google

What you may have missed in social media this week: The Power of Search and Social: Google vs Twitter and the Wikipedia Blackout

Posted Fri, 20/01/2012 - 11:39 by Lucy Goetz

Well it didn’t take long for the first major development in social media of the year to unfold. The big story of social media so far in 2012 has come from the very public spat  between Google and Twitter. If  you weren’t taking Google’s latest foray into social media seriously, maybe it’s time to think again.

 It all began when Google announced in a post on  their own blog last week,  introducing their new update Search plus Your World, meaning that results from Google’s own social network, Google+, would appear more often and prominent in search results on the search engine.

“We’re transforming Google into a search engine that understands not only content, but also people and relationships. We began this transformation with Social Search, and today we’re taking another big step in this direction by introducing three new features:

Google Freshness update highlights the importance of your social media presence

Posted Mon, 21/11/2011 - 15:58 by Bryony Taylor

At the beginning of this month Google announced a new ‘freshness’ update to their algorithm. On their official blog, they described these changes like this:

If I search for [olympics], I probably want information about next summer’s upcoming Olympics, not the 1900 Summer Olympics (the only time my favorite sport, cricket, was played). Google Search uses a freshness algorithm, designed to give you the most up-to-date results, so even when I just type [olympics] without specifying 2012, I still find what I’m looking for.

This new algorithm is affecting 35% of searches.

I tested this out this morning by searching for ‘egypt tahrir square’ knowing that further clashes have occurred this weekend in Egypt. You can see from this screenshot that the top result after the news was updated 25 minutes ago. I expected the first few results to be about the protests in Tahrir square much earlier this year:

So you can see immediately how much ‘fresher’ Google results are now with this new update.

Learn how to control your browsing experience and the adverts you see online

Posted Thu, 07/07/2011 - 14:30 by Luke Beaumont

Have you ever noticed when browsing the web that certain adverts seem to follow you around?

This is because Google tracks and stores which adverts it has served to you previously via a cookie that it places on your computer.

But did you know it is possible to look and see what Google thinks you like?

All you need to do is be signed in to your Google account and visit Google Ad Preferences

From this screen can see what categories Google has added you to and which adverts it is likely to serve you.

There is also the option to opt out. This won't stop you seeing adverts, you will see exactly the same number of adverts as before, but they won’t be targeted to your likes.

We thought this an important but somewhat hidden feature within in Google and wanted to bring it to your attention, so that you can have more control over your browsing experience.

Syndicate content