E-Life

Google announced Google Instant amid a flurry across the blogshpere and social media. Interesting thing is if you start typing Google Instant into Google it doesn’t predict itself as an option. Hmmm.. Is Google Instant being modest? Here’s a quick lowdown and a video to explain what all the talk is about.

Faster Searches: By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search.

Smarter Predictions: Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.

Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before your eyes. Until now, you had to type a full search term, hit return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as you type, helping you see where you’re headed, every step of the way. -From About Google Instant

Don’t get it? Watch the video.

So often I come across websites that use the same page title for all their pages. This is usually either the fault of a lazy designer or someone that just doesn’t understand the importance of unique page titles.

Without unique titles the search engine spiders that crawl your website will have less of a chance of understanding what the page is about as well as how to distinguish it from the rest of your site. Therefor your listing in search engine results pages (SERPS)will will suffer.

In fact it’s more than just an SEO tip. When using sharing a link on many social media platforms the show the title of the page that you the link goes to. If the title has nothing to do with what’s on the page, people will not know what the page is about and will be less likely to click on your link. Another example is for pay per click advertising. If you use Google Adwords Google may penalize you because it thinks your page doesn’t match the keywords you’ve selected and as a result your bids will be artificially high.

So, Always use unique titles for each page on your website. It’s not just and SEO tip it’s a basic usability tip.

A consumer watchdog is airing a video attacking Google’s privacy policies. The video shows Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt as the ice cream man giving away ice cream to kids. After giving the kids the ice cream he tells them he is going to take all their secrets. Then he goes on to tell them secrets about their parents.

The kicker though, is the video is being shown over and over on the giant screen in Times Square in New York City!

But interestingly enough the organization is also using the Google owned service, YouTube to promote store and promote the video…

Go to insidegoogle.com for more info. And remember as cartoon character Schmidt says “If there’s anything you don’t want anyone to know, well.. you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” Muuuhaha!

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We are currently experiencing an ongoing issue with our VOIP provider Vonage, so our toll free number 888-812-1227 may not work correctly. We are using a temporary toll free number 877-406-4407. If the issue is not resolved with Vonage we will be dropping the original 888 number for the 877 listing. In the meantime please use our local numbers to contact us:
717-406-3900
215-371-2957

Last week at a Lancup a local Tweetup in Lancaster we were discussing search and a number of people commented that they noticed real-time search was not showing up in their regular search results. Well guess what, that’s because Google has given real-time search a new home. The page is www.google.com/realtime. Or go to the “Updates” link on the left side of normal search results.

There are also some cool new tools included in the new location. There is geographic filtering so you can find updates near you or if you are visiting Lancaster PA, you could search for what is happening right now in Lancaster. A conversation view has also been added, so you can follow discussions as the happen in real-time. Normally you need to click through a bunch of links to figure out what is being discussed and this can often be disjointed. With the “full conversation” function the tweets are organized from the newest to the oldest, giving a better real-time overview.

Google has also added real-time functions to Google Alerts. You can set up an alert to send you an email as soon as your topic shows up on Twitter and other microblogging services. You can also set it to email you once per day or week.

There is also a graph across the top of the results that shows you an idea of how hot a topic is. Check out the image below.

The new Realtime Search and updates via Google Alerts are now available in 40 languages around the world and the geographical filtering as well as the conversation views are available in English, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.

Google also posted a demo video for how to use the new features.

I was doing some SEO research today when I started thinking about the state of the SEO Industry. With social media becoming more popular and the merging of social media and SEO, what were people searching on when they want to bring more traffic to their site. Using Google Insights for Search I did a quick test. I compared three terms: SEO , search engine optimization, social media.

I wasn’t surprised by the climb in interest for social media. Mid 2008 is when it really started to explode. What I did find interesting is the trend between SEO and search engine optimization. Back in 2004 both terms were searched on about the same amount. However, in the end of 2004 and 2005 search engine optimization dropped off and SEO continued to climb.

The question is does this mean that more people understand that SEO means search engine optimization and therefor search for SEO or is it just that SEO is a buzz word that has really hit the mainstream. What do you think?

It’s no secret that the worlds of social media and search are becoming more and more entwined. Today companies are building up there social networking presence to create place where they can communicate with others in the industry as well as clients and potentials. While this in itself is a huge change in mentality for [...]

Blog Posts LinkedIn: New Feature for Companies Posted on August 16th, 2010 As the many social media platforms develop they copy ideas from each other with the hopes that they can entice more people to use their site. The three platforms that I like to call the “Big 3″ are Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. You [...]