Googler Rachel Searles has a new sci-fi book out called The Lost Planet. Matt Cutts points us to it, and has only good things to say about it: Amazon has a pretty substantial preview. Searles is from the search quality…
Google Tests Search Quality Feedback Form On SERPs
Google has a new way of getting feedback from users about the quality of its search results. Some users are reportedly seeing an experiment the search engine is running, which lets them compare two results on a page, and choose…
Google Launched 665 Search ‘Improvements’ In 2012
Google says on its new “How Search Works” site that it launched 665 “improvements to search” in 2012. In a graphic looking at data from 2012, Google explains that it had 118,812 “precision evaluations,” which are described as “The first…
Google Increases Base Index Size By 15 Percent
Google publishes a list every month to keep us aware of the changes coming to their search quality. April is no different and it’s a massive update containing 53 changes from domain diversity to better HTML5 resource caching. This month’s…
Google Search Quality Meeting Uncut [Video]
Google tweeted out a link to a video of some footage from one of its search quality meetings. The company says this is part of its efforts to be more transparent how how its search engine works. @googleA GooglerWatch uncut…
Bing Search Quality Insights: New Blog Series Sheds Light On Bing’s Inner-Workings
Google recently started a series of blog posts highlighting various points of progress it has made in its efforts to increase search quality. The results have essentially been lists of monthly changes Google has made to its algorithm and interface.…
Google On Search Quality And User Happiness
Here’s a pair of interesting Google videos. The first one is a presentation from Google’s “Uber Tech Lead for Search Quality and User Happiness” Dan Russell. Here’s the abstract for it: How well DO people search on Google? Although popular…
Google’s Latest Algorithm Changes (They Don’t Include Panda)
As you may know, Google has been putting out a monthly list of algorithm changes it has been making, as part of the company’s initiative to be “more transparent”. Google will never put out the entire secret sauce of its…
Google Demotes Chrome PageRank Following Paid Link Fiasco
Following the previously reported upon controversy surrounding a marketing campaign for Google’s Chrome browser, Google has apparently decided to devalue its Chrome landing page (in terms of PageRank). At least temporarily. Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land acquired a statement…
Google Provides Inside Look Into Algorithm Tweaking Process
Google tweaks its search algorithms over 500 times a year. You may have already known that, but Google is sharing a new video today designed to give people a “deeper look” into how Google makes “improvements” to its algorithms. I…
Google Calls on Webmasters to Help it Improve Search
Google hires employees all the time, but interestingly the company has basically put out a help wanted ad on its Webmaster Central blog, looking for academics to help it improve search quality and fight spam. “Yes, we’re looking for help…
Bing’s Take on Content Quality
Since the Google Panda Update first launched back in February (and really for some time before that), there has been a lot of discussion about search quality throughout the industry – the quality of the content that search engines are…
Blekko CEO Rich Skrenta Discusses Search Quality, Filtering, Zorro Update
Blekko, the alternative search engine that aims to challenge Google and Bing by reducing spam and low quality content in search results via human curation, has refreshed its index and results pages in an update it refers to as “Zorro”.…
Blekko Refreshes Itself, Challenges Users to a Game of 3 Engine Monte
Alternative search engine Blekko has launched a major update, called “Zorro,” which includes an expanded search index with integration of the slashtags, which have been the staple of the site. On the new results pages, users will see sites that…
Google Sacrifices Search Quality to Preserve Open Web
Google has pulled its search engine at google.kz out of Kazakhstan, where the country’s government is requiring all .kz domain names to be operated from servers located in the country. Now when you go to google.kz, you’re redirected to google.com/webhp?hl=kk.…
Google Panda Algorithm Update (And Related Stories) – A Roundup
We’ve been covering a Google’s Panda Algorithm update a lot since its initial launch (in some ways even before its launch). We thought it might be useful for some to provide something of a round-up of coverage as a one…
What Would Google Search Quality Be Like Without AdSense?
I don’t think many people will argue that Google’s AdSense program has been a major catalyst in increasing the amount of content/search spam on the web. This may not have been Google’s intention for the service, but it has clearly…
Google Panda Update Victim HubPages Posts Quality Standards in Recovery Effort
We’ve covered HubPages a number of times since Google’s Panda update originally launched, as they were one of the victims that lost significant search visibility as a result. Since the update, the site has been making various adjustments to its…
30% of All YouTube Videos Make Up 99% of Views
YouTube announced today that it is transcoding all new videos into the WebM format, as well as other supported formats, which include MPEG4, 3GPP, MOV, AVI, MPEGPS, WMV, and FLV. In the announcement, they say they are working to transcode…
Google Panda Update Hits Demand Media’s eHow This Time
As you know, Google has rolled out the Panda update internationally in the English language. SearchMetrics has put out a list of the top victims in the UK. We’ll be exploring more of this in time, but one thing that…