Monday, April 16, 2012
Monday, April 2, 2012
8 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Site With Google+ - Some really good tips on using G+
Google is somewhat clumsily calling it “Search, plus Your World.” You see, Google has years of experience in the search engine business. And they are so good because they aim to deliver what people are looking for, not just what they actually enter into the search window. They have to figure out if your search on “porter” is supposed to show a lot of beer websites or websites focusing on people who carry luggage.
Friday, January 20, 2012
3 Successful Google+ Pages and Why They Work-You Can No Longer Ignore Google+
Google+ may be the newcomer in social media, but it can no longer be dismissed. And don’t take my word for it. Chris Brogan claims Google+ “changes EVERYTHING.” In a recent article, he cites two factors as being game-changers:
“Search is probably the biggest reason it changes everything. Second, a very wealthy company (Google) is pushing Plus to be a very powerful effort to change the way we share information on the web. They’ve spent money on commercials during many mainstream events, and they’ve changed up many of their disparate applications and processes to point harder toward Google+. They’ve really quickly moved towards building a social backplane that is a lot more functional than any other social network.”
Thursday, January 19, 2012
How (and why) To Turn Off Google's Personalized Search Results-Get the old school way of seeing Google
Earlier this week Google announced that search is going “social,” so that what you find when you do a Google search will be influenced by what your friends on Google+ are saying. In a blog post, Google said that it’s “transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships.” In addition to putting your friends posts and pictures front and center in search (subject to the privacy options they chose when the posted it), Google now presents search results based on what your friends are saying. So, if your Google+ friends like a certain restaurant, its more likely to come up higher on a search. And if you search for a person and that person has a Google profile, that’s what’s likely to pop up.
If you're not on Google+ and need help getting started, let us at Blue Zoo Creative know.
Google Search, Plus Your World: What Is It and How to Stop It-Some of the inside baseball of Google's recent changes
Google's Search, plus your world (also known as SPYW) technology, a social approach to search that injects content from users' Google+ posts and Picasa photos into users' search results, has ruffled feathers in the Internet sector like no product since Google Buzz. While Buzz, Google’s failed social search effort, rubbed people the wrong way for exposing their Gmail contacts to other people, this personal search initiative is controversial for different reasons. On the privacy front, the service is not opt-in, which is a problem for privacy groups even though search results are tailored to each individual. However, not only are results HTTPS encrypted but Google has also made sure to mark personal results with specific designations used on Google+, including brandings for Public, Limited or Only you. More seriously, SPYW fails to aggregate content from Facebook and Twitter in the search results. This is proving to be a huge problem for Google critics who have accused the company of engaging in antitrust practices. Of course, this approach isn't without some rationale and its own back story, which eWEEK gladly supplies here in this slide show.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Why Google is ditching search-Shares from your friends are becoming more important than lnks
There has been a huge maelstrom about Google integrating Google+ into its search links. And it all misses the point.
Twitter and others are complaining that Google is throwing its massive 65 percent plus market share weight around and quashing smaller competitors. The reason Twitter and others are so threatened is that the pattern of shared links within Google+ provides a decent enough indicator as to what links are interesting. What's important is what's trending, and algorithms can get a sense of that with just a subset of everything that's getting shared on the Web.
The most interesting aspect of Google's move, however, is its tacit acknowledgement that its stalwart search links are largely irrelevant and might as well be replaced with social results. Google search results are essentially gamed results produced by search optimizers.
If you're not on Google+ and need help getting started, let us at Blue Zoo Creative know.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Real-Life Examples Of How Google's "Search Plus" Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy-Excellent overview of what the new changes mean
The new Google “Search Plus Your World” feature — which I’m now simply calling “Search Plus” — has just gone live for me. Huge debate erupted yesterday over whether it somehow favors Google+. I can see now that it clearly does, even more than I thought. Here’s a closer look at the changes, including how they turn Google+ into an essential social network for any search marketer.
Even Signed Out, Google+ Suggestions Offered
This is a search for music:
I got these results even though I was not signed into Google. In fact, I was in “incognito” mode in Google Chrome, which means as far as Google is concerned, I’m a brand new searcher it has never seen before: no Google+ account, no personalization of any type that should be happening beyond language and geography.
One of the more interesting paragraphs is about halfway down: "If You’re Not On Google+, You’re Not A Suggestion"
