A Week in Google – 8th April

How fast a week flies when you’re having fun or taking part in a blogging challenge…  Well at least this post brings me up to date with that!

Google Places Hangout on G+

Google Places help had their first questions and answer G+ Hangout on Wednesday.  If like me you missed it, the recording is over on their blog and YouTube.  It’s an hour long, don’t forget the coffee and chocolate when you sit down to watch!

Google Search Updates

Google have highlighted 50 changes to their search algorithms for March.  Yes, 50! And yet, with all this info, Google haven’t actually said that much.  So, it’s a case of wait and see what pops up and then relating it back to changes announced.

A few changes did leap out as interesting.

Anchor text tweaks – if you are doing any serious link building it’s one to watch.  The old “SEO” way of spam link building with the same anchor links is dying.  It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

“Freshness” has been rolled out for all queries including video not just news results.  I do hope your website is kept up to date and new relevant pages added!

More mentions of site quality now with a new codename too – “Curlup”. 

We’ve made some improvements to a longstanding system we have to detect site quality. This improvement allows us to get greater confidence in our classifications.

Hmm… vague as ever.

Google Places Encouraging More User Editing?

Linda over at Catalyst eMarketing has blogged about this one.  She’s seeing a new  “Edit this place” button on Google Places pages.   I’m not seeing it here yet, are you?

What happens over the pond usually ends up here too, hopefully this is a blip or a test.  If not, its yet another reason you should check your Google Places page regularly.

The State Of Google Address

In the meantime, Larry Page published an open letter simply titled 2012 Update From The CEO.  The push for Google+ integration continues and personalised “next generation” search is becoming a reality. 

There’s stats for the stat lovers – from 800 million Youtube users uploading an hour of video every second to 1 million businesses using Google advertising and more.

But really, Page just wants Google to be loved.  Very touching.  How about giving more information in the search updates and stop fiddling with Places?  I’d send Google some flowers and chocolate and declare my undying love for that.