Google

VI SEO have revealed just how easy it is to manipulate the Google review system and get the little yellow stars appearing next to your listing in Google.

The way it is achieved makes a mockery of the Google review system and shows just how pointless and meaningless the stars are.

Basically all anyone needs to do is ask 2 people to provide a review of them (preferably 2 people who they know will give a 5 star rating) and then add a snippet of microdata to any page they would like the stars to appear alongside in Google.

Full instructions are shown here  Google reviews stars in Google results Manipulation Exposed

With the Google stars giving such an advantage surely Google shouldn’t be displaying them simply based on 2 reviews which could be easily faked or fabricated.

Until Google sort out this loophole and stop people being able to manipulate the Google review system they have little choice other than removing all stars or as they appear to do Not bother.

Come on Google, please remove all stars from the SERPs now as the advantage is to great to those who game the system.

Comments please.

Saw a new google layout today with the links on the top left of the page changed and the addition of a Past 2 Days search option on the left.

New google layout showing past 2 days search option

I noticed Google quick scroll has been enabled in my google toolbar when using Internet Explorer (IE) 8.

I haven’t seen it before and can’t remember ever enabling it.

I also noticed some of the icons in the google toolbar have changed.

I haven’t done a toolbar update, but did do a Windows live update last week, would this have changed the settings in my google toolbar?

Going to have a thorough check now to see if any other settings have been changed.

I did an all in URL site search site: on one of my sites this evening,

site:http://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk

and noticed that google are displaying an ad saying

Try Google Webmaster Tools
www.google.com/webmasters/   Do you own http://www.uksmallbusinessdirectory.co.uk? Get indexing and ranking data from Google.

Very similar to normal adwords, but it also said Google promotion in the top right hand corner of the ad too.

Can’t say I have noticed it before, anyone else noticed it?

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.

“With Google search over SSL, you can have an end-to-end encrypted search solution between your computer and Google. This secured channel helps protect your search terms and your search results pages from being intercepted by a third party. This provides you with a more secure and private search experience.”

Source: http://www.google.com/support/websearch/bin/answer.py?answer=173733

So why no encrypted search for google.co.uk ?

And is it not a bit silly having the link “Go to Google.co.uk” on https://encrypted.google.com/ and https://www.google.com/ when it takes you back to the unencrypted search option on google.co.uk ?

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.