When your rank slips, it’s usually due to a re-indexing or an algorithm change, don’t panic because it normally returns to the spot it was in or higher(hopefully) when the dust has settled)

Sometimes your rank will completely disappear, but this isn’t a cause for alarm. Give it a few days to a week and if it doesn’t return to the spot it was in before or better, then you can start to analyze the problem.

I digress…I noticed when the rank I achieved on a site I was working on slipped to page 2 or 3 and when it didn’t return, I researched the the top 5 sites for the keyword I was targeting…not only did I research that vertical, but others as well to make sure I was on to something. Every industry I looked at all had similar results…I applied it to the site I was working on and when it got re-indexed it was back on page one.

I then applied it to other sites and the same thing happened…please don’t think this is the Holy SEO Grail…it’s not…it’s simply one element that when applied properly falls into line with all the other elements that should already be done properly. What are those elements you ask? That’s a post for another time.

The moral of this story is, DON’T FORGET THE SEO BASICS, they haven’t changed in the 12 plus years that I’ve been doing SEO…they may get altered slightly, but the core never really changes. Don’t be afraid to experiment on your sites…don’t be stupid about it though…if you have an idea, try it out on a sub-page or a page that isn’t ranking well already and see what happens.

Please, please remember to keep in mind, that SEO IS NOT A MAGIC PILL and it doesn’t happen over night…I have lots more to say about that topic and will…next post will fall under the SEO con category.