Google 'the most improved brand'

Google's brand value has grown 44% in the past year

Google is the brand that has gained the most in value over the past year, according a survey of global brands.

The report from Interbrand found that Google's brand value had risen 44% in the past 12 months to $17.8bn (£8.8bn), which put it in 20th place.

Coca-Cola came top of the league for the seventh year running, despite its value falling 3%.

Nokia is the highest-ranking brand from outside the US, while American brands made up more than half of the top 100.

BEST GLOBAL BRANDS 2007 1 Coca-Cola 2 Microsoft 3 IBM 4 GE 5 Nokia 6 Toyota 7 Intel 8 McDonald's 9 Disney 10 Mercedes-Benz Source: Interbrand/Business Week

The brands are valued using sales and a consideration of how important the brand is in the sector.

In soft drinks, for example, branding is considered very important, while it is much less important to people buying garden tools.

The biggest faller was Ford, whose brand value fell 19%, putting it at number 41 in the league.

The report says that Ford's long-term decline demonstrates how an iconic brand can lose its way.

It highlights the carmaker's permanent discount policy in the US as a factor that has eroded the value of its brand.

Google's "Unavailable After" META Tag Now Live

Google's Dan Crow announced today that the unavailable_after META tag is now live and operational.

Google To Add "Unavailable After" META Tag from about two weeks ago, explains in detail more about this tag and how it can be used.

Ask.com to let users scrub search records

New AskEraser feature on Ask.com's portal will let users perform anonymous searches

Search portal Ask.com plans to make it easier for Web searchers to cover their tracks. The company is introducing a new feature to its Web portal later this year called AskEraser, which will let users perform anonymous searches.

When AskEraser is turned on, the Web site will not retain the data it typically stores during a search, said Patrick Crisp, an Ask.com spokesman. "We will allow users to select a privacy setting that says 'I do not want you to retain my data at all,'" he said.

If AskEraser is not turned on, the site will store the search query, the IP (Internet Protocol) address and some cookie information from the user, as well as the URL the user visited before coming to Ask.com, Crisp said. Search engines like Ask.com say that they retain this sort of information in order to improve their sites, but this practice has become controversial, with privacy advocates worrying that the data could be leaked or misused.

Last year, AOL researchers inadvertently disclosed data on about 650,000 of searches made on the company's Web site. New York Times reporters were able to track down one of the searchers, based on the information contained in the AOL database. Bowing to pressure, Google recently announced that it would make the data it stores about its users anonymous after 18 to 24 months.

Ask.com, which is owned by IAC/InterActiveCorp., said it plans to implement a similar policy and will no longer link searches to IP addresses after a period of 18 months. That policy will be implemented by year's end, Crisp said. "We are eliminating the possibility of someone associating those queries with the person who made them."

AskEraser will be available on the Ask.com and Ask.co.uk Web sites by the end of 2007. It will roll out to other markets next year

Google expands newspaper ad sales

Google Tuesday said it expanded its Google Print Ads test program to enable AdWords advertisers to buy ads in 225 newspapers. The print ads test originally debuted in November with a small group of about 100 advertisers and 50 newspapers. The search engine said any advertiser using AdWords can now participate and buy newspaper print ads by selecting the news outlets and placing a bid for the ad space.

See Google Results From Any Country With Firefox Extension

RedFly Marketing developed a Firefox extension that enables you to see Google search results from any country.

It is well known that Google will change the search results for a keyword phrase based on the country you are searching in. This new Firefox extension easily allows you to see the localized search results, as if you are sitting in that country. This works both with organic and sponsored search results. For more information on this tool or to download it, visit here.

Yahoo hires first NZ employee to push Panama

Yahoo will hire its first employee in New Zealand to help promote the Internet giant's fresh push into the paid-search market.

Arch-rival Google has become synonymous with searching the Internet, especially in New Zealand, and its AdWords service is believed to have about 85 per cent of the global market for paid search advertisements, which researcher Frost & Sullivan estimates will be worth US$1 billion (NZ$1.28 billion) by 2010.

Businesses pay to have advertisements and links to their websites displayed on screen when Internet users search the web by typing keywords into search engines that are relevant to what they sell.

Yahoo last week stepped its efforts to grab its share of the spoils, launching a long-awaited system – Panama – that underpins its paid search service. Businesses can now pay Yahoo to have their advertisements displayed in one or more of 16 different regions in New Zealand, whereas they previously had to pay for advertisements whenever their chosen keywords were used by any computer user in New Zealand or Australia. Breaking down paid adverts by region should reduce the cost and wastage involved in paid search advertising, especially if businesses do not offer a nationwide service.

Craig Wax, YahooSearch Marketing's regional managing director for Australia, New Zealand and India, says Panama also lets Yahoo activate keywords for customers in minutes rather than days, making it possible for businesses to use paid searches to support short-term, time-sensitive sales campaigns.

Paid search results were previously ranked in an order that was entirely dependent on how much advertisers had paid for their advertisement. Placement will now also take into account how popular an advert has proved.

Mr Wax would not say how much revenue Yahoo was earning from New Zealand advertisers prior to Panama, but it is believed to be negligible. "We expect it to grow quite a bit because we have not put a lot of focus on it up to now, because without 'geo-targeting' we did not have as strong a value proposition as we have today," Mr Wax says. "We now have a much stronger value proposition for New Zealand."

Panama can display up to 20 different advertisements for each customer and detect how popular each is, based on how many people click on each advert. It can then learn from this, displaying the more successful advertisements with greater frequency to reflect their higher "click-through" rates. "There is no question that search marketing is becoming increasingly complex and that requires a higher level of sophistication," Mr Wax says. "But at the same time, what we have done with this new system is we have built in some functionality that takes a lot of that analysis off the shoulders of the advertiser and lets the system do it.

"Larger advertisers are able to go in and set specific parameters or business goals they want to achieve around click-through rates, cost per acquisition and return on their ad spend, and then they can prioritise each of those and put in targets. "Then our system will optimise against those parameters in an automated fashion, based on the instructions they provide."

Google spokesman Rob Shilkin says Google also lets New Zealand advertisers target paid-search adverts by 16 different regions, and offers all the other features provided by Panama.

Another Googler Leaves Google

Yet another Googler leaves Google.

Pedram “Gangsta-programma” Keyani, an Orkut engineer, resigned from Google last Friday.

On Friday July 13th, 2007 I resigned from Google in search of new challenges and risks. This was a hard decision to come to and I have been seriously thinking about it for the last few months. In the end I decided (with support from my wife) that I am at the point in my career where I can make risky decisions. I am young enough that I can jump off the ledge and not worry about landing on my feet or my head because either way I have time to pick myself up and try again.

July 13th, that’s a day after Jason Shellen announced that he will be leaving Google.

I sense something.

Well, good luck.

Google cookies will 'auto delete'

Google has said that its cookies, tiny files stored on a computer when a user visits a website, will auto delete after two years.

Google's have made several privacy announcements

They will be deleted unless the user returns to a Google site within the two-year period, prompting a re-setting of the file's lifespan. The company's cookies are used to store preference data for sites, such as default language and to track searches. All search engines and most websites store cookies on a computer.

Currently, Google's are set to delete after 2039.

Peter Fleischer, Google's global privacy counsel, said in a statement: "After listening to feedback from our users and from privacy advocates, we've concluded that it would be a good thing for privacy to significantly shorten the lifetime of our cookies." He said the company had to "find a way to do so without artificially forcing users to re-enter their basic preferences at arbitrary points in time."

So if a user visits a Google website, a cookie will be stored on their computer and will auto-delete after two years. But if the user returns to a Google service, and each time the user returns, the cookie will re-set for a further two years.

Privacy campaigners
Privacy campaigners want to give users more control over what the search giant holds on to and for how long. Google has pointed out that all users can delete all or some cookies from their web browser manually at any time and control which cookies from which websites are stored on a computer. There are also tools online which can prevent the company and other firms leaving cookies on a computer.

In recent months, it has introduced several steps to reassure its users over the use of personal information.

In March the search giant said it would anonymise personal data it receives from users' web searches after 18 months. The firm previously held information about searches for an indefinite period but will now anonymise it after 18 to 24 month. None of the other leading search engines have made any statements over anonymising IP addresses or shortening cookie lifespan.

Google to Launch "Unavailable After" META Tag

Google is releasing a new META tag named "unavailable_after."

Google is coming out with a new tag called “unavailable_after” which will allow people to tell Google when a particular page will no longer be available for crawling. For instance, if you have a special offer on your site that expires on a particular date, you might want to use the unavailable_after tag to let Google know when to stop indexing it. Or perhaps you write articles that are free for a particular amount of time, but then get moved to a paid-subscription area of your site. Unavailable_after is the tag for you! Pretty neat stuff!

Yahoo.com Adds Search Suggestions

A faster way to find what you're looking for. Introducing Search Suggest on Yahoo.com.

It works like this: When you do a search on Yahoo!, you'll automatically be given suggestions based on what you have typed - as you're typing. So, not only does this limit the number of words you need to type into a query, it may also present similar queries to shorten your searching time and get to what you're looking for quicker. Search Suggest isn't new, just new to Yahoo.com. We launched this feature in the Yahoo! Toolbar in Firefox a while back and you can get it directly from the Firefox 2 search box when you select Yahoo! as your search engine.

Let's say I'm trying to keep up with our illustrious "governator" here in California. I type "arnold s" in the search box and the suggestions pop up Arnold Schwarzenegger, which saves me from trying to spell out his last name. Or, I'm watching TV and wonder what song is in the background of a commercial that just came on. Problem is that I only remember part of the company name, "journey diamond". I type it into our new search box, and "journey diamond jewelry commercial song" is suggested right away - problem solved. Of course, the assistance it provides when I attempt to find some new bicycle tires, "mavic ksyrium" just after the first few letters, "mavic k" is much appreciated. Not only does the feature eliminate my embarrassment of misspellings, it makes for a much more efficient search experience.

The nice thing about the suggestions is that they're not obtrusive, so if you already know what you're searching for, you can overlook the suggestions without them getting in your way. But, when you experience those brain dead moments like we all do, it's the type of feature that just might get things moving again. If you don't like change, you can turn it off altogether by simply selecting "disable" in the bottom right corner of the drop down menu. And, if you're having regrets, you can reinstall it by selecting "more" above the search box.

Try it out and let me know what you think in the comments.

Google Buys Security Company Postini For $625 Million

Google Inc. said on Monday it has agreed to buy Web-based security provider Postini for $625 million, expanding its package of online applications to compete with Microsoft Corp.'s Office.

Postini provides security and encryption services, protecting instant messaging, e-mail and other communications, to more than 35,000 businesses and 10 million users worldwide.

Google said the deal would enable it to provide organizations with more Web-based services similar to its Google Apps package, which includes its e-mail service Gmail, Calendar, and Talk, its messaging service. Google has been expanding its range of services from Web search and advertising to include popular software applications for businesses, such as word processing, putting it in direct competition with Microsoft's Office package of applications.

Google said its Google Apps has been adopted by more than 100,000 businesses to date. "With this transaction, we're reinforcing our commitment to delivering compelling hosted applications to businesses of all sizes," said Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt in a statement.

Google said Postini will become a wholly owned subsidiary. The deal is expected to close by the end of the third quarter.

Google Search URL Parameters Explained

Appending different parameters to the end of the Google search URL string can often extend the Google search results into something that may be more tailored for your specific search.

Joost de Valk created a Google Web search parameters cheat sheet (PDF file) that contains a comprehensive list of many of the different parameters you can add to the Google search URL.

Google Makes FeedBurner's TotalStats & MyBrand Free

In light of Google's acquisition of FeedBurner, Google has made the two fee-based FeedBurner services free: MyBrand and Stats PRO.

FeedBurner Stats PRO gives you a more details look at your feed readers. The enhanced reporting includes subscriber numbers, item clickthrough tracking, clickthrough tracking optimization, uncommon uses, podcast downloads, reach, aggregate item uses, on site statistics and much more.

The MyBrand feature allows you to control the URL your feeds. Instead of your feed URLs being under the feedburner.com domain, it would be under your domain. Stay Master Of Your Feed Domain from Danny explains the feature and its benefits in great detail.

Those who have FeedBurner PRO accounts will not be billed for June and forward. But those who do not have PRO account will need to upgrade to them, even though there is no fee. You can turn FeedBurner Stats PRO on by signing in to your account, navigating to the Analyze tab and heading to the FeedBurner Stats PRO section. Click the "Item Views" checkbox to activate these PRO features. You can turn MyBrand on by signing in to your account, click the "My Account" link in the upper left-hand corner, and then click "MyBrand".

Search Illustrated: Google's Universal Search Explained

Google recently made what Danny called "the most radical change to its search results ever, introducing a "Universal Search" system that will blend listings from its news, video, images, local and book search engines among those it gathers from crawling web pages."

Danny went on to write a massive, multi-part post explaining Universal Search and its implications for both searchers and search marketers. Today's Search Illustrated sums up Google's new approach in a simple, straightforward way:

Official: Google Acquires GrandCentral, Telephone Management Company

Google confirmed that they have acquired GrandCentral, a company that lets you keep one telephone number as you move from home to home or job to job. Google said:

We think GrandCentral's technology fits well into Google's efforts to provide services that enhance the collaborative exchange of information between our users.

We're really excited to welcome the GrandCentral team to Google.

Techcrunch started the rumors and as we felt, they were dead on.

Gary Price has a nice list of competing and related businesses, to GrandCentral's business model.

Naver, The Google Of South Korea

Crowd's wisdom helps South Korean search engine beat Google and Yahoo from the New York Times describes South Korea's most popular search engine, Naver.

Naver currently has a 77 percent share of all searches from within South Korea. Daum.net follows with 10.8 percent, Yahoo with just 4.4 percent and Google with a tiny 1.7 percent of Korean Web searches.

Why does Google fall short in South Korea? Wayne Lee, an analyst at Woori Investment and Securities, said "No matter how powerful Google's search engine may be, it doesn't have enough Korean-language data to trawl to satisfy South Korean customers."

Naver's founders realized that when searching in Korean, there was hardly anything to be found. So they set out to create the content and databases, so that when you would search in Korean, you would find quality content. Naver set up "Knowledge iN" in 2002, enabling Koreans to help each other in a type of real-time question-and-answer platform. On average, 44,000 questions are posted each day with about 110,000 returned answers.

The company is now the most profitable in South Korea and employs "27,000 workers, posted 299 billion won, or $325 million, in profit out of 573 billion won in sales last year. It has a market value of nearly 8 trillion won," says the New York Times article.

The house that helped build Google

Enlarge	By Jack Gruber, USA TODAY
Susan Wojcicki's garage in Menlo Park, Calif., served as Google's first headquarters. Now, Wojcicki is a vice president for the search giant.

The house that helped build Google from the USA Today looks back at how Susan Wojcicki's decision to let Google's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, rent out space in her garage changed her life and ours.

Wojcicki purchased her 4-bedroom home on 232 Santa Margarita Ave. for about $600,000 and rented out the garage to Page and Brin for $1,700 a month (Google later bought the house). That decision helped create the most popular search engine in the world and changes Wojcicki's future forever.

Wojcicki became Google's 18th employee and is now the vice president of product management for Google. Her sister Anne married Brin earlier this year. Google invested $3.9 million in Anne's biotech company. Dennis Troper, Susan Wojcicki's husband, is Google's operations executive. Her brother-in-law, Gregor, worked in Google's finance department and her mom, Esther Wojcicki, consulted for Google on educational issues.

Susan Wojcicki is also responsible for helping invent the idea of Google AdSense. And she is now pursuing placing Google ads in newspapers, audio, TV and magazines.

All from renting out her garage to two kids.