From the mini-site linked in the post below:
The browser’s address bar is never used. For instance, to go to Playboy’s site, you don’t type “www.playboy.com”; instead, in the “search field” in your start page (probably MSN search), you type “Playboy”. You do that every time you go there.
Some time ago, I read some article which mentioned, among other things, that the top (non-sex) search terms in search engines were stuff like “yahoo” or “ebay”. At the time, it came as a surprise, because I had never really thought about it.
It’s one thing to search for “auctions” and get Ebay as a result. It’s quite another thing to actually search for the name of the site, and click on the first result, instead of simply typing “www.ebay.com”. And to think that most people do it… it was a bit of a shock. Continue reading ‘Browsers and search engines’
According to BlogSEO, it’s happening now.
You can use the Future PageRank tool to check a site’s PR on each of Google’s servers.
Apparently, none of my sites change in PR. The newer ones, however, didn’t have a visible PR yet, and have one now. Mostly 4s, with one 3. Not too bad. The Tlog is still my highest rated one, with a PR of 5.
I actually don’t blame Google for this. It was either accept the government censorship, or not do business in China at all. And would the Chinese gain anything by that? It’s not as if what they already have there is uncensored…
Some people on Slashdot said that Google should have taken a stand and not be in China at all, that the Chinese would become more aware of the censorship because the world’s no. 1 search engine wasn’t available. The thing is, Google is not number one in China. Its market share, there, is quite low - about 25%, from what I’ve read. It simply wouldn’t have worked.
And no censorship is perfect. It’s still possible that Google will make it possible for some Chinese to become more aware of the truth about their regime, and of what the rest of the world is like.
I saw the following in a Slashdot post, and couldn’t resist posting it here:
http://images.google.com/images?q=tiananmen+square (”International” Google)
http://images.google.cn/images?q=tiananmen+square (Google China)
See for yourselves…
It’s Google News!
In related news, sub-zero temperatures in Hades have been reported.
You’ve probably heard of a couple of such attacks, recently. But have you heard the latest one? They apparently want Google to disclose search data. Google is refusing.
The most worrying thing is that MSN and Yahoo! have already complied. Still feel comfortable using them?
Of course, the government doesn’t say it’s attacking privacy. It says it’s doing it “for the children”. In another blog of mine, I have written an article called People and they stated goals. It’s about how, by saying you’re doing something (whatever it is) for some noble cause, it apparently excuses anything you do, and demonizes anyone who criticizes you. That’s what’s happening here:
Jack Samad, senior vice president for the National Coalition for Protection of Children and Families, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based advocacy group, said search engines should be willing to help the Bush administration defend the law.
Samad said: “Young people are experiencing broken lives after being exposed to adult images and behaviours on the Internet. I’m disappointed Google did not want to exercise its good corporate branding to secure the protection of youth. I think [complying with the subpoena] would substantiate the basis of Copa if they get a free exchange of information on youthful use of the internet.”
But in which way would getting “millions of search records” help in that? That’s what they don’t say. And where does it end? Anyone can abuse a child at home, so why not install government cameras in every room of every single home?
I sometimes think you could get away with killing children by saying you were doing it “to protect the children”…
Google has just released a new extension for Firefox, Blogger Web Comments, which shows a small (configurable) popup showing blog articles (which they get from Google Blog Search) that mention the page you’re currently viewing.
I’ve only been using it for 3 minutes or so, so I still haven’t thought about the implications of, basically, for each page you browse to, getting a list of blog articles talking about it. I think it could actually change the browsing habits of a lot of people. A reasonable way to put it might be: “what if every single page in the world had easily accessible comments - and not controlled by the page’s owner?”
It could become annoying, though - I’ll have to wait and see. It can be hidden or temporarily disabled, of course. Or uninstalled, naturally - this isn’t Internet Explorer. 
(seen on ProBlogger)
Seen on ProBlogger: Google now has an “Add to Google” (Homepage or Reader, that is) button, and a page for generating HTML to add a button with your feed.
Note that, as of now, their HTML is slightly invalid, as they forgot to close the <img> tag with a / before the >. That’ll make it fail on XHTML validators. Until they fix their code, you should do it yourself.
(this shows, by the way, the importance of validating your site whenever you add something to it - even if it comes from a “big” source such as Google)
This is how it looks, by the way:
All right, I couldn’t resist it. Even though I said I’d wait a week or two, after Darren Rowse said it was working fine, I tried it.
Very impressive, so far - and a lot of options to explore there.
I suggest you try it, even if you’re satisfied with the stats you already have - there’s nothing to lose, after all… (are you paranoid because of Google knowing too much? Trust me, they already do, they don’t really need this. :))
In their relentless quest for world domination, Google has done it again. Here’s Google Base, a place to post content.
What kind of content? For a start, no HTML. Apparently, most posts so far are ads to sell stuff, much like the ads section of a newspaper. Content only lasts 31 days there, so you won’t be able to create the equivalent of a splog. (hard to do, anyway, without HTML links…)
To test it, I created a “People Profile” of myself, since, of course, I’m a celebrity. 
No, I haven’t let all the news about Google Analytics pass me by. I’ll eventually try it, in fact.
But everyone is saying that it’s too slow, timing out often, and stuff like that. This seems to be happening a lot to new Google products, these days - remember the Google Reader? It works now, but in the first days…
Besides, I quite like AWStats. Maybe I’ll try Analytics in a week or two - they should have ironed out the problems by then.
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