Google Testing option to block selected domains

Try this out, search for something in google, click on a result site, click the back button and come back to search.... You may be lucky to see a new option that Google is selectively testing

Block all website name here results

There is already a buzz around Google's latest Exact Match Domains (EMD) updates.

This seems to be a parallel test in progress pushed quietly :)

Online Marketing Buzz this week, latest updates

Latest buzz about SEO and internet marketing around the Globe:

Here is what is going on - online and offline as well in the arena of SEO / SEM / Internet and search marketing + promotion.
Feel free to comment and add your own news bites too :)

Search experts from around the world will be come together in London on 19 Nov 2009 to discuss latest developments in internet marketing.

The link between internet marketing and social media such as Facebook has grown by 46 per cent in the last two years, new research.

Nimbuzz makes its WAP chat application available to Virgin Mobile customers in India.

TransMedia on Wednesday plans to tweak Twitter by introducing a new micro-blogging service called Glide Engage increasing 140 character limit.

Yahoo Delicious begins letting users tweet their bookmarks on Twitter, bringing social bookmarking service a real-time relevancy it lacked.

Hoping to deal with a growing problem, Twitter has quietly introduced a feature to prevent users from posting links to malicious Web sites.

EU (The European Union) says a third of Europeans never used Internet - Reuters

Ybrant Digital acquires ad network company Max Interactive - internet marketing news

Microsoft-Yahoo Deal Makes Search Engine Strategies (SES) San Jose 2009 Must-Attend Event for Search Engine Marketers

Google's Schmidt Resigns From Apple Board - Internet Marketing Business News
An attempt to avoid the conflict of common interest and business, as assumed.

Google Woos Business Users With Billboard Ad Campaign - for the first time the internet marketing giant ' Big G' is going for the traditional way of advertising via Billboards.

26% of Twitter users in US use it to find news and stay updated: Study

Newspaper by rural Indian women wins UN literacy award - Sify news

Top Secrets of Google Datacenter : Lets See

Google Datacenter - Servers Unveiled-

See how the servers, networks and hosting systems are managed at Google's data center facilities.

Google provided a look inside its data center operations at the Google Data Center Efficiency Summit held Wednesday in Mountain View, Calif. The presentations included a video tour of a Google data...



This is the place where all ( most of them) the internet search queries flow like rockets :)

Just watch out the date -- its 1st of April ...

Google SMS new for India

Google has launched it "interactive" mobile sms service in India making the first entry in the big and ever growing telecom adversting with a big brand.



With Google SMS, all you can do is :

A powerful google search for getting cricket scores, Indian Railways train schedules & ticket status, horoscopes, movie showtimes, restaurant information etc ...all through SMS on your phone.
How does it work?
All you have to do is send your search query by SMS to 9-77-33-00000 and in return you will get the optimized search results back by SMS immediately.

Works with all SMS enabled mobile devices including GSM/CDMA mobile operator networks are supported (Aircel, Airtel, BPL, BSNL, Idea, Reliance, Spice, Tata, Vodafone).

Not only in India, Google US also have similar help options for mobile visitors.

It works like this in US :

From local business listings to stock quotes, you can get the information you're looking for with Google SMS.

Simply text message your search query to 466453 ("GOOGLE" on most devices) and we'll text message back your results.

For a list of useful shortcuts and tips, text message "help" to 466453 ("GOOGLE").

Whats the hidden thing?

Apparently there are no premium charges for this service, only the cost of sending a standard SMS. Incoming messages from Google are not charged as other sms's .

Google SMS will return results using your saved location if no location is specified.

Whats there that Google was too much interested in this service? well think about the online searches data , the targetted visitors that the advertisers will get ...

For India there might be a little challenge as most advertisers still prefer the print and television to internet and mobile, but change has to come some day and this is an opportunity for Search Engine Marketers , online ad gurus to capitalize on and yes for SEO's who will target the mobile search more seriously.

There are no limitations to what Google can touch, its personal with mobile, official with sms, social service too :)

More info can be found out here Google SMS

Gmail launches new colors and themes

Gmail seems to be too fast with the updates, thanks to Google Labs.
After successful launch of the video chat ( voice enabled) functionality to Gmail, morning today greets all the gmail visitors with new colors and themes.


Yes be surprised with the new updates, all credit goes to the people behind the scene working hard on customer feedback and suggestions.

Now you can customize your email experience with Gmail in the most beautiful way of colors , themes as per your wish.

There are 30+ theme options to choose from, all of them wonderful. I expect Gmail got this idea from the Orkut theme change option , must be a tried success formula and set to apply in all Google properties.The location selection option helps in selecting the factors based on your city and country.

Google : Gmail powered with Video Chat Service , New!

Google has embedded a new feature in its Gmail interface, this is Video, yes and you are right, another blow to the popular Yahoo! messenger. + you can voice chat too

Features with the new Gmail Videochat :

* Chat more ways than ever from within Gmail
* Look and sound your best with high quality audio and video
* Get started easily -- all you need is a webcam

Here is How it works:

Installing is easy, just download the 476 Kb exe file and hit run ( enter key !!)



The interface reminds something like plugin from Skype ( an ebay entity) and some may still think why they want to install skype if they already have ?

The innovative video chat is not available on Gtalk, strange , isnt it?

Gmail voice and video chat incorporates Vidyo technology which is covered under pending U.S. and foreign patent applications.

Previously when Google has introduced the gmail with buddy lists on the left column to check and interact with friends without installing the Gtalk software, everyone including Yahoo! and rediffmail followed the leader.

Lets see if the history repeats itself.

Google Search Insights Evolution !

Lets welcome, the latest offering from Google. Yes I'm talking about the Google Search Insights, a search tool which would be of immense help in Keyword research from the search marketers point of view.

Google insights for search provide deep dive statistics for keyword searches via volumes, countries drilling to seasonal and geographic trends and not to forget its a category wise option.

Previously only Google Trends was available to get a "hint" of the keyword competition which was to get a general guessing idea, as 100% reliability was not assured, and cant be :)

Lets check the difference with both the tools :

Searching for : search engine optimization , search marketing

Google Trends gives a nice "crossing" graph, showing the trend of search engine optimization is giving up to search marketing over the years.


Search on Google Insights :
Now when the same keywords are searched for the "interest" in several years, a similar but simple graph is observed giving the output and winning to search marketing (keyword)


Drilled down to India + Maharashtra + 90 days span


Shows a wide graph, here the more you categorize and drill, you will get a deeper insight, as the name suggests and when used with commonsense, can be an effective tool in keyword analysis and research.

New Features in Gmail

Your favorite Gmail will get better and better each day.
Google Labs is adding more features to make the typing and managing of emails more interesting. Making the chatting experience more fun working with stars and pictures will definately improve the user interaction and have more people stay and do what "Google" wanted them to do.
----------------
3 Gmail Labs features that will spice up your inbox
Monday, June 16, 2008 12:09 PM
Posted by Robby Stein, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Last week we launched Gmail Labs, a way for you to test out experimental Gmail features before they're ready for prime time. This week, we want to show you what the most popular Labs features can do for your inbox. To use any Gmail Labs feature* visit the Labs tab under Settings, and select "Enable" next to each one you want to turn on. When you're finished picking features, click "Save changes" to apply the new settings. Here's a mini guide to the most popular ones:

Superstars: Adds new star designs to better differentiate important email.



After enabling Superstars, simply click on the star icon repeatedly to rotate through new star options. If you have shortcuts enabled, hitting the "s" key consecutively will do the same. There are more star designs then the ones set as default -- to select different variations, click Settings and look for the Superstars section under the General tab. Drag the icons listed as "not in use" to "in use" to make changes to your star lineup. Once enabled, you can use Superstars to help prioritize and manage emails. For example, you can add a "!" icon star on emails that have critical or timely information, such as bank information, or you can add a "✓" icon star to emails associated with a task you've completed, such as paying a bill online.

Pictures in chat: Adds your friends' photos to the chat window.



Make Gmail chat a little more personal. Now you can view a picture of your friends when you chat with them. (Tip: If your friend doesn't have a picture, you can suggest one by clicking on the placeholder picture in Contacts under your friend's name).

Quick Links: Bookmarks common Gmail views.



Quick Links allows you to create a shortcut to any bookmarkable URL in Gmail. Just click "Add Quick Link" to save a link to the page you are currently viewing. You can then jump to that page any time with one click. For example, you can add a link to a draft email where you keep your to do list, or an email with your frequent flyer information. You can also save a common Gmail search by conducting the search (let's say for "is:unread" -- which brings up all your unread mail) and then clicking "Add Quick Link."

If you have suggestions for ways we can improve any of the Labs features, or want to suggest a new one, please visit our Labs discussion forum. The engineers who built Gmail Labs features keep an eye on discussions, and your feedback will help them make the features great.

*Gmail Labs is currently only available in US and UK English and to Google Apps users whose administrators have opted in to new features from the control panel.

More info

Google Trends : New User Controls enabled

Whats the way to learn about the trends and hot buzz?
How do you know where to get any idea about where people have interest and what are they searching for?

You can get a fair idea ( cannot say its fully accurate, but can get something) at Google Trends.
Todays Hot trends are showing everything about Orissa JEE when customized for India

New addition is now you can - Export data to CSV.

Here is one more news titled "Google lets users measure the power of words " about Google Trends.


Today's Hot Trends (India)
1. orissa jee results
2. www.jeeorissa.com
3. jeeorissa
4. bput
5. ojee
6. www.orissajee.com
7. www.bput.org
8. bput.org
9. orissajeeresult
10. bput orissa

Have a look:


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Number-crunchers can rejoice as Google Inc offers deeper access to the underlying figures for users' Web searches, giving some insight into trends based on the relative popularity of various words.

The Internet search leader is expanding its existing Google Trends service to allow users to see underlying numerical data on the popularity of any particular search in Google's vast database of search terms, relative to others.

Google Trends was begun two years ago as an entertaining but limited way to indicate what the world is thinking about over time, at least in terms of Web searches.

Now Google is giving users the ability to search across terms in its database, instantly chart how they compare to other search terms, then export the underlying numerical data into a common spreadsheet format to compare with other data.

Google Trends (http://trends.google.com/) lets users compare demand for various search terms and see how popularity differs across geographic regions, cities or languages.

Source: Reuters

Search Local Movies on Google

Now Google enters the waters of Movies... well not exactly in movies (right now!!)
Users now have an option to checkout the current films & subsequently book movie tickets as per wish from the respective theatres.

http://www.google.com/movies



Google has the speciality of "Word-of-Mouth" publicity ( a viral marketing tool which does not involve any cost at all)

Search tomorrow’s web, today! Great SEO Tool

Google Australia has introduced a new feature, enabling you to search content on the internet before it is created.

About gDay™ technology

The core technology that powers gDay™ is MATE™ (Machine Automated Temporal Extrapolation).

Using MATE's™ machine learning and artificial intelligence techniques developed in Google's Sydney offices, we can construct elements of the future.

Google spiders crawl publicly available web information and our index of historic, cached web content. Using a mashup of numerous factors such as recurrence plots, fuzzy measure analysis, online betting odds and the weather forecast from the iGoogle weather gadget, we can create a sophisticated model of what the internet will look like 24 hours from now.

http://www.google.com.au/intl/en/gday/index.html

Microsoft Bids $44.6 Billion for Yahoo

Breaking news from NYTIMES,

SAN FRANCISCO — Microsoft said Friday that it has made an offer to buy Yahoo for about $44.6 billion, or $31 a share, in a mix of cash and stock.

The offer represents a 62 percent premium over Yahoo's closing stock price of $19.18 on Thursday.

If consummated, the deal would redraw the competitive landscape of the Internet consumer services business, where both Microsoft and Yahoo have struggled to compete with Google.

Microsoft said the combination of the two companies would create efficiencies that would save approximately $1 billion annually. The software giant also said that it has an integration plan to include employees of both companies and intends to offer incentives to retain Yahoo employees.

What is the www going to be , say if Microsoft buys Yahoo! ( for example), what will Google do? any threat to the search giant?

Adsense features with Mobile and YouTube

Saturday morning got some good news from Google's Adsense by newsletter.

It said exactly as:

AdSense for mobile now available

If you currently run a website designed for mobile phones, or are planning to set one up, you can now monetize your site with Google AdSense for mobile. Similar to AdSense for content, AdSense for mobile automatically serves targeted ads to your mobile webpages, enabling you to earn money while providing useful information to your users. If you'd like to learn more about the specifics of the program, check out the policies and requirements. Or to get started right away, simply sign in to your AdSense account, visit the AdSense Setup tab, and select AdSense for mobile as the product.

Announcing Video Units

We're excited to announce video units, a new way for publishers to enrich their sites with premium, relevant video content on an embedded YouTube player. We know one of your top goals is to enhance your users' experience, so video units allow you to choose which video categories to target to your site and which to exclude, as well as to customize the color scheme and layout of the YouTube player. Plus, the ads provided with the videos are highly targeted and non-intrusive. If you're looking to monetize and enrich your site with premium video content, learn more about video units or simply log in to your account to get started.

Google Holds Pay-Per-Call Advertising Option

Google's Pay per Call Ads -

Google started testing pay-per-phone-call ads, since Nov '05 . The concept is to get more leads in terms of direct interaction of client with the advertiser.This online advertising model has an edge over the popular pay-per-click ads as results come quickly reducing a intermediate step of form fill up or enquiry generation online.

According to a news from CNN,
But as for now Google has kept his Pay-per-call on hold...for the time being may be..
Google ads that aim to get buyers to pick up the phone are on hold -- at least for now.
Instead, the company is focusing on other types of ads, including ads sent to cell phone users and pay-per-action ads.
Google GOOG wants to find new sources of revenue apart from its text-based pay-per-click ads. Pay-per-click has become a big hit with advertisers because they pay only when a consumer clicks on an ad.
But Google's attempt to include phone calls in its ad service hasn't been as successful. With pay-per-call ads, an advertiser pays each time a consumer calls the company after seeing an ad posted on Google or its partner Web sites.

Full story can be found out here

Microsoft aiming Numero Uno postiion in Search Marketing

With the sharp rise in Google's online marketing sales and also the earnings starting with a simple search box, many have found it as a acceptable success measure to get revenue at a lower operating costs with the search automation and simplicity in online promotion management.
According to a news,

SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp. aims to be one of the top two players in the online advertising market in three to five years, a company executive in charge of the business said on Thursday.
The world's largest software maker currently trails Google Inc. and Yahoo Inc. in the $40 billion global online advertising market dominated by selling advertising alongside Web search links.

Read the Full story here.

Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Prepaid Edition

Do you always wanted a licenced copy of MS Office and cant just afford ?

Here is a Prepaid Option for those who want the autorized copy of the popular desktop software MS Office 2007.

A ChannelTimes news suggests:

Microsoft Office Professional 2007 Prepaid Edition has come to the domestic market. Compared to the original Office suite, this prepaid edition is price wise more affordable to home and small business users. Available as a 6-month subscription for Rs.1,499, the new prepaid model gives customers a flexible and affordable way to buy original the 2007 Microsoft Office. At the end of the 6-month period, 3-month renewable subscriptions will also be available. This is the first time in India that an office productivity suite will be available as a prepaid version.
Full story here

---------------
Curbing the piracy menace, this idea is a good attempt to lure the consumers who are ready to spend something. Not sure if people still go for the same as the time frame seems less for the incurred cost and is only suitable for those who are going to earn something out of it like home based business, small - office - home office and home users.

In other way, this may be one way to fight with Google's free Online Office services.

Microsoft India's new Windows live launch!

Microsoft India launched the next-generation of Windows Live that enables online and offline environments to blend seamlessly on Nov. 15.Windows Live is designed to enhance the online and Windows on the PC experiences with a set of tools that bring the power of the Web right to the user's PC or mobile device."Internet savvy consumers are relying more and more on the Web to communicate and share with their friends and family, but they are also becoming increasingly frustrated with difficulty to keep track of all e-mail accounts, photos, blogs, address book and other online information.

"Internet savvy consumers are relying more and more on the Web to communicate and share with their friends and family, but they are also becoming increasingly frustrated with difficulty to keep track of all e-mail accounts, photos, blogs, address book and other online information. The launch reflects great enhancements to our most popular Windows Live services – Windows Live Hotmail, Windows Live Messenger, Windows Live Spaces and Windows Live writer while adding new tools such as Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Events," Mr Jaspreet Bindra, Country Manager – Online Services Business, Microsoft India, said at a conference.

The full story is here

Microsoft new Office Live Workspace Free

Microsoft Joining the Band Wagon of Google Docs: Its online Too

Good news for Microsoft office file users: At last(?) Microsoft has decided to enter into the free online option with its MS Office on web suite.Announcing the entry of Office Live Workspace, a new Web-based feature of Microsoft Office into the arena, MS is now a challenge taker with the future on either side.
Using Office Live Workspace users may be able to store as many as 1000 documents online but DOES NOT ALLOW to create and/or edit the docs within a webpage.
The step taken by Microsoft is after careful evaluation and recognizing the threat posed by the fast expanding online environment specially in the light of Google Docs.
So Long Live Open Source !!

Google in Mobile Social Marketing Hurry

Google starts the move , this time its mobile social networking, Rather than developing from the scratch, it has bought the mobile social networking firm Zingku,a site that offers a social network for mobile users.
Zingku is a mobile social networking firm, a unique site which provides social network for mobile users specially teens and youngsters.
Google said to have acquired certain assets and technology of Zingku on Saturday. The acquisition will trigger more from rivals Microsoft and Yahoo..

Web Based Presentations Free from Google

Online Presentations for Free from Google

With European Govt. taking Microsoft on a ride for its Monopolistic mood, Google on the other hand has hit another nail this Monday..

Adding a new tool Google Presentations to its online app offerings, this completes the office group which already consists of Gmail, Docs, Spreadsheet.

The beta version of Presentations,is Google labs release and a Web-based clone of Microsoft Powerpoint.

Google has announced this back in April when some hints were given about launching a hosted version of presentation software as part of Google Docs.

This new worry for Microsoft is a Web-based competitor to PowerPoint and great news for all is its FREE.

Google Presentations Beta was showcased in TechCrunch 40.

What will be next move?
What will the Office Giant (MS) do ?