It is a well known fact that search engines such as Google want to provide a good experience to search users. The better experience you have with a search engine the more likely you will continue to use that search engine.
One of the ways this is measured is through page speed and website pages that load very slow obviously cause user frustration. Google has a tool that you can use to help you determine your page speed score and this tool is based off of Web Performance Best Practices such as optimize images files for faster download speeds.
Google Page Speed is an open-source Firefox/Firebug Add-on. You can get Firebug here. Webmasters and web developers can use Page Speed to evaluate the performance of their web pages and to get suggestions on how to improve them.
How does Page Speed work? – Page Speed performs several tests on a site’s web server configuration and front-end code. These tests are based on a set of best practices known to enhance web page performance. Webmasters who run Page Speed on their pages get a set of scores for each page, as well as helpful suggestions on how to improve its performance.
Why should you use Page Speed? – By using Page Speed, you can:
- Make your site faster.
- Keep Internet users engaged with your site.
- Reduce your bandwidth and hosting costs.
- Improve the web!
Install Page Speed Firefox Plugin at http://code.google.com/speed/page-speed/download.html
No one else in the industry has been able to compete with Google, so it may be that Google’s biggest disruptors will come from within. Google will likely have to increase cash salaries and outright stock grants to retain its best people. This will likely further pressure the company’s profit margin which has declined over the past year. Here’s a glimpse of ex-Googler’s starting up their own companies:
- Gokul Rajaram, the “Godfather of AdSense,” is working on a stealth startup.
- Louis Monier, Anna Patterson, Russell Power are working on a search service called Cuill (pronounced “cool”) — it’s said to index the web more economically than Google. Uses a web crawler called “twiceler.”
- Jason Liebman, Sanjay Raman and Daniel Blackman co-founded HowCast, a network of “how to” videos. The pair company has apparently raised $8 million in funding.
- Steffen Mueller started a “search engine community” called Topicle.
- Vanessa Fox left Google for real estate search site Zillow.
- Dan Daugherty is heading RentBits, a real estate rental site. He’s got support from fellow ex-Googler Tim Moynihan, who is COO of the site.
To read more check out Silicon Alley Insider
Defeating click fraud is a data problem, pure and simple, according to a post from Google on its blog.
That better data makes for better tools to combat click fraud isn’t exactly Earth-shattering news, but Google’s comments come at a sensitive time for the company.
While Google cracked open the doors surrounding its click fraud detection measures, the news comes at a time when the search giant is trying to explain some rather bleak click data to Wall Street. To be fair, Google posted its assessment of data and click fraud ahead of comScore’s report that the company saw only a modest 3 percent gain in its paid clicks business. But that report came after a disastrous report for the prior month that prompted many on Wall Street to suggest that Google, digital and the wider U.S. economy were showing greater signs of weakness than previously thought.
Read rest of article at iMedia Connetion.
Google has launched YouTube Adsense video units that let users monetize a YouTube video embed with text or image ads.
The product is not dissimilar to one of the multitude of slide products currently on the market, essentially you use the unit as a display point for your favorite content (in this case from YouTube). Site visitors get to play videos from your list with the ads displayed when these videos are played, and like Adsense you get paid when people click on the ads.
Check out the rest of the article at TechCrunch.
Google Operating System reports (and confirms) that Google has acquired a mobile service called Zingku, which had been in private beta. Around since 2005, the service uses text messaging and picture messaging to provide a platform for (what appears to be) entertainment and events-related communication but also has commercial potential. Zingku also integrates the desktop with mobile. Below are some excerpts from copy on the company’s website:
Our service is designed from the mobile phone, outward, allowing you to create and exchange things of interest ranging from invitations to “mobile flyers” with friends in a trusted manner. On the mobile phone, Zingku uses standard text messaging and picture messaging features that come with every phone. On the web, our service uses your standard web browser and instant messenger. There is nothing to install.
With Zingku, things you wish to promote or share can easily be created and fetched via mobile, instant messenger, and web browser. Our service integrates your mobile phone with a personalized web site so that you can easily move (zing) things back and forth between the web and and your mobile as well as powerfully connect with friends and optionally their friends.
To read more, check out Search Engine Land.
