If Google Ruled the World

More of these can be found at a post on 2012 Forum.

Swastika Tops Google Hot Trends

A new method for gaming Google results has emerged.

At some point on Thursday, a member of 4chan's "b" channel posted a simple two-part instruction. First, Google "卐". Second, enjoy.

This had the double effect of getting the search query into Hot Trends, and also showing a symbol instead of words. Very clever indeed.

While not having the same long-term implications of Google bombing - which depends on links and link text and can take months, the nature of this makes it almost impossible for Google to counter, unless they do it manually. There's no way Google can tell if people are searching for something due to a news item, or searching because a news item, blog or forum post told people to.

I wouldn't be surprised if this behaviour took off, and Google changed the Hot Trends to a longer-term sampling.

Anti-eBay Anonymous Submission Not Anon Enough

Not too long after attacking eBay in public, Google have done it again, hoping to be anonymous, but actually not:

...one 38 page document that is squarely opposed to the actions of eBay was filed anonymously. Unfortunately for Google, David Bromage was smart enough to look through the document’s meta data. He found that the title of the original document[pdf] was “Microsoft Word - 204481916_1_ACCC Submission by Google re eBay Public _2_.DOC”. So much for being anonymous.

Google Answers in Poland now

This unmoderated forum is only for discussing Google products, but it seems to use the same software as Google's Russian Q&A site, which means it is quite likely a trial for a global response to Yahoo Answers.

Click on the image above to see it properly. Read here for more info.

Google UK Goes Gay

Normal search results, rainbow stripe between the results and the ads. Definitely a case of "MSN Search would never come up with such an idea". Well, not first anyway.

Full story

Favicon Update

The current Google favicon is one of a set designed for the new era of mobile devices, so that it scales down better. But it won't be the last word for google.com:

"There were more than 300 possible favicons mooted to replace the 'O.G', but the one currently displaying will not be the final one", says the NZ Herald

Google's New Logo

It's a reasonable and logical assumption. Google have updated their capital G favicon to a lower case one, therefore they will be bringing us a new logo soon (either when Google news is slow, or if it is very bad) - probably like this:



I've not noticed any change in the AdWords favicon, so perhaps the everyday Google products will be lowercase, whereas the "pro" products will be upercase - but that would be foolish I reckon. More at blogoscoped.com

PC World: 10 Google Flops

This article details 10 Google flops, including Google X, Google Video Player, Google Catalog, Google Web Accelerator, Google Answers, Google Coupons, Google Voice Search, Google Viewer and more.

However, Google Answers wasn't a flop, it just didn't make enough profit for them to be bothered with it.

Google Offer Serious Art

http://www.smartcompany.com.au/Free-Articles/Trends/20080502-Googles-new-weapon-in-the-traffic-war-art.html?source=cmailer

70 of the world’s most famous artists gave provided their art to make your iGoogle page more beautiful. Note that it was Google that came up this, not Yahoo or MSN. They still lead in innovation.

Google Content Lawsuit

Most Google lawsuits are frivolous, but I'm all for this one. Almost everytime I create a new campaign in Adwords, because they do not prompt me to do so, I neglect to find and deselect the Content Network option. Consequently I check in a day or two later to see all these worthless clicks I have paid for. In my business, the content network converts so poorly, I never want to use it.

The lawsuit alleges that by not offering the option to opt-out of the Content Network, which is universally acknowledged as performing poorly relative to the Search Network, Google are being unfair.

At SEW they have a page-by-page description of the campaign creation process:

The advertiser uses the third screen to add the first set of keywords. No mention of content, but a potentially misleading line: "When people search Google for the keywords you choose here, your ad can show." A perfect place to clarify that ads can also appear on AdSense site pages.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629264

Google Offer Whois

If you are in the USA, a quick Google search consisting of the word whois and a domain name will provide you with its age, and a link to the full results at DomainTools.com - which is pretty good for that business! Proof that being the best gets lots of free link juice and occasionally a big boost from Google.

Couple Sue Google Over House Image

Yet again the courts need to decide whether "you can always ask us to remove it" is reasonable. As more and more sites and services potentially infringe on copyright and privacy, are companies and individuals expected to constantly crawl the web and look for their image/info/work being listed, and then look for a way of opting out?

I'm pretty sure that Google are legally allowed to take photos of streets and use them in Google Maps. The couple are asserting that Google "entered the driveway of the couple's private property, in order to take pictures to be uploaded on the website". If that is the fact, and can be proven, it might be an interesting case to keep an eye on.

Google April Fools Not Funny

Well, there's so many this year, one guesses they are dreamed up by individual employees, rather than professional comedians. Some are funny, like every "featured video on the YouTube homepage linking to Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up", or Google's aim to "organize all of human ignorance". Some are mediocre, like Virgin and Google planning to colonize Mars. And then there's the unfunny scratch'n'sniff books available via Google Books.

Some new Easter Eggs

Over at ZDNet is a leprechaun who follows you around in Google Maps.

And Blogoscoped has found a disturbing cross between Google's logo and "Clippy" the weird little fellow from Microsoft Office that was universally hated.