Custom Search platform now available in more languages

Since the launch of Custom search engine, Custom Search administration console was only available in English. Google has recently announced that Custom Search platform now supports 40 languages in close to 80 countries worldwide.

Custom Search is available as a free, ads-supported version. Webmasters can use CSE to create tailored search experiences on community web sites; businesses can add hosted site search to their web sites; users can add search to their blogs and web pages; and developers can build search right into their applications with the Custom Search APIs.

Custom search engine doesn't require any software to install. CSE can be easily built and customized according to the look and feel of your web site. With Custom Search Business Edition (CSBE). Further customization of search results is possible using an XML API, and ads are optional. CSBE offers options for email and phone support also.

More Information available at: http://googlecustomsearch.blogspot.com/2007/11/posted-by-matt-wytock-software-engineer.html

Google Checkout's new "Tools" tab

Google checkout has recently lunched a new tab to improve the Checkout experience for their merchants. The new tab is "Tools" tab. This tab has been introduced to alleviate some of the congestion under settings tab.

This tab will include:

• Buy Now Buttons
• Email Invoices
• Coupons
• Integration Console

More Information available at: http://googlecheckout.blogspot.com/2007/11/introducing-tools-tab.html

Changes in Text ads format

Google has changed text ads to help reduce accidental clicks. Earlier, users could click on both the background and full text of an ad, but now they can click only on the title and URL of a text ad. This will help in decreasing accidental clicks, better aligning visitor behavior with their intent.

This new click able format better aligns with the text ads. The main focus is to have a more consistent user experience & to benefit advertisers so that advertisers only pay for meaningful clicks. By reducing accidental clicks, Google hope to increase advertiser campaign value and satisfaction, encouraging additional spend and facilitating higher monetization for all publishers.

More information available at: http://adsense.blogspot.com/2007/11/accidental-clicks-fade-into-background.html

Google Checkout badge on the AdWords ads

Google is now displaying Google checkout badges on the AdWords ads of non-profit organizations who use Checkout.

They have added the Checkout badge to non-profits' AdWords ads to help connect donors and non-profits more easily, and ultimately make donating to them as fast, simple, and secure as possible.

More information available at: http://googlecheckout.blogspot.com/2007/11/google-checkout-badges-on-non-profits.html

Live Search Webmaster Center Blog is Live now

Microsoft has announced that they have created Live Search Webmaster Center blog to help keep webmasters informed on progress as they develop tools to assist webmasters. They will also be sharing from time to time on how to keep your site performing well.

They want to use this blog as a two way communication between Live Search and the webmaster community as SEO’s and webmasters need this kind of information and the tools they are building to keep their sites performing well

You can Sign up for webmaster Central at http://webmaster.live.com/.

Can you cancel your orders on Google Checkout?

Yes, now you can cancel your orders on Google Checkout.

Suppose you have entered a wrong shipping address or you want a different product or you have seconds thoughts about the product which you have just ordered, then with Google Checkout you can quickly and easily cancel your order. You have to navigate to the Order Receipt and click the "Cancel" button at the top of the page. This button will be available for up to 15 minutes after placing orders on most Checkout merchant websites. If the "Cancel" button doesn't appear then you'll need to contact sellers directly.

Sellers will now be able to see in their inboxes which orders are within the 15-minute cancellation window and which orders have been canceled by buyers.

More information available at: http://googlecheckout.blogspot.com/2007/11/now-you-can-cancel-that-order-when-you.html

Live Search's link domain command is back

Live search's link command is now working. Microsoft pulled this command earlier this year but now its working fine.

There is one important change to the command. You have to precede both the link: and the linkdomain: commands with a plus sign. For example a linkdomain command is now +linkdomain:www.microsoft.com and a standard link command is now +link:www.microsoft.com.

More information available at: http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2007/10/16/livecom-link-commands-are-back/

Upload multiple videos to Youtube

If you want to upload multiple videos, then you can use YouTube Uploader. YouTube Uploader is a small piece of software lets you upload multiple videos to YouTube without having to use the standard upload form; each video can be up to 10 minutes in length and up to 1GB in size.

This software is right now only available for Windows PCs. You can download the software from installer webpage. Click the "Install Windows Uploader" button to download and then run the installation program to get started. These videos will be available in My Videos after they have finished processing.

More information available at: http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=exPJxpwQNfQ

Search in Google reader

Google reader recently announced search in Google reader, that lets you search for keywords to find items in your subscription. If you subscribe to someone's shared items, it'll search those too.

Along with this, now you can now also hide the side navigation by clicking on the separator to its right. Unread counts now go to 1,000 and you can also use the forward and back buttons to move between folders and subscriptions like any other web page.

These are some handy features which were brought by Ben and Chris's tireless engineering work and Jenna's relentless iteration on user interface concepts.

Updates to Google Adwords Site targeting

Google Adwords blog has announced two changes to site targeting in Google's content network.

First, because site targeting now offers more precise targeting options, we've given it a more appropriate name: placement targeting. Second, they are introducing a new cost-per-click bidding option so advertisers can now pay per click or per impression.

Introducing placement targeting

With features like targeting by demographics and richer ad formats such as click-to-play video ads. Now, advertisers can target not only websites but also precise subsections of sites, such as the football pages of a news site, the show times section of a movie site, and even a specific ad unit (a block of Google ads) on a particular webpage. Because of these features, Google has changed the name from site targeting to placement targeting. The term "placement" can be used to refer to any site or subsection of a site that advertisers choose to target.

Cost-per-click bidding for placement targeting

With the launch of cost-per-click (CPC) bidding, advertisers can now choose the bidding option that best matches their needs. If the purpose of your placement-targeted campaign is to increase sales, leads, sign-ups, or other conversion-oriented metrics, you can select CPC bidding and pay when users click on your ads. If you want to maximize impressions and increase brand awareness among your target audience, you can select cost-per-impression (CPM) bidding. And you can specify either the maximum price or the average price (with preferred bidding), that you'd like to pay for each click or 1000 impressions.

More information available at: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/11/two-updates-to-site-targeting.html

AdSense Integrated with FeedBurner Site Ads

Now AdSense content ads can be displayed on your blog and/or website. This is a new integrated capability designed for feedburner content. If this service is activated then you can display a 300x250 or 468x60 text or image AdSense ad on your blog. The ad will appear below the first item on your site and archive pages once you have installed the necessary code. Ad content is automatically targeted to complement your site and you will earn revenue each time visitor’s click on ads. These ads can be customized according to the look and feel of your website or blog.

These ads will be subject to AdSense terms and conditions. You don't have to be part of FeedBurner's ad network to put these ads on your site.

To activate the service, sign in to your FeedBurner account, select your feed and go to the Monetize tab where you can connect this service to your AdSense account.

More information available at: http://blogs.feedburner.com/feedburner/archives/2007/10/adsense_integrated_with_feedbu_1.php

Google docs now available in 13 more languages

Google Docs has been launched in 13 more languages, making it now available in 37 languages.

Languages in which people can access Google Docs are:

• Bulgarian
• Catalan
• Croatian
• Filipino
• Greek
• Hindi
• Latvian
• Lithuanian
• Portuguese (Portugal)
• Romanian
• Serbian
• Slovak
• Slovenian.
• Danish
• Czech
• Finnish
• Hungarian
• Indonesian
• Norwegian
• Swedish
• Thai
• Ukrainian
• Vietnamese
• Chinese (Simplified)
• Chinese (Traditional)
• Dutch
• English (UK)
• English (US)
• French
• German
• Italian
• Korean
• Polish
• Portuguese (Brazil)
• Russian
• Spanish
• Turkish

Google Analytics new feature – Site Search

Google analytics accounts have access to a new feature i.e. site search.

With the help of Google analytics site search feature, people can see how people search their site once they are already on it. Alden DeSoto of Google Analytics Team explained:

“This is a goldmine of information because every time visitors search, they literally tell you in their own words what they are looking for. You'll not only see their initial searches, but how they attempted to refine searches when they didn't find what they were looking for. You'll see which pages they searched from and where they ended up. And you'll see how site search correlates with conversion and e commerce activity.”

The site search reports will appear within the content section. The site search feature needs to be enabled before someone sees the reports in the navigation.

The report breakdown is as follows:

• Overview is both a summary of site search activity and a jumping-off point to discover additional site search information.
• Usage allows you to compare visits that included site search against visits that did not include site search.
• Search Terms shows you what people search for and how they attempt to refine unsuccessful searches.
• Start Pages and Destination Pages show you where visitors begin their searches and where they end up.
• Categories show you the product groups and areas on your site that visitors search.
• Trending allows you to track individual search metrics over time. The Segments menu, available in most reports, allows you to cross segment any group of searchers

More information available at: http://analytics.blogspot.com/2007/11/site-search-now-available.html

Yahoo search tips

Yahoo blog has posted some good time saving yahoo search tips for day to day searching.

1. To get more focused search use the following
1. Words within square brackets -- adding square brackets to your search makes the keyword match order dependent. So typing in '[Jack Black]' will return results such as 'jack with black' but not 'black jack.'
2. "inurl" -- if you want to be sure that a specific term will appear in the site's URL, use the "inurl:[query]" operator. For example: 'inurl:iPod.'
3. Site restriction -- to restrict your search to pages within a specific domain, use the "site:[domain]" operator, followed by your query. For instance: 'Site:Apple.com iPod.'
4. "orginurlextension" -- to search on specific file types, add 'originurlextension:[file format]' after your search query. For example: 'nanotechnology originurlextension:swf' OR 'nanotechnology originurlextension:pdf.'
2. If you want to track your package from yahoo, you can use the following method:

1. For UPS, type in your tracking number: '1z9999999999999999'
2. For FedEx or the U.S. Postal Service, add the name before the tracking number. Hypothetically: 'FedEx 999777333222' or 'USPS 03062400000176550683.'
2. You can search for definition of a term by adding "define" or "definition" to your search term and if you want to search for a synonym, add synonym to your search term.
3. To save time you can include following operators:

1. For excluding any terms you can use – operator. 'Simpsons -movie' returns results for "The Simpsons" TV show, books, games, etc., but not the movie.
2. You can use “OR” between two terms which will give you results of either “first term” or “second erm”
3. For exact phrase searching you can use “ “.
4. If you're looking for a Yahoo! site, simply add an exclamation point after the site name and voila! Try it out with 'Mail!,' 'News!,' 'Sports!,' or 'Finance!'
5. You can search for the airline and flight number and you'll get a shortcut to the flight's status. Try: 'American 83' or 'Lufthansa 421' for tracking flight status.
6. Traffic -- You can search for the traffic details. Example: 'traffic Los Angeles.' Click on the shortcut and you'll get a map with traffic alerts.
7. Maps -- You can search for different address on yahoo. You can also search even if you don't have the address. Add "map" before the city: 'map San Francisco.' You can also search for the zip code by itself: '20502.'
8. Yahoo open shortcuts: Yahoo! Open Shortcuts are the ultimate time-saving search feature. Add an exclamation point to the front of certain terms to instantly navigate to a URL, search a site, recall a favorite Yahoo! search, or start an application.

• '!wiki queen elizabeth' takes you directly to the Wikipedia page for Queen Elizabeth.
• '!wsf' gives you the Yahoo! Search results for "weather San Francisco."
• '!clist' takes you to Craigslist.
• '!ebay lamps' searches eBay for lamps

You can also create customized open shortcuts.

Some predefined Open shortcuts can be found at following url: http://search.yahoo.com/osc/list?ei=UTF-8&p=%21list

Increase in CPC

Google’s Chief Economist, Hal Varian has explained why CPCs tend to increase during the holiday season. He has explained this on Google Adwords blog as:

"Many advertisers track their average cost-per-click (CPC), but what really matters for the bottom line is the average cost-per-acquisition (CPA): how much you have to spend on advertising to make a sale. The third factor to watch is the conversion rate, which is defined as conversions (sales) per click.

Note that these numbers are neatly tied together by the convenient formula:

CPA = CPC/Conversion rate = (cost/click)/(conversions/click).

Clicks, cost, and conversions all go up during the holidays. As it happens, conversions increase more than clicks, so conversion rates tend to rise. This makes the clicks more valuable, so advertisers raise their bids to reach more consumers. As a result CPCs get pushed up."

More information available at:

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2007/11/clicks-conversions-and-christmas.html