SearchStatus is a toolbar extension for users of both Firefox and Mozilla, designed for the highly specialised needs of search engine marketers. The toolbar provides extensive search-related information about a site, all conveniently displayed in one discreet and compact toolbar.
For every site you visit using Firefox or Mozilla, SearchStatus lets you view its Google PageRank, Google Category, Alexa popularity ranking, Alexa incoming links, Alexa related links and backward links from Google, Yahoo! and MSN - all in one place. This combined search-related information means you can view not only the link importance of a site (according to Google), but also its traffic importance (according to Alexa), so providing a balanced view of site efficacy.
The SearchStatus Mozilla/Mozilla Firefox extension appears unobtrusively at the bottom of the browser on the status bar. If you choose to view backward links for a particular page, they open in new tabs in the same browser window. Disable the automatic Google and Alexa queries and they fold away from view.
For quite a while now, observant Google users have noticed that the first search result in Google's organic listings have had some extra links attached to them. The links tend to lead to the most popular sub-pages of a site as a sort of short-cut for searchers. For example, a movie theatre might include quick links to showtimes and ticket sales and a business listing might include links to job postings and store locations. Despite the fact that these listings have been showing up for awhile now, Google has only officially given them a name today. Playing a hand from the "obvious" deck, they decided to dub them Sitelinks.
You can see an example of Sitelinks in action in the image below.
We only show Sitelinks for results when we think they'll be useful to the user. If the structure of your site doesn't allow our algorithms to find good Sitelinks, or we don't think that the Sitelinks for your site are relevant for the user's query, we won't show them.
What's interesting to business owners is that it implies that there will be specific ways that you can build your site that will make it more likely that these types of advanced listings will appear for your site. There are obvious benefits to this type of listing, so it will certainly be a worthwhile thing for the industry to start digging into.
The Webmaster Central is another attempt at improving the communication between the search engine and webmasters looking for ways of improving its standing in search engine results.
The blog says that:
Unfortunately — though we’ve had the pleasure of chatting with many of you in a variety of forums, around the blogosphere, and at many conferences across the world — we simply haven’t been able to interact with every one of you. So we’re excited to announce our new Google Webmaster Central, which enables us to have productive conversations with many more of you, all the time.
Some may question the motivation behind such a move. Does Google try to move the Google related discussion over to its own turf, gaining a better control of it that way?
It is interesting to note that only one day later the Yahoo! Search Blog commented upon its latest search index update, announcing that:
We are trying to connect with you more directly and enrich our interaction even further through Site Explorer. Please authenticate your site in Site Explorer and join the conversation on the Site Explorer forum.
So there you go, not only Google, but Yahoo! as well invites webmasters to discuss the occult art of search engine optimization at their own domains.
Obviously, if Google and Yahoo! employees stop taking part in other search engine forum discussions, like on Webmaster World and Search Engine Watch forums, there would be reason to worry.
Still, we believe these are exactly what the search engines say they are: forums and sites that might bring in additional information of relevance to webmasters.
Here is a short summary of what the two webmaster centrals have to offer:
1. A link to the Yahoo! Search Blog (We guess they have reckoned there is no need for a separate blog for webmasters).
2. Search Help (Like Google, Yahoo! has gathered all relevant help pages in one spot).
3. Search Content Guidelines — in essence a discussion of what Yahoo! considers “good stuff” and what it considers spam.
4. A form for reporting spam. This is how you can bring down your competitor. Report any spammy techniques they may use and see their rankings drop into oblivion. But remember: They can do the same to you!
5. Support Feedback form. This is the form you use when your competitor has arrested you for spam and you have to beg Yahoo! for forgiveness. You may also use it to complain about Yahoo’s spiders, get help in removing pages from their index, copyright issues and more.
6. There is also a separate suggestion form where you can make suggestions for improvement and more.
7. The Yahoo! Site Explorer lets you analyse the standing of your own site (or that of your rivals). This is a popular tool among search engine marketers as it gives a much more accurate picture of your number of back-links than Google. Google’s search engine is totally unreliable in this respect. If you sign in and add a small text file to your site’s server, you may also use this service to find out if Yahoo! is able to find your site. You may also give it the URL of your RSS feed, helping Yahoo’s spiders to index your new pages.
8. And finally, there is a submit page, which gives you information on how to submit your site for free, the pay per click text ad programme and Yahoo’s Search Submit Express (where you can pay Yahoo! to do something they should do for free anyway, namely index your pages).
It should be noted that these are not all new features. However, these search engines are now trying to give the various help pages and webmaster tools a more coherent interface, making it easier for readers to find the relevant information.
MSN and Ask
Moreover, even though MSN and Ask have no similar “webmaster centrals”, they do provide much of the same information.
Google has launched a new set of applications for web site owners. The applications are hosted by Google, but users may customize the user interface with their own logo and color scheme, and — what’s probably even more important — they can use their own domain name.
(As a matter of fact, you have to use your own domain name.)
These services are actually not new. What Google is doing is to offer adapted versions of already existing applications like Gmail (online email service, which — by the way — was available in company versions as early as February), Google Talk instant messaging, the Google Calendar, and the Google Page Creator for web site creation.
Google has set aside 2 gigabytes of email storage for each user.
The idea is clearly to replace locally hosted software with an easy to use Internet based service. This may be interpreted as another skirmish in Google’s battle against Microsoft’s Office supremacy, as this is an offer that might replace Outlook and its various functions (email, calendar etc).
The blog service Blogger and the Writely online word processor are not included, however. We expect them to be soon, as well as other functions like spreadsheets, photo sharing and — maybe — a closed off version of Google’s database tool.
Google says that they over time will offer versions of Google Apps for Your Domain that are oriented toward the needs of a variety of organizations: “from family websites and community groups to non-profits and small businesses, as well as universities, large enterprises, and ISPs.”
A more costly “premium version” is in preparation. It is unclear what this premium version will add.
You will have to apply to use the Google Apps during the beta period. Organizations accepted by Google are eligible for free service for their approved beta users even beyond the end of the beta period.
The service is controlled by using a web browser. The following browsers are supported: - Microsoft IE 5.5+ for Windows, Mozilla Firefox 0.8+ for Windows, Mac and Linux, Safari 1.2.1+ for Mac, and Netscape 7.1+for Windows, Mac and Linux.
Is is a bit similar to Google Books, which lets you search the text of books scanned by Google.
Google is fetching news data from publishers like Time, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Guardian and the Washington Post, and from news aggregators like Factiva, LexisNexis, Thomson Gale and HighBeam Research.
The idea is to index the full-text of 200 years of news articles, free sources as well as information that requires a fee.
The News Archive Search page has a search form for exploring the historical material. Results from the News Archive may also be included in regular web search results or news search listings.
The advanced search page lets you limit the search to a specific time period, language, source or price. There are also menu based quasi-boolean search options.
You can also limit searches to a specific period or news source by clicking on alternatives listed in the left hand column of search result pages.
Historians will love this feature, as will anyone trying to analyse the causes of current events.
And Google, of course, has made another step towards the ultimate goal: To make all existing information available accessible to their users. Welcome “Big Thought”!
Earlier this year I made a free online portal for people to check news and browse their favourite search engine without having to leave pages. Its had great press and has alot of visitors each day. Feel free to add homper to your homepage.
www.wholinks2me.com is a very simple online tool that shows your incoming links from Google, Msn and Yahoo!. It also give tells you your total links, Google Page Rank and Alexa rank.
Whilst I was adding the new sitemaps xml file for Linkingisgood.com, I noticed something different on the right hand side. Its a new tool from Google to rate their services. They will probably be adding this for other future Google applications. Its good that they are listening to public, a great step in the right direction.
According to a WebmasterWorld thread there is currently a Google backlink update going on at some chosen Google data centers; 64.233.187.104 and 64.233.187.99. Google, unlike Yahoo, has a tendency of showing only a sample of the sites which link to a specific site when the link:url search command is used.
Although Google also updated its PageRank about a month ago, the backlink update may lead to another Google PageRank update.
If you use Google to check the backlinks of your sites or those of your competitors, this update can be quite valuable. As for search rankings, it is yet to be seen if such backlink updates will have an influence, positive or negative.
The WSJ (sub req’d) and NY Times (reg. req’d) are reporting this morning on a deal in which Google will distribute ads on eBay’s pages outside the US. eBay has a similar deal with Yahoo! domestically. This is something of a surprise given that eBay aggressively courted Google rivals in the US as an apparent move to counter increasing Google’s market power.
From the Journal:
Under the deal announced Monday, eBay and Google will begin testing the advertising arrangements in early 2007. The accord also calls for the companies to cooperate in developing “click to call” initiatives, which allow consumers to call merchants and advertisers directly using connections displayed in the ads.
The companies said they reached a multiyear agreement and will share advertising revenue on certain components of the deal. Other terms weren’t disclosed. EBay said the deal won’t affect its 2006 or 2007 financial results.
The power of “the market” seems to have won out, however, over eBay’s desire to not cede too much power to Google. Google’s search market share is more commanding outside the US and eBay seems to have bowed to that in the quest to generate more ad revenue.
From the NY Times:
“Google is very strong in every country outside of the United States,” said Meg Whitman, eBay’s chief executive, in an interview Sunday night. “We felt this arrangement of assets made sense.”
Outside the US — although there is Miva (the old ESpotting) — it appears that Google may have been the only choice with sufficient scale and advertiser volume. One has to see this as something of a blow to Yahoo! given the domestic partnership.
Perhaps most interesting about the deal is the “click to call” aspect. Again, from the Times:
As part of their deal, eBay and Google will build a “click to call” advertising system that will use both Skype and the much-smaller Google Talk. Ads on Google and products listed on eBay will have a click-to-call link that will allow users to have a conversation with the advertiser or product seller.
The companies expect that merchants will pay a fee — which Google and eBay will split — for each call they receive; this aspect of the deal involves both the United States and other countries.
I’m going to be investigating further but what’s most interesting to me about this is the fact that it represents a big plunge for Google into pay-per-phone call (PPCall). Without getting into the distinctions between “click to call” and PPCall, this is an advertising initiative. It’s also interesting that this is being rolled out on a large scale outside the US first for Google.
Google beta tested a “click to call” system (as a precursor to PPCall) with certain advertisers last year and then the test disappeared. In the US, Windows Live Local has integrated a “call for free” click to call capability. That’s not currently PPCall but will probably become that eventually.
Skype and Google Talk are part of the “calling infrastructure” but the idea is to connect buyers and sellers over the phone and use that as an ad vehicle, charging for each call connected. Google will apparently supply the advertisers here and eBay will take a piece of any call revenue generated.
One question is: will this relationship on calls come back to the US somehow (calls were allegedly part of the Yahoo!-eBay partnership)? And does this also mean that Google be introducing PPCall in the US market any time soon?
As I’ve said before the PPCall market would break open if Google or Yahoo! entered it in a real way.
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SearchStatus is a toolbar extension for users of both Firefox and Mozilla, designed for the highly specialised needs of search engine marketers. The toolbar provides extensive search-related information about a site, all conveniently displayed in one discreet and compact toolbar.
Google and Yahoo! add webmaster support portals, with help files, blogs, discussion forums and tools.
Google has launched 
Is is a bit similar to Google Books, which lets you search the text of books scanned by Google. 
