Archive for the ‘Google Mapping’ Category

Google Inside Scoop with Matt Cutts

Thursday, January 25th, 2007

One very important blog - if you haven’t found it - is Matt Cutt’s blog. Matt works at Google and has become the primary interface between Google and the SEO community. This is as close as you are going to get to the inside scoop on how Google works. You can find his blog at:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/.

Check it out - search by topic or scan the archives.

A good recent posting is available at:

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/infrastructure-status-january-2007/

This describes some of where Google is going in 2007. It’s a little big of technical stuff here, but those supplemental results he mentions are the listings Googe returns when it can’t find enough information on a search in its main database. These are labeled as such in the return from a search. Obviously, that isn’t a good place for your site to be listed. If you are there, it generally means you have a weak image to the search engine (too few links to your site?) or you are doing borderline spamming of the search engines. Matt says it basically means you have low PageRank.

Posted in Adwords - Google, Blogging, Google, Google Mapping, Internet Marketing and Promotion, Search engine optimization | 1 Comment »

Google Pack - The Ultimate Utility?

Thursday, January 26th, 2006

So you just got a new computer and you want to load all of those cool free programs that are almost essential now. The Google Pack makes it easy. Good provides a downloader proggram that automatically retrieve and installs all of those free programs you need:

  • AntiSpyware Ad-Mail

  • Adobe Reader 7

  • Mozilla Firefox

  • Stream-reading RealPlayer

  • Norton AntiVirus (6 month demo)

You can choose to load any or all of these. The package also includes the Google Desktop, which includes (also free):

  • Googke Destop program

  • Picasa - photo manager

  • Google Talk

  • Google Toolbar

  • Google Earth

To install Google Pack you download the Google Updater.

It is currently only available for Windows XP. If a utility is already loaded on your computer, it will not load it again but may update it if necessary.

To learn more, go to: http://pack.google.com/
Watch for its availability soon - at least we don’t see the downloading button now.

Google watcher John Battelle comments on Google Pack:

Google Pack strikes me as an obvious play for Google, the company has made no secret of its intention to poke Microsoft in the eye from time to time. And honestly, they are right - setting up and maintaining a PC is a right pain in the ass. I very much hope this thing works, and plan to try it out on a new PC Federated Media is buying this week. (More on Pack here at SEW).

I spoke to Marissa Mayer about Pack, and she had some fun stuff to say about it. I noticed no version of Open Office in the Pack, and she reminded me this is just the first version of the Pack, and since it updates itself automatically, why, there might be Open Office in an update shortly. They are in active discussions, I was told.

Pack, if it becomes popular, will bring a whole new set of users to Google, mainly because it includes Toolbar and Desktop, which of course means more searches, and more data, and more money for Google.

“We realize software distribution will have to become one of our core competencies,” Mayer told me.

“Some of (the applications in Pack) will result in increased revenue to us,” she also noted.

Well, I asked, might you ever include Microsoft products in a Google Pack? “If they are interested,” the ever on her feet Mayer responded, “we’d be more than willing to discuss it with them.” Over to you, Mr. Ballmer….

Posted in Google, Google Mapping | No Comments »

Starting with Google Mapping

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2005

You can add maps to your web site using the Google Mapping API that is now available. It works with the major browsers, but use caution on others. You can see a sample page at:


http://www.netadventures.biz/maps.htm

It’s not hard to do a page like this. To start, go to:

http://www.getaholdofme.com/

You will need an API key to fill this out. At the left menu you can find a hyperlink to Google to get your API key. This is free, but you do need to register with Google and enter the URL for the home page of the web site where you will add the map. Copy the API to your clipboard.

Return to the previous site and enter the API and fill out the rest of the page. You can either enter the address and let Google geocode it to the latitude and longitude or you can enter the latitude and longitude from your personal GPS (if you have one or one you can borrow).

Note: Trusting Google to geocode it may give some amount of error, and won’t work at all if the street is new and not in Google’s geocoding directory.

Once this page is submitted, a sample map is generated and two pieces of the HTML code to create the map are shown. One short piece is pasted into the page where you want the map. The other piece goes at the very end of the HTML code (the instructions tell where.).

Now upload your page and give it a whirl. That’s all there is to it.

As you might guess, there is already a very good blog for those doing Google mapping. Find it at:


http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/

There is plenty of material on the Internet for taking your Google mapping further.

Posted in Google Mapping, Mapping, Web Design | No Comments »