Two Years Later, BitTorrent Now In Google’s Auto Completions
Over two years ago, Google removed BitTorrent from the instant search auto-complete search suggestions. Now, it appears that when you begin typing [bit…] into the Google search box, Google now shows BitTorrent as a search suggestion within Google Ins…
Google May Be Updating Their Algorithm But They Won’t Confirm It
Today, September 4th and last week, August 21st, there were huge spikes in chatter amongst the SEO and webmasters about the Google search results shifting and changing. In short, many SEOs and webmasters were complaining that their rankings in the Goog…
Privacy Groups Want Judge To Reject Google’s $8.5 Million Settlement Over Search Privacy Lawsuit
Last month, Google agreed to pay $8.5 million into a settlement fund over a class-action lawsuit by two searchers who accused the company of transmitting their personal information to third parties without their consent or knowledge that the informatio…
Google Expands Their Web Definitions
Google announced on Google+ that they have overhauled the web definitions interface and results adding a lot more meat and details to your definitions queries. The new options include an expandable box that contains additional synonyms, ways to use the…
Google Tests Search Results Overview Snippets Overlay
Google is testing a new search feature within the search results to show you a search result snippet overlay with additional details about that search result. The interesting fact is that this overlay doesn’t have text from the search result itself, the text may be sourced from Wikipedia or…
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Google Goes Down Briefly
It wasn’t you. It was Google. Specifically, Google.com went down around 3:50pm PT for about five minutes, a very rare occurrence. Other Google services also appear to have had issues. We’ll update if we hear more, but it appears back now. It certainly sparked brief panic on Twitter….
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Google Does Love Windows Phone, When It Comes To Search — Angering YouTube Users
Google doesn’t care about Windows Phone, given the latest spat over its YouTube app? Think again. Google cares very much, at least when it comes to search. That apparent double-standards is something users of its Windows Phone search app have taken to its review page to express upset over….
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Google Scientist: We Want To Be Able To Respond To A Query Like “Book Me A Trip To Washington, DC”
Will the day come that Google can successfully respond when you tell it something like, “Book me a trip to Washington, DC” — walking you through all the queries and answers needed to complete such a complex request? Will the day come when we’re using devices that only offer…
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Google News Showing Web Site Results For Some Navigational Queries
Google News is now showing the top web search result listing in the news results when the query has navigational intent. For example, if you search Google News for [ask.fm] at the top of the search results page, you will see a search snippet and link t…
Google Sitelinks Redesigned: White & Gray Backgrounds With More Quick Links
Google is testing a new design for their organic search results sitelinks. The new sitelinks are showing for some searchers, although I am not able to see them myself. The screen shot above, provided by +Jon Cooper shows the a grid of four main section…
Google Continues Censoring Piracy Related Search Suggestions By Blocking Grooveshark
TorrentFreak reports Google has added another web site to the piracy block list for their instant search suggestions. The site is named Grooveshark, which is a popular free music streaming service. Google would not comment specifically about Grooveshark but told TorrentFreak, “our algorithms…
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Google Agrees To Settle Lawsuit Over Passing Search Queries To Third Parties
Google has agreed to settle a class-action lawsuit that stems from two searchers accusing the company of sharing their search queries with third parties without user content or knowledge. As part of the settlement, Google has agreed to pay $8.5 million…
Desktop Search Activity Up 12% YOY In June, 4th Straight Month Of Double-Digit Gains [comScore]
Desktop search activity continues to rebound, and was up 12 percent year-over-year in June according to the latest comScore qSearch data just out today. ComScore estimates that there were 19.2 billion “core” desktop searches last month. That’s down four percent from the 20 billion…
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Are Google’s Results Getting Too Ad Heavy?
Are Google’s search results getting too ad-heavy? A new blog post suggesting that Google’s non-paid listings make up only a tiny fraction of the entire page has sparked some discussion, though the exact percentage actually varies on how you count what’s on the page and from…
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Google No Longer Powering Russian Internet Company Searches As Mail.ru Takes All Queries In-House
Russian Internet company Mail.ru Group released an official announcement that they will be handling all queries made by Search Mail.ru users from here on out. According to TheNextWeb.com, Google previously powered 60 percent of the searches performed o…
Snowden Petition Blocked From Google? Like All Petitions, It Won’t Be When It Gets Enough Signatures
Search for [edward snowden petition] to find the petition filed through the White House’s Petition site, and you’ll see something odd. The petition has no description, because the White House won’t let Google crawl the page. But it’s not a move against Snowden, as some might…
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Google Celebrates 2013 Gay Pride Month With Rainbox Encased Search Box For LGBT Related Searches
For a number of years, Google has recognized Gay Pride Month by adding gay pride-inspired art to the Google search box on the results page of LGBT searches. This year, Google is marking Gay Pride Month 2013 with a 3D-styled rainbow encasing the search box: Google’s past support for Gay Pride…
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Google Drops Another Search Operator: Tilde For Synonyms
Google has quietly dropped another search operator, the tilde (i.e. ~) search operator. Google Operating System blog noticed the lack of support for the tilde operator over the weekend. Reportedly, Dan Russell, a Search Research Scientist at Google, co…
Mississippi Attorney General To Subpoena Google For Illegal Sale Of Prescription Drugs
Mississippi attorney general Jim Hood will subpoena Google records and emails to determine if Google facilitated the sale of drugs without a prescription and other illegal products, including counterfeit copies of movies, games and music. “Google is aiding and abetting criminal activity and…
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George Bush “Miserable Failure” Google Bomb Back, This Time In Knowledge Graph
The Google Bomb is back! Searching for [miserable failure] in Google now returns George W. Bush’s knowledge graph in the search results. The Google Bomb first became popular back in 2004 when Google and some other search engines ranked George W. Bush as the nymber one result for a search on…
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