Group items tagged

"I've been reading snippets of Eli Pariser's book, The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You. He leads off the book with a discussion of the effect of Google's "personalization" feature on the ranking of search results. This feature uses 54 signals (what browser version you're using, your prior searches, geographic location, and so on) to customize search results for each user. Pariser was concerned about this and tested it by asking two friends to run the same search at the same time and comparing the results. He found that the results were disturbingly different, and concluded that search engines are "increasingly biased to share our own views. More and more, your computer monitor is a kind of one-way mirror, reflecting your own interests while algorithmic observers watch what you click.""

Most students have the idea that Google will answer their search queries without realising how it works as a search engine i.e. popularity of the site. Digital literacy and the ability to find relevant and reliable resources therefore requires the development of search skills in the classroom. These Search Education lessons were developed by Google Certified Teachers to help you do just that. The lessons are short, modular and not specific to any discipline so you can mix and match to what best fits the needs of your classroom. Additionally, all lessons come with a companion set of slides (and some with additional resources) to help you guide your in-class discussions.

Get information on Google's newest search features and learn tips from basic to advanced. For even more on Google search, explore our Playground of fun features, or go "Under the Hood" to explore the technology that powers your searches.

"The days of internet searches being a matter of typing words into a box on a web page may be numbered. Even the expressions "search it" and "Google it" could soon go out of fashion, just as "going online" is already passe because these days we're always connected. Steven Weitz, senior director of search for Microsoft's search engine Bing wants our physical and virtual worlds to merge to a point where we will be able to stand on a street corner and the answer to "where am I?" will bring up not only the street name but historic and tourist information, places to eat as recommended by our friends and the best public transport option to get to an appointment on time."

"This is an everyday problem familiar to anyone who uses search engines regularly. So here's some good news for us - and bad news for the big portals: There is a better way to build a search engine. And a Silicon Valley start-up company with the unlikely name of Google.com is showing the way. Google.com started as a research project by a couple of Stanford grad students - which, of course, is just how Yahoo, the directory site that has become the Web's most popular service, began. Yahoo tends to be more valuable than other search sites because its index is created by human beings rather than computer programs. But for the same reason, Yahoo has a hard time keeping up with the Web's explosive growth."

"In Australia, Google is the dominant search engine used, claiming a market share in excess of 90%. Throughout this year, however, Microsoft has been taking steps to try and increase Bing's placement against Google, with the hopes of earning more Australian adopters. And while it hasn't exactly been a success story, Bing is ever-so-slightly increasing its market share. In today's blog, I'm going to look at 7 features of both search engines and how they compare to one another."

Easy way to get a hold of a Google Music account (up to 20,000 songs in the cloud).  I went through all the steps and it worked a treat. Grabbed the Google Music App for Android off the XDA website just searched for google music apk and downloaded it to a dropbox folder and installed. Make sure you sign up for google music first before installing the App. Let you know in 20 days how I go uploading my entire library.

FYI XDA Developers link http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1072655

Buy Google Maps Reviews Introduction It's not surprising that Google Maps is the most popular app on the App Store. It's a really helpful application that enables users to plan road trips as well as navigate a new city or municipality. How can I get Google Maps Reviews for my business? You may receive Google Maps evaluations for your company in a few different methods. You can either strive to make yourself more visible in the search results so that more people are likely to see and click on your listing, or you can actively encourage your customers or clients to submit reviews. Buy Google Maps Reviews Simply asking clients to submit reviews is one method to get their attention. You can do this in person or by asking for a review in an email or other communication you send to a client after they conduct business with you. When someone checks out or picks something up from your physical location, you can also include a reminder to post a review on Google Maps. Finally, you can promote your listing through additional means in an effort to improve your presence in the search results. You might, for instance, put a link to your Google Maps listing in your email signature or on your website. You can advertise to people who are looking for companies like yours or just share your listing on social media. Buy Google Maps Reviews

"Google has quietly retooled the closely guarded formula running its internet search engine to give better answers to the increasingly complex questions posed by web surfers. The overhaul came as part of an update called "Hummingbird" that Google has gradually rolled out in the past month without disclosing the modifications."

"Google is making image search more convenient for those who are seeking pictures to use in their publications - it is letting you sort images by licensing rights under 'Search Tools.'"

"Knowing how to search Google isn't just helpful for your own searches, but can help you to better understand and utilize search engine optimization strategies."

All search engines are engaged in a constant battle with entities that aim to manipulate search engine results for various reasons. Search Engine Optimization can be a major money earner or a significant distraction depending on what side of the search activity you are on. This infographic explores how Google is attempting to deal with one aspect of SEO, Content Farms.

Google has no shortage of services around the web, but those various information resources often seem disconnected. A new Google interface, called WDYL - or "What Do You Love?" - resolves that by bringing together previews of various specialized Google searches in one place.

"Google Reader, one of the world's most popular RSS readers, is shutting down on July 1, 2013, Google announced Wednesday. The search giant is pulling the plug on the 7-year old project citing "declining usage." Google says it is shuttering Reader and deprecating or shutting down a number of other services as part of the company's "spring cleaning" initiative - one that seeks to help the company focus on the features that need the most use."

SearchLion is according to Phil Bradley, "....a fairly straightforward search engine - you can see what it covers from the tabbed bar. It's worth mentioning that you can also add in more search options yourself if you wish. You can choose where it takes its results from - Google, Yahoo/Bing or SearchLion's resources itself. Unfortunately, you don't have that option with the other search tabs, which is a bit of a shame. You can run a search and the results screen looks fairly straightforward - results to the left, adverts to the right. However, you can also choose a multi category, so as well as looking at Web results, you can also choose to view images, news etc. at the same time."

"Google understands the importance of finding the right information at the right time. We create tools to let you find the information you need, of the kind you need, when you need it. In most cases, a simple search works really well. But for more specialized questions, a bit of instruction in how to search improves all searcher--from middle school students to trained professionals--and lets you discover and use more, higher quality sources than ever before."

In the past 12 months, Google doubled its staff, tinkered with its search engine to speed up results, and now answers more queries than Microsoft and Yahoo combined. But there's one query we had to answer ourselves: How does Google work?

Carrot2 is an Open Source Search Results Clustering Engine. It can automatically organize small collections of documents (search results but not only) into thematic categories. Apart from two specialized document clustering algorithms, Carrot2 offers ready-to-use components for fetching search results from various sources including GoogleAPI, Bing API, eTools Meta Search, Lucene, SOLR, and more.

Nancy Blachman and Jerry Peek  have put together a very useful guide to Google Search Operators. You can find this information on Google's own help pages (http://support.google.com/websearch/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=136861 ), but there is more information in this guide that can be quite useful including the syntax, the capabilities, and an example for each operator.

"Google - which first opened registration for the class in June - will offer six different 50-minute courses called "Power Searching with Google" over the next two weeks. Classes can be taken at your own leisure within that time period."