Benefits of Working with Google Facebook Twitter and More

"Apart from a secured future and high career growth what are the other perks you expect from your company? or lets put in other words "What are the additional benefits you can expect from your company?"

Resumebear has created an infographic of various perks being awarded by the some of the big companies from Silicon Valley.

Check it out:

Now Google +1 button coming on Display Ads

Apart from many exciting +1 feature announcement, Google has made a major announcement for adwords advertisers that +1 button will be displayed on the Google Display network.

Starting early October we will be able to see the +1 button on the display ads shown on Google display network on mobile and desktop both.

Adding up personal recommendation to the advertisement has high impact on decision making of viewers because its like someone from your network is endorsing particular product/service and thus leading to influence the opinions.

For example, take X, who sees an ad for dentist. She +1’s the ad, feeling her friends might value similar deals. Now when X’s friends and contacts are logged into Google and see the discount dentist ad on any of the millions of Google Display Network partner websites, they’ll see X’s picture across the bottom of the ad with a note saying she +1’d it.


Although Google is quite confident about the success of +1 button on display ads, but still if you are apprehensive to its success and don't want to use it, you can opt out at the campaign level in AdWords under campaign settings.

Does Flash Affect my Website Rankings?

A common scenario:

My developer has created a very beautiful website with pure flash, I am worried if its going to affect my rankings and will it have any any indexation issues?

Although Google can index flash content up to some extent still there are chances that the flash page is not going to rank high in search results.

Problem with Flash Pages

As the search engines are text based so they find it difficult to index a page which is totally flash based. Therefore if your webpage is pure flash search engine won't be able to see 95% of your webpage content.

Google has passed various official statements regarding Flash content

"Search engines are text based. This means that in order to be crawled and indexed, your content needs to be in text format. [...] Any content you embed in these files should also be available in text format or it won't be accessible to search engines. [...]

We recommend that you use rich-media technologies like Flash primarily for decorative purposes, and instead use HTML for content and navigation."

"Make sure that your site has a reasonable, seamless experience for visitors without Flash. This may involve creating HTML-only equivalents for your Flash-based content that will automatically be shown to visitors who can't view Flash."

Use of noscript tag

Google's John Mueller indicates that "One of the problems with noscript is - as others have mentioned - that it's been abused quite a bit by spammers, so search engines might treat it with some suspicion.

So if this is really important content, then I wouldn't rely on all search engines treating your noscript elements in the same way as normal, visible, static content on your pages."


Takeaways for your website:

• Avoid using much flash, use it for decorative purpose only.
• The main content of the webpage should be available as simple text.
• Use regular HTML href links for navigation. Links in the JavaScript or flash navigation menu are hard to be parsed by the search engines.
  

Internal Links Optimization for Improved Search Engine Ranking

We know about the importance of web content optimization in search engine rankings. Most people are aware about it therefore spend quality time in optimizing content, titles, meta tags and inbound links.

Internal Links Optimization is a very crucial factor in web content optimization which is often overlooked by most of us.

Importance of Internal Link Structure

Although the internal links do not get as much weight as the external links but these (internal links) are an important signal in search engine ranking algorithm.

How to Optimize Internal Linking Structure

1. Main Navigation Optimization

These are the global links available across your website therefore the best way of optimization is to start from main navigation.

• Make sure to include your keywords in the navigation links.
• Avoid Flash and javascript menu. Use standard HTML and CSS to design your website navigation.

2. Breadcrumb Optimization
Breadcrumb navigation can be utilized to link the sub-pages with the main navigation. Breadcrumbs help the users to locate their exact position on the website.

Use descriptive and keyword rich words in your breadcrumb navigation.
Like
Shoe shop > Sports shoes > Buy Cricket shoes > Adidas deals

3. Ensure that the first link on the page is the right link

Google seems to consider only the text of first link on the web page. For example if page X links with page Y using anchor text "More Information" on the top and with anchor text "Low Price Shoes" at the bottom of the page, thene there are chances that Google is likely going to consider your first anchor text and will ignore the second one (your targeted keyword).

So if you are linking more than once to another page ensure that the first link on the page contains the targeted keywords.

Google Sitelinks and Importance of Meta Description Tag

Last month google made a change in its SERP listing display by showing up extended site links. The sitelinks are displayed if Google is sure that a website is the exact match for a search query. It generally happens in case of product name or company name searches.


If you check the screenshot it can be easily realized that these pages if optimized with good meta description can be as effective as the sponsored listings shown on top of SERP.

An optimized description tag can increase the chances of more clicks on internal pages.

How to Make Sitelinks more clickable

Google uses first 30-35 charactersof meta description tag to show in the sitelink snippet. So the opportunity lies in utilizing it and optimize the meta description tag in such a way that it leads to more clicks.

• Create a unique meta description for each page of your website.
• Utilize these 30-35 characters to display the exact message, call to action.

Why my website is not showing up sitelinks?

To answer this question we have to check our website for few elements:

• Is your website using javascript and flash navigation?
• Are images used for website navigation?

If answer to these question is then you may face problems in seeing sitelinks. In order to resolve this

• Avoid javascript and flash navigation. Try to use as often as possible.
• Provide alternative text for your images. It will help Google determine your link.
• Try to avoid deeper navigation. Better a webpage is linked better chances are there for it to show up in sitelinks.

So take advantage of the sitelink feature to increase more clicks on your website.

Twitter Launches New Web Analytics Tool

Social Media monitoring is the main problem faced by digital marketers and they are always struggling to pull some relevant information without drowning in the pool of data.

Twitter Web Analytics, a new tool announced Tuesday will try to help provide some clarity to website owners who depend on twitter for content distribution. The tool will provide insights on effectiveness of their Twitter integrations.


The official twitter blog mentions that the product provides three key benefits:

• Understand how much your website content is being shared across the Twitter network
• See the amount of traffic Twitter sends to your site
• Measure the effectiveness of your Tweet Button integration

Twitter Web Analytics will be rolled out this week in closed beta testing to a small pilot group of partners, and will be made available to all website owners within the next few weeks.

Google Honors Lesbian and Gay Pride Month with Rainbow Around Search Box

June is declared as "Lesbian and Gay Pride month" in USA by The then President Bill Clinton in June 2000, and the last sunday of June is celebrated as Gay Pride Day.

Google in its initiative to honor Lesbian and Gay Pride month has added rainbow with its search box for Gay related keywords.


Google has done this in 2008, 2009 and 2010 as well.

Search by Image - New Google Image Feature

An image is worth 1000 words so why to search only for a text in Google? The concept is known as reverse image search. The concept which implies that you need not input keywords every time to find a relevant page on the web, it require you to upload an image or paste the URL of the image and the search engine will try to find out most relevant results in context of the image.

So for example if you want to search for information about Taj Mahal you need not put in keyword as a search query instead you can use image of Taj Mahal from your desktop or URL of that image. The search engine will look for where this image locate on websites on internet.

I would mention two image search engines which work on the concept of reverse image search.

Google Images:
1. Go to http://images.google.com/ and click on the Camera icon in the search pane.

2. After clicking on the camera icon you will find three options:

Copy and paste the image URL from a website and search engine will find results with reference to the image.
You can upload the image from your local machine and search engine will find results with reference to the image.
You can even drag and drop the image to carry out the search.

Check out this video for more details on Search by Image feature of Google Images:




2. TinEye claims to be the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks.

Check out the video to understand how this works.

Online Reputation Management Tool Launched by Google

Are you worried about your online reputation? Are you interested to know what others think and express about you on the web? If your answer is YES then you must be happy to know that Google has launched a new tool to manage your online reputation.

Me on the Web - An ORM tool by Google - Google has launched this tool to help you manage search results for your name. The tool Me on the Web is available on the Google Dashboard.

The tool helps you set alerts for the data which you have included in your Google Profile. So you can set alerts for your Name, E-mail ID

So what are you waiting for? Create a Google Profile and start tracking what is being mentioned about you on the web.

Whats Your Relationship Status? - Let the Relationship Bracelets Talk

You met a cutie on the bus stop and fell in love at first sight but the problem is how would you know whether he/she is married, in a relationship or single, without access to his/her profile on Facebook. Solution is to just go and ask the status...not an intelligent move. Instead why don't we wear our relationship status and make it easier for everyone. :) Buump thinks in the same interesting way.

The company suggests that these relationship status bracelets are a new social networking concept. With relationship bracelets, you can join your friends and create new ones by displaying:
- your status: (Relationship Status)
- what you are looking for (looking for status)


A pack of 5 relationship status bracelets and 5 "looking for" colorful plastic braceletsbracelets is available at a price of €9.99. You can get a pack of 5 status bracelets at €5.99

New HP Wi-Fi Mobile Mouse with 9 Months Battery Life

HP unveils a new Wi-Fi mobile mouse. Hold your horses for a while, this is not just another wireless mouse, the new HP wireless mouse uses Wi-Fi as opposed to a blue-tooth or USB connection.

Check out this promo video:



So how is it different from other wireless mouse?

With a battery life of 9 months and an operating range of 30 feet, this wi-fi mouse is a great deal.

Catch: In-spite of the a fore mentioned alluring features this device requires Windows 7 to work.

This HP wi-fi mobile mouse will be available in June for approx $50.

On-site Search: Helping your Customers to Find the Right

Many times we find that customer entered our website, browsed through various pages/product categories and drops out…What can be the possible reason for that? May be one of these:

• It was just a casual visit
• Website does not seem interesting to him
• We don’t offer those products which he was looking for
• Couldn’t find whatever he was looking for

According to the Marketing Sherpa E commerce Benchmark Report, customers who use the search box on e commerce sites convert at nearly three times the rate of general browsers.

Now isn’t it a thing to think for a moment?

On-site search option is very useful and which can lead to improved conversions but on the flip side it could be an annoying feature for visitors if not implemented correctly.

Few things which need to be considered while implementing this option on your website:

Where to Place: Generally this option is found on top right-hand corner or in top middle of website. So locate the search box where your users expect it to be. It will increase its use and in return they will spend more time on website which will lead to better conversions.

Misspelling and Case Sensitivity: If we pay attention to search trends we find that misspelling, and typing errors account for lot of search query volume, therefore the on-site search feature on your website must be compatible with misspellings, typos, synonyms and case sensitivity. Even it should consider spaces and return better results incorporating all the relevant options.

If someone searches for a particular keyword the search result should have following features:

Result Query Display: Search result page should display the original search query in the search box and in the query description. It assures the user that he has received relevant results.


Result Features: It’s advantageous to highlight the search query in the result. Also it increases more usability if you show the title and description of the each page shown in result.


Result Pages: Display 10-20 results on a page and provide links to additional pages which can be referred by the user for more related results.


Isn't it a great idea to facilitate your visitor to find what he is looking for and thus turning him up into a customer.

Ice Cream Sandwich - Android's New Flavor

If you think that this post is a recipe of sweet and delicious food item Ice Cream sandwich then you will be disappointed because Ice Cream sandwich is name of Google's latest Android operating system. According to Google it will be a single, universal operating system that runs on phones and tablets and can be termed as an follow up to the current OS Honeycomb which was tablets compatible only.

The version number will be 4.0 and can be expected to roll out in Q4 of 2011. The new version will be compatible to all type of Android devices and it will also be able to ease the OS fragmentation issue which was with the Android 3.0(Honeycomb).

The Android 4.0 will have bundle of features including face tracking and camera focus shifting based on voice recognition. It is just a tip of an iceberg we will get to know more about ice cream sandwich OS once it is launched.

Now Sort Google Images by Subject

Google has rolled out a new feature which will enable a user to sort the images by subject which will help you narrow down your search and enables to find the exact image of keyword that you want.

Earlier when we search for images in Google Images using a particular keyword we used to get certain images ranked by relevance but with the recent Google Images update now you can sort the images by subject and can get better results.

This option can be found in the left hand navigation under the More link.



Google has announced on its blog that"Sorting will be rolling out globally to nearly every domain and language over the next week. Whether you have a particular image in mind or you’re just exploring a general topic, sort by subject can help you find the image you need—even if you don’t have the exact words to describe it."

You can also check out this video to get a peek into the new Google Images sort by subject feature.

Effect of Search Listing Position on Click Through Rate

Businesses crave for being on top position in Google SERP, now Search Engine Watch has visualized the SERP results in a very intersting caterpillar infographic.

the study has proved that top google result gets 36.4% of clicks.

So its time to think about Search Engine Optimization to help your website perform well in SERP and in result a better business.

Google’s Larry Page, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg among TIME 100 List of most influential people in the world

Time has published the TIME 100 list of most influential people in the world in 2011. Google founder Larry Page and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the two most influential persons in search have made their place in the 2011 TIME 100.

The first position is honored by Wael Ghonim, former Google executive, that became one of the primary faces of the recent Egyptian revolution.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Indian cricket team captain also made is place in TIME 100 list.

Discontinuation of Yahoo! Buzz - Bye Bye Buzzing

Yahoo Buzz team announced to discontinue Yahoo Buzz from 21st April 2011. The team mentions that this step will help them focus on their core strengths and new innovations.
Introduced in 2008, Yahoo Buzz was cited as a new way for users to tell the world what they think is cool. The idea was to present a list of the most-Buzzed items (by users) on a dedicated site. Yahoo Buzz was sort of similar to Facebook Like, and Digg wherein any website/article is rated on the basis of user engagement.

Yahoo Buzz's effort could not led better results because the social arena is already captured by Facebook and Twitter and to some extent by Digg/Reddit.

Rick Liebling, director of digital strategy at Coyne PR, says Yahoo initially had a chance to make Buzz a standard, but its undoing came from its lack of innovation. “I frequently used Buzz when it was first introduced, but as other services with similar features were introduced, Yahoo Buzz never seemed to develop into something more/different,” Liebling says. “We’ve seen now that constant iteration is the key to success.”

Custom QR Codes – Make your QR Codes More Beautiful

QR Codes: Brief Introduction - A QR Code (Quick Response Code) is a two dimensional bar-code which is easily readable by dedicated QR code readers and smart-phones. These QR codes can carry plethora of information like text, URL, Telephone number, message and much more.

The QR code technology has seen a large uptake in Japan and South Korea. However, in the West there has been a far slower adoption of QR codes.

Although earlier it was used for tracking parts in vehicle manufacturing, QR codes are now used in a much broader context. With the proliferation of smart-phones it has become easy to use these codes. Users with a camera phone equipped with the QR code reader application can scan the image of the QR code to display text, contact information, or open a web page in the phone's browser.

In short QR codes are the best way to connect the offline world with the online world.

Creating Custom QR Codes – Have you thought about making these QR codes more attractive, colorful? Won’t it look more compelling if your QR code reflects your company’s color and theme?

1. Add Colors to QR Codes: It is not necessary to have your QR codes in conventional black and white pattern; you can add color of your choice in order to add branding power to your QR code.

Just consider one major point that code color must be dark with a light colored background; however the reverse is not advisable.

2. Add a Logo in your QR Code: Tweak the traditional black and white QR code and add your logo to give more branding power.

3. Make Soft Edges: You can round up some of the corners of your QR code and make it friendlier and good looking.

QR Codes are great way to connect your offline efforts with online efforts. As the QR codes have lots of marketing potential, knowledge of technology, design, and their implementation in the right way for your business, will help you to keep your brand on the cutting edge of marketing and technology.

Wordpress Servers Face Security Breach

Automattic and WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg has reported on his blog "There had a low-level (root) break-in to several of our servers, and potentially anything on those servers could have been revealed."

The company is reviewing its data logs and records to figure out the extent of the information exposed.

Matt stated that "We presume our source code was exposed and copied. While much of our code is Open Source, there are sensitive bits of our and our partners’ code. Beyond that, however, it appears information disclosed was limited."

Matt suggested users to stick to the security fundamental and also they are taking comprehensive steps to prevent an incident like this from occurring again.

Right Time Righ Approach-Increased Engagement on Your Facebook Page

Providing quality information and regular updates are also not able to increase the user engagement on your Facebook page. What's gone wrong? Your updates are for your customers/FB Users then these must be at their convenience...Are you thinking about the suitable timing of adding post to your Facebook page? Which day you need to avoid? Are you targeting your targeted audience in their business hours?

Are you pondering over these question and trying to find out suitable answers?
BuddyMedia a social media marketing firm has conducted a research on its client pages and came up with exciting findings related to all the above mentioned questions.

Best Time to Post : Post When People are Listening

The research suggested that the posts which were published outside business hours have 20% higher engagement rate as compared to the post which were published during business hours.


The research also revealed that 86% of posts are published between Monday through Friday, wherein the user engagement on these posts increases on Thursday and Friday. The report revealed that engagement rates on Thursday and Friday are 18% higher than other days of the week.



However these results differ from industry to industry.

The research covered various industries and findings are as follows:

Entertainment Industry
For entertainment industry Friday through Sunday have high engagement rates. So take advantage of Weekend and post content in order to attract more audience and increase the engagement rate.

Media Industry
Except Monday all other weekdays are fairing well with better performance on Weekends. Beware of Monday Blues!

Retail Industry
In retail industry the fan engagement increases heavily on Sunday. Fan engagement on Friday and Saturday is significantly below average.

Automotive Industry
Engagement rates spike significantly for posts made on Sunday.

Business and Finance Industry
The engagement increase in midweek. The trend increase from Wednesday to Thursday and drops sharply on Weekends.

Fashion Industry
Despite of the fact that brands are active on Friday and weekends, user engagement shows a significant increase on Thursday.

Food and Beverage Industry
Among all the aforesaid industries, Food and Beverage Industry is very active on weekends but interestingly the user engagement rates peaked on Tuesday and Wednesday and again on Saturday.

Healthcare and Beauty Industry
Engagement rates increased on Thursday, therefore its advisable for them to concentrate on posting content on Thursday.

Sports Industry
Sports industry needs to concentrate on Sunday in order to gain most from the increased user engagement.

Travel and Hospitality Industry
The weekends and Wednesday has seen lowest user engagement rates but higher engagement on Thursday and Friday.

Although the engagement rate and level differ by industry, brands need to keep things simple and in line with their fans' needs.

Yahoo Search Clues - Compare Trending Information for Search Terms with Visualization

In November 2010 Yahoo launched Yahoo Clues which helped the users to discover and compare trending information for search terms.

I tried my hand on this tool and found it amazing in terms of results being displayed. Yahoo Clues shows trending information in variety of forms and visualization, which helps to comprehend the data more easily and interestingly.

The following categories of information are available in Yahoo! Clues:

•Searches Over Time – This chart provides search volume trends over time, and corresponds to the Time filter selection under the "Find Trends" box.


• By Demographic – This section provides a demographic breakdown of Age, Gender, or a combined Both view (default) for your search term.


• By Income – This section provides a breakdown of income distribution for your search term.
o Yahoo! Clues calculates this category using anonymous aggregated zip code information from Yahoo! Search matched against per capita income data from the US Census Bureau.



• By Location – This map shows where the greatest concentrations of searches originated. Currently, only Yahoo! Search information originating from the United States is available.



• Search Flow – This section provides a list of the most probable previous and next user searches from an analysis of aggregated search patterns across Yahoo! Search. The top item under "Previous Queries" represents the most probable search term people tried before your search term. Similarly, the top item under "Next Queries" represents the most probable search term people tried after your search term.



• Related Searches – This section provides a list of the most common related search terms across Yahoo! Search and is not limited to the user search patterns displayed in "Search Flow". Click the links to update the information displayed in the Yahoo! Clues information cards.

So check out Yahoo Search Clue and enjoy its exciting features.

Music One Box - Google Says Bye-Bye to Music Search

In a recent update Google has announced to take off its Music Search One Box feature. The Music Search feature was introduced in 2009 to give a new user experience to music freaks.

Background of Music Search One Box Feature:
In order to give a better user experience Google launched this feature which enabled the users to enjoy the music direct from SERP. So when a user searched for the name of artist, album or song, Google music search used to display a set of four songs that are chosen algorithmically by the partner music site, not by Google.

Google Music One Box Now and Then:


Although Google suggest that this feature is not completely dead...Lets hope it will come back again with more features.


*Image Credit: Search Engine Land

Google Celebrates 200th Brith Anniversary of Robert Bunsen

If you have observed the Google logo today it shows a very interesting image of chemistry lab instruments with bunsen burner.



The Google doodle is dedicated to a German chemist Robert Wilhelm Eberhard Bunsen (31 March 1811 – 16 August 1899) who investigated emission spectra of heated elements, and discovered caesium (in 1860) and rubidium (in 1861) with Gustav Kirchoff.

In order to perform a research area called spectrum analysis, Bunsen and his laboratory assistant, Peter Desaga, had perfected a special gas burner by 1855, influenced by earlier models. The newer design of Bunsen and Desaga, which provided a very hot and clean flame, is now called simply the "Bunsen Burner".

Its a very interesting fact that although he is popular for Bunsen burner he has not invented this instrument.

Education Sector Marketing Emails have High Open Rates In India

India's leading Email marketing software company Juvlon has released a report email marketing trends in India named as "Email Trends in India". The analysis is made on the basis of over 15 million business-to-consumer emails sent through Juvlon by large, medium and small enterprises within a period ranging from October 2010 to December 2010. The report measures various metrics and highlights prevailing trends in Indian online market arena.

The report reveals that Education sector stands at top with a 14.74% open-rate, whereas sectors like Retail has an email open rate of 12.93% and Finance performed lower with 11.92% opens. Email open rate is the percentage of emails opened as against those sent.

Industry Email Open Rate:














Education Industry Email Bounce,Open,Click Rate:














Retail Industry Email Bounce,Open,Click Rate:














Finance Industry Email Bounce,Open,Click Rate














Definitions
Bounce Rate = Total Bounced / Total List
Sent Emails = Total List – Total Bounced
Total Open Rate = Total Opens / Sent
Unique Open Rate = Unique Opens / Sent
Click to Open Rate = Total Clicks / Unique Opens

This report shows that the finance industry has delivered lower (nearly half) click-to-open rates compared to that of retail and education, although, the average open rate for finance is comparable to the others.

If we compare this report with the data released by Email Experience Council for North America for the same quarter, it’s pretty obvious that there is tremendous scope to improve Indian benchmarks in email marketing and a huge scope for growth.

HTC Incredible S – Android Based Smartphone Launched in India

Taiwanese mobile manufacturer HTC has launched an android based smartphone Incredible S for in Indian market. Featuring a large 4-inch Super LCD screen, HTC Incredible S runs on Android 2.2 Froyo platform and is upgradable to Android 2.3 Gingerbread.

Detailed Specifications:

Platform - Android with HTC Sense (Android OS, v2.2 (Froyo), upgradable to v2.4)

CPU Speed - 1 Ghz

Camera - 8 megapixel color camera with auto focus and dual LED flash - 720p HD video recording - 1.3 megapixel front camera

Battery type: Rechargeable Lithium-ion battery, capacity: 1450 mAh

WCDMA: Talktime - Up to 380 minutes, Standby Time - Up to 370 hours

GSM: Talktime - Up to 580 minutes, Standby time - Up to 290 hours

Internet

3G:Up to 14.4 Mbps download speed, Up to 5.76 Mbps upload speed

GPRS: Up to 114 kbps downloading

EDGE:Up to 560 kbps downloading

Wi-Fi: IEEE 802.11b/g/n

The phone comes with built-in DLNA technology which is used to share videos, pictures and music with other DLNA capable devices. HTC Incredible S is priced at Rs 28,900.

For more details you can visit official HTC website.

Real Time Conversation Targeted Ads - Forthcoming Ad Feature in Facebook

We know about Google Adsense which displays add relevant to the content around it and quite familiar with Facebook ads. Facebook is rolling out a new ad feature which will enable advertisers to show up there ad relevant to the content.

It is sort of similar to Google Adsense but with added feature - the ads will be targeted to real time conversations. These have to be afterall its social networking conglomerate.

Facebook started to mine real-time conversations to target ads. The delivery model is being tested by only 1% of Facebook users worldwide.

So with this feature the ads will be served immediately after a status is posted, getting the brand in front of the user much faster, hopefully during decision-making time.

For example if I posted my interest in computer games then I could be immediately added to the group of people who are interested in computer games. Then, ads for computer games could immediately appear in the sidebar, related to my current mindset.

This real-time test could make a huge difference in how Facebook ads perform, as well as how they are perceived by users.

Yahoo Search Direct introduced New Alphabets

Do you remember your kindergarten days when teacher makes you learn A for Apple, B for Boy :) ...Gone are those days now!

Recently Yahoo launched "Search Direct" which gives entirely different meaning to these alphabets. 21 out of 26 alphabets show only Yahoo products in suggestion.



Curious searchers had conducted the same test on Google Instant for single letter when it was launched and it had shown only Google pointed only to G for Gmail.

If Search Direct were to be based on search activity — “F” should probably lead to Facebook, which has been the number one search term for any letter for a couple years running.

We can conclude that there is long way ahead for Yahoo Search Direct in terms of improvement and showing better results.

Yahoo "Search Direct" Ready to Compete with Google Instant

Yahoo introduced "Search Direct" to compete with Google's search feature "Instant". Although it is sort of similar to instant but with richer content.
Yahoo CTO Blake Irving mentioned that Yahoo Search Direct is much faster with rich results in expanded query box.

Yahoo suggests that the Search Direct is answer to the question "Why can’t a search engine just give me the answer, not links?"

As opposed to results shown up in Google Instant, the Yahoo Search Direct results seem to be interactive.

Google Instant Result

Yahoo Search Direct Result

Although Yahoo Search Direct weather results results appear glossy and more attractive compared to Google Instant weather results, but does Yahoo pass various other acid tests successfully. You can check out Danny Sullivan's post Head-to-Head: Yahoo Search Direct Vs. Google Instant in which he has done a comparative analysis among both and in most of the tests Google Instant surpassed Yahoo Search Direct.

Google Analytics bid Farewell to Connection Speed

In its Visitors section, Google Analytics provides details of how visitors arrived to your website. The visitor section shows plethora of options like map overlay, browser capability, visitor trending etc.

In its recent blog post Google mentioned that they are no longer offering network connection speed details and they are planning to remove this very soon.

As per the update the connection speed report will not be available in the current version of GA, however we can still be able to access historical connection speed data prior to February 25th, 2011 through the current version of Google Analytics and the Google Analytics API.

It is also mentioned that although this will not be available in the dashboard but it can be used as dimension in the custom reports.

Google Started Guessing Release Dates for You

The magic search box of Google allow you do calculation, conversions and provides best search results although you misspell the word many times; still it never stop working on improving the same. Recently it has added a new feature to its search box in which it guesses the release date of any game or movie.


Search Engine Land has a recent update on this from Google:

A Google spokesperson tells us this feature is not limited to movies and video games (or any other type of query), but “we won’t show the feature unless we have enough high quality sites corroborating the answer.” It uses Google Squared technology.

New Lenovo Classmate PC Computer for Students

To help the students adapt to the advance technology and to help them in their studies Lenovo and Intel have come up with an all new Classmate+PC Netbook. They have signed up to sell child-friendly computers to government and schools.

Lenovo is now making its Lenovo Classmate+PC and will sell them for $300 to $400, depending on configuration. The laptops have educational software on them and they’re targeted at grades K-8. Lenovo has the ability to offer the laptops on a global basis in custom configurations as needed, said Michael Schmedlen, director of worldwide education at Lenovo.

Lenovo Classmate+PC Netbook Specs

--Rugged functionality and pack a carry handle
-Running on Windows 7 OS
-Pre-installed with Intel Learning Series software
-Powered by a 1.66GHz Intel Atom N455 processor
-1GB/2GB RAM, and choice of 8GB/16GB SSD or 160GB/250GB HDD
-10.1-inch LED-backlit TFT display
-Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n connectivity
-Three USB ports, and card reader
-1.3-megapixel camera, and stereo speakers
-D-Sub connector for an external monitor
-Dimensions: 267.6 x 237.22 x 29.9 – 34.7 mm and weighs from 1.33 kg to 1.54 kg (depending on battery and storage)

These Classmate PC computers will be sold to educational institutions and governments. The company has The company has already signed a deal to ship 158,000 units to students in Argentina this spring.