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Google Map Maker Maps Now Available in 27 Languages and Via Maps API
Google Map Maker allows people around the world to create maps in their own language. The tool is now available in 27 different languages.
Also, Google is making those maps available to their Maps API. As a result, web developers can add these maps to their sites. By switching a parameter in the API, developers can have their sites access the latest edition of the maps. Maps are available for 164 different countries.
Related Reading:
Google Maps Inks 5 Year Deal with Tele Atlas
Google Opens Location-Aware Application to 3rd Party Developers
Google Maps can now be integrated using HTML
Google News Offers 8 Tips on How to Make Your Site Crawlable
Online news publishers will want to take note of eight tips that Google News is offering to help them better index your site. Here they are:
- Keep the article body clean – keeping the content close to the title in the html and not breaking it up with a bunch of tags and other code will make it more likely that the correct content gets indexed
- Make sure article URLs are permanent and unique
- Take advantage of stock tickers in Sitemaps
- Check your encoding – make sure it’s consistent and uniform
- Make your article publication dates explicit
- Keep original content separate from press releases
- Format your images properly – use large images (JPEGs are crawled better) with “reasonable” aspect rations as well as descriptive captions.
- Article Titles in Google News – be sure to have the title in both the title tag and as the headline of the page
What do you think of these tips? Let us know in the comments.
Related Reading:
Google News Enables Cross-Language Search
Google News Gets Personal
Google News Testing Updates
Ten Top Stories from SES Chicago 2008 for Day 1
It takes a little effort to spot the ten top stories from the first day of SES Chicago 2008. That’s because some of them appear in Google News or Yahoo! News, some in Google Blog Search or Technorati, and some on YouTube. And I didn’t even try to monitor Twitter.
So, if you are trying to keep up with all the news coming out of the event, here’s my take on the top ten stories from Day 1:
Google AdWords Launches iPhone and G1 Options (Plus Mobile Marketing Tips from SES!)
Nathania Johnson of Search Engine Watch reported that Google has launched AdWords options that will be visible on the iPhone and G1. Both devices have web browsers that display full HTML. And since around 95% of all mobile searches are conducted on the iPhone (according to today’s Mobile Search panel at SES Chicago), today’s announcement opens up a brand new opportunity for search engine marketers.
Larry Cornett Yahoo! Universal Search
Dr. Larry Cornett, VP of Consumer Products for Yahoo! Search, spoke on the Universal & Blended Search session. He gave an overview about universal/blended search results across the major search engines: Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google. He also shared a some new search user research about universal search results with Byron Gordon of SEO-PR.
SES Chicago: Igniting Viral Campaigns
John W Ellis of the Web Analytics World Blog wrote, “My favorite session from Day 1 of SES Chicago was Igniting Viral Campaigns.”
SES Chicago Highlights: Search Industry Update
The Search Engine Strategies session “Search Industry Update” was an informative session especially if you need to convince those holding on to the marketing purse strings on how big the effort needs to be.
Legal Considerations for Video SEO – Interview with IP Attorney Mark Rosenberg
Grant Crowell of ReelSEO interviewed Mark Rosenberg, and intellectual property attorney and Search Engine Strategies Chicago conference speaker, who shared the important legal issues that both companies and Video SEO professionals needto consider, especially before they even get started with making and promoting video content online.
SES Chicago Winds of Change
Lee Odden of the Online Marketing Blog, writes, “Today kicks off another Search Engine Strategies conference, this time in the windy and bleeping cold city of Chicago. Change has been in the air for SES.”
Live Blogging Day 1 at SES Chicago
Jeff Woelker is attending SES and will be live blogging the conference.
Nixed Presentation for SES Chicago Mobile Search Battle Update
Bryson Meunier of the Natural Search & Mobile SEO Blog writes, “For the Mobile Search Battle Update panel, we have elected to present in a more panel-based format since there will only be three speakers.”
WebProNews Heads to Chicago for SES!
WebProNews is covering the Search Engine Strategies show in Chicago. At least, they hope to cover the show this year. They write, “As of the time of this writing, it is 14 degrees in Chicago and calling for snow showers on Monday, December 8 right at the time of our departing flight. We are determined to get there though since we have lots of exciting coverage to bring you!”
Speaking at SES Chicago
Dave Naylor, more commonly known as DaveN, is speaking at two sessions at SES Chicago: SEO Tools on Tuesday and Black Hat, White Hat & the Best Kept Secrets to Search on Thursday. Writes Dave, “I’m making it a flying visit. Arriving on Monday afternoon and flying back out on Thursday evening, so that I can be back in the office for Friday afternoon if I manage to get some sleep on the flight back.”
Google AdWords Launches iPhone and G1 Options (Plus Mobile Marketing Tips from SES!)
Want to bid on mobile searches via AdWords? Well, now you can. Today, Google launched AdWords options that will be visible on the iPhone and G1. We first learned Google was preparing iPhone ad options this past October.
Both devices have web browsers that display full HTML. And since around 95% of all mobile searches are conducted on the iPhone (according to today’s Mobile Search panel at SES Chicago), today’s announcement opens up a brand new opportunity for you.
Here are some other mobile marketing tips and facts you need to know:
- Do keyword research specifically for mobile searches. Using search suggest on Google search iPhone app is one way to do it.
- Mobile searches are longer than desktop/laptop searches. Some of this may be attributed to voice search.
- Mobile searchers are motivated and they want to fill an immediate need/want (food, coffee, etc). Look for this to shift to include bigger purchases (TVs) as mobile becomes more familiar in the coming years.
- Track behavior/ROI via mobile coupons and redemption codes
- Tracking via 2D and RFID is popular in mobile-friendly Japan and is likely the future of mobile commerce in the U.S. (we have 2D barcodes on our badges at SES!)
- Mobile apps – don’t build them unless you have a unique idea (like Shazam, UrbanSpoon, etc.). Instead, get listed in the mobile search apps (i.e. Yellowbook’s G1 app).
- If you have a separate mobile site, watch out for duplicate content.
- If you don’t have a mobile site, don’t build a separate site, say on .mobi. Instead, build one on a subdirectory or subfolder on your existing site. Make sure the user experience matches mobile browsing.
- Kill Flash on your sites. It doesn’t work on mobile devices and is not likely to. Even if it did, it would take too long to load.
- Don’t worry about WAP. WAP is dead or at least will be soon
Let us know when you’ve tried out Google’s iPhone/G1 AdWords options. Report your findings (at least, what you can) in the comments!
Google Checkout Shopping Cart Allows Purchase of Multiple Items
If you’ve used the Google Checkout Buy Now button, you know that it’s a bit limiting – only allowing customers to purchase one item at a time. Google Checkout’s new shopping cart allows your customers to purchase multiple items at once.
To get started, go to the Tools tab in the Google Checkout Merchant Center. Enter your product info, price and image location. An HTML script will be generated for you. Copy and paste the code onto your product pages. Test the button to make sure it’s working and you’re good to go.
For more advanced options, check out (no pun intended) the developer guide.
Related Reading:
Yahoo and PayPal Join To Challenge Google Checkout
Google Checkout: Check Out of Commercial E-Mail
Google Checkout to Integrate with AdWords
Google Translate Adds Widget, Notranslate Code Snippets
Google Translate has released a few updates to help you translate, or not, your pages for your site visitors.
First up is a widget that you can place on your site to offer visitors translation via Google Translate. It’s very Google branded, so that may deter some, but here’s what it looks like:
Secondly, there are code snippets available if you do NOT want Google to be able to translate your page or certain parts of a page.
class=notranslate is available for any html element. Here’s an example:
For an entire page, use meta tags like this:
Available languages include:
- Arabic
- Bulgarian
- Catalan
- Chinese
- Croatian
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- Filipino
- Finnish
- French
- German
- Greek
- Hebrew
- Hindi
- Indonesian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Latvian
- Lithuanian
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portuguese
- Romanian
- Russian
- Serbian
- Slovak
- Slovenian
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Ukrainian
- Vietnamese
Related Reading:
Google Translate Adds 11 Languages
Google Translate Goes Live with Human Translators
Google Webmaster Central Updates Include API Settings and Crawl Error Sources
AdWords Version Editor 6.5 Released
The new AdWords Editor Version 6.5 has been released and it includes the following updates:
- A new Keyword Opportunities tool
- Horizontal scrolling in the data view
- Auto-sizing columns
- The column chooser stays open until you click away or hit the Escape key
- A calendar added to date picker
- Improved HTML export
Existing AdWords Editor users will be prompted to upgrade, while new users will automatically get the new version.
Have you tried version 6.5? Any new features stand out to you? Let us know in the comments.
Related Reading:
Google AdWords Releases New Editor Guide
AdWords Editor Update Launches Performance Statistics Download
Conversion Optimizer Now Supported by Adwords Editor and API
Google Launches Adwords Editor 6.0
Google OS Arrives, In the Form of a Browser
Rumors of a “Google Operating System” have been around for a few years now, fueled by Google’s expansion into e-mail, analytics, desktop search, Web applications, pizza delivery…well, maybe not that.
Today, Google has made a significant step toward becoming a Web-based operating system by launching a beta version of the open-source Google Chrome browser, which has been optimized to run Web applications rather than simply rendering HTML on a page.
“All of us at Google spend much of our time working inside a browser. We search, chat, email and collaborate in a browser. And in our spare time, we shop, bank, read news and keep in touch with friends — all using a browser. Because we spend so much time online, we began seriously thinking about what kind of browser could exist if we started from scratch and built on the best elements out there. We realized that the web had evolved from mainly simple text pages to rich, interactive applications and that we needed to completely rethink the browser. What we really needed was not just a browser, but also a modern platform for web pages and applications, and that’s what we set out to build.”
Chrome’s main features include a beefed-up Javascript engine (aka V8), which will improve performance of AJAX apps like Gmail and Google Docs. It also offers better memory allocation, and an architecture that keeps apps running in separate windows as isolated processes — so a crashed app won’t bring down the browser, and security is markedly improved.
The browser includes its own URL box, which Google is calling the “Omnibox.” It incorporates features from Google Suggest, browser history and search history.
As with the Google Toolbar before it, Chrome will also present an opportunity for Google to collect more user behavioral data. On the plus side, that could help Google develop better Web analytics applications. More cynically, Google can also take this mountain of user data and use it to better monetize its ad platforms.
While this move can be seen as a challenge to Microsoft on the browser front, it’s more of a threat to Microsoft’s Windows operating system. By developing its own open-source browser, Google is able to establish de-facto standards for Web applications.
Combined with Google Gears coming at Web applications from the developer side, and there’s not much use for a desktop operating system any more.
AdWords Report Center Will Remove Older Reports September 2
Google AdWords will remove older reports from its Report Center beginning September 2. Reports that are 6 months old or older, or before March 2, 2008, will be removed.
The data will not be removed, just the reports.
Until September 2, you can export these reports to Google Spreadsheets or .CSV files, Excel, HTML or another format.
Expect the purging of 6 month old or older reports to happen periodically going forward.
via Inside AdWords
Google Indexes Flash Web Sites
If you have been focusing on SEO for quite some time now, you would know that most experts emphasize the need to work on your HTML content rather than Flash content. This is because Google and other search engines are unable to index content of the former kind. Well, that is until now.
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