All Things Search

Google has now introduced Google TV, the concept is simple, you attach a ‘freeview’ style box to your TV (via HDMI) and can watch/surf the Internet through your television. Google state that currently TV is too complicated and that watching the Internet through a TV is not good enough. With  Google TV you will be able to search for the latest programs on the Internet or TV and have immediate access. There is a good video to explan this on Google’s website: http://www.google.com/tv/

In terms of SEO the ramifications are pretty huge, we already have to consider the implications of SEO on mobile media such as IPhones and the Android phone, we will now have to also incorporate SEO into thinking about the new TV by looking at SEO for streaming media.

 Here is a bit of information on the new Logitech Google TV box: http://www.digitaltrends.com/home-theater/logitech-google-tv-box/?news=123

The Logitech Google TV box will let you add Google TV to an existing TV, as long as you have HDMI ports and an internet connection.

Logitech takes aim squarely at Apple TV with their new Google TV external box which will be powered by the popular Android-based OS and Chrome web browser. This will allow users to add Google TV to an existing television without the need of purchasing a new one.

The futuristic-styled glossy black box will feature a 1.2-GHz Intel Atom Processor, 4 GB of internal memory, 802.11n Wi-Fi, two HDMI out ports, a pair of USB ports and Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound. The Logitech box will work in tandem with your existing set-top box provided by your cable or satellite company and pull content in that way, allowing you to search both the internet and your DVR under a single Android -based infrastructure.

Included with the system is a remote control, but users will also be able to use their Apple iPhone or Android based smartphone to control content. The application for your phone will include an on-screen keyboard, D-pad and other necessities. From what has been demonstrated, it looks like the phone will need to have a touchscreen in order for the application to work.

Google TV promises to give users easy access to the videos they love including photos and other internet content, all accessible through a compatible Google TV or peripheral box.

The Logitech Google TV box will be available in the U.S. this fall and pricing has not yet been announced. Logitech has a small teaser micro-site which you can check out.

This month Matt Cutts has proclaimed on his blog that Google have decided to incorporate site speed (loading times) in their search algorithm. What this means from a practical sense is that if your website takes a long time to load, it may be penalised by Google’s new ranking system.

On the Google Webmaster’s blog it states:

“Speeding up websites is important — not just to site owners, but to all Internet users. Faster sites create happy users and we’ve seen in our internal studies that when a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time there. But faster sites don’t just improve user experience; recent data shows that improving site speed also reduces operating costs. Like us, our users place a lot of value in speed — that’s why we’ve decided to take site speed into account in our search rankings. We use a variety of sources to determine the speed of a site relative to other sites.”

If you are worried about your website’s speed you can use the following tools to check out how your site performs: 

For more information: http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/

I don’t think this change is a major problem for most websites, as many sites do not take very long to load. It may however be a problem with websites that have loads of pictures/ Flash (which I dislike with a passion!) or video content.

There are literally hundreds of ways (black hat, muddy hat and white hat) of getting great backlinks. Here I have highlighted a few that anyone can do that can achieve good quality, long lasting links:

1. Asking business partners/associates or suppliers for a link from their website (with correct anchor text)

2. Looking at where competitors have got their links from and trying to get links from the same places.

3. Writing superb and interesting articles (publsh on places like Ezine) that people will want to use on their blogs etc. (obviously there should be self serving links in the articl / authors biography)

4. Creating a blog (again with compelling content and links). Make sure the blog is part of your domain rather than on a 3rd party domain.

5. Online press release with links - again the quality of the content is crucial to haw many people wil pick it up and run with it.

Hope you liked them… feel free to add some of your own.

Last month Google pulled out of China due to the Censorship row. They have now revealed that there have been requests for handing over information or asking to censor information. Brazil has put in the most requests with 3,663 requests, followed by the US with 3,580 and UK with 1,166.

I’m glad that Google is making this information public as transparancy has to be a good thing.  I imagine that the censorship requests often deal with things like child pornography and the data relate to crimes or potential crimes… however, it is quite scary to see that western governments are requesing this information…. remember big brother is always watching you (although that’s not such a bad thing if it means that there are less terrorist attacks and child pornography rings are broken up).