Google Weblog

Google Search Counter

Google is beta testing a search counter for frequent searchers. It tracks how many times you visit Google.com. Please send in screenshots, HTML source, cookies or other information if you have this.

posted 2003-09-30 06:30 #

Malware Hijacking Google Homepage

A lot of malware has been going around lately, some of it preventing you from visiting the actual Google website, or putting up a notice when you try to visit.

The most common reason for this is spyware or malware -- software that's included with other programs and stows away in your computer watching what you're doing, popping up ads, and doing other bad things. To get rid of it, you can install LavaSoft's Ad-Aware or Spybot Search and Destroy. Both are free.

posted 2003-09-30 06:19 #

Google Local: Spain, Sweden, Italy

If you visit a localized Google site like google.es or google.fr, you're now given three ways to search: the whole web, just pages in the common language, or pages from the country. The third option is new. (Thanks, Ronaldo.)

It other local news, Google is expanding into Spain, opening an office in Madrid, releasing a Spanish-language Google toolbar, and launching google.es. google.se is also now available, although there are reports of some problems with preferences. Google News Italia also launched recently with 250 sources.

posted 2003-09-30 06:09 #

Amazon A9: Froogle Competitor?

AP: Amazon.com invades Google's turf with Silicon Valley startup.

Seattle-based Amazon has dubbed its search startup "A9" and set up offices in Palo Alto, not far from Google's Mountain View headquarters. A9 hopes to launch in October with 30 employees and grow much larger as it develops a search engine that will be licensed to other Web sites, said spokeswoman Alison Diboll. [...] Unlike Google, A9 isn't trying to develop an all-purpose search engine that indexes billions of Web pages. Instead, the startup is focusing on a search engine sweet spot -- e-commerce.

The article is very vague so it's hard to get a handle one exactly what A9 is, but it does sound a lot like Froogle, Google's shopping search engine. (Thanks, Ahmad.)

posted 2003-09-30 06:02 #

Google File System

The Google File System [PDF], by Sanjay Ghemawat, Howard Gobioff, and Shun-Tak Leung of Google. This is a technical paper that explains Google's custom scalable cluster filesystem for storing their gigantic database of the entire Web across thousands of low-cost PCs.

First, component failures are the norm rather than the exception. The file system consists of hundreds or even thousands of storage machines built from inexpensive commodity parts and is accessed by a comparable number of client machines. The quantity and quality of the components virtually guarantee that some are not functional at any given time and some will not recover from their current failures. We have seen problems caused by application bugs, operating system bugs, human errors, and the failures of disks, memory, connectors, networking, and power supplies. Therefore, constant monitoring, error detection, fault tolerance, and automatic recovery must be integral to the system.

Probably only interesting to real geeks.

posted 2003-09-30 05:52 #

Code Jam 2003

Google, which previously sponsored the 2002 Google Programming Contest, 2003 Google US Puzzle Championship, CodeCon 2003 is now sponsoring something new:

Google Code Jam 2003

Do you have exceptional programming skills? Can you make computers perform like silicon puppets with just a few well-expressed commands? Are you at ease when faced with a hard stop and a group of peers evaluating every line of your code? Here’s your opportunity to display the grace of the true professional in a reward-rich environment.

The basic idea seems to be that you're given a bunch of programming puzzles, and asked to solve them quickly and completely, and then you can try to throw edge cases to crash your opponent's code. (Sounds like the ICFP Programming Contest.)

Code can be in Java, C++, C# or VB.NET. Winners get T-Shirts, cash, and a trip to Google. Registration opens October 1.

Frankly, I'm a little surprised VB.NET is allowed but Python isn't, considering it's widely used at Google. Probably the TopCoder system they're using doesn't support it.

posted 2003-09-26 15:19 #

Search by Location

Google Labs has released Search by Location. Enter some search terms and an address, city, or zip code and Google will return a bunch of results which contain nearby addresses and plot them on a map.

You may recall that this idea was the winner of the 2002 Google Programming Contest and submitted by Daniel Egnor.

posted 2003-09-22 17:39 #

Related Searches

Google is testing a new feature that suggests related searches (screenshot). The something different link apparently suggests a whole new batch of related searches.

Update: The screenshots appear to be forgeries. Please let me know if you've also seen this related search feature.

posted 2003-09-11 13:13 #

Froogle Redesign

Google's product search, Froogle has redesigned. New features include: sort by price, Grid View (the page becomes a grid of product images, just like Google Image Search), and a sidebar to make more advanced searching easier.

posted 2003-09-08 13:21 #

New Toolbar, Ad Sizes

Google has released Google Toolbar 2.0 which has several interesting new features including a BlogThis button, a pop-up blocker, and AutoFill. It's interesting to see that Google is providing more generic Web utilities and less Google-specific stuff. I guess now that Microsoft has announced they won't continue to update Internet Explorer, it's up to Google to provide these important features.

Meanwhile, Google AdSense has introduced two new ad sizes (available now): horizontal leaderboard (728x90) and inline rectangle (300x250).

posted 2003-08-22 15:23 #

Web Calc

Google now has a built in calculator that can tell you everything from 2+2 to speed of light in furlongs per fortnight to 2048 in binary.

I'd love to know who did this. Awesome hack!

Now what would be really cool: Google API support for this.

posted 2003-08-12 17:43 #

Google Glimpses

The Random Personal Picture Finder uses Google Images to search for digital camera photos, providing an odd glimpse into the lives of everyday people. (Thanks, jse8!)

posted 2003-08-06 19:51 #

AdSense Colors

Google AdSense now lets you pick the color scheme for your ads. "We understand that maintaining the quality of your website means having control over the way it looks. Follow the steps below to create and save up to 100 custom ad color palettes that are right for your web page."

posted 2003-08-06 19:25 #

Google Labs Introduces News Alerts

New, from Google Labs: Google News Alerts. Have Google email you when Google News finds a new story on a topic you're interested in. (FAQ)

posted 2003-08-06 15:39 #

Synonym Detection

Andy Baio has already come up with a way to figure out what synonyms Google has for a word: search for the word and synonyms minus the word.

He's got a list of interesting ones. Did you know that Beck is a synonym for loser?

(Oops, just checked my email and noticed that Henk van Ess noticed this trick first!)

posted 2003-08-04 11:59 #

Big News! New Google Operator

From Google Spokesperson, Nate Tyler:

Today, Google introduced a new advanced search feature that enables users to search not only for a particular keyword, but also for its synonyms. This is accomplished by placing a ~ character directly in front of the keyword in the search box.

For example, to search for browser help as well as browser guides and tutorials users can search for browser ~help. The ~ character was chosen because it's shorthand for approximate and a good way for users to express their wish to expand searches to include synonyms. More information about this feature is available.

This enhancement shows that Google continuies to develop new resources that enable users to refine their searches to find the information they need. I hope you find the ~ operator useful - please take a look and let me know if you have any questions.

posted 2003-08-04 09:47 #

Horrors of Targeted Ads

NYT: If You Liked the Web Page, You'll Love the Ad. "The technology is not yet foolproof. The online edition of The New York Post, which is owned by the News Corporation, ran an article last month about a murder in which the victim's body parts were packed in a suitcase, and Google served up an ad for a luggage dealer."

The Need to Know newsletter has done a series of mistakes like these in their "doh section".

posted 2003-08-04 09:27 #

Google Check

Yesterday I received a check for June's Google AdSense revenue. Thanks, Google!

posted 2003-07-29 12:24 #

Google Adds Building Phi

News.com reports that Google is adding a building phi (the golden mean) to go along with Buildings 0, 1, e, and π.

They also note that some celebrity visitors have dropped by Google: "[Gwyneth Paltrow] showed up with the members of British music sensation Coldplay, rode around on a Segway and peered into a couple of cubicles, no doubt to catch the real-life drama of someone writing an action-item memo or taking a sales call. Other visitors include former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Steve Young and former Vice President Al Gore. Even people with day jobs---such as Thomas Friedman, international affairs columnist for The New York Times--have dropped by for visit, a Google representative confirmed."

But they fail to mention that I visited recently. I've got a few photos (including some of buildings π and e) that I should put up here soon.

posted 2003-07-24 11:21 #

Advanced News Search

Google has introduced an advanced news search. Now you can search by source, source location, headline, URL, or date.

posted 2003-07-21 12:02 #

Patent Attack

News.com suggests that Yahoo! may use Overture's patent portfolio to extort money from their competitors. I guess their stategy is ``If you can't beat 'em, sue 'em.''

posted 2003-07-18 12:38 #

Deploying Google Viewer

Greg reports that some of his search results contain a "View results as slide show" link, presumably using Google viewer. Have you seen this?

posted 2003-07-17 13:28 #

Yahoo Buys Overture

Continuing the trend of search engine consolidation, Yahoo has bought Overture for $1.6B. (Stories from Google News.)

You may recall that Overture had itself bought FAST and Alta Vista. That doesn't leave many major competitors.

posted 2003-07-14 14:30 #

Google Subleases Space from SGI

Press Release: SGI Announces Real Estate Agreement. ``SGI announced today that it has agreed to sublease its Amphitheatre Technology Center campus in Mountain View, California to Google Inc.''

Google has now gone from one building to four buildings to a whole campus. Luckily for them, this new place isn't very far.

posted 2003-07-11 06:18 #

More Google News

Google News: India, Deutschland. (Thanks, Henk van Ess!)

posted 2003-07-08 19:42 #

Craig Silverstein at Supernova

Cory Doctorow has posted his impressionistic transcript of Craig Silverstein's talk about Google at the Supernova conference.

posted 2003-07-08 15:11 #

Google Ads

I'm trying an experiment: there are now AdWords ads on the left. We'll see how it works out.

posted 2003-07-08 14:31 #

Try Before You Sell

Want to see what ads AdSense thinks are relevant to your page? Just enter its URL:

URL:

For example, here are the ads Google would serve to this site.

posted 2003-06-22 14:13 #

Does Google hate itself?

So the Google Dance is on again which means PageRanks and backlinks will continue to be weird, so don't be worried if they're not what you expect.

But here's something I didn't see coming: Google used to be the top hit when you searched for search engine. In the latest update, it's number 21. Even competitor AllTheWeb ranks it number 2.

posted 2003-06-20 13:47 #

Using Google AdWords

LabourStart: Google and Online Campaigning. "Is there any other form of advertising that allows you to reach a quarter of a million people for under $100 -- people who are searching for information that you might be providing? Probably not." (Thanks, Karl!)

google.com/health: "We expect more than one billion healthcare-related search queries this year. Here's how you can benefit."
google.com/pharma:
"As a Google advertiser, you can reach these healthcare professionals whenever they're looking for information on the product or service you offer."
google.com/media: "If you need to reach customers in any facet of entertainment—music, movies, television—Google can help."
(Thanks, Andrés!)

posted 2003-06-20 13:39 #

AdSense

Google AdSense allows smaller sites to make money displaying targeted text-based Google AdWords ads.

*Update:* In a related story, Amazon.com is now running Google AdWords.

posted 2003-06-18 16:47 #

introducing MSNBOT

Looks like MSN has started crawling the Web themselves; more competition for Google?

Update: As I suspected, they have Google in their crosshairs, according to an anonymous source.

``They are trying to replicate every feature of Google in the next year, and have tie-ins with the next version of IE (including a 'search' box right on the browser toolbar that by default points at MSN Search) and in Windows Longhorn (the Search function in the shell will have an Internet option that will go to MSN by default). They made a build-vs-buy decision in the last few months (in fact they made an informal offer to purchase Google, which was refused).''

posted 2003-06-18 09:40 #

Problem Speculation

Some have noticed that things at Google are a little wonky lately. New pages haven't been added to the main index in months, the entire update for April has been thrown out, Google has deployed some new algorithms, and backlink data is weird and out-of-date. Why?

GoogleWatch has an interesting theory: When programming Google, they used standard 32-bit integers to identify pages. 32-bit integers allow you to count up to 4.2 billion, and Google is pretty close to that many pages. It's going to be tricky to upgrade all 15,000 machines to use a larger size integer at once, so maybe this is the reason Google has been having problems lately.

GoogleGuy (a Google representative) denies this, but it seems pretty clear that Google is doing some sort of upgrade or system change. Unfortunately, Google isn't telling us what it is, and GoogleGuy is only speaking in vague, cryptic terms, so we're left to speculate.

Why all the secrecy, Google? Wouldn't coming out and saying just what happened (and apologizing if something went wrong) be better than letting all these allegations swirl? Everyone makes mistakes; we can't fault Google for making one. We can, however, fault them for trying to cover it up.

posted 2003-06-12 11:07 #

We're Number One!

It has been brought to our attention that we're the first hit for "weblog" on Google. Wow!

posted 2003-06-08 09:36 #

Problems at Google Israel?

According to this article there have been repeated problems with the database for Israeli sites at Google.

(The site also says some silly stuff like "We expect an operating system to work, know what files are on its disks and show us a consistent behavior." I guess they don't consider Windows an operating system.)

Update: According to GoogleGuy the problem has been fixed.

posted 2003-06-01 15:18 #

Google Headlines in Spanish and Italian

Now when you search on google.com.mx, google.com.ar, google.cl and google.co.cr, google.it and google.ch as well as other Google sites that offer Spanish and Italian interfaces, relevant news headlines will be included at the top of your search.

For example, searching for Mexican president Vicente Fox on Google Mexico brings up three headlines.

With the recent local Google News additions, could Google News Mexico and Google News Italia be far behind?

posted 2003-05-20 09:17 #

Myths

Here's what Google representative Urs Hölzle listed as some Google non-issues at Search Engine Day:

If anyone else has a report from Search Engine Day, feel free to pass it along.

Another common myth these days seems to be "oh no! the blogs are ruining all the searches". A few years ago this was "oh no! the mailing lists are ruining all the searches". Two problems with this:

First, it's hard to make a general comment about all blogs or all mailing lists. Yes, there are many pages with less-than-useful information, but some have quite valuable information and it would be a shame to lose it.

Second, often when you get some bad results, it's because there are no good results. Removing the bad results will only leave you with worse ones, or no results. For example, a recent Times article claimed that because Google had lots of results with 9/11 conspiracy theories and none refuting them, "search engines aren't working as they should". The possibility that no one has yet spent their time debunking all the conspiracies didn't seem to cross his mind.

I'm sure we all agree that Google isn't perfect, but taking out all the blogs seems more like medieval bloodletting than a solution.

posted 2003-05-20 09:12 #

Google Labs Update

I just noticed that Google Labs ha sbeen updated. They've added Google Compute, where you can sign up to have your Google Toolbar solve important scientific problems.

More interestingly perhaps they have a page on Why Work at Google?

In response to my previous post, GoogleGuy points out this list of papers written by Googlers. "That page is like honey to pull in great engineers. :)" he says.

The page also implies that Rob "Plan 9" Pike (a famous programmer) now works and Google, and he does appear to.

posted 2003-05-19 19:51 #

Google Secrets Revealed!

IEEE Micro: Web Search for a Planet: The Google Cluster Architecture. [104K PDF]

The gritty details of how Google's 15,000 commodity-class PCs with fault-tolerant software achieve superior performance at a fraction of the cost of a system built from fewer, but more expensive, high-end servers.

Nothing all that new, but this arcticle goes into greater technical detail than what I've seen before.

posted 2003-05-18 06:20 #

GoogleGuy Says

Over on the WebmasterWorld forms, Google representative GoogleGuy often answers questions and explains what's new in each Google update. This month, with some big algorithm changes being tested on the San Jose and "fi" data centers, GoogleGuy has been posting lots of explanations. (Update: The algorithm changes have been approved and are now spreading to other data centers, including the Cable & Wireless, Palo Alto one.)

Mark Carey has kindly been collecting these over at a new blog: GoogleGuy Says. I'll be watching it, and will post over here if I see something especially interesting.

posted 2003-05-15 11:55 #

5x PageRank Speedup

NSF: Researchers Develop Techniques for Computing Google-Style Web Rankings Up to Five Times Faster.

The NSF is reporting that a group of Stanford researchers have found how to calculate PageRank much faster by using a variety estimation techniques. The idea is that the extra time can be used to calculate customized PageRanks for various topics. Eventually, if they get it fast enough, they might even be able to calculate a person PageRank, based on the sites that you link to.

Interestingly, much of this was proposed in the original PageRank paper from when Google's founders were at Stanford. The paper had a number of clever ideas, including a web browser add on that would show a little bar next to each link with the PageRank of the linked page. The idea was to indicate which links were most interesting, and also to help point out bad or broken links. It's too bad that Google's been focusing on the search engine to the exclusion of other PageRank possibilities.

posted 2003-05-14 09:56 #

Google Opens New York Office

NYT: Google Hiring Engineers for a New York Office.

This is their first satellite engineering office, but "we have free M&M's [in New York] as well".

posted 2003-05-12 12:34 #

news.google.co.*

Local Google News: Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, U.K., U.S..

The Register: Google News comes to UK
More from Google News...

posted 2003-05-12 07:15 #

blogs.google.com?

Reuters: Google CEO Has NO Near Term Plans for IPO. "Soon the company will also offer a service for searching Web logs, known as 'blogs,' Schmidt said."

The Register's humor columnist, Andrew Orlowski, responds by suggesting blogs be removed from the main search results because "they masquerade as useful information when all they contain is idle chatter."

posted 2003-05-09 06:59 #

NYT Google Profile

NYT: In Searching the Web, Google Finds Riches.

"Revenue will soar from less than $300 million in 2002 to $750 million or more this year, with gross profit margins of 30 percent."

"[Their computing system] consists of more than 54,000 servers designed by Google engineers from basic components. It contains about 100,000 processors and 261,000 disks, these people said, making it what many consider the largest computing system in the world."

Amit J Patel, the "top engineer" mentioned in the article, has an interesting website which talks about Google.

posted 2003-04-14 14:13 #

Googler Chow

“Ben” posts the daily menus of what Google’s famed chef serves up to the Googlers on a weblog, Google Daily Menus. Yum!

posted 2003-04-13 13:59 #

37BetterGoogle

37signals, one of my favorite web design companies, has put up 37BetterGoogle, their idea of how to improve Google by having it suggest alternate searches.

I suspect Google may not do this because a decent page on "african coffee trade" (their example search) would probably also include the words africa, africa's, and trading (their corrections). If this is true, the high quality pages would come up no matter which term you used and the pages that don't come up are probably about something else (and only mention coffee trade casually).

posted 2003-04-11 12:04 #

Analyzing SafeSearch

Ben Edelman: Empirical Analysis of Google SafeSearch. Results show that major sites like the US Congress, the Israeli Prime Minister's Office, and MP3.com are blocked.

posted 2003-04-10 18:42 #

Googlethreats

Wired News: Microsoft Covets Google's Niche. '"We do view Google more and more as a competitor. We believe that we can provide consumers with a better product and a better user experience. That's something that we're actively looking at doing," said Bob Visse, director of marketing for Microsoft's MSN Internet services division.' Um, riiiiight.

NYT: Yahoo Plans Improvements in Effort to Regain Lost Ground. "Yahoo is adding some features and removing some graphic advertising to make its service look more like the clean, simple style of Google. Moreover, Yahoo is trying to distinguish its search results by including information from its array of other services, many of them not offered by Google."

A preview of the new Yahoo! search is available.

posted 2003-04-07 13:02 #

Googlewash

Andrew Orlowski: Anti-war slogan coined, repurposed and Googlewashed... in 42 days.

Orlowski discusses how a small group of A-list bloggers can quickly redefine terms in the eyes of Google.

posted 2003-04-03 12:03 #

April Fools!

Yes, the past two posts were April Fools jokes; I hope you enjoyed them.

posted 2003-04-03 12:02 #

Scoop! Overture Buys Google

I just received a phone call from my contact at Google announcing that they've been bought by Overture. This, of course, comes on the heels of Overture's purchase of Alta Vista and FAST. Keep watching the press releases section of Google's site. I'll provide updates as I get them.

Update: Sources say Google has no April Fools joke this year because they've been too busy dealing with the Overture acquisition.

posted 2003-04-01 16:07 #

The End of the Google Blog

Today is the Google Weblog's last day. It's been fun writing it, but it's time to face the facts: Google simply isn't relevant in this day and age. Sure, they were good and popular once, but now they're nothing but a pale shadow of their former self.

The real action is over at Overture, which is quickly gaining the hearts and searches of the Web community. The techno-elite have Overture.com as their start page, and often use the verb "to overture" in their sentences. There really is no place for Google in this world, which is why this will soon become the Overture Blog.

I'm on vacation and it will take a couple days to update all the templates but I'm ready to serve you by finding the latest exciting news about Overture. I hope you enjoy!

If you have comments or questions about this new direction, please email overture@aaronsw.com or use the submission form.

posted 2003-03-31 21:30 #

Enable Google Compute

A new appearance on Google Labs: The Google Compute Project. If you're running the Google Toolbar you can set it to work trying to cure various illnesses.

posted 2003-03-30 00:32 #

Expert Search Tips

The front page now links to a new page in /tour about expert search tips.

I think the page is really poorly done. The capital letters, in-your-face-URLs, and confusing square brackets seem to betray the quality we've come to expect from Google. It seems weird that they'd feature such an unpolished and confusing piece on the front page. And, like Google Tour, it doesn't follow the usual Google style guidelines. What's going on here?

posted 2003-03-30 00:27 #

How Google Grows

Fast Company: How Google Grows...and Grows...and Grows.

If you're a Google engineer, you know that those nine words comprised about 120 bytes of data, enough to slow download time for users with modems by 20 to 50 milliseconds. You can estimate the stress that 120 bytes, times millions of searches per minute, put on Google's 10,000 servers. On the other hand, you can also measure precisely how many visitors took the tour, how many of those downloaded the Google Toolbar, and how many clicked through for the first time to Google News.

posted 2003-03-30 00:24 #

Brin at PC Forum

Sergey Brin spoke at PC Forum. Jeremy Allaire and Cory Doctorow covered it.

a search on a given string should always return the same results for any user.  He gives the example of performing a search and sending the search URL via email.  If it was profile/history driven, this would break.  There are some benefits that could come from this, but he thinks the user interface and user education challanges would be substantial in making such a change in how Google works (or how users expect it to work).

More: Link 1, Link 2.

posted 2003-03-29 06:50 #

Google Spamming?

Jon Scott Stevens just posted a spam he claims was sent by Google. I'm skeptical; has anyone else received a similar message? Let me know. Please forward the full message, with headers.

posted 2003-03-26 01:34 #

Refuse, Apologize, Reinstate

Unknown News bought an ad to show up on searches for "peace stickers" saying "Who would Jesus bomb?". Google pulled their ad because they thought it violated their policy against hate speech, then apologized and reinstated it.

The full story is available from Unkown News.

posted 2003-03-24 15:17 #

How and Why of Google UI

Micah Alpern has blogged some notes on a talk by Marissa Mayer, product manager for Google.com. "In discussing the companies internal ideation and project management style (3 person teams, 3-6 month projects) she mentioned several techniques they use that are very weblog-ish."

Neema also has some notes. "I asked her about Google's buyout of Blogger. Her answer made it seem like it was almost a charitable acquisition and they were just impressed by the people who work at Blogger and saw that they were doing great work - and just wanted to support them. Of course, they are definitely going to reap the rewards later. But she admitted that she didn't know how."

posted 2003-03-19 17:37 #

New Google Spam Fighting

WebmasterWorld: Good news about expired domains. ``We've also put more of a focus on algorithmic improvements for spam issues. One resulting improvement with this index is better handling of expired domains--the authority for a domain will be reset when a domain expires, even though dangling links to the expired domain are still out on the web. We'll be rolling this change in over the next few months starting with this index. [...] I think you'll see more emphasis at Google on scalable algorithms rather than responding to individual spam reports.''

Basically, when you buy a domain that previously expired, you won't get the PageRank the old domain's owner accrued. Neat idea.

posted 2003-03-10 09:42 #

A Day Without Google

Duncan: A World Without Google
Matt: Google Server Error - Feels like a little earthquake
Hixie: The end is nigh

posted 2003-03-10 09:21 #

Just The Ads, Ma'am

You can search for Google for just text ads by entering your query in this box:

(Thanks, Mark!)

posted 2003-03-07 07:29 #

The Dance Is On

This month's Google Dance has begun; you can track its march across the data centers in the righthand sidebar of dance.efactory.de.

posted 2003-03-07 07:13 #

Google Text Ads on Other Sites

Google's Content-Targeted text ads (the text ads that appear when you search) are now available on other sites, including blogspot (now that they host it).

If your site receives more than 20 million page views a month, you could run Google text ads on it too. If you've purchased Google Text Ads, they'll show up on other sites automatically.

posted 2003-03-05 10:24 #

AllTheWeb Redesigns to Look More Like Google

AllTheWeb, which you might recall was just bought by Google's largest competitor, has redesigned to look more like Google.

From SearchDay: "There is no reason to reinvent the wheel," said Peter Bauert, Director of Business Development for FAST. "Having said that, there's no way you can compete on look and feel alone."

SearchDay adds: "Coming hard on the heels of last week's purchase of AlltheWeb by Overture, it's fair to ask whether this change has been prompted by AlltheWeb's new owner, to make the search engine more Google-like. Absolutely not, says Tim Mayer, FAST's vice president web search."

AllTheWeb has a page on their recent changes.

posted 2003-03-04 08:24 #

Word on the Street

I'm here by Google's Headquarters in Mountain View again. Rumor is that Google's getting ready for an IPO. Of course, as a real journalist, I wouldn't try to spread such unsubstantiated speculation without investigating further. Good thing I'm not a real journalist.

This website may contain information which is forward-looking and involves risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements.

posted 2003-03-03 11:11 #

Google gets patent

News.com: Google lands Web search patent. "The patent, which Google filed on Jan. 30, 2001, and was granted Tuesday, governs methodology for parsing through Web documents to deliver Web surfers the most relevant pages for their queries. Specifically, it deals with "an improved search engine that refines a document's relevance score based on interconnectivity of the document within a set of relevant documents," according to a summary of the patent."

posted 2003-02-27 07:53 #

Google asks to be removed from dictionary

Paul McFedries: Google trademark concerns. Google's trademark lawyer writes: "We ask that you help us to protect our brand by deleting the definition of "google" found at wordspy.com or revising it to take into account the trademark status of Google."

I like Cory's take: "I've googled many factoids about this in the past, being the good blogger that I am, and printed them out so I could xerox them for my friends. That's all I have to say for now, since I have to run out and buy some kleenex and aspirin, and trademark lawyers can kiss my ass."

The Wordspy definition: "To search for information on the Web, particularly by using the Google search engine"

posted 2003-02-26 13:09 #

Overture Buys Alta Vista, FAST

Overture, often referred to as one of Google's major competitors in the business of sponsoring search for other companies, has purchased two major search engines this week: AltaVista (don't hear much about them anymore) and FAST, the company behind AllTheWeb and Lycos Search. Google News has the stories.

AllTheWeb is considered by many to be one of Google's few serious competitors. It sounds like Overture is getting ready for a fight.

posted 2003-02-26 08:10 #

New Zeitgeist - January 2003

The January 2003 Google Zeitgeist is now up. Topics include the superbowl, Joe Millionaire, LOTR, Picasso, and the Simpsons. (Thanks, Reg!)

posted 2003-02-19 19:24 #

Feature Request: Secure Google

I sent the following to Google’s Suggestions Box:

Google should provide access to their website thru HTTPS, the encrypted version of HTTP. This will allow people to search for things on Google without other people on their network or at their ISP being able to see what they search for. Because so many people search for so many things on Google, it’s important that it lives up to the highest privacy standards. Supporting HTTPS would be a large step in the right direction.

Doing it would only take a little work on your part (you could just set up a proxy that decrypted connections and passed them on; software and hardware to do this is very readily available), but would do great things to protect the privacy of your users. I hope you’ll consider it. Please let me know if you have any questions.

posted 2003-02-18 09:41 #

Google + Blogger = ?

A historical look, from Scripting News:

One year ago today, Evan (Pyra's Founder) said: "It's hard to believe there are people at Google who don't get the Web."
Two years ago, people complained about Google's (then-recent) acquisition of Deja.com.

And now your news roundup:

NYTimes: What if you could search blogs in real time?
Evan Williams: No, I'm not telling you how much.
Jason Kottke: Here's an early peek at what Blogger could look like.
Joey deVilla: Powered by Booger Pro
Evhead: evhead is out to lunch

posted 2003-02-18 08:15 #

Notes from Larry Page's Talk

J. Bradford DeLong has some interesting notes from a talk given by Larry Page.

It wasn't that we intended to build a search engine. We built a ranking system to deal with annotations. We wanted to annotate the web - build a system so that after you'd viewed a page you could click and see what smart comments other people had about it. But how do you decide who gets to annotate Yahoo? We needed to figure out how to choose which annotations people should look at, which meant that we needed to figure out which other sites contained comments we should classify as authoritative.

Brockerhoff wonders if this is why they bought Blogger.

posted 2003-02-17 14:27 #

Google Buys Blogger

Dan Gillmor: Google Buys Pyra: Blogging Goes Big-Time. (Pyra is the companyy that runs Blogger.)

This seems rather atypical for Google; I wonder what they plan to do. One theory is that they want to monitor the update-stream. This doesn't make sense; surely they could get the update-stream if they asked nicely, everyone loves Google after all.

Evan Williams, Pyra founder: "Holy crap."
Jason Shellen, Pyra bizdev: "Well, looks like someone scooped us on our own story."
stevej, Pyra programmer: "[Dan Gillmor] knew before I did! So yeah; stevej@google.com"

Matt Webb has some interesting thoughts (more):

God that's it. GOOGLE ARE BUILDING THE MEMEX. [...] Imagine, searching at Google, and then:

  • this trail is highly followed
  • do you only want to see what people suggest, or where people went?
  • here's a worn track in the interweb. Follow the Google Pixie!
  • this trail is uncommon, but made by someone we see (by your weblog)
    that you value

Another thought: Google is apparently going to be hosting Blogger's free (ad-supported) BlogSpot blogs. So you can get ultra-reliable hosting (when was the last time you remember Google going down?) for free!

Cory Doctorow has a great essay on what this all means.

posted 2003-02-15 22:15 #

Google's Privacy Problems

Google Watch: Google as Big Brother, a list of his top ten Google Privacy Problems.

My thoughts:

The cookie is a serious issue. Google assigns everyone who visits a cookie that uniquely identifies them to Google for all time. There's very few legitimate reasons to do this, and they certainly don't outweigh the harm done. (Google could easily assign a cookie that only contained your preferences and not a personal identifier.)

Logging is also an issue. Actions by the current US government make it clear they don't care about privacy, and it's very likely that they've convinced Google to hand over full logs of who is searching for what.

I think the bit about hiring spooks is silly, just working at the NSA doesn't ruin you forever.

The toolbar asks in bright bold red letters if you really want Google to phone home about every site you visit. Obviously you should answer no if you like your privacy. Google could probably improve things by letting you press a button to look up the PageRank for a page, rather than always doing it automatically.

I like the cache copy. Putting stuff on the Internet makes it public; get used to it.

I think most people agree the sites penalized by Google deserve it. If you think your site was penalized unfairly, let me know, and I'll spread the word. On the other hand, I think Google should publish their block list and algorithms.

Conclusion: Google needs to stop sending the cookie and promise to only store aggregate data, with no connection between users and search terms. This issue was publically raised almost a year ago; that Google still hasn't dealt with it is inexcusable.

posted 2003-02-14 10:46 #

Survey Says: Google Top Global Brand

brandchannel.com: Global Brand of the Year.

Superhero search engine Google leads the global choice among 1,315 respondents with 15 percent of the vote, climbing to the top from last year's fourth place position.

What's so special about Google that readers chose it as the Brand of the Year worldwide? Perhaps because it is absolutely the tool of the moment to make the best use of the Internet (the other perfect tool of our day). Started by a couple of techies, Google is kind enough to hide its high-tech interior from the public and give us nothing but a friendly, easy to use, clear, clean exterior.

Runners-up were Apple, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks.

posted 2003-02-12 09:12 #

Another New Yorker Google Comic

Recently seen in the New Yorker:

Comic: Man types at computer while wife in robe stands impatient by the door. Caption: 'But I'm hot on the train of my Google doppelgänger.'

posted 2003-02-10 12:33 #

It's 5:00. Do you know what your Google results are?

Boston Globe Magazine: A Nation of Voyuers (cover story), How the Internet search engine Google is changing what we can find out about one another - and raising questions about whether we should.

Google changed our concept of time as well. It has helped make our past - or oddly refracted shards of it - present and permanent. That's a radical notion for a medium usually defined by its ability to constantly update itself.

[...]

"It's the collapse of inconvenience," says Siva Vaidhyanathan, assistant professor of culture and communication at New York University. "It turns out inconvenience was a really important part of our lives, and we didn't realize it."

[...]

There is a palpable culture to the place that occasionally borders on the cultlike. Almost every employee I talked to, for instance, shared the conversational tic of ending sentences with an octave-climbing "right?" as if waiting for my buy-in. Many began their responses to questions with an extra slow "So-o-o," as if to say: "I'm going to make this simple for you." Employees tend to quote the founders liberally, saying things like, "As Sergey said at our holiday party, we have to think about Google's impact on the world . . ." or "As Larry and Sergey say, our goal is to organize the world's information!"

[...]

So she opted for Google revenge. Amanda created an alternate digital identity for her former boyfriend - a personal Web page that would, in all likelihood, be accessed only by those people Googling him by name. On this over-the-top Web page, the guy makes a series of mock confessions that, if taken seriously, would be toxic in any future dating situation. He "admits" to being untrustworthy, jobless, sneaky, a lousy lover, and, finally, a carrier of venereal disease. Hey, Mom, let me tell you a little bit about my new boyfriend.

[...]

It looks like nothing more than a Xerox machine, but the $15,000 e-Cabinet can convert reams of court documents into searchable computer files. That means it can go a long way toward helping the register, Richard Iannella, realize his dream of creating a fully digital court.

[...]

I've never met Suzanne or Gregory, but by simply poking around the Hamilton County Web site, I was able to read the full appeals court judgment in their divorce, complete with their salaries and competing child support claims, down to the penny. When I then typed their full names in Google, the same document popped up instantly.

posted 2003-02-03 14:50 #

San Diego Switches to a Google Appliance

Information Week: City Ogles Google Impact.

Cory writes:

The city of San Diego recently dropped $23,000 on a Googlebox that has completely changed the way that city employees and residents interact with each other. The interesting thing for me is that the competition here proposed a much more expensive "solution" that involved creating an explicit taxonomy and then manually tagging all the city's docs within it. In other words, the competition's pitch is, "First, tell us everything you have, then we'll tell you what you've got." No wonder Google's kicking ass in the market.

You can see the results in action on their site.

posted 2003-01-30 09:43 #

A Google Win in SearchKing Case

In SearchKing v. Google the judge has denied SearchKing's request for preliminary injuction. In other words, SearchKing asked for their old PageRank to be reinstated while the trial was being held, and the judge said no.

LawMeme has the full story, including several interesting quotes from the judge's dedcision. The author has an interesting thought in the comments:

Let's step over into Bizarro world, where Badgle, the leading search engine, is run by Dr. Evil. Badgle uses familiar algorithms to rank pages, except that whenever its engineers find a page they don't like, they manually drop it down a hundred pages in the search results. And, interestingly enough, the only pages Badgle doesn't like are those that praise Austin Powers.

Thus, when you run a Badgle search on "Austin Powers," you get back only pages making fun of his bad teeth. Whenever someone wonders why the leading Austin Powers fan page has a low ranking and asks Badgle what's going on. Badgle replies that the page's operator "was engaged in behavior that would lower the quality of Badgle's search results."

Would this scenario change your point of view? Maybe not, but I suspect that there are many people who support Google whole-heartedly in this lawsuit, but who wouldn't be so willing to support Badgle's actions.

So this decision could have much farther-reaching effects than whether search engines can demote the PageRank of "spam kings". Stay tuned.

posted 2003-01-26 09:05 #

Googlert

Googlert will check Google daily for a search term of your choice choose and email you when there are new results.

posted 2003-01-24 13:30 #

The Ethicist: Is Googling OK?

NYTimes: Is Googling O.K.? "it never hurts to search your beau's name along with the words ''ax murderer.''"

posted 2003-01-24 13:26 #

First Week at Google

Ovidiu Predescu: The first week at Google. Ovidiu, a new Google employee coming from the free software (open source) world, talks about some of his well-known colleagues and the Google culture.

posted 2003-01-23 09:06 #

Google in BusinessWeek

Two BusinessWeek articles (via gooGuide):

Google's Gaggle of Problems.

'sources say Yahoo has grown tired of Google.com's popularity and may soon cut its tie to the company. "The portals have started to get fed up. Over the last three years, Google has stolen 40% of the search market directly at the expense of AOL, MSN, and Yahoo," says Jason Kellerman, CEO of search-technology company LookSmart, which has a deal with MSN.'

'measurements by Web traffic tracker Nielsen NetRatings, AOL [which uses Google's results and ads] and Google.com together get six times the search traffic of Yahoo, the closest competitor.'

Will Froogle Be a Google for Shoppers? "As a Google fanatic -- my wife claims I sometimes murmur Google in my sleep -- I was too excited to wait for the final release [of Froogle]. Alas, after some unscientific research and lots of experimenting with the beta version, I have to report that Froogle definitely isn't the best way to find bargains on the Net."

posted 2003-01-21 08:44 #

Google Tour, Safari, MLKJ Day

On the front page, Google is now advertising a quick Google Tour through some of their key Googles. Nothing new, but it's sort of fun.

Also, Apple's new Safari web browser, has Google search built into the toolbar (QuickTime movie).

Finally, yesterday Google had a special logo for Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

posted 2003-01-21 07:52 #

Blogger Heads to Google

Ovidiu Predescu, a weblogger and Apache developer, is heading to Google. I'll be watching his weblog!

posted 2003-01-14 09:44 #

Google Responds to SearchKing Lawsuit

For those of you who don't remember the SearchKing flap, here's a quick summary: SearchKing sold links on high-PageRank sites, Google lowered their PageRank, SearchKing sued.

Now Google has filed a reply brief, and the LawMeme website discusses what it says and means.

posted 2003-01-10 06:58 #

When's the dance?

Google Dance Tool tracks the dance by watching when backlinks on three popular pages are updated. It tells you when the last changed (the last dance) and offers to email you when the next dance starts. Very useful for compulsive Google watchers.

posted 2003-01-02 14:57 #

Forbes: Google makes $100M in profit, ready for IPO

Forbes: Worst and Best Picks. "One bright spot will be Internet growth. The search site Google is queued up for a first-quarter IPO off of surprisingly virile numbers--some $300 million in 2002 sales, $100 million in profit. Profit?... For an IPO?... An Internet IPO? Yep."

It's not clear where he's getting this information, or how accurate it is. It was my understanding Google kept pretty quiet about their numbers.

And, like Wired, I hope they don't go IPO: "When the IPO comes, it will bring riches - and more problems. As a private company, Google has one master: users. As a public company, there are shareholders to worry about. And more than happy users, shareholders want ever-greater profits."

posted 2003-01-02 07:46 #

New Google Doodle

The first part of Google Doodle 6 is now up, with some multi-lingual holiday greetings.

posted 2002-12-22 22:52 #

Introducing Google Australia

Google Australia [www.google.com.au] joins the other 40 country-specific Googles.

News.com: Google opens up in the land down under. 'However, it would seem that the company plans to open up a Sydney-based operation in Australia--it has begun advertising for employees on its Web site. "We hope to make a big announcement early in the new year, but at this stage all I can say is that the site has gone live," Frost said.'

[Sorry for the delay; I recently got back from my trip to California (including another quick visit to Google!).]

posted 2002-12-22 11:46 #

Sergey: Don't be evil.

Wired: Google vs. Evil. Discusses Sergey Brin's role as the "moral compass" of Google, making sure they aren't evil.

posted 2002-12-14 16:41 #

Google Hacks Book Coming Soon

O'Reilly's Google Book is coming soon. It's called Google Hacks: 100 Industrial-Strength Tips & Tools by Tara Calishain and should be out in February 2003, but you can pre-order it on Amazon now. (Thanks, Kiruba!)

posted 2002-12-13 10:44 #

Google Cartoon in the New Yorker

The New Yorker recently ran a cartoon featuring Google and they've just now put it up on their site. (Thanks, Kiruba!)

Two men talk over drinks in a bar: "I can't explain it--it's just a funny feeling that I'm being Googled."

posted 2002-12-13 10:38 #

Sergey at Supernova

Google co-founder spoke at the Supernova Conference this week. Doc Searls blogged it live (scroll down to "Sergey Brin"). Some interesting thoughts.

posted 2002-12-11 22:16 #

Announcing Froogle!

New, from Google: Froogle! "Froogle is a new service from Google that makes it easy to find information about products for sale online. By focusing entirely on product search, Froogle applies the power of Google's search technology to a very specific task: locating stores that sell the item you want to find and pointing you directly to the place where you can make a purchase."

posted 2002-12-11 17:23 #

Google Slip-Ups!

When you view a cached page in Google, you get this message: "Google is not affiliated with the authors of this page nor responsible for its content." This is true most of the time, but what about when it's their own page?

Also a fifth of the time you visit another page on that server, you're told "Advertise instantly. With a credit card, your ad goes on Google today". Except it might not be so instant, since if you follow the link, you simply get "The requested URL was not found on this server."

Just goes to show, even Google makes mistakes.

posted 2002-12-11 13:58 #

New Google Labs!

Google Labs has two new projects:

Google Viewer lets you view the web pages of your search results, in a slideshow fashion.

Google Webquotes annotates results with quotes from other sites.

Neat!

posted 2002-12-10 13:08 #

Popular Press on Google

David F. Gallagher, NYTimes: Sites Become Dependent on Google.
Steven Levy, Newsweek: The World According to Google.
Josh McHugh, Wired Magazine (not yet online): Google Sells Its Soul.

posted 2002-12-10 07:23 #

2002 thru the eyes of Google

The End-of-Year Google Zeitgeist is out, covering search trends. It also includes a nifty Google Timeline 2002 that covers the popular queries and logos over the year on Google. Neat!

posted 2002-12-10 07:10 #

Future Plans Teaser

Jeff Dean hinted at some future Google plans in his keynote yesterday in London:

  • More comprehensive and fresher database
  • Improved usability (will that be a new user interface?)
  • Conceptual understanding (perhaps that Google will try to guess synonyms)
  • More personalization

[...] only about 3% of searches use the advanced search form so they do not spend much development dollars on it and about 10% of queries have misspellings.

Anyone else have notes? (Thanks, Patrick!)

posted 2002-12-05 15:34 #

Pitching Universities

Google's got a new page up, pitching a job at Google to university students. As they point out, the goal of the Google lifestyle was to make it like grad school. (Thanks, Henk!)

posted 2002-12-04 16:52 #

Tips for Webmasters

Google's put up some new information for webmasters, including some interesting warnings about SEOs (Search Engine Optimiziers). (Thanks, Matthias!)

posted 2002-12-01 12:43 #

The Real Google Dance

Dance, dance, dance, dance... Google Dance 2002 (with pictures!). (Thanks, Matthias!)

posted 2002-11-27 10:56 #

Sponsored by the Letter G

Who owns the alphabet? Google has the answer! - A list of the top Google results for the 26 letters of the alphabet.

posted 2002-11-24 21:30 #

The Inverse of Googlism

GooglePeople will take a "who is" question (like Who is the founder of Google?) and give you back a list of potential people. Fun!

posted 2002-11-14 13:25 #

Google's Top 100

What are the most linked-to pages? If you do a search for "http" (as in, http://) you get something pretty close to the answer. It's probably not exact (Google and Yahoo are reversed from their Google Directory rankings, for example) but it's pretty interesting.

How close are you to one of the big names? I'm two hops from number 21.

posted 2002-11-11 17:22 #

4 Billion Documents, 36 Countries Served

Nate from Google writes in:

You may have noticed the change to the number on the Google homepage this morning. Google now enables users to search more than 3 billion web pages--making Google the largest and most comprehensive search engine in the world.

More than 40 percent of these 3 billion web pages are authored in non-English languages. Even with the recent growth in the index, Google still delivers a list of relevant results in less than half-a-second. And, Google offers users access to more than 330 million images and nearly 800 million Usenet newsgroup postings--bringing the total for the entire Google index to more than 4 billion web documents.

Google also unveiled today new country-specific domains in Poland and Thailand. This brings the total number of Google country-specific domains to 36. More than 50 percent of Google's traffic comes from overseas and these recent additions to Google's network of international sites demonstrates the company's ongoing commitment to serving its growing international audience.

posted 2002-11-06 20:11 #

Enroll in Google U

Google is offering Google U, which appears to be a class on how to advertise on Google. All participants receive free AdWords credit. Class is in San Jose, enrollment ends today.

If you're going, please send me a report on what it was like. I'll publish it here.

(I found this via a banner ad on the San Jose Mercury News website; I presume they've been advertising in the paper too.)

posted 2002-11-01 06:37 #

The Google Gods (News.com Special Report)

News.com: The Google Gods: Does search engine's power threaten Web's independence? Just in time for Halloween!

Only a few years ago, when traffic was more evenly distributed among search services, Web sites clamored to get free listings from familiar names such as Lycos and AltaVista. But the dot-com collapse led portals and search engines to sell sponsored links and license editorial results from a third party--a market that Google, based in Mountain View, Calif., has come to dominate since its founding in 1998.

[...]

Google software engineer Matt Cutts said that the search engine business is healthier and more competitive than ever, with many niche providers and international forces. "What we worry about is providing the best results to users; we don't worry about market share," he said. "That will all work itself out."

Thanks, Konstantinos!

posted 2002-10-31 23:54 #

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Anyone going as Overture this year? ;-)

posted 2002-10-31 17:33 #

The End of Frequent-Crawling? [UPDATED]

UPDATE: Google spokesman Nate Tyler responds:

We are in the process of an index switchover and have had to focus some of our technical resources on deploying it. I expect that we'll have things back on track shortly. Don't worry, the fresh crawl isn't going away. Google's ongoing goal is to enable our users to find more of the web's freshest content and this includes bloggers. Apologies for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Previous entry: Not too long ago, Google introduced a system where the best frequently-updated would be crawled about every other day. This made Google much more useful when searching for rapidly updated news.

It appears this has been stopped. The cached pages for sites that previously got this treatment are all from October 25th.

I'm not sure if this is because of a bug, part of the new ranking system, or because they feel Google News replaces it. But it is disappointing. The frequent-crawling gave us access to many independent sites that aren't part of Google news, and the cached pages were very useful during major events. If anyone has any official information about this problem, I'd appreciate it.

posted 2002-10-30 05:16 #

google is the dimensionless density fluctuation in real space

Googlism (a zany-madcap humour generator) searches tells you what you are. Enter "Google Weblog" for example, and you get

google weblog is not affiliated or endorsed by google
google weblog is pretty cool
google weblog is a great resource for those keeping tabs

etc. Lots of fun. Sadly, the site violates the Web standards by using POST. This means you can't link to the results page you get. Luckily, you can still link by hacking the URL.

posted 2002-10-30 00:10 #

A Googley Portal

MyWay.com is an Internet portal taking a page from Google's strategy. No banners or pop-ups, instead they use text-ads like Google's AdWords. Each page shows how long it took to build (in hundredths of a second) and, of course, they use Google's search engine.

It seems to have all the usual portal things: email, stocks, directions, directories, TV listings, etc. Unfortunately, many of the pages are links to other sites with ads, or require you to get an account. Bzzt!

The New York Times has a short profile.

posted 2002-10-29 00:07 #

Google Answers Ads

Google Answers is now being featured on the front page. Jesse Ruderman has sent in a list of ads being circulated, which he got by using an Anonymizer:

New! Ask your question. Set your price. Get your answer. Try Google Answers.
New! Great research. Small fee. Google Answers.
New! Too much information? Google Answers can help.
New! Need research help? Try Google Answers.
Stumped? Ask the researchers on Google Answers for help.

Google tracks which had you clicked through on, presumably to figure out which is best.

posted 2002-10-28 23:24 #

Happy Birthday, Picasso

Happy Birthday Picasso

posted 2002-10-28 23:22 #

Regional Google Filtering

UPDATE: Seth Finkelstein has done some great research on this. He finds that many sites were blocked because they used to have objectionable content, shows how it's implemented using a post-processing step, demonstrates improved search techniques and strategies, and notes that it also affects Google Images and Directory.

Jonathan Zittrain and Benjamin Edelman have released their latest report, systematic documentation of how Google.de and Google.fr filter controvertial sites. Google gives no notice that results are being filtered (as they do with the DMCA) and have nothing about it on their website (although they did acknowledge the practice in one email I found). Declan McCullagh asked for a list of blocked sites but Google refused to supply one.

The authors list 113 sites they found thru trial-and-error to be blocked and again let you submit your own and record the results.

Disclaimer: I assisted the authors with portions of the report.

posted 2002-10-24 20:53 #

Google Compute for Everyone!

I'm receiving lots of reports that the Google Compute feature has been enabled on all Google Toolbars. Google Compute uses your computer's spare processing time to solve problems if global significance. The current project, Folding@home, has your computer simulate protein folding, a tasj important to understanding and potentially curing Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other diseases. The Folding@home project recently reported their first success.

In other words, this is great news! All of those little Google Toolbars around the world will be helping to cure serious diseases in their free time!

posted 2002-10-23 22:15 #

Google Fans From All Over

News.com reports that Wharton feels the Google love. Apparently in radio ads they're suggesting that listeners Google for "Wharton West" rather than remember the longer domain name. "We took a calculated risk because we figured out how to get (top billing) in the first place, but we keep monitoring it, and if it changes we have to do something else," [said Neal Nevaras, director of executive programs.] "But why do I pay for it if I don't have to."

Meanwhile, in Buffy the Vampire Slayer the practice of Googling was mentioned. According to plasticbag it was:

Willow: "Have you tried googling her?"
Xander (shocked): "Willow, she's only seventeen!"

As Mark Bernstein points out, she not only appears on Google, but has her own domain.

plasticbag: "And it will be funny."
plasticbag: "Maybe you had to be there..."
MetaFilter: "An example of innovative web design."
W6 Daily: "...this isn't the site..."

posted 2002-10-18 22:57 #

Would you prefer to read french news only ?

Just spotted a new Google feature. If your results include some foreign-language links (example) a little box hanging down from the blue "Searched the web for ..." bar asks "Would you prefer to search for English results only ?". But if I do the search on Google.de, it doesn't ask me if I only want only German results.

Speaking of foreign languages, if you speak French, you might like this french Google Weblog.

And while not all of them speak French, up in Canada Google's helping to celebrate Canadian Thanksgiving. (Yeah, they're a bit early and I'm a bit late...)

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

(Thanks, Greg!)

posted 2002-10-18 22:39 #

(adverts inside)

Google is now putting targeted ads on the same pages as Usenet posts (example). This seems pretty intrusive and annoying. It'd be much nicer if the ads were over in the blank space on the right like they are in Google searches (example).

One reader writes "Riots are starting in silicon valley as bad memories (Deja.com) come back to the minds of thousands of eager users."

posted 2002-10-18 00:29 #

Inside Google

Fortune: All the Right Moves. Fortune's cover story goes inside Google and uncovers the contradictions between the geeks and the martketeers.

posted 2002-10-14 00:59 #

Google Shopping?

The German news site "heise" says Google is working on a new "product search" (English translation) with partners like Amazon, eBay and CDNOW. It should be interesting to see how this ends up. (Thanks, Martin)

I can't seem to find any active domain names (like shopping.google.com), but that may just be because they're far from launch.

posted 2002-10-13 20:22 #

Google and Yahoo: Together Again

Danny Sullivan takes a look at new Yahoo-Google partnership. Yahoo is now giving out Google's results, with links to Yahoo categories (example), while Google has traditionally used dmoz's categories (example).

Also, the only mention that Google's results are even being used is a tiny note at the very bottom of the page saying "Search Technology provided by Google".

What should we call this new hybrid? Goohoo?

posted 2002-10-13 20:17 #

Write and Get Fired

Here's a must-read for anyone interested in Google Answers: How I Tried to Resign from Google Answers but Found I Was Already Fired tells the story of one librarian who got fired from being a Google Researcher after writing a fascinating article about Google Answers.

Update: siliconsamurai wrote a negative article on Google Answers for Geek.com.

posted 2002-10-13 19:09 #

Korean Google Blog

Seok Wan Yang is tracking Google in Korean. I don't speak Korean, but it looks helpful.

posted 2002-10-03 17:48 #

Google News Updates

Google has updated their search appliance line. The appliance now supports searching password-protected content, and only gives users access to content for which they know the password. They've also added the same "fast update" technology we've seen recently on the real Google. "A fast changing top layer for important documents, updated hourly, and a larger, base layer that can be updated every day." which confirms my speculation on how Google's update system worked. Finally, they've increased capacity and introduced a new mid-range GB-5005 (a cluster of 5 Google search appliances) which can handle 150 queries a minute.

Google announced that their search results and ads will be featured in the Infospace network (including Excite, Dogpile, WebCrawler, MetaCrawler and InfoSpace).

News.com has an interesting opinion column about the new Google News, commenting that Google's computer-driven system gives a more interesting and varied look at the news than one that involved hand-picking by editors. (Thanks, Arcadi!)

And over on Google Groups, some users are complaining that Google isn't fully archiving their groups. Does anyone know anything about this? There's been more discussion in google.public.support.general but no response. (Thanks, Michael!)

posted 2002-10-03 17:45 #

German Reunification Day

Google gratuliert zum Tag der Deutschen Einheit

Google.de gratuliert zum Tag der Deutschen Einheit (Thanks, Rabin!)

While you're at it, you might be interested in looking at Google's Holiday Logo Gallery as well as our own logo archive.

posted 2002-10-03 17:30 #

Google Brawls

Want Google to settle a fight? There's Google Fight, Google Smackdown (seems to currently be down) and, if you're on Freenode, /msg datum .googlecount and, as Eric Baillargeon points out, these are rather useful tools when combined with link: and site: and other Google modifiers.

But meanwhile a bigger fight has been brewing. Google's recently changed their rating algorithms and the Google-obsessed Web has been abuzz. Mark Pilgrim has a good summary of the issues and closes with the question "Is this the beginning of the end of Google's reign?" (Thanks, Matt!)

Also, people have been pointing out that if you use Google Monitor, you might just end up in a fight with Google yourselves. It's specifically on their webmaster don'ts list.

posted 2002-10-03 17:05 #

Google History

Finally, honoring Google's birthday, Gary Price has found some great pieces of Google's history:

19960107: "I have a web robot which is a Java app."
19971204: "BackRub is a 'web crawler' which is designed to traverse the web."
19971210: "If your question is not answered here [...] call [] and ask for Larry."
19971210: " This is a demo of the Google Search Engine. [...] Number of Web Pages Fetched: 24 million"
19980510: "Current Repository Size: ~25 million pages"
19981111: "Index contains ~25 million pages (soon to be much bigger)"
19981111: Google.com
19981202: "Google! BETA"
19990508: "Google can make you feel lucky!"
19990508: "Here is our main logo full size, created using GIMP. If you want to hack on it, here is the XCF file."
19990607: " Google Receives $25 Million in Equity Funding"

Thanks, Gary!

posted 2002-09-30 21:43 #

A Blip on the Radar

Reuters: 'Google blips': Search not always right covers the fact that Microsoft comes up first on a search for "go to hell" (with quotes).
PC World: Google Search Leads to Gates of 'Hell'. (Thanks, Arcadi and Ram)
Points to Anderson for being the first to tell me about this. I didn't post them because they don't work anymore. I guess Google has fixed them.

Meanwhile, Google has introduced UK AdWords according to the Register. (Thanks, Michael!)

posted 2002-09-30 21:26 #

Happy Birthday, Google!

Google celebrates their fourth birthday with a cake:

Happy Birthday, Google!

posted 2002-09-27 05:59 #

Google News, Yahoo Relations

NYTimes: All the News Google Algorithms Say Is Fit to Print. 'Industry executives say Google's relations with Yahoo are quite strained; Yahoo owns Google stock and was responsible for much of its early growth. Indeed, last July, Yahoo agreed to only a short-term extension of its Google contract, which is now set to expire at the end of this month. Yahoo is said to be seriously considering switching its Web search to Inktomi, a Google rival that does not run its own Web site. Indeed, Yahoo recently removed the Google logo from its pages that include Google's search results and replaced them with a box of tiny text reading "search technology provided by Google."'

posted 2002-09-24 15:41 #

New Google News

A quick note -- if you haven't noticed, the redesigned Google News is up. Pretty cool!

posted 2002-09-23 13:35 #

New Google News Interface

Thanks to Adrian Holovaty for letting us know about the new look for Google News. I can't see it and Adrian says that it only comes up in Mozilla 1.1, but from the screenshot it looks very cool.

There are also some comments on Adrian's weblog.

posted 2002-09-19 20:36 #

Subscribe to this Weblog by Email!

I've used my RSS to email aggregator to create an email list for this weblog. If you're tired of checking back here every day and would rather receive new stories direct to your email box, then this is for you!

To subscribe, simply send a message to googleblog-subscribe@notabug.com and reply to the confirmation message you get back.

You can also email for help and a description of available commands.

Let me know what you think of this new service.

posted 2002-09-19 05:41 #

China Blocks Keyword Search, Denies All

New Scientist: Google keywords knock Chinese surfers offline. "If you enter one of these keywords, such as the Chinese president's name, you loose all IP connectivity for five minutes," said Ben Edelman. "I suspect they may have had this system in the wings all along." (Thanks, S. Anand!)

NYTimes: China Seems to Refine Bid to Restrict Web Access. "Users searching for information on Falun Gong, the outlawed spiritual movement, turned up many references through Google. But exploring those references proved impossible, and users' Internet browsers often ceased to operate properly once an unauthorized reference had been clicked on."

According to the New Scientist, "the Chinese government refutes denying access to Google and has suggested that surfers could be suffering normal network problems." "It is quite normal with some internet sites that sometimes you can access them, and sometimes you can't," says an official from the Chinese government's information department. "The ministry has received no information about Google being blocked, and we have received no information about a block being lifted."

posted 2002-09-15 02:21 #

Chinese Google Update

An anonymous Chinese user wrote in to say that while Google is back, the cache search feature is not. This would validate the guess that the Chinese government was actually afraid of people using the cache to visit blocked websites.

In other news, the Google Watch folks have their own Google proxy which not only protects you from government censorship, but also from Google's use of identifying cookie information. They have an article suggesting that China blocked Google because of the cookies, whch I find rather hard-to-believe.

Also, if you're a programmer, don't forget about Google Web APIs, which give you complete access to Google.

And via Cory Doctorow we find the H.P. Lovecraft search engine, Cthuuugle. It's got some useful suggestions for what to do if your search returns no documents:

Always good to keep in mind.

posted 2002-09-13 20:15 #

The Long National Nightmare is Finally Over

Thanks to O. Hardt for letting us know that China has ended the blocking of Google!

posted 2002-09-12 18:31 #

New Scientist on Using elgooG to Bypass the Google Block

New Scientist: Google mirror beats Great Firewall of China. 'The mirror site, called elgooG, is a parody of the English language version of Google in which all the text on the web pages has been reversed. The text terms used for searches are also entered in reverse. The site, which returns all the same hits as Google, can be accessed from behind China's "great firewall".'

I'm surprised it hasn't been blocked yet. If anyone knows another way to get to Google from China, please let me know. (Thanks, S. Anand)

posted 2002-09-12 06:23 #

The Oracle of Google

Jonathan Telfer writes to tell us about his very cool The Oracle of Google. Give it a question with four answers to choose from and it uses Google to pick the correct one. It's eerily good, it knows everything from the president of the US to Simpsons trivia. Awesome!

posted 2002-09-11 04:54 #

Google Toolbar Update, Google Bookmarklets

Thanks to Milly for sending word of a Google Toolbar update. New features include a Google Answers link and support for URLs that are broken apart (such as wrapped URLs in email). If you're running the toolbar you can use the experimental features setting to search Dictionary.com from the Combined Search button.

Milly also has a series of Google bookmarklets, to search different parts of Google and things like the Microsoft Knowledge Base. They don't seem to work in IE5/Mac. If you're using that, you might be more interested in my own Googler or DTRT, which let you search all the Google's from the comfort of your address bar.

posted 2002-09-11 04:25 #

China Redirects Google to Competitors

Ben Edelman: Replacement of Google with Alternative Search Systems in China - Documentation and Screen Shots

He's documented how if you visit www.google.com in China you're redirected to another website.

posted 2002-09-10 19:30 #

Happy Birthday, Google!

SearchDay wishes a happy birthday to Google, which incorporated four years ago today.

posted 2002-09-10 16:49 #

Googlecooking!

Update: A kind anonymous fellow writes in to share a link to amitp's Google Recipe search dating back to 2000. He also suggests that Googlecooking sounds more like "cooking with the combined heat of ten thousand computers". ;-)

Jason Kottke wrote in to say that Meg's mother has invented Googlecooking: "shortly before supper time I look around for some combination of foods I've got on hand and which seem like they might go together. Then I 'google' them [...] and browse through the results until I find a recipe that appeals to me."

Meg writes: "I've always wanted a database of all my cookbooks so I could do just this. It never occurred to me to use Google instead."

posted 2002-09-09 01:02 #

Updated Google API Kit

Thanks to Rael Dornfest for pointing out that Google Web API Kit has a new release (hm, Google needs to fix the <title> on that page...). It's fixed a bunch of bugs, added a new VB.NET example, and limits things to UTF-8 encoding.

posted 2002-09-07 00:49 #

The Marcia Brady of Search

Danny Sullivan: Google: Can The Marcia Brady Of Search Stay Sweet? "Microsoft's supremacy as a company has caused it to be widely loathed. Does search dominance by Google mean that the company is destined to face general hatred, as well?" "Today, no one is worried that Yahoo needs to be regulated. It remains an important search engine, but clearly it does not control what people go to on the web. [] Indeed, the fact that Google has competition is the key reason that the company currently does not face the anger and concern that many hold for Microsoft."

posted 2002-09-04 02:55 #

Google Strikes Back

BBC News: Google fights Chinese ban. "We are currently working with Chinese officials to get our full service restored to the millions of Chinese users who depend on Google every day," the company said in a statement. "Google has always been committed to providing our users with the most open access to information possible."

posted 2002-09-03 22:45 #

Google Looking to Expand?

SV Business Journal: Google eyes larger space. "Google Inc. has signed a letter of intent to occupy 190,000 square feet of office space in Mountain View with the possibility of expanding to 300,000 square feet in the future, according to industry sources. It is the largest proposed lease this year in Silicon Valley [...]"

When I visited Google it was extremely crowded, so I'm not surprised they're picking up more space while it's cheap.

Reuters: Google Hires CFO, Key Post for Growth. "The company hired George Reyes, 48, a former financial officer at Sun Microsystems Inc. At Sun, Reyes worked next to Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, who was then the chief technology officer."

These stories taken together, it does sound like somethings up over there.

posted 2002-09-03 19:11 #

Google Blocked in China

I've been flooded with reports that Google has been blocked in China. "Lawrence" reports on Google's status in China the past few days, from personal experience.

If you're in China, you may still be able to access google.yahoo.com and BBCi's Google-based search engine. You can also download Peek-a-Booty, a peer-to-peer anti-filtering program that allows you to access the Web by proxying through users in non-blocked jurisdictions.

BBC: China 'blocking Google'
Reuters: China reportedly blocks Google access
Slashdot: Google Disappears In China
Webmasters World: Google Ban in China (Membership Required)

posted 2002-09-02 19:49 #

New Google 404

I just noticed that Google has updated their 404 Not Found page. It now features a textual rendition of the Google logo (that's new!) and the traditional striped title. The rest is pretty much the same (your basic functional "The request URL was not found..."). I wonder why they changed.

posted 2002-09-02 06:31 #

Yahoo! Switches Providers?

Eric Baillargeon notes that if you do a Yahoo! Search, the fact that the results come from Google is now far less prominent. There are no links back to Google, only a little bit of text that says "Search Technology Provided by Google". He suspects this means that Yahoo! will be switching providers over Labor Day.

posted 2002-09-01 17:22 #

Google Services

New on the front page of Google is a link to Google Services & Tools which is a cool visual way to see all the Google sites. (Thanks, Gary, gulsukat.)

posted 2002-08-30 04:39 #

Watching Google Watch

Salon.com: Meet Mr. Anti-Google, an article about the man behind Google-Watch (unfortunately it seems his server is down).

The article mostly matches my experiences with him (although he's been rather rude to me). I'd like to note that it would be easy for Google to store only the user's preferences in their cookie ("I like English but not SafeSearch"), but instead they also store an identifying code ("I am user 575245214585").

I tend to think Brandt should focus on building a better web site than complaining to Google about things. Maybe I'm just thick but I couldn't figure out what namebase did from their front page (archive cache). They also ask Google not to cache their pages, which makes them hard to use when the server is down (like now).

I agree with his contention that PageRank isn't a "democracy" but I don't think we'd want it to be either. PageRank is a meritocracy, where you get the best page, not the most popular. I think that's what we want.

I'm sympathetic to the fact that Google has become extremely important and I do think they should be far more open to the public (I'd even go so far to say that they should be come a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation -- I'm sure they'd get plenty of donations) but the fact is that building a search engine isn't all that difficult. As Raph Levien has said, Google's competitors have been kind enough to just go in the corner and die. If you think your system will get better results than Google's, go build it and show us like Page and Brin did at Stanford years ago.

posted 2002-08-29 18:44 #

New Google Quiz!!

Thanks to Thomas Scott for the scoop on a brand new Google Quiz! It doesn't appear to be announced yet, but join in on the fun now! You can win a free Timbuk2 messenger bag sporting the Google logo and other prizes.

posted 2002-08-22 01:46 #

Do the PageRank

Thanks to Phil Craven for pointing me to his PageRank explanation and PageRank calculator. It's a pretty advanced system for calculating the PageRank of a simple network of pages.

Of course, if you're interested in attack-resistant trust metrics like PageRank, than you should probably read Raph Levien's HOWTO which has some more technical explanation as well as source code for the PageRank algorithm.

posted 2002-08-19 17:40 #

Sergey Brin Gives LinuxWorld Keynote

Sergey Brin gave the keynote at LinuxWorld, which explained how and why Google used Linux for their 10,000-machine server farm. Some press coverage is below. Let me know if you find any other articles.

Wired: Linux Feels the Corporate Love. "Imagine heading up a company that's powered by 10,000 Linux servers," Martin Felts, a systems security manager, said. "Logically, I knew it's not like Sergey can just muck around with Google's machinery whenever he has a whim, but still. I think everyone who heard his speech wanted to become Brin for at least a day."

Infoworld: Google gives testimony to Linux scalability. '"We, on a daily basis, even get queries from Antarctica," Brin said. Google probably gets queries from the international space station as well, he said.'

posted 2002-08-15 14:23 #

Alternate Google Logos

The sick minds at Something Awful have cooked up a batch of twisted Google logos.

Pillsbury Stroodle Logo

posted 2002-08-13 22:09 #

Front Page Upates

On Google's front page you'll notice an updated web page count and a link to the obituary of the famous computer scientist, Edsger Dijkstra.

Some page count stats:
Front page: 2,469,940,685
A search for "the": about 2,660,000,000
AllTheWeb.com: 2,112,188,990

posted 2002-08-09 18:48 #

Google Toolbar Security Hole

GreyMagic has discovered a series of security exploits in the Google Toolbar. The Register has a summary of them.

For their part, Google has released an updated version that will be automatically distributed to users of the toolbar. You're safe if you're running version 1.1.59 or higher. You can check what version you have by going to the Google menu and selecting "About Google Toolbar...". If you're running 1.1.58 or earlier, visit the toolbar website to upgrade.

posted 2002-08-09 18:42 #

Google Dance Tool

Ride out the end of the July 2002 update with this neat Google Dance Tool which shows you the results from various Google servers in a nice clean interface. I love the dancing Google animation.

posted 2002-08-06 20:33 #

Submission Form

Been wanting to send something in but too lazy to email? Don't worry, I've added a Google Weblog Submission Form! Simply paste your URL or whatnot into the box and hit send and it'll be on its way to our inbox, and hopefully the website soon after.

Thanks for all the great submissions!

posted 2002-08-06 18:48 #

Happy Birthday, Andy Warhol

Happy Birthday Andy Warhol

Did you notice that the bacground colors for the images are the same as Google's first four highlighting colors? Perhaps an homage to GoojArt (which the inventor of says we should call ASCII Aard, in homage to the Aardvark Travel site he plugged).

posted 2002-08-06 05:53 #

Google's Privacy Policy

Tara points out that Public Information Resource, as part of their Google Watch project has put up a page about Google's Privacy Policies. They point out that Google's persistent cookie (it expires in 2038) can be used to track Google users. I've refused Google's cookies for a long time for this reason. It's annoying because Google forgets my language and SafeSearch preferences, but since I search Google for so many things I'm especially concerned about my privacy. I wish Google would switch to a cookie that only stored specific preferences, rather than identifying information. I hope Google will respond with the reasons for their current cookie system.

[Finally, a note on the weblog format. I feel safe in publishing negative comments like this because I know that most if not all readers check the site periodically, so there's little chance of someone getting incorrect and not seeing the correction.]

Interestingly, they point out that Matt Cutts, a Google employee, spent a year at the NSA. Food for conspiracy theorists.

posted 2002-08-06 01:54 #

Google Groups Art Generator

Stuart Langridge writes in with a nifty JavaScript Google Art creator. Simply click on a color and then click on some squares to fill them in. When you're done it will generate a post for you.

On a related note, we need a name for these things (Google Groups Art is a bit long). Jorn calls Google Groups GooJa (since they were inherited from Deja) so perhaps GoojArt?

posted 2002-08-02 19:39 #

Google Chief Operations Engineer Keynotes

Wil Cox wrote in to tell us that Jim Reese (whose Technology Behind Google presentation we commented on previously) appears to begiving a similar presentation as the USENIX LISA keynote: "Scaling the Web: An Overview of Google (A Linux Cluster for Fun and Profit)". "This talk will cover the technology behind Google: company overview, search parameters and results, hardware and query load balancing, Linux cluster topology, scalability, fault tolerance, and more." Should be interesting, I hope someone makes a recording. Unfortunately it seems that TechNetCast, the organization that covered the last show is having financial difficulties. If you're interested, I suggest you send them some words of support.

posted 2002-08-02 04:42 #

Google Groups Spam Art

Nathan McCoy has made an awesome illustration: zs Spam Art xv Nathan cz McCoy xz vc. Very cool!

posted 2002-07-31 19:14 #

Google Takes All

Thomas Scott reminds me to post Ftrain.com: August 2009: How Google beat Amazon and Ebay to the Semantic Web, a story of future Googles and Semantic Webs. In my other life, I'm actually building this RDF stuff, so it's great to see I'm not alone in thinking Google should adopt it.

posted 2002-07-30 15:20 #

Google Groups Bart Art

Again, from Tim Flaherty comes a Google Groups Art Masterpiece: aa ae ao ea ee eo BART. (Thanks, Dave Bug!)

posted 2002-07-29 17:22 #

Meeting Sergey Brin

Red Herring: Dinner with the mind behind the mind of God. 'His father, a Russian mathematician, and his mother, some kind of rocket scientist, came to America to teach because "the Jews were the only people the Russians didn't want."' "All we do is search. Have you noticed that our Web site has actually gotten simpler?" he asked. "Of our 260 employees, more than 50 have Ph.D.s. We have the largest research staff dedicated to search in the world," he boasted. "Steve Jobs is crazy," Mr. Brin commented, apparently with approval. (Thanks, Reg, Tara!)

posted 2002-07-28 06:45 #

Mangle: Random Link Generator

Mangle Random Link Generator randomly sends you to a random page by picking the first result on Google for three random words. (Thanks, Eric!)

posted 2002-07-28 06:24 #

More Google Art

Tim Flaherty writes in with a Google art picture of Lincoln, entitled aa ae ao ea ee eo oa oe lincoln.

posted 2002-07-25 18:09 #

Google Groups Art

Thanks to Karl Ove Hufthammer for pointing us to sun sky land rock brightflowers darkerock lushgrass, the first art piece I know of that takes advantage of Google's query highlighting feature to make colored ASCII art. Of course, if art's not your thing you could always take the hidden message approach... Fun stuff.

posted 2002-07-21 03:34 #

Google tells Amazon Light to Cease and Desist

Amazon Light, a very cool new use of the Amazon Web Services recently introduced (and clearly inspired by Google's Web API) provides a cleaner-than-Amazon interface to the same data. However, they recently report that they've been asked to cease-and-desist by Google's lawyers. The site was very much like Google's (screenshot) but it was clearly in good taste. I'm not sure why Google is so testy about it. Is a books.google.com coming soon?

I wonder if they'll go after Whois Report next.

[Thanks to Kevin Burton for alerting me to this.]

posted 2002-07-19 07:33 #

GooFresh: Query Recent Additions to Google

Tara writes in with her new toolGooFresh, which, as the name implies, lets you query Google and only retrieve pages that have been indexed recently.

posted 2002-07-19 06:03 #

Ask Jeeves to Show Google's Sponsored Links

Press Release: Ask Jeeves and Google Sign $100 Million Three-Year Deal: Projects Revenue From Paid Listings to Double By Q4

posted 2002-07-18 22:31 #

FTC Requires Other Search Engines to Adopt Stricter Ad polic

AP: FTC Seeks Info on Search Engines. 'The FTC delivered its findings as a recommendation but indicated it could pursue legal action if the search engines don't build ``clear and conspicuous'' distinctions between fee-based results and those produced by objective formulas.'

Google, of course, had already met the FTC's guidelines.

posted 2002-07-15 15:30 #

Custom SiteSearchers

Anil Dash writes in to let us know that Sun's Java Search has a customized interface to Google. They join Cisco, Redhat, BBCi, the Apple Developer Connection and Earthlink in taking advantage of Google's hosted SiteSearch program. Also, Yahoo!, Alexa (which has some very nifty screenshots and collaborative filtering) and Netscape use Custom WebSearch to provide customized views of Google searches.

According to Google, the results "are available via HTTP and can be formatted in XML or Google's proprietary protocol." So I suspect the server simply makes a call to Google's XML feed and reformats the results. This is an interesting alternative to simply handing users off to the Google site.

In other news, thanks to a note from mpt, I've added a link to Google SiteSearch for this site so you can search just the Google Weblog.

posted 2002-07-14 17:27 #

Happy Bastille Day!

Fete du 14 Juillet

Thanks to Dung Nguyen for pointing out this new logo up on Google.fr!

posted 2002-07-14 04:42 #

TouchGraph Google Browser

TouchGraph GoogleBrowser lets you surf Google's "similar pages" networks in a Java applet. Here's a screenshot of the NYTimes's network. Meanwhile, Christian Langreiter's Google Sets Visualizer lets you visualize concepts as related by Google sets. Here's a screen shot of connected philosophers.

posted 2002-07-09 04:54 #

OR or |

Jesse Ruderman writes in to let us know that | works as a synonym for OR in Google searches. As a refresher, OR lets you do what you might expect... search for pages that include either of two words. It also lets you see which term Google likes better (good | evil, mac | windows, etc.).

posted 2002-07-07 05:28 #

elgooG

Thanks to David McDonald for this pointer to elgooG, a Google "mirror". Very cool.

posted 2002-07-05 19:20 #

July 4th

Happy 4th of July /></p>
<p class=posted 2002-07-04 05:12 #

Craig Silverstein Answers

Slashdot: Craig Silverstein answers your Google questions

posted 2002-07-03 19:33 #

Google Stats

According to the latest Google Newsletter, more than half of Google's searches come from outside the US. Google.de is number one among all "web properties" in Germany and is number one in search referrals as well (Nielsen/NetRatings, May 2002 and StatMarket, May/June 2002). Google gained nearly 4 million unique users in May, more than any other top 25 global property, according to the Nielsen/NetRatings Global Internet Index.

posted 2002-07-02 23:08 #

AT&T Worldnet Chooses Google

Press Release: AT&T Selects Google to Provide Complete Search Solution

"AT&T Worldnet subscribers will see targeted online advertisements from Google's rapidly growing base of AdWords Select advertisers. These highly relevant ads appear next to search results, and are carefully matched to users' search requests."

posted 2002-07-02 17:32 #

Top of the Heap

David Gallagher (OK, you owe me a link ;-) has an article in Business 2.0 about how he became number one for his name on Google. On his weblog is more about the article and his request for links.

While I know a lot of people who are trying to be first on Google, David is the first to write about this in major publications. Too bad Business 2.0 didn't actually link to him. On the other hand, this is an improvement from his last story on the subject, in which he taunts unsuspecting young AIM users.

posted 2002-07-02 01:59 #

Canada Day Logo

posted 2002-06-30 18:20 #

Special World Cup Logos

Now that the World Cup has been one, I'll share the special Google Logos:

First there's the generic World Cup logo. Next there are special ones for Korea and Japan, the organizing countries. (Thanks, CHRis!) Finally, there are ones for Brazil and Germany, the two finalists. (Thanks, Stefan!) Congratulations to all.

posted 2002-06-30 16:06 #

Foreign Holiday Logos

Many thanks to Jill for pointing us to some foreign Google Holiday Logos that we had missed.

Google Logo with Sun and Music Notes
La Fête de la Musique, France - June 21, 2002


Dragon Boat Festival, China- June 15, 2002

Stay tuned for the Canada Day logo!

posted 2002-06-29 01:32 #

Technology Behind Google

Jim Reese, Chief Operations Engineer for Google explains the technology behind it (Q&A session). Note that this recording is from way back when (2000-10-19) -- they only had 6000 machines back then!

There are some great details about the hardware guts of the Google operation in here. And some interesting philosophy: "Although we are philosphically against patents [...] we have to keep proprietary for business reasons." "We would like to contribute code back to the Linux community."

posted 2002-06-28 06:24 #

Google API for MovableType

If you run a weblog with Movable Type (as I do -- this weblog is powered by it!) you might be interested in these neat Google API hacks for Movable Type which provide the top Google searches for an article title. Neato. (Thanks, David and Tim!)

posted 2002-06-21 06:40 #

Slashdot Interviews Craig Silverstein

Slashdot: What's It Like to be Google's Boss Techie?. Submit your questions! (Thanks, Gel Ipt!)

posted 2002-06-20 20:10 #

Google Wins More Webbys

The Webby Awards: 2002 Winners

Google grabbed the Webby and People's Voice for "Best Practices" and the People's Voice for Technical Achievement. Their five-word acceptance speech? "This is yours -- Google Users."

posted 2002-06-20 03:40 #

Wishlist: Google Newsreader

David Cancel writes in to say that he'd be willing to pay a monthly/yearly fee to be able to read the Google newsgroups with a regular newsreader. Unfortunately, as stated in the FAQ, this is not currently possible. I agree, there are many nice newsreaders which are more convenient for comprehensive newsgroup reading (as opposed to simply searching, which Google Groups is great at) which I would like to use to read these groups. As it stands, I can't remember to go back to the websites and check them each day.

posted 2002-06-19 18:07 #

Improving Google Images

Google Images is an ambitious project from Google and of course it's nowhere near as good as the original Google Web. But much to Google's credit, it's continuously getting better. However, I think I have a few suggestions to make it better:

Google Web is an incredible thing and it doesn't make sense Google Images not to take advantage of it. Right now using Google Web and then picking an image off the page is often better than Google Images. I hope that changes in the near future.

Example searches that can be improved:

Do you have suggestions? Mail them in!

posted 2002-06-17 18:54 #

Google Search Appliance Successes

Press Release: Industry Leaders Adopt Google Corporate Search Products
Search Tools: Google Search Appliance by Avi Rappoport

Anyone have one of these? Please send in your thoughts. How much are they? I'm trying to get one for the W3C since their old AltaVista machine died.

posted 2002-06-17 17:21 #

Googlers Googling Google

Thanks to Patrick Grote for sending in this Fast company article on Google's internal R&D process: How Google Searches Itself.

"We never say, 'This group should innovate, and the rest should just do their jobs,' " says Jonathan Rosenberg, vice president of product management. "Everyone spends a fraction of their day on R&D."

Cool! What would be really great, is if they let anyone submit an idea and used PageRank or a similar system to select the best. PageRank is already designed to search for the best web pages, why not let it search out the best ideas too. Although Google is notably private and shy, I think this might take them to a whole new level as a company.

posted 2002-06-17 16:23 #

Google in the first Web browser

Noah Friedman comes thru again with this collection of Google screenshots in old Web browsers, including WorldWideWeb 0.16, one of the very very first Web browsers ever. Most interesting is probably WorldWideWeb 2.01, since it has images. Thanks, Noah!

posted 2002-06-17 16:10 #

Happy Father's Day

Google: Happy Father's Day Logo

posted 2002-06-16 17:02 #

Google Book

via Rael Dornfest we learn that Tara Calishan is writing a book on Google:

As most of you know, I write stuff. And soon I'll be helping put together a book on search engines. Now that the Google API has been released, books on search engines are much more than "use this search technique" (though those are important too.) Now people can put programs together that do Cool Search Things.

If you know of a cool Google technique -- an interesting use of the API, a search trick you think is nifty -- send it in. (I already know about Googlewhacks, Googlematic, Google Smackdown, and Google results by e-mail!)

ALSO, if you have a GOOGLE WISH -- the thought, "Wow, I wish I could do X with Google," send that in too. I might be able to help make your Google Wish come true!

Aww, I wanted to write that book.

Anyway, keep sending in your cool Google tools, techniques and wishes. Thanks!

posted 2002-06-16 16:38 #

Google Catches Hijacker

Thanks to Gel Ipt for sending us word of this Canadian story. It explains how a policeman caught the Canada's only airplane hijacker, using a nonstandard method: "He went to google.com and searched for Critton." (He's a policeman, it's a search engine: they fight crime!)

posted 2002-06-13 22:27 #

Old-Fashioned Google

On the eve of the mozilla.party, check out this cool screenshot of Google in Mosaic 1.2 from Noah Friedman. Now all we need is one from WorldWideWeb...

posted 2002-06-13 04:28 #

Shameless Google-Promotion

At the top of a Google search, just underneath the "Searched the web for ..." bit, Google's been adding:

Try Google Answers to get help from expert researchers.

And at the bottom of your search you might find a new type of Google ad:

?Try Google Answers - answers.google.com
Want expert help with your search? Set your price. Get a great answer.
Shameless self-promotion

Since Google Answers is a revenue stream, I can understand them promoting it so heavily... Thankfully, they've been very tasteful about it so far.

posted 2002-06-13 03:48 #

Google Toolbar for Mozilla

The Googlebar for Mozilla project has released version 0.4.5 of their Mozilla add-on. "While we are in no way affiliated with Google inc, our current release, 0.4.5 Release candidate, emulates all of the basic search functionality of the toolbar, allowing users to easily access a number of specialty searches from their browser [...]".

posted 2002-06-12 20:30 #

Google History

The Stanford Database Group has added some old Google hardware to their museum. I bet Google's multi-colored logo came from all that LEGO. Stanford also has an article on Google's early history.

posted 2002-06-11 05:58 #

The Google Dance

What is the Google Dance? LinkTree says:

Once a month Google calculates the pagerank of each page and changes the serp (search enigne result pages) for all keywords.

The Google Dance is the time between the start and the end of an update. In that time you get different results on www.google.com, www2.google.com and www3.google.com. Normally the Google Dance takes about 4 days.

The best time to put new pages online is during the Google-Dance. If you let too much time lapse between the completion of the update and the publication of new content, you may reduce the amount of new content that will be included in the next update.

Woz at WebmasterWorld offers this alternate explanation:

They put some pages in,
They take some pages out,
They calculate the PageRank,
Then they shake it all about,
They wait until the full moon
Then they mix the servers up,
Thats what its all about.

If you're really interested, WebmasterWorld keeps a chart of Google Update History.

posted 2002-06-11 05:51 #

Google Geography

The winner of the Google Programming Contest has released his Geographic Search software under the GPL.

Meanwhile, if you're getting the wrong geographic Google, send your IP address to Google Geographic Report. I wonder what country I have to be in to get Google Igpay Atinlay.

posted 2002-06-11 05:20 #

Spam, Spam, Spam ....

SearchDay: The Search Engine Spam Police. On Google, in particular:

Jen McGrath, Software Engineer at Google, advised webmasters to create sites with appropriate, relevant content and a straightforward design. In other words, make a useful site that clearly benefits your end users.

McGrath also advised webmasters to submit your site to web directories and let other sites link to you. Your site does benefit from the sites that link to it. However, your site can be penalized for the sites that you link to. Spam penalties include demotion and removal from Google's index.

Some items that Google considers spam are:

  1. Cloaking.
  2. Automated queries to Google to check positioning. The goal of this is primarily to tweak a site for positioning purposes, not to create content that benefits end users.
  3. Hidden text or hidden links.
  4. Stuffing pages with irrelevant keywords.
  5. Doorway pages, domains, and subdomains with the same or similar content.
  6. "Sneaky" redirects.

Report possible spam abuse via email to spamreport@google.com.

You can also fill out Google's Report a Spam Result form if you see a spam page.

posted 2002-06-07 17:16 #

Google Copycats

Henk van Ess writes in with his article Over 1250 Google pirates game for typo's (translated from Dutch). It's an interesting article about the different sites who try and grab the many Googlers who accidentally mistype Google in their browser.

posted 2002-06-07 04:21 #

Google PDF

PlanetPDF compares Google's PDF support to AllTheWeb
and finds that recent changes cause it to do very well.

posted 2002-06-04 21:03 #

ODP Category for Google

The Open Directory Project (dmoz) now has a category for Google (managed by t23). It should be available on the Google directory within a few weeks. It's apparently just starting but already has links to some great tools like this frame-based Google server comparison.

If you're interested in Google tools, you'll probably like this Google SearchTool for Windows.

posted 2002-06-02 04:21 #

Programming Contest Winners Announced

Google has announced the winner of their Google Programming Contest. Congratulations to Daniel Egnor for his project on Geographic Search winning. Take a look at some of the other winners too.

posted 2002-05-31 12:06 #

Google Answers Adds Search

Eileen from Google writes to tell us that later tonight, Google Answers will be adding a search feature for their questions. This is the obvious next step (the next one will be to add it to Google's tabs). It'd also be really cool for folks to perhaps add a bit of cash to a question they want to see answered.

posted 2002-05-31 03:13 #

As Seen in The Age!

Tara Calishan writes in to let us know about this article in Australian news paper, The Age: Google blogs.

Not written by an employee of the Google Corporation, the Google Blog records everything from the release of new versions to the special logos Google puts on to mark such events as Halloween, Christmas and St Patrick's Day. It can point you to new tricks for finding what you seek, and to sites where expert developers are discussing their Google projects. Author Aaron Swartz has some credibility with the company; he recently got a tour of their offices, duly documented with his digital camera and posted on the blog.

Wow, thanks!

posted 2002-05-30 15:27 #

Google International

Christophe ASSELIN writes in to tell us about Google Worldwide, his index of countries and languages made available by Google. It's a useful addition to the country lists and languages on the Google Language Tools page.

posted 2002-05-28 23:21 #

Google as a Force for Good

As Cory Docotorow points out, this great story is an example of how Google can turn kids from cheaters to independent website creators.

From the story:

"Can I make a web page and write things?"
"Yes you can. I'll help you"
"And can I make some other pages and link to my web page so Google likes it?"
"That would be cheating - people have tried that and Google counts links from people who have lots of links pointing at them more than links from pages that no-one links to".
"Oh. OK. I'll write a page, and you can link to it, and you can tell your friends to link to it, and they can tell their friends to link to it, and then everyone will find my page."
"Well, that would work, but only if you think of something interesting to write."
"Oh. I'll have to think of some funny stories then."

And so he did!

posted 2002-05-26 08:35 #

Dilbert Logo Revealed

Dilbert: I can't see!Google finally reveals the logo you've been waiting a week for (it's what happens when they merge the logo with their vision plan). Check out the rest of the logos from this week and don't forget that today is the last day to buy the commemorative mug.

posted 2002-05-24 17:43 #

Google Sets Passes the Borges Test

The Register: Google Labs passes Borges test. Check out the list for yourself.

posted 2002-05-24 03:40 #

Google Wishlist

What do you want to see next from Google?

PageRank information from their API. Google's API is great, but it's missing the really juicy information: a page's PageRank. Is Google afraid to give this information away? (Then why make it available thru the toolbar?) I can think of a lot of interesting applications if they made that one available. Dave Winer notes that he'd like to use it on Weblogs.com.

Indexing of Mailing Lists. We've got Google Groups indexing newsgroups, but what about mailing lists? Can we please have a decent search alternative somewhere between the utilitarian but hard-to-use mail archive and the ad-bloated and painful Yahoo Groups.

What's on your Google Wishlist? Drop me a line.

posted 2002-05-23 08:56 #

More Ways To Google

Power Users: Google Ultimate Interface
Phone: Voice Search
Yahoo! IM: YIMGoogle
AOL IM / MSN Messenger: Googlematic

posted 2002-05-23 08:34 #

News Updates

Pressflex: Google is three times bigger than the experts think. "In sum, Google drives 78% of all this site's referrals. [...] if your site doesn't boogy with Google, redesign NOW." (on size)

Press Release: Google and Dilbert Doodle Together. "Dilbert has had a large influence on Google's management style," said Sergey Brin, co-founder and president of Technology, Google Inc. "I am planning to adopt a pointy hairdo." "This partnership exceeded my wildest dreams," said Scott Adams, Dilbert creator. "I hoped I would get a free Google shirt, and I got three of them plus a mug." (on Dilbert)

posted 2002-05-23 08:03 #

New Toolbar Features

Nate writes in to tell us that along with Google Labs, Google has released Experimental Google Toolbar features including a combined search button, a feature to supress pop-up windows and next-previous buttons to navigate thru search results. There are also seven new languages available for the toolbar. To get the new version, I had to uninstall the old one and then install the toolbar again.

More: ResearchBuzz

posted 2002-05-22 20:35 #

Google Banner Ads

Google's running banner ads for their new search appliance on PCWorld, Slashdot and others. Here are the ads I've found:

Your most loved appliance just got competition.
GOOGLE AT WORK
How to find a document in a paperless office.
Search your network with the power of Google.
A googol is a big number.

posted 2002-05-22 05:52 #

Japanese Translation

Yukio Andoh is very kindly doing a Japanese Translation of this Google Weblog (graphical version for browsers that don't support Japanese character sets. Many thanks to Yukio for doing this.

posted 2002-05-22 04:41 #

Google Supports Unicode Search Results

Calum Mac Leod writes in to point out that Google supports Unicode in search results. This means that with the right browser, you'll be able to see japanese characters in titles and excerpts. I'm not sure how long this has been available but it sure is nice. It's probably not compatible with all browsers -- it requires Unicode support and Unicode fonts.

posted 2002-05-21 07:39 #

Google Labs

Google LabsGoogle Labs: Glossary, Sets, Voice Search, Keyboard Shortcuts. Awesome!

Check out the Labs FAQ and the discussion groups for more information.

posted 2002-05-20 23:35 #

Google Offers Premium "Find Anything" Service

BBSpot: Google Offers Premium "Find Anything" Service. Apparently new technologies allow Google to search the real world as well as the Web. "This service is invaluable," said one user, "I found my keys, a job and the lost city of Atlantis!"

Ftrain: The Google of the Future. "I am Google! I'm indexing your apartment."

posted 2002-05-20 22:06 #

Dilbert and the Google Doodle

Cartoonist Scott Adams has donated his hand to a series of Google Doodles starring the characters of Dilbert. It looks like they're thinking up a new logo for Google. Should be interesting!

posted 2002-05-20 12:32 #

Visiting Google

Just got back from visiting Google HQ for lunch today. Check out my photo album. I'll be adding more descriptions to the photos later.

I had a wonderful time there. I got to meet lots of great Googlers and see all sorts of famous stuff. A lot of people (especially those in marketing and PR) said they read my blog and loved it. I'm sort of curious why, since I expect they know most of what I write. Is my perspective as an outsider useful? (Tell me.)

At lunch we discussed my goals for the weblog. I like breaking stories first, but I'm more interested in putting together all the news in one place (which I owe to all the people who send me news). We noted that the things I'm interested in are very different than the normal press. They went wild over Google's deal with AOL, I went over the details Google's new redirect-on-no-matches feature.

I asked them what their new top secret project was. They didn't tell me, but they said it would be introduced on Thursday. (Stay tuned.) They were great about letting me ask questions and take photos but there were only two things that were off limits: whiteboards and their crayon graph of Google's popularity over time (it's going up). I unfortunately ran out of room and batteries on my camera (I woke up late and forgot to charge it properly) so I didn't photograph everything I wanted. Maybe next time.

For example, the fellow who did the crayon graph is part of the production team. He had a little pice of art with a stick figure man hanging on a wire over a hungry shark. A nearby sticky note reads "a typical day in the life of a production engineer". The height of the man is adjustable based on how well the day is going. I'd imagine he'd fall into the shark's jaws on Mondays, when Google's traffic spikes way up.

All in all it was a great trip. I've got a few more photos which I'll upload when my camera recharges. Send me your questions.

posted 2002-05-13 18:47 #

New Holiday Logos

Google Logo with Melting Clocks Google's put up a great logo for Salvador Dali's birthday. It's based on his famous painting The Persistence of Memory. And today they've changed the first "o" into a flower for Mother's Day. You might also want to check out their Tribute to Our Moms from 2000.

Also check out the fine local logos for St. George's Day (UK) and Children's Day (Japan).

posted 2002-05-12 16:09 #

Google Gaining on Yahoo Market Share

StatMarket: Google Challenges Yahoo as the No. 1 Search Site in the World. "As of April 24, 2002, Google accounted for 31.87 percent of all search referrals worldwide - an all-time high - compared to Yahoo, with 36.35 percent as of the same date."

posted 2002-05-01 16:03 #

Google Teams up with AOL

Press Release: Google to Power Search Functions Across AOL Brands
CNET: Overture bows to Google in AOL deal
Reuters: AOL Inks Deal to Use Google Search Engine
NYTimes: AOL Replaces Overture With Google

posted 2002-05-01 15:51 #

Google's Gaffe

XML.com: Google's Gaffe. Paul Prescod explains why Google's new SOAP API felt to many like "one step forward and two steps back." He describes how Google could offer a Web-compatible API, that returns XML and HTML results in a form that's even easier to use than SOAP. He's also started a petition asking Google for such an API. I encourage you to join me in signing it. Thanks!

posted 2002-04-27 00:55 #

Alexa Web Search (Powered by Google)

Many thanks to Peter Riis for sending a link to Alexa Web Search. It uses the search results from Google, but also provides a small screenshot of the top results and special Alexa related info for each result, like traffic ranking, related pages and reviews. Neat!

posted 2002-04-27 00:52 #

Ask Google

I'm interested in questions people have about Google or the Googleplex. Please email them to me, thanks!

posted 2002-04-25 04:58 #

NYTimes on Google's DMCA Issues

NYTimes: Google Runs Into Copyright Dispute

Mr. Cutts said that the links to the complaints were not a political statement, just a way to "make sure our users get all of the information that they need." He said that Google had no official position on the copyright act and that so far it had not been involved in political activity or lobbying. But he said it "might take an interest in more of those issues."

posted 2002-04-25 02:50 #

Earth Day 2002 Logo

Google Logo with the Earth Google and the Google Weblog wish you a happy Earth Day. Get outside for a bit today and enjoy yourself!

If you're interested, you can see Google's collection of holiday logos. Also, check out the Korea Herald's interview with Dennis Hwang, the man behind these Google doodles.

posted 2002-04-22 18:30 #

Using Google's Date Operator

Tara Calishan has found some interesting uses for Google's daterange: operator, including tracking the popularity of certain terms over time. The daterange: operator seems to be a new operator that we found out using Google's Web API documentation. Many thanks to Tara for this information!

If you're tired of calculating Julian dates by hand, check out Michael Fagan's Fagan Finder which lets you use a more typical set of date pop-downs.

Of course, Google told Tara that they recommend you use the date: options on their advanced search page and that daterage: is only beta.

posted 2002-04-22 04:26 #

Oogling: Finding the Popular Search Terms

While Google has long made search data available thru the Zeitgeist, their AdWords Advertising Program lets you find out the popularity and cost of any search term. Here are some recent articles on the subject:

Iterature: The Google Adwords Happening
Pressflex: Ogling Google: "Jesus" is bigger than "The Beatles"

posted 2002-04-18 20:43 #

Google Answers Goes Live

With little fanfare, Google has launched Google Answers (BETA) where you can ask and answer questions. They're looking for paid researchers to help answer the questions. "As a Researcher, you work from your own home and computer to answer questions for Google Answers. You earn 75% of the price set for a question that you answer." To become a researcher you must write a short essay on your qualifications and answer some sample questions. They're using the same Google Accounts system as the SOAP interface.

Users ask questions and set a price between $4.00 and $50.00, Google takes a $0.50 listing fee and you pay by credit card.

posted 2002-04-18 20:21 #

Google Indexes Stopwords

As reported on ResearchBuzz News, Google has begun indexing stopwords. This means you can search for things like the and www, both of which give you insight into who has the largest PageRank. Now if only they'd start indexing @@...

posted 2002-04-16 17:21 #

GET-based Interface to Google API

If you're a developer who would prefer a plain GET-based interface to Google over their SOAP API, please make your feelings known in a thread on their discussion forum: Non-SOAP API?. Thanks!

posted 2002-04-15 17:41 #

Google Answers?

Astute reader Patrik wrote in about answers.google.com, a new site Google has set up. It currently redirects to the Google homepage, but who knows what will be here eventually. This is typical Google behavior: even images.google.com originally redirected to the Google homepage. On the other hand, random strings like fakeexample.google.com return an error from the browser.

Update: Matt Haughey writes to let us know about Google's old Questions and Answers service (mefi thread) which unfortunately seems to have been taken down with no archives available. (If anyone has an archived copy of these pages, do let me know!) It's definitely possible that this is related.

posted 2002-04-15 17:31 #

Google on the DMCA

Google: Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

As Erik (Xirzon) points out, Google now links to this page and the DMCA complaint when the URLs that have been taken down would have appeared in the search results. Go Google!

posted 2002-04-12 20:02 #

Google Mispelling Redirects

When searching for a mispelled term with no results you'll now get a confusingly blank page, which quickly redirects to a corrected one with a notice at the top in red explaining what happened.


An interesting new feature, although more notification would be helpful.

Update: As one reader pointed out my original example no longer returns no results -- it now returns this page! I've changed this to a new example page to fix the problem.

posted 2002-04-12 19:26 #

Google Accounts?

When I went to register for the Google API (see below) I was required to sign up for Google Accounts. When I finished, I got this message:

Currently, this account can be used to access Google Web API and Google Answers.

In the future, your Google account will enable login access to all Google services, including Google Groups posting, Google Adwords, the GoogleStore, the Google in Your Language program, and more.

posted 2002-04-11 18:15 #

Big News! Google Announces Web APIs

Today Google has finally announced their new Google Web APIs. There's also a google.public.web-apis group to discuss them. These APIs are important because they allow programmers to access Google information from programs and software. Hopefully we'll see a whole bunch of interesting tools using this data.

Ian MacDonald: Ruby/Google
Simon Willision: PHP Google API
SoapWare.org: Google API Implementations including AppleScript, C++, Frontier/Radio, Perl, PHP, Python and Visual Basic
Metafilter: Google opens SOAP interface
Slashdot: Google Releases Web APIs
Rael Dornfest: Google Web API
DaveNet: Google is Just the Juice

posted 2002-04-11 18:01 #

Wildcard Character (*)

I'm not sure if this has been noticed before, but I just discovered that Google allows the '*' character as a wildcard -- a placeholder for any word. For example, the search for just three mice returns a bunch of links with the phrase "three mice", but three * mice returns links about "three blind mice". It also works for quoted phrases: "three mice", "three * mice".

posted 2002-04-08 23:01 #

Google Going IPO?

New York Times: Google's Toughest Search Is for a Business Model

posted 2002-04-08 19:40 #

filetype: Search Operator

From SearchDay, we learn of Google's filetype: operator, which lets you search by file type. For example, you can search for PostScript (ps), PDF, MS Word (doc), MS Excel (xls), MS PowerPoint (ppt)and Rich Text Format (rtf). Of course Google can search many more file formats. Our French-speaking friends at pssst have come up with a list (English translation via Google).

Be sure to check out Advanced Google Search Operators for more useful operators like this one.

posted 2002-04-08 15:33 #

SOAP Interface to Google?

In a post to Ruby-Talk, Ian Macdonald speaks about a new SOAP API for Google. (SOAP is an XML protocol that allows programmers to automatically query systems thru a friendly interface.) This is surprising, considering that Google has shut down their XML interface.

Noticing that the API call requires a special "key" parameter (currently 'xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx') it seems likely that this interface will be closed off to everyone except special Google partners also. Quite a shame, although clever developers have learned to get the same results by simply parsing Google's XML format.

Slashdot: Google to Offer API

posted 2002-04-07 01:25 #

Google PigeonRank

Today, Google has finally revealed the secret to their amazingly accurate search results. It's Google PigeonRank Technology and you can read more about it on the Google website.

Two years ago on this day, Google beta-tested Google MentalPlex.

posted 2002-04-01 06:15 #

Britney Mispellings

After hearing about this page numerous ways, we might as well link to Google's list of mispellings for 'Britney Spears'. Pretty funny...

posted 2002-03-31 01:19 #

Choosing Google Language

Jean Jordaan writes to let us know that Google respects the language preferences set in your browser. It's a little known fact that a number of websites suupport "language negotiation" allowing you to select your preferred language in your browser preferences and the website will attempt to accommodate. As Jean writes, "a 1 000 000 times better than using a cookie for this."

posted 2002-03-27 20:42 #

Activate Google Compute!

Frédéric ROLAND writes to tell us how you can activate Google Compute on your Google Toolbar. I just tested this on my Windows machine and it works beautifully. Thanks, Frédéric!

posted 2002-03-24 05:35 #

Advanced Google Operators

Google: Advanced Google Search Operators. This page describes a lot of the nifty Google features from cache: to inurl: to stocks: and more.

posted 2002-03-22 05:46 #

Google Removes Scientology Sites Due to DMCA Threat

Andreas Heldal-Lund has received a notice from Google stating that they have removed the popular Scientology debunking xenu.net from their index. More information is at the Google and Scientology webpage.

Update: xenu.net seems to be back on Google (photo), along with a text-ad for it, as well as one as one advertising "Operation Censorship: Scientology pulls critics off popular search engine for two days!". Plus there's a link to the CNET story.

Another Update: Jean Jordaan sends a pointer to a discovery made by Erik Moeller (Xirzon of InfoAnarchy) that Google has only relisted the root xenu.net URL, but none of the others Scientology has asked to be removed.

Dave Touretzky: Do-It-Yourself DMCA Counter Notification Letter

posted 2002-03-21 06:57 #

Special Title/URL Searching

As describe by ResearchBuzz, you can use the intitle: and inurl: commands to narrow down your search based on the contents of the page's title or URL. This is nice, because when combined with the site: construct, you can get all indexed pages on a domain, like: inurl:aaronsw site:aaronsw.com.

posted 2002-03-19 16:46 #

Google PhoneBook

Reg Aubry, as explained in ResearchBuzz News, has discovered undocumented Google syntax for searching the phonebook.

Not only can you search for starbucks, boston ma and get back two phonebook listings, but you can search phonebook: starbucks, boston ma and get all the phonebook listings. Best of all, you can search for phonebook: starbucks ma from the main Google page and get "about 99" results. Of course, "place, city state" isn't the only way to search. The Google features page lists lists seven.

If that's still not enough for you, you can combine these with rphonebook: for residential listings and bphonebook: for business listings for extra fun (try: rphonebook: sears ma, bphonebook: sears ma). (From ResearchBuzz reader EB.)

Thanks to Dave Beckett for the pointer.

posted 2002-03-19 16:33 #

Google Microsoft

Google Logo Against Grassy BackgroundA surprising addition to Google's Custom Searches is Google Microsoft. Their system for determining which sites are related to Microsoft seems poor at the moment (the first two hits for "sucks" were survivorsucks.com and metricsucks.com) but is likely to improve.

posted 2002-03-17 18:22 #

Introducing Google News

Now in beta is Google News, a special search for the latest headlines. It moves Google's old "Headline News" page onto its front page, and uses the same story-matching technology to merge relates stories in your search results. Google's play catch-up to Daypop in this field -- it'll be interesting to see if they let you search weblogs soon.

posted 2002-03-17 18:17 #

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Green Google Logo with Four-Leaf Clover Continuing their theme of event-related changes, Google updates their logo for St. Patrick's Day. Check out their other holiday logos and an AP story about their creator.

posted 2002-03-17 18:09 #

Welcome!

Welcome to the Google Weblog. I hope to track the latest additions and modifications to the Google site. Please email me any news or tips you have. Enjoy the site!

posted 2002-03-17 18:01 #