WebProNews

Note Your Google Website Optimizer Experiments

Google has released a new feature for its Website Optimizer tool, called Experiment Notes. The feature is designed to help users include documentation as part of their testing. For any experiments, users can now add their own annotations. If you are unfamiliar with Website Optimizer, it's a free tool from Google that webmasters can use to increase conversions by making adjustments to design and text elements to see what works.

Tool Launched for Audio Status Update Creation

Oddcast has released an interesting new audio status-updating tool for publishing your voice to Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. You may recognize the company from its SitePal service, which provides animated characters for websites. The new tool called AudioPal lets users create 60-second personal voice messages that can be posted to their personal web pages, blogs, and social networks.

8 Firefox Add-Ons to Boost Productivity

If you use Firefox, you are no doubt aware that there are many add-ons that can enhance your browsing experience. Many of these can make your online life a whole lot easier and save you time. Following are some that I have found particularly useful. Which do you like? Tell us. 1. Fire Gestures

Mozilla Starts Big Collection of Open Web Tools

Mozilla has launched a new directory with the goal of providing a one-stop shop for open web tools and resources for developers. It is called the Open Web tools Directory. The reason Mozilla says it decided to start this directory is simply because there isn't one like it. "There's no central index of these tools," the company says in a blog post.

Real-Time Site Previews, Faster Search from Yahoo

Yahoo has introduced a new version of the Yahoo Toolbar today. It runs on Internet Explorer 6+ and Firefox (as a beta). "The new Yahoo! Toolbar now offers greater customization and more immediate access to the information you care about most from across the entire web – not just Yahoo! sites," says Burke Culligan, Senior Director of Yahoo Front Doors.  

StumbleUpon Jumps on the URL-Shortener Bandwagon

StumleUpon announced today that it has launched a new URL-shortening service called Su.pr. The twist, however, is that this one is designed to help content creators actually increase their traffic with it. According to StumbleUpon, this is the first such service that does this.  

Google Puts Human Touch Into Machine Translation

Google has announced the launch of the Google Translator toolkit, an editor designed to give translators an easy means of bringing the "human touch" to machine translation, which everybody knows is often flawed.

Google Introduces Page Speed Tool

Site owners and developers who don't want to give their visitors a "check your email while this page loads" experience may be indebted to Google.  The search giant has released a tool called Page Speed that's capable of identifying ways to make things run faster. 

Are Those Old Keywords Still Performing?

WebProNews is of course attending the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle, and Abby Johnson spoke with Christine Churchill, President of KeyRelevance, about the effect the economy has had on keyword usage. Have you noticed differences in keyword trends? Share your experiences here.

Google Launches Gadget for Insights for Search

Google has introduced an iGoogle gadget for Insights for Search. It displays the top rising searches and top related searches on your Google home page. Users can change the settings to show results for a specific location, keyword, category, or source.