Another eventful week in search has seen Microsoft deploy dirty tactics against Google, the ongoing dispute with Rupert Murdoch and Google continue, Twitter partner with LinkedIn, Bing partner with pretty much everyone going, and not forgetting the PubCon conference in Las Vegas. So it has been difficult to come up with a top 10 list of stories in search this week (in no particular order) but nonetheless I managed and here it is…
1 Google Jazz User Interface Out In The Wild
Google is testing their new Search Options feature with a new design to boot. Google is going to test it on about 1% to 3% of Google users according to Search Engine Land and these people will be selected at random. One of noticeable changes which can be seen from the screen shots are some very striking differences to the design…
2 Site Speed, Google’s Next Ranking Factor
The main thing to come out of PubCon was the announcement that Google is altering their algorithm so that site speed becomes a ranking factor. As I explored in a post earlier this week this is actually a good thing however do appreciate that site speed does not mean relevancy…
3 Bing Maps Hops The Pond: Now In The UK
Another interesting post that made it onto the list and purely for the fact that it seems like we have had to wait ages for Bing maps in the UK. Well now Bing has been fully released in the UK we can now get all the benefits that it has to offer including the trendy new Bing maps…
4 New & Interesting Insights Into Google Rankings & Spam from Pubcon
Once again SEOmoz provide a very comprehensive roundup of some of the key points to come out of PubCon. This is a definite read in case you happened to be out of the loop…
5 Pubcon 2009 Top 50 SEO Tips So Far
A much briefer list of SEO tips to come out of PubCon but still very useful and again is a must read if you want to catch up with all the talked about moments of the event…
6 Google Image Swirl: A New Way To Browse For Similar Images
I still think one of the best tools from Google is the image search and so it is always interesting when they make changes to it. This new addition which resides in Google Labs and clusters similar images based on characteristics found in both the text surrounding images so that users are able to better find an image they are looking for…
7 New site hierarchies display in search results
Another interesting change from Google is the replacement of URLs in the result snippet of some sites with a breadcrumb trail. Google is grabbing the breadcrumb from the site and so –as mentioned earlier in the week - this without question upholds the need for well structured breadcrumb navigation on your site.
8 Exclusive: Yahoo and Microsoft Poised to Finally Sign Definitive Search and Ad Agreement
It has been nearly 4 months since the announcement of the Microhoo deal and since then it has pretty much dwindled down. Well it appears that they are finally set to sign the agreement which will begin the Microsoft search revolution…
9 Help Google index your mobile site
Mobile search is without question and important area to cover and in 2010 I think more businesses need to think about marketing their sites for mobile devices. This post form Google on the how you can help Google index your mobile site is a good start. Google also follow this up with some details on how to handle your site for mobile search…
10 Badda Bing! Microsoft woos newspapers by funding their stick to beat Google
After the whole escapade with Rupert Murdoch and Google it seems that Microsoft has used this to gain some competitive advantage in the UK, According to Tech Crunch “Microsoft plans to launch an assault on Google’s flank, by cosying up to major content providers, especially newspapers, that feel hard done by Google News”…
That’s wraps things up nicely for another week…!