Multiple search boxes on google homepage

I saw a discussion today about how much google is changing and especially how they are mixing in other things (product search, video search, local business center, news, etc.) in with organic search pages.

This made me think how much better google would be if they just kept these all separate, but advertised the other options more.

A good way I see of them doing this would be if instead of having small text links to the other options they could have multiple search boxes on their homepage, like in this google demonstration

What I think would be even better would be if they created a new system for products, services, ecommerce etc. and then gave webmasters the choice of their pages appearing in this new system or the old system.

By doing this the original search engine would revert back to being useful for finding information, where as the new system would be good for people looking for business, services, products etc.

Colour google favicon – new google favicon in color

Google appears to be using a new coloured favicon

New Google favicon

Google Dates Wrong

It looks like google are trying to be too clever again.

Try a search on google like this,

 http://www.google.co.uk/search?num=100&hl=en&q=site%3Awww.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk%2Fbusiness-listings.asp

and you will see google has added a date to the start of some descriptions, a perfect example is http://www.google.co.uk/search?&q=Ensurve

My listing is at number 2 and the description google displays is,

“6 Apr 2007 … Ensurve – Domestic Energy Assessor (DEA) … Ensurve. Domestic Energy Assessment and Energy Performance Certificate production. Ensurve …”

Nothing wrong with that you may think, but 6 Apr 2007 doesn’t appear anywhere on the page, within the title, meta description, keywords or any links pointing to the page.

What does appear on the page is the date of entry 04/06/2007 which for us in the UK is 4 June 2007. Google has obviously seen this date converted it to a US format and is using it in the description.

SEO 2.0

This time it is an SEO 2.0 test.

New google favicon

Looks like the BIG G is now the little g

Wordpress 2.5.1 not getting indexed by google

I have so far upgraded 2 Wordpress blogs today, made a post afterwards, pinged google, but neither has been indexed in blog search yet.

Prior to upgrading to Wordpress 2.5.1 a new post would be indexed in google blog search within 2 minutes, this is a 3rd upgrade to see if this post gets picked up.

Update: Obviously not a Wordpress problem, this post was picked up within a minute.

Tim Berners-Lee selling links

I was looking around Tim Berners-Lee Virtual Library today and was surprised to see lots of links to commercial sites and a number of This page is sponsored by pages.

Is Tim Berners-Lee now selling links?

Sim64 back from the brink?

After being AWOL for 2 years Sim64 suddenly appeared in the SERPS again this evening. Whether it is just temporary, or whether all filters have been lifted time will tell.

Are Lycos costing us money in AdWords

I set up a very small highy targeted AdWords campaign last week, very niche but with a cost per click around the £1.00 mark.

On the landing page I obviously have the product, some info and a telephone number which is set up to receive calls about the product.

Who should call the number today? A Lycos representative trying to get me to take out sponsored advertising with them. So not only did I have the experience of hearing the terrible sales pitch (to a TPS registered phone number) I also probably got charged for the rep clicking my AdWords ad.

Google favicon – google.co.uk strange favicon

Noticed a strange favicon when using google.co.uk this morning.

No idea what it is yet, but are about to see if I can find out more.

New Google logo

After seeing the first 2 google doodles for Christmas 2007 I still don’t know what they are supposed to represent.

Is Google Checkout safe to use

Read an interesting thread in a Legal newsroup on Usenet today.

A poster had brought an item for £325 from an online retailer using their Google checkout facility. The goods arrived 2 weeks later but were not as described and faulty. The poster attempted to contact the retailer only to find the website had gone, emails were unanswered and the postal address was fake.

He initially used the Google checkout mediation service which failed as the vendor could not be traced, he was then told by Google to continue his attempt to contact the vendor or ask his credit card company for a charge back from the vendor.

Now this is where the catch comes in.

The credit card company couldn’t issue a charge back against the vendor because the vendor wasn’t the person who charged the card.
The people who had charged the card were Google so any charge back could only be against them, but as the service google provided was money transfering and this had not been the problem, it meant the poster could not claim the money back of them either.

What in theory this means is that whenever you buy anything online via Google Checkout you automatically lose the security that credit cards provide against bad purchases.

Be aware of this next time you make an online purchase and ensure you read the small print of the Google Checkout terms and conditions.

Google hijacked by malware

Doing a search on google today I came accross a site that when following the link from Google was redirecting to a malware site.

The search term used on Google was xxxxxx and the site in question is xxxxxx

The strange thing is, when going direct to the site, or when going via any other search engine there is no problem. The problem only occurs if you search for xxxxxx on google and either click on the result or click on the cached version of the page.

Does this mean google has been hijacked and is redirecting to the malware site, or is the problem more likely to be with xxxxxx?