Posts Tagged ‘CUIL’
Search Engine Privacy
European privacy organisations are again pressuring Search Engines to do more to protect the privacy of their users, as the topic is brought to the fore at The Second Annual European Data Privacy Day.
According to a report from VNU Net, the major search engines have offered to lower their retention times in Europe from three to eighteen months.
Robert Beens, CEO of Dutch Search Engine Company LXQuick has commented that “Using a search engine is sharing your innermost secrets and habits, which should be safe”.
Search Engine News tends to agree with Mr Been’s comments. A lot of valuable information about user behavior is kept by the search engines, giving them an upper hand when it comes to marketing and analytics, but many people aren’t aware that when they search for information in Google or other search engines, that their information is kept in a database as a profile built around their internet habits. That is a lot of trust users are giving to the search engines, which can easily be lost if the search engines abuse their power.
LXQuick has decided to stop recording it’s visitor’s IP Address amid privacy concerns, and all details of it’s users will be deleted within 48 hours. This follows the search engine privacy leader Cuil, which has a policy of not storing logs about it’s users activity, nor storing any cookies that could identify it’s users.
Google has in the past been criticized over the length it stores it’s cookies and the community at large has had concerns over Google’s usage or potential misuse of that information, however when the three major search engines were issued subpoena’s by the US Government for information on it’s users search queries, Google was the only one that fought the subpoena to defend it’s customers information.
Google’s new browser Google Chrome also has increased privacy modes, fondly dubbed “porn mode” by some of the tech community due to it’s ability of wiping any evidence of browser history
Many countries around the globe already have in place very strict privacy laws, such in Australia and the UK, and the European Union is beginning to clamp down on it’s own privacy laws with a major emphasis on protecting personal data, it seems that so far, the search engines have complied with many requests, but one can only wonder just how hard they’ll fight to retain the data that they still have.
Search Engine News brought to you by Search King.
Happy New Year - Search News 2009
Welcome to 2009!
2008 was a tremendous year in search engine news, and having only launched 4 months ago, searchnews.net.au is sitting at a humble page rank of 1 (attained within 5 weeks), delivering articles to hundreds of new visitors each month, and being crawled by the Google Spider spider in excess of
30 times per day, proving that fresh content is a core component of increasing your visibility in the search engines.
Here is a quick recap of some of the biggest news articles from 2008, hand-picked by our staff:
Google Android is launched, a Mobile Phone Operating System
Google Creates Google Chrome, a new Web Browser from Google
Cuil, a new search engine is launched by a Google ex-pat
Microsoft attempts Yahoo Takeover
We’re sure that 2009 will be even more exciting than last year, and search news will be bringing you the latest and greatest updates related to Search Engine Companies, Online Marketing & Pay Per Click Advertising, SEO and more.
Google Chrome
Introducing Google Chrome
A new web browser from Google
Google, the world’s most popular search engine has this week launched a new web browser.
It is called Google Chrome, and it aims to take a slice of the browser market away from Microsoft in the same way that Mozilla has done in recent years with it’s free and open source browser Firefox.
Google Chrome features most of the features you’d expect to see in a web browser, such as tabbed browsing, bookmarks and other mandatory gadgets, but at it’s core, Google Chrome has one thing the others don’t:
“One Box for Everything”
This is what Google Chrome is centered on, and it is basically a URL/Address bar and search box all in one.
Google Chrome
In the past, some of us web-savvy folk have scoffed at less experienced users who type a URL or web address into a search engine’s search box, or entering key words in a search box, yet it seems Google has discovered that the majority of it’s users aren’t
Google Chromes “one box for everything” feature predicts the words you’re typing, and immediately starts presenting URLs of actual websites that you’ve visited in the past, or search results related to your keywords that are indexed in Google, and even presents related pages to those you’re searching for. This new feature alone has the potential to change how users interact with web browsers and search engines.
Google Chrome comes at an interesting time when the Search Giant has threats from new competing search engines such as CUIL, who are offering a different search experience with supposedly more results, as well as Microsoft’s recent update to Internet Explorer which has a new privacy feature dubbed “porn mode”.
Google Chrome’s response to the new Microsoft feature is “incognito mode” which stores cookies and session data in a temporary cache and removes all traces of form data, cookies and pages visited when you’re done using it.
At a time when Microsoft had finally received some new attention and perhaps respect for the feature, Google has stolen it’s spotlight and positioned their browser at a perfect time when many people are ready to download browser updates.
Google certainly seems one of the most capable companies in the world to adapt to change and react to it’s competitors whilst leading the way in innovation, which goes a long way to demonstrating their abilities as a software company.
Changes, Questions, Uncertainty
When they already rule the world in web search, video streaming (youtube), and many other mediums, it begs the question, “when does google stop”?
There has been speculation in recent times that Google was preparing it’s own operating system based on Google, and perhaps google chrome is one step closer to that dream, however given that an operating system is less important in this web 2.0 world where feature rich applications are run on a web via a browser regardless of your platfrom, and the rising interest in SaaS (software as a service), Google is positioning itself to gain yet more of it’s competitors ground.
SearchKing has been often critical of browser plugins such as Adobe Flash being used to stream video on youtube as a hack. Google’s ability to obtain a large portion of the browser market could see the search engine/browser change the trends and introduce new browser plugins in favour of it’s massive content networks eliminating licensing fees and changing the way we interact wiht the web.
This is certainly a very interesting time for the internet and for Google.
What does this mean for Google? It means that it can promote Google Chrome as a superior browser using it’s target audience on it’s search engine. It also means they can use the browser to present results it favours from it’s own networks such as Youtube and Google maps. It certainly creates a much more feature rich experience for the user, but poses certain speculative questions about privacy and other concerns over google approaching a monopoly. The browser certainly will certainly further contribute in bolstering it’s own search network and securing it’s advertising space.
What does the introduction of Google Chrome mean for the for the future of firefox? It will probably die off or emulate many of the features in Google Chrome, or be amalgamated and swallowed up by google.
What does this mean for Microsoft? They need to get creative and innovative, they need to set new trends and benchmarks and stay a few steps ahead of the competition. They will probably set their lawyers out to find ways to pick at the new browser.
What does this mean for SEO? It means that google’s browser has the potential to change the way people search for information and how it is presented, and therefore SEO Specialist had best invest a lot of time researching the new browser and changes in the search engine if they’re able to deliver relevant results to their target audience.
Checkout Google Chrome Beta for Windows today: http://www.google.com/chrome/
Like all things Google, it first comes out in Beta mode, and the new software is available to download now for Windows (sorry mac and linux users).
This article is brought to you by Search King.
Google Suggest Tool
Google Suggest is a new feature by google that will use a predictive text to automatically complete your input search data as you type.
Google Suggest - Key Word Suggestion
Say for example I begin typing audi, Google uses ajax browser technology to look up it’s key word database while you type, and makes suggestions for search phrases it thinks you’re looking for.
It is a web 2.0 experience which essentially auto-completes the search phrase which might save you time typing, or recommend a search term that might help you find the information you’re looking for.
This is a feature some SMS-crazed mobile phone users are used to whereby the keystrokes they enter begin to form a word it predicts you’re trying to type in (which search king personally finds annoying). Anyone with auto-complete or Google Toolbar turned on in their browser will also see their saved input data from previous searches.
Whilst it may be new to Google, they’re not ahead of their competition with this feature, as most search engines have already added this feature, such as Cuil and Yahoo (see screens below), the major advantage that google has over the others is that it also shows you how many search results there are for a given term, which can be very handy.
Key Word Suggestion from CUIL
Predictive Key Word Search from Yahoo!
It is definitely a feature that may be considered overdue from the world’s most popular search engine, but we feel it may remove Google from it’s minimalistic, fast browsing experience to a slower, bulkier experience that will be noticeable by those with slow internet connections or lower spec computers.
This feature is not currently default, and it might only be used if you turn it on, so it remains to be seen if it will be a default or optional feature. Either way, it adds to the user experience, which despite our criticism has to be a good thing.