Google Chrome Launched
September 9, 2008 | Google, Search Engine News
It’s Google’s 10th birthday. Think about that Google in 10 years has come to dominate search and become a leading technology provider challenging the likes of Microsoft and Apple - not bad for a company that can’t even spell it’s own name correctly! Google have also recently launched a new browser to the market called Chrome, which is a huge surprise in many ways and not at all in others. Google are ultimately Google and it’s no surprise given the recent history of what they’ve been doing and investing in.
It is a surprise for many other reasons. There are already three some would say four browsers on the market. We have Internet Explorer hooked into the dominant PC platform, Windows, and it’s no wonder why it dominates. Then there’s Firefox, a far superior browser design, variant of the failed Mozilla, the browser of choice for techies and webmasters largely because of it’s userability with plug ins. Then we have Apple’s Safari, recently launched on Windows the prime browser for Mac’s. Then there’s Opera.
Firefox has about a 20% market share, Safari has a tiny fraction but overtime will probably snail like slowly gain more share. Opera really doesn’t register in the grand scheme of things. Then not surprising, particularly given the recent history of all three search engines that for Google, Chrome’s primary objective is to put a massive dent in Microsoft’s dominance of the browser market.
Dispatch the foe has to be Google’s primary business objective.
Google currently support the Firefox project and have stated this will continue which confirms the previous point. Indeed Chrome actually uses bits of technology from Firefox and Apple. If you read our blog on a regular basis you’ll know how Microsoft is struggling in the search market, hence the failed attempt to buy Yahoo. Makes sense then for Google to have a pop at the dominance of Microsoft in another market. Can Chrome succeed?
Possibly. IE’s total dominance is in the fact that Windows comes pre-packaged with IE, it’s usability however is shocking. When Microsoft won the browser wars and put Mozilla to the sword it’s development stopped which we see still in versions 5.5 and 6.0, web designers were in uproar and are still struggling with the implications today in some respects, Microsoft didn’t care, after all they’d won. Recent attempts have been made with 7.0 to make sure it’s usability and performance aren’t totally shocking compared to Firefox, once Firefox came onto the scene and Microsoft realised they had to do something, which ultimately has meant IE has turned into a poor Firefox clone. Google however when Chrome was launched cunningly put a link from the Google homepage, the most viewed homepage on the web, to download it.
Chrome ultimately is branded as a different, more modern browser. Browsers haven’t much developed from when they first came on the scene, then they just displayed text documents, with images added latter. Much of today’s web particularly social sites make use of more modern media such as video and flash. Chrome is designed primarily to display (load) this content quicker. Site’s programming has become complex particularly with the recent popularity of AJAX in web 2.0 applications and Chrome is designed to load the code of the more complex sites quicker. Chrome if you like is the web 2.0 browser and on that basis alone it can possibly succeed. Chromes other features are:
- It’s open source
- Simple tab layout
- Dynamic Tabs
- Crash Control Management
- Importing Settings
- Simple Downloading
It’s more impressive features are:
Google Search is neatly added to the nav bar, now visit Google without visiting Google.
Create Shortcuts to applications, nicely tied in with Google Gears to enhance offline experience.
Incognito Mode - this is very interesting, you can stop all the spy features in websites such as cookie creation. The important question is are then Google’s own spy features disabled? Economically it makes sense for Google to enhance these not disable them. Privacy is currently a big issue in the US with law makers. Do Google care? Probably not, however the Google - Yahoo Adsense deal is another issue. Google may have well added this feature to Chrome to give it some leeway. A compromise on Privacy would be beneficial to push the Adsense deal through.
Google following no follows
September 3, 2008 | Google, Link Building, SEO
No follow is very simple, at least that’s what we fought. Stick a no nofollow relation tag in a link then not only would Google not follow the link it also wouldn’t pass any Page Rank or Link Juice.
Not the case anymore. For a while we’ve heard underground stories that Google wasn’t strictly complying with the no follow rule. We’ve also began to see this in our own projects yet Google seemed to be experimenting with how to use no follow, rather than following set rules. Recently we’ve spotted some hard and fast reasons why Google is now following no follows.
Since no follow was brought out I’ve been waiting for Google to create an exception rule. After all it makes sense as it has swapped one big problem and made it into a far greater one. No follow is an attempt to purge the web of all the useless links on the web. It’s heavily open to abuse, now Webmasters wasting their time doing numerous link swaps for Page Rank purposes have to be aware of the abuse that no follow opens them up to. Despite the simplicity of no follow and the fact that it has been around for a while, there are plenty of webmasters who aren’t fully aware of it’s implications. Even then it’s a pain checking each link.
It’s no surprise Google have taken this tack. No follow goes against the very nature of the web, that is a library of related documents. It also goes against the nature of Page Rank, one link equals one democratic vote. Is it really fair to pick and choose which links your democratically voting for? A link is after all a link and if you don’t want Google to follow a link then why is it there in the first place? We now also have a new breed of marketer who’s clogging up the net with more worthless links.
In a ironic turn of events a Californian couple recently sued Google for following a no follow sign to their house and publishing a picture of it via Google Street View in Google Maps. Following No follows seems like a new trend!
Google Suggest rolls out
August 26, 2008 | Google, Search Engine News
Google Suggest has fully rolled out. Suggest does what you think it does, that is suggests keyword terms as you type into the keyword box.
Suggest is actually “Graduating” as the Google Blog puts it from Labs. Labs is responsible for much of the cool things that Google produces nowadays. Google employees that come up with the best ideas are allowed to focus on those ideas 20% of the time until they are either dropped or work their way up to the Lab stage and finally become fully integrated services.
Suggest has three main key functions:
- Provide a list of possible better queries
- Reduce spelling errors
- Save time with less keystrokes.
According to Google Suggest will be rolling out fully throughout this week.
Google coming to a TV near you
August 20, 2008 | Google, Search Engine News
Not exactly true but it could be, Google could be coming to your TV. If your a regular reader of our blog you’ll know we like to keep an eye on the King of Search, after all it gives us a good indicator of the latest trends in search.
So what are those cheeky scamsters at Google up to exactly. Not happy with dominating your internet connection and trying to dominate your Mobile Phone in the future they also want to dominate your TV. Google are part of the Wireless Innovation Alliance, lobbying for whitespace TV signals , that is the unused TV frequencies, to be free. A web site has even been set up to Free the Airwaves, encouraging you to not just sign a petition but actually upload a video to YouTube.
One great advantage if this goes ahead is using this medium for free wireless internet access. We also know that Google are keen on using Video as a medium for Adsense. Could we be seeing videos on our own TV’s in the future, knowing Google I wouldn’t put it passed them.
Google announce next step in developing Search
Google recently announced, in its blog, the next step in developing its Search Alogrithm. Search results will become more Geo Targeted towards the searcher, this is done by three important elements:
Location, which can always be found with a high degree of accuracy from a computers IP address.
Search History, again this is pretty much fool proof even if a user switches their cookies off.
Web History, which you have to be signed in and have personally enabled according to Google but which it can generally achieve accurately enough using the same principles used to generate data for the above two points.
It’s no surprise Google have taken this step. Ultimately if you do a search to find a local curry house you don’t want to see results from the other side of the world or even the next city an hour down the road. Google’s goal, like Adam Lasnik says, is to provide more relevant results. First ‘relevant to the query’ but also relevant to the user.
Google’s key next step is to plug in the abudance of information that social networks provide and do a similar result but on a much grander scale.
