Google has one again encouraged webmasters to use Instant Pages so that their load time is lessened and users have a better experience with their site. Google had rolled out Instant Pages last year as a “new feature to help users get to their desired search results even faster–in some cases even instantly! The Instant Pages feature is enabled by pretendering technology that we are building into Chrome and then is intelligently triggered by web search when we're very confident about which result is the best answer for the user's search.”
Google has formally introduced its “Knowledge Graph” with the tagline- “things not strings”. This means get ready to get real answers and not just links. Google will share its knowledge with users on many things including: places, people, things, technology, entertainment, fine arts, sports, geography, weather and much more. All these things will be revealed by the ‘knowledge graph’ apart from usual search results. This is a step forward in the direction of people getting answers about concepts/meaning of the search term; and not just getting to see pages with the search query in them. As Google says, “This is a critical first step towards building the next generation of search, which taps into the collective intelligence of the web and understands the world a bit more like people do.”
The search forums are ablaze with discussions of Google possible dropping a hundred directories from its search results. It was first brought to light by Barry Schwartz when he found a WebmasterWorld thread where search engine optimization professionals had noted that a number of free directory submission sites were a no show on Google.
Google Places has introduced an upgraded bulk listing management tool. These improvements are aimed at helping the business owners and search marketing professionals with multiple locations. The new features allow for more convenient upload and management processes.
As Google explains the changes made:
- “Edit one or more of your listings’ data at once
- Search through your listings, filtering by specific information or for listings with errors
Webmaster Tools is riding on a wave of change. They started off with spring cleaning in April and now have made changes to the navigation, dashboard, and the home page.
The new and ‘improved’ navigation structure has the following groups:
- Configuration (Things configured and not changed very often)
- Health (to check on the general functionality)
Google’s Matt Cutts has come up with a new video addressing the query: How does Google view font replacement?
Whether webmasters use Cufon, SIFR, FLIR, how do they fare in front of Google, this query was answered by Matt Cutts.
Did you find the video helpful? Do share your views.
The Search Quality team at Google India has launched a site clinic where they will analyze the websites submitted to their ‘clinic’.
The clinic will check the websites and then advice on the changes and improvements needed for the site to fare better in Google's organic search results.
Google has released a list search updates that came in to effect in the month of April. This is apart from the Penguin update, Panda 3.5 Refresh and the Panda 3.6 Rollout that has happened in the last couple of weeks. 53 changes that affect search results.
So, here are the most important changes that Google has made:
New, Bigger Index Tier
New Google PageRank update is here. Twitter is buzzing with the updates.
This update has come after 3 months after the last one happened in February 2012. Google updates its PageRank every few months, though it doesn’t directly affect the organic search rankings. However most of us give importance to our PageRanks. Forum discussions are on at DigitalPoint Forums. Have you seen any changes happen to your PR? Do share your views
Google has brought in its new public style guide – the Google HTML and CSS Style Guide.
This Style Guide helps to sort through a number of formatting-related issues. Developers can refer to it for best practices ideas too. As Google says, "Many style guide authors know the underlying motivation from the question whether to describe the code they write – or to prescribe what code they want to write. Not surprisingly then, in our HTML and CSS style guide you’ll find both."
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