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Transferring ownership of your Site Search engine

October 4, 2012 By seoconsultantlondon.org.uk Leave a Comment

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Discover How To Transfer Google Site Search To A Different User

The following post Google’s software engineer, Yong Zhu, shows how to transfer Google Site Search to a different user.

Many of you have requested a simpler process for transferring Google Site Search ownership to a different user. For instance, you may have created, developed and customized your website’s search experience under your Google account, but want the long-term management of the search engine to be performed by someone else. In the past, you would have been required to manually export the configuration, import it into a new Site Search instance and then cancel the old instance.

Now, you can very easily transfer the ownership of a Site Search engine to a new user by simply specifying a different Google account email address in the Business Settings tab in the control panel.

Once you’ve provided the appropriate account information for the new administrator account, the following things happen:

A new Site Search engine is created with the identical configuration as your current Site Search engine.
The new Site Search engine is owned and can be administered by the new account owner.
Any unused query quota is transferred to the new Site Search engine.
The new Site Search engine will show the transfer history in the Business settings in the control panel
You can still continue to use the old engine, but ads may be displayed alongside search results and XML access is disabled.

Please note that either you or the new admin will also need to update the Search box code to represent the new Site Search engine ID. You can find this ID in the Basics tab in the control panel, marked “Search Engine unique ID”.

We hope this process makes it easier for you to transfer administration capabilities to the appropriate account owners in your organization. For more details, please refer to the articles on transferring ownership, and recommended post-transfer actions in the help center.

As always, we appreciate your feedback in the user forum.

Posted by: Yong Zhu, Software engineer

Custom Search Engine

Filed Under: Google Search Tagged With: Different, Search, site, transfer Google Site Search, Transferring, User

Google Search Updates: 86 changes for June and July

August 12, 2012 By seoconsultantlondon.org.uk Leave a Comment

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Google made 86 changes to the search algorithms in June and July.

Google no longer use separate descriptive names and codenames. Usually the descriptive names are just repeats of the information in the short description. Names are sometimes used for providing a unique identifier for a given change, so in cases where we there isn’t a name, an ID number is added.

Here is the list of updates for June:

uefa-euro1. [project codename “Answers”] Addition of a live result showing schedule and scores of the EURO 2012 games (European championship of national soccer teams).
#82293. [project codename “Answers”] Improved dictionary search feature by adding support for more natural language searches.
Better HTML5 resource caching for mobile. [project codename “Mobile”] We’ve improved caching of different components of the search results page, dramatically reducing latency in a number of cases.
ng2. [project codename “Other Ranking Components”] Better ordering of top results using a new and improved ranking function for combining several key ranking features.
Ref-16. [project codename “Other Ranking Components”] Changes to an “official pages” algorithm to improve internationalization.
Bamse. [project codename “Page Quality”] This launch helps you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
Bamse-17L. [project codename “Page Quality”] This launch helps you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
GreenLandII. [project codename “Page Quality”] We’ve incorporated new data into the Panda algorithm to better detect high-quality sites and pages.
#82353. [project codename “Page Quality”] This change refreshes data for the Panda high-quality sites algorithm.
SuperQ2. [project codename “Image”] We’ve updated a signal for Google Images to help return more on-topic image search results.
#82743. [project codename “Answers”] Changes to the calculator feature to improve recognition of queries containing “and,” such as [4 times 3 and a half].
komodo. [project codename “Query Understanding”] Data refresh for system used to better understand and search for long-tail queries.
#82580. [project codename “Answers”] This is an improvement for showing the sunrise and sunset times search feature.
PitCode. [project codename “Answers”] This launch adds live results for Nascar, MotoGP, and IndyCar. This is in addition to Formula1 results, which were already available.
timeob. [project codename “Answers”] We’ve improved natural language detection for the time feature to better understand questions like, “What time is it in India?”
#81933. [project codename “Synonyms”] This launch improves use of query synonyms in ranking. Now we’re less likely to show documents where the synonym has a different meaning than the original search term.
#82496. [project codename “Answers”] Changes made to the movie showtimes feature on mobile to improve recognition of natural language queries and overall coverage.
#82367. [project codename “Other Ranking Components”] This launch helps you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
#82699. [project codename “Other Search Features”] We’ve made it easier to quickly compare places. Now you can hover over a local result and see information about that place on the right-hand side.
CapAndGown. [project codename “Image”] On many webpages, the most important images are closely related to the overall subject matter of the page. This project helps you find these salient images more often.
#82769. [project codename “Answers”] Improvements to the calculator feature on mobile to improve handling of queries that contain both words and numbers such as [4 times 3 divided by 2].
Vuvuzela. [project codename “SafeSearch”] We’ve updated SafeSearch to unify the handling of adult video content in videos mode and in the main search results. Explicit video thumbnails are now filtered more consistently.
#82537. [project codename “Answers”] We’ve enabled natural language detection for the currency conversion feature to better understand questions like, “What is $ 500 in euros?”
#82519. [project codename “Answers”] We’ve enabled natural language detection for the flight status feature to better understand questions about flight arrival times and status.
#82879. [project codename “Answers”] We’ve improved the triggering for the “when is” feature and understanding of queries like, “When is Mother’s Day?”
wobnl0330. [project codename “Answers”] Improvements to display of the weather search feature.
Lime. [project codename “Freshness”] This change improves the interaction between various search components to improve search results for searches looking for fresh content.
gas station. [project codename “Snippets”] This change removes the boilerplate text in sitelinks titles, keeping only the information useful to the user.
#81776. [project codename “Answers”] We’ve improved natural language detection for the unit conversion feature to better understand questions like, “What is 5 miles in kilometers?”
#81439. [project codename “Answers”] Improved display of the finance feature for voice search queries on mobile.
#82666. [project codename “Page Quality”] This launch helps you find more high-quality content from trusted sources.
#82541. [project codename “Other Ranking Components”] This is one of multiple projects that we’re working on to make our system for clustering web results better and simpler.
gaupe. [project codename “Universal Search”] Improves display of the flights search feature. Now, this result shows for queries with destinations outside the US, such as [flights from Austin to London].
#82887. [project codename “Answers”] We’ve improved natural language processing for the dictionary search feature.
gallium-2. [project codename “Synonyms”] This change improves synonyms inside concepts.
zinc-4. [project codename “Synonyms”] This change improves efficiency by not computing synonyms in certain cases.
Manzana2. [project codename “Snippets”] This launch improves clustering and ranking of links in the expanded sitelinks feature.
#82921. [project codename “Alternative Search Methods”] We’ve improved finance results to better understand finance-seeking queries spoken on mobile.
#82936. [project codename “Answers”] Improved display of the weather search feature, so you can ask [weather in california] or [is it hot in italy].
#82935. [project codename “Answers”] We’ve improved natural language detection for the sunrise/sunset feature.
#82460. [project codename “Snippets”] With this change we’re using synonyms to better generate accurate titles for web results.
#82953. [project codename “Answers”] This change improves detection of queries about weather.
PandaMay. [project codename “Search Quality”] We launched a data refresh for our Panda high-quality sites algorithm.
ItsyBitsy. [project codename “Images”] To improve the quality of image results, we filter tiny, unhelpful images at the bottom of our image results pages.
localtimeob. [project codename “Answers”] We’ve improved display of the local time search feature.
#82536. [project codename “Answers”] We’ve improved natural language detection to better understand queries about baseball and return the latest baseball information about MLB, such as schedules and the latest scores.
Improvements to Images Universal ranking. [project codename “Universal Search”] We significantly improved our ability to show Images Universal on infrequently searched-for queries.
absum3. [project codename “Snippets”] This launch helps us select better titles to display in the search results. This is a change to our algorithm that will specifically improve the titles for pages that are in non-Latin based languages.
#83051. [project codename “Answers”] We’ve improved display of local business information in certain mobile use cases. In particular, we’ll highlight information relevant to the search, including phone numbers, addresses, hours and more.
calc2-random. [project codename “Answers”] This change improves our understanding of calculator-seeking queries.
#82961. [project codename “Alternative Search Methods”] When you search for directions to or from a location on your mobile device without specifying the start point, we’ll return results starting from your current position.
#82984. [project codename “Universal Search”] This was previously available for users searching on google.com in English, and now it’s available for all users searching in English on any domain.
#82150. [project codename “Spelling”] Refresh of our algorithms for spelling systems in eight languages.
NoPathsForClustering. [project codename “Other Ranking Components”] We’ve made our algorithm for clustering web results from the same site or same path (same URL up until the last slash) more consistent. This is one of multiple projects that we’re working on to make our clustering system better and simpler.
Hamel. [project codename “Page Quality”] This change updates a model we use to help you find high-quality pages with unique content.
#81977. [project codename “Synonyms”] This change updates our synonyms systems to make it less likely we’ll return adult content when users aren’t looking for it.
Homeland. [project codename “Autocomplete”] This is an improvement to autocomplete that will help users to get predicted queries that are more relevant to their local country.

Here’s the list of updates for July:

#82948. [project codename “Other Search Features”] We’ve improved our natural language processing to improve display of our movie showtimes feature.
yoyo. [project codename “Snippets”] This change leads to more useful text in sitelinks.
popcorn. [project codename “Snippets”] We’ve made a minor update to our algorithm that detects if a page is an “article.” This change facilitates better snippets.
Golden Eagle. [project codename “Autocomplete”] When Google Instant is turned off, we’ll sometimes show a direct link to a site in the autocomplete predictions. With this change we refreshed the data for those predictions.
#82301. [project codename “Indexing”] This change improves an aspect of our serving systems to save capacity and improve latency.
#82392. [project codename “Indexing”] This launch improves the efficiency of the Book Search ranking algorithms, making them more consistent with Web Search.
Challenger. [project codename “Snippets”] This is another change that will help get rid of generic boilerplate text in Web results’ titles, particularly for sitelinks.
#83166. [project codename “Universal Search”] This change is a major update to Google Maps data for the following regions: CZ, GR, HR, IE, IT, VA, SM, MO,PT, SG, LS. This new data will appear in maps universal results.
#82515. [project codename “Translation and Internationalization”] This change improves the detection of queries that would benefit from translated results.
bergen. [project codename “Other Ranking Components”] This is one of multiple projects that we’re working on to make our system for clustering web results better and simpler.
Panda JK. [project codename “Page Quality”] We launched Panda on google.co.jp and google.co.kr to promote more high-quality sites for users in Japan and Korea.
rrfix4. [project codename “Freshness”] This is a bug fix to a freshness algorithm. This change turns off a freshness algorithm component in certain cases when it should not be affecting the results.
eventhuh4. [project codename “Knowledge Graph”] We’ll show a list of upcoming events in the Knowledge Graph for city-related searches such as [san francisco] and [events in san francisco].
#83483. [project codename “Universal Search”] This change helps surface navigation directions directly in search results for more queries.
Zivango. [project codename “Refinements”] This change leads to more diverse search refinements.
#80568. [project codename “Snippets”] This change improves our algorithm for generating site hierarchies for display in search result snippets.
Labradoodle. [project codename “SafeSearch”] We’ve updated SafeSearch algorithms to better detect adult content.
JnBamboo. [project codename “Page Quality”] We’ve updated data for our Panda high-quality sites algorithm.
#83242. [project codename “Universal Search”] This change improves news universal display by using entities from the Knowledge Graph.
#75921. [project codename “Autocomplete”] For some time we’ve shown personalized predictions in Autocomplete for users who’ve enabled Web History on google.com in English. With this change, we’re internationalizing the feature.
#83301. [project codename “Answers”] Similar to the live results we provide for sports like baseball or European football, you can now search on Google and find rich, detailed information about the latest schedule, medal counts, events, and record-breaking moments for the world’s largest sporting spectacle.
#83432. [project codename “Autocomplete”] This change helps users find more fresh trending queries in Japanese as part of autocomplete.

These list of updates were taken from a Google Blog post.

Filed Under: Google, SEO Tagged With: Google Search updates June and July 2012, Google updates, July, June, quality, Search

Add flexible search and Google reviews to your local apps with the Google Places API

July 5, 2012 By seoconsultantlondon.org.uk Leave a Comment

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The following article by Thor Mitchell, Product Manager, Google Places AP, describes the updates to the Google Places API.

Google Places API Update

We launched the Google Places API at Google I/O last year to enable developers to search more than 95 million places, such as businesses and landmarks, around the world. We have continued to enhance the API since then, adding a number of features requested by developers such as keyword search, rank by distance, and support for Events. At Google I/O this year we continued to respond to your feedback, with the launch of Google Reviews, Text Search, Opening Hours, and Paging.

Google Reviews

By far the most popular request from developers since the day we launched has been access to the Google Reviews offered on Google+ Local. We’re therefore delighted to announce that the top 5 Google Reviews for a Place are now included in the response to a Place Details request. Each review is accompanied by additional information such as the scores given by the author, author details, and the date that the review was submitted.

Text Search

Today we are introducing Text Search, a whole new way of searching that broadens the scope of the Places API to any device that can accept text input, be it from a keyboard or from voice recognition.

Text Search brings the flexible capabilities of the Google Maps search field to your application. Rather than requiring the user’s location to search around, Text Search interprets free text queries that can include both what the user is searching for, and where they are searching for it. For example, you can submit a search for “Pizza in New York”, or “Sushi near Sydney”. You can also bias queries to a particular area, so that even queries with no address component can be correctly interpreted.

Opening Hours

Another popular request from developers has been access to the opening hours for businesses. The Place API now returns the 7 day opening hours for a Place in the Place Details results where available. Place Search results also now include a property that indicates if a Place for which opening hours are available is currently open.

Paging

Today we are also introducing support for paging, which increases the number of search results that can be retrieved to 60. Applications can now request two additional sets of 20 results after the initial request has been made.

You can try these new features with the below demo. Enter a search query to see 20 matching results, with more loaded when you scroll to the end of the list. Click on a result to see the reviews for that place under the map, and the opening hours for today in the InfoWindow on the map.

To accompany these launches we’re also pleased to announce a new dedicated home page for the Places API at developers.google.com/places. In addition to the Places API web service, all of the above new features are also available in the places library of the JavaScript Maps API v3.

If you want to know more about how your application can benefit from the power of the Google Places API join our developer community on Stack Overflow. We look forward to seeing the innovative new apps that these great new Places API features inspire you to develop.

Posted by Thor Mitchell, Product Manager, Google Places API

Google Geo Developers Blog

Filed Under: Google Places Tagged With: Apps, Google, Google Places API, Local, Places, reviews, Search

New Local Search Ads in Google Maps for Mobile

July 4, 2012 By seoconsultantlondon.org.uk Leave a Comment

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Google Redesign Their Ad Formats For Google Maps For Mobile

The following post by Jay Akkad, Google Product Manager, Mobile Ads, describes the changes and redesign for Google’s ad formats for Google Maps for mobile.

People use their mobile devices to discover and engage with the world around them. Searching for local information is one of the most common activities on mobile – in the US, said they had done so, and nearly every surveyed country reported numbers over 80%. With Google Maps, they make informed decisions about places to see, shops to visit, meals to eat, and more.

To enable advertisers to better connect with potential customers via mobile search, we have redesigned our local ad formats for Google Maps for Mobile. These have produced measurable results – in initial tests, these redesigned formats increased click-through-rates by 100%. This visual redesign will be rolling out today to the newer versions of Android phones.

The updated formats feature several key improvements:

Important calls to action like “get directions” and “click to call” are now more prominent in the ad and clickable in more places.
A new hyperlocal marker shows the user how close they are to an advertiser’s business location
Clicking on the ad now takes the user to an advertiser’s website from within the app, making it simple to browse the site without losing context or access to maps app navigation.

Above: Current view of local ads in Google Maps for Mobile

Below: Launching today, new feature improvements in local ads in Google Maps for Mobile

Ads in Google Maps for Mobile are one of many ways advertisers are delivering relevant local answers to people’s questions on mobile. Likewise, a recent campaign from T-Mobile shows how search ads, combined with location extensions, enabled them to reach users close to their store locations across mobile search and maps.

T-Mobile understood that they needed to adjust their goals and tactics to cater to mobile user behavior. On the difference in user behavior between desktop and mobile campaigns, Kari Nicholas, Media Director of T-Mobile USA explained, “Consumers searching on mobile devices tend to be further down the purchase funnel and have a more informed opinion about what they want, which presents an opportunity for us to influence their decision regarding where to buy while they’re on the go. That’s why we felt it was essential to provide a way for them to easily find our retail locations.” T-Mobile’s approach of using mobile location extensions drove over 160,000 click-throughs and a click-through-rate of 13%. To read more, download the full case study, here.

T-Mobile’s mobile search ads on Google.com and Google Maps for Mobile contain locally relevant information like a user’s distance from their closest location, and the ability to call and get directions to their closest store.

Mobile technology is enabling people to connect with businesses in new ways via smartphones and tablets. People use search and click to businesses’ websites, but they are also clicking to make phone calls, find directions to walk into local stores, and more. To take advantage of these new local search ads on Google Maps for Mobile, make sure you’ve done the following:

Target the relevant campaigns to mobile devices
Enable ads to show to search partners
Finally, havelocation extensions enabled within AdWords to take advantage of all these new features – so be sure to enable them if you haven’t already!

We’re looking forward to further understanding mobile usage trends and helping businesses better connect with their customers on the go.

Posted by Jay Akkad, Product Manager, Mobile Ads

Google Mobile Ads Blog

Filed Under: Google Tagged With: Advertisers, Google, Google Maps for Mobile, Maps, Mobile, Search

A new and easy way to add new pages to your Custom Search Engine’s index

April 28, 2012 By seoconsultantlondon.org.uk Leave a Comment

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Our users have been telling us that while they love the concept of on-demand indexing, manually entering URLs or keeping a Sitemap up to date is too cumbersome. A new year brings a new and improved solution. If you are a Webmaster Tools verified site owner and have a page that links to your site’s latest content, simply provide us with that page’s URL and we will periodically visit it to discover your site’s new content.

For example, as the owners of this blog, we can provide the URL of the blog’s landing page, googlecustomsearch.blogspot.com, to our CSE. It will then periodically visit that URL and add any new links to content on this blog to our CSE’s index. Since this URL automatically links to all new content on this blog, our CSE’s index will always automatically get updated.

You can provide a URL(s) to your CSE via the URLs linked from a page feature in the Indexing page of your CSE’s Control Panel. Note that this feature is only for the discovery of new content and does not refresh content that has already been indexed.

To learn more about URLs linked from a page, please visit our help center. Let us know what you think in our discussion forum.

Posted by: Liqian Luo, Software Engineer

Custom Search Engine

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Custom, Easy, Engine’s, index, Pages, Search

SearchCap: The Day In Search, April 27, 2012

April 28, 2012 By seoconsultantlondon.org.uk Leave a Comment

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Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. From Search Engine Land: StarCraft Themed Google Easter Egg “Zerg Rush” Calls An Attack On Your Search Results Google’s newest Easter egg, a search for “zerg…

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

Filed Under: General Tagged With: 2012, April, Search, SearchCap

Online Search as a Driver of TV Buying

April 27, 2012 By seoconsultantlondon.org.uk Leave a Comment

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When Searches take place online, business usually follows. Advertisers utilizing Google’s AdWords and Insights for Search data have watched this pattern emerge for years, and we’re excited to now bring similar capabilities to our TV advertisers. As of today, we are pleased to announce the launch of Search Triggers, a new tool offered by Google TV Ads that uses national search trend data to control when and how you deliver your TV ads.

Let’s take a look at how this works. Suppose you own a business that sells grills. The summertime is when you generally run television advertising. But what if it’s a rainy weekend? By tapping into the power of search data, Search Triggers watches for real-time changes in the demand for terms you specify, such as “grills” or “charcoal.” When query volume spikes or declines, the Search Triggers tool automatically adjusts your daily budget up or down accordingly each day so that you’re delivering the right message with appropriate frequency at the right time.

Using search data to optimize your TV campaigns is another way that Google TV Ads is working to make your TV buy smarter. For more information, or to get started with Google TV Ads, visit google.com/tvads.

Update: Read more about Search Triggers on Mashable

Posted by Jody Shapiro, Google TV Ads Product Manager

TV Ads Blog

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Buying, Driver, Online, Search

Search quality highlights: 50 changes for March

April 26, 2012 By seoconsultantlondon.org.uk Leave a Comment

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Here’s our latest installment of search quality highlights, with another 50 changes to report for March. We’re starting to get into a groove with these posts, so we’re getting more and more comprehensive as the months go by. New for this month, we’ve published uncut video from our search quality meeting, which gives a great flavor for how these decisions get made.

Here’s the list for March:

Autocomplete with math symbols. [launch codename "Blackboard", project codename "Suggest"] When we process queries to return predictions in autocomplete, we generally normalize them to match more relevant predictions in our database. This change incorporates several characters that were previously normalized: “+”, “-”, “*”, “/”, “^”, “(“, “)”, and “=”. This should make it easier to search for popular equations, for example [e = mc2] or [y = mx+b].
Improvements to handling of symbols for indexing. [launch codename "Deep Maroon"] We generally ignore punctuation symbols in queries. Based on analysis of our query stream, we’ve now started to index the following heavily used symbols: “%”, “$ ”, “\”, “.”, “@”, “#”, and “+”. We’ll continue to index more symbols as usage warrants.
Better scoring of news groupings. [launch codename "avenger_2"] News results on Google are organized into groups that are about the same story. We have scoring systems to determine the ordering of these groups for a given query. This subtle change slightly improves our scoring system, leading to better ranking of news clusters.
Sitelinks data refresh. [launch codename "Saralee-76"] Sitelinks (the links that appear beneath some search results and link deeper into the respective site) are generated in part by an offline process that analyzes site structure and other data to determine the most relevant links to show users. We’ve recently updated the data through our offline process. These updates happen frequently (on the order of weeks).
Improvements to autocomplete backends, coverage. [launch codename "sovereign", project codename "Suggest"] We’ve consolidated systems and reduced the number of backend calls required to prepare autocomplete predictions for your query. The result is more efficient CPU usage and more comprehensive predictions.
Better handling of password changes. Our general approach is that when you change passwords, you’ll be signed out from your account on all machines. This change ensures that changing your password more consistently signs your account out of Search, everywhere.
Better indexing of profile pages. [launch codename "Prof-2"] This change improves the comprehensiveness of public profile pages in our index from more than two-hundred social sites.
UI refresh for News Universal. [launch codename "Cosmos Newsy", project codename "Cosmos"] We’ve refreshed the design of News Universal results by providing more results from the top cluster, unifying the UI treatment of clusters of different sizes, adding a larger font for the top article, adding larger images (from licensed sources), and adding author information.
Improvements to results for navigational queries. [launch codename "IceMan5"] A “navigational query” is a search where it looks like the user is looking to navigate to a particular website, such as [New York Times] or [wikipedia.org]. While these searches may seem straightforward, there are still challenges to serving the best results. For example, what if the user doesn’t actually know the right URL? What if the URL they’re searching for seems to be a parked domain (with no content)? This change improves results for this kind of search.
High-quality sites algorithm data update and freshness improvements. [launch codename “mm”, project codename "Panda"] Like many of the changes we make, aspects of our high-quality sites algorithm depend on processing that’s done offline and pushed on a periodic cycle. In the past month, we’ve pushed updated data for “Panda,” as we mentioned in a recent tweet. We’ve also made improvements to keep our database fresher overall.
Live results for UEFA Champions League and KHL. We’ve added live-updating snippets in our search results for the KHL (Russian Hockey League) and UEFA Champions League, including scores and schedules. Now you can find live results from a variety of sports leagues, including the NFL, NBA, NHL and others.
Tennis search feature. [launch codename "DoubleFault"] We’ve introduced a new search feature to provide realtime tennis scores at the top of the search results page. Try [maria sharapova] or [sony ericsson open].
More relevant image search results. [launch codename "Lice"] This change tunes signals we use related to landing page quality for images. This makes it more likely that you’ll find highly relevant images, even if those images are on pages that are lower quality.
Fresher image predictions in all languages. [launch codename "imagine2", project codename "Suggest"] We recently rolled out a change to surface more relevant image search predictions in autocomplete in English. This improvement extends the update to all languages.
SafeSearch algorithm tuning. [launch codenames "Fiorentini", “SuperDyn”; project codename "SafeSearch"] This month we rolled out a couple of changes to our SafeSearch algorithm. We’ve updated our classifier to make it smarter and more precise, and we’ve found new ways to make adult content less likely to appear when a user isn’t looking for it
Tweaks to handling of anchor text. [launch codename "PC"] This month we turned off a classifier related to anchor text (the visible text appearing in links). Our experimental data suggested that other methods of anchor processing had greater success, so turning off this component made our scoring cleaner and more robust.
Simplification to Images Universal codebase. [launch codename "Galactic Center"] We’ve made some improvements to simplify our codebase for Images Universal and to better utilize improvements in our general web ranking to also provide better image results.
Better application ranking and UI on mobile. When you search for apps on your phone, you’ll now see richer results with app icons, star ratings, prices, and download buttons arranged to fit well on smaller screens. You’ll also see more relevant ranking of mobile applications based on your device platform, for example Android or iOS.
Improvements to freshness in Video Universal. [launch codename "graphite", project codename "Freshness"] We’ve improved the freshness of video results to better detect stale videos and return fresh content.
Fewer undesired synonyms. [project codename "Synonyms"] When you search on Google, we often identify other search terms that might have the same meaning as what you entered in the box (synonyms) and surface results for those terms as well when it might be helpful. This month we tweaked a classifier to prevent unhelpful synonyms from being introduced as content in the results set.
Better handling of queries with both navigational and local intent. [launch codename "ShieldsUp"] Some queries have both local intent and are very navigational (directed towards a particular website). This change improves the balance of results we show, and helps ensure you’ll find highly relevant navigational results or local results towards the top of the page as appropriate for your query.
Improvements to freshness. [launch codename "Abacus", project codename "Freshness"] We launched an improvement to freshness late last year that was very helpful, but it cost significant machine resources. At the time we decided to roll out the change only for news-related traffic. This month we rolled it out for all queries.
Improvements to processing for detection of site quality. [launch codename "Curlup"] We’ve made some improvements to a longstanding system we have to detect site quality. This improvement allows us to get greater confidence in our classifications.
Better interpretation and use of anchor text. We’ve improved systems we use to interpret and use anchor text, and determine how relevant a given anchor might be for a given query and website.
Better local results and sources in Google News. [launch codename "barefoot", project codename "news search"] We’re deprecating a signal we had to help people find content from their local country, and we’re building similar logic into other signals we use. The result is more locally relevant Google News results and higher quality sources.
Deprecating signal related to ranking in a news cluster. [launch codename "decaffeination", project codename "news search”] We’re deprecating a signal that’s no longer improving relevance in Google News. The signal was originally developed to help people find higher quality articles on Google News. (Note: Despite the launch codename, this project has nothing to do with Caffeine, our update to indexing in 2010).
Fewer “sibling” synonyms. [launch codename "Gemini", project codename "Synonyms"] One of the main signals we look at to identify synonyms is context. For example, if the word “cat” often appears next to the term “pet” and “furry,” and so does the word “kitten”, our algorithms may guess that “cat” and “kitten” have similar meanings. The problem is that sometimes this method will introduce “synonyms” that actually are different entities in the same category. To continue the example, dogs are also “furry pets” — so sometimes “dog” may be incorrectly introduced as a synonym for “cat”. We’ve been working for some time to appropriately ferret out these “sibling” synonyms, and our latest system is more maintainable, updatable, debuggable, and extensible to other systems.
Better synonym accuracy and performance. [project codename "Synonyms"] We’ve made further improvements to our synonyms system by eliminating duplicate logic. We’ve also found ways to more accurately identify appropriate synonyms in cases where there are multiple synonym candidates with different contexts.
Retrieval system tuning. [launch codename "emonga", project codename "Optionalization"] We’ve improved systems that identify terms in a query which are not necessarily required to retrieve relevant documents. This will make results more faithful to the original query.
Less aggressive synonyms. [launch codename "zilong", project codename "Synonyms"] We’ve heard feedback from users that sometimes our algorithms are too aggressive at incorporating search results for other terms. The underlying cause is often our synonym system, which will include results for other terms in many cases. This change makes our synonym system less aggressive in the way it incorporates results for other query terms, putting greater weight on the original user query.
Update to systems relying on geographic data. [launch codename "Maestro, Maitre"] We have a number of signals that rely on geographic data (similar to the data we surface in Google Earth and Maps). This change updates some of the geographic data we’re using.
Improvements to name detection. [launch codename "edge", project codename "NameDetector"] We’ve improved a system for detecting names, particularly for celebrity names.
Updates to personalization signals. [project codename "PSearch"] This change updates signals used to personalize search results.
Improvements to Image Search relevance. [launch codename "sib"] We’ve updated signals to better promote reasonably sized images on high-quality landing pages.
Remove deprecated signal from site relevance signals. [launch codename "Freedom"] We’ve removed a deprecated product-focused signal from a site-understanding algorithm.
More precise detection of old pages. [launch codename "oldn23", project codename “Freshness"] This change improves detection of stale pages in our index by relying on more relevant signals. As a result, fewer stale pages are shown to users.
Tweaks to language detection in autocomplete. [launch codename “Dejavu”, project codename "Suggest"] In general, autocomplete relies on the display language to determine what language predictions to show. For most languages, we also try to detect the user query language by analyzing the script, and this change extends that behavior to Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese and Korean. The net effect is that when users forget to turn off their IMEs, they’ll still get English predictions if they start typing English terms.
Improvements in date detection for blog/forum pages. [launch codename "fibyen", project codename "Dates"] This change improves the algorithm that determines dates for blog and forum pages.
More predictions in autocomplete by live rewriting of query prefixes. [launch codename "Lombart", project codename "Suggest”] In this change we’re rewriting partial queries on the fly to retrieve more potential matching predictions for the user query. We use synonyms and other features to get the best overall match. Rewritten prefixes can include term re-orderings, term additions, term removals and more.
Expanded sitelinks on mobile. We’ve launched our expanded sitelinks feature for mobile browsers, providing better organization and presentation of sitelinks in search results.
More accurate short answers. [project codename “Porky Pig”] We’ve updated the sources behind our short answers feature to rely on data from Freebase. This improves accuracy and makes it easier to fix bugs.
Migration of video advanced search backends. We’ve migrated some backends used in video advanced search to our main search infrastructure.
+1 button in search for more countries and domains. This month we’ve internationalized the +1 button on the search results page to additional languages and domains. The +1 button in search makes it easy to share recommendations with the world right from your search results. As we said in our initial blog post, the beauty of +1’s is their relevance—you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you), at the right time (when you are actually looking for information about that topic) and in the right format (your search results).
Local result UI refresh on tablet. We’ve updated the user interface of local results on tablets to make them more compact and easier to scan.

And here are a few other changes we’ve blogged about since last time:

Flights to worldwide destinations
Redesigned Search App for Windows 7.5 phones
SSL search around the globe
“Recent” feature on mobile
Full-page themes in iGoogle
March Madness NCAA search feature
3D graphing calculator

Posted by Johanna Wright, Director of Product Management

Inside Search

Filed Under: YouTube Tagged With: changes, highlights, March, quality, Search

Did Google’s Search Results Get Better Or Worse?

April 26, 2012 By seoconsultantlondon.org.uk Leave a Comment

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Google’s latest search algorithm change designed to fight spam and improve its search results went live yesterday. Plenty of people are seeing its impact already. Better or worse? It’s easy to find some examples of things being bad; it’s hard to say overall if there’s been a…

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.