Smaaz’s Blog

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Finally, it is vacation time - so, no new posts from me until 01/10/2007.
I wish you a happy holiday season and a new year filled with peace and prosperity. See you in 2007!

3 comments December 20th, 2006

AdSense and image placement - A policy clarification

The AdSense Publisher Support posted a policy clarification on “Ad and image placement”, earlier today. Here is, what Google says on this topic:

“You can definitely place Google ads on pages containing images — just make sure that the ads and images are not arranged in a way that could easily mislead or confuse your visitors. For example, if you run a stock photography site with a catalog of thumbnail images, don’t line the ads up with the thumbnails in a way that could be misleading. Consider using a full border around your ads or changing your ad colors, for example.”

The post also contains some image examples of unacceptable AdSense implementations, that might be helpful.

Add comment December 19th, 2006

2006 Google Zeitgeist is online

It seems like the 2006 Year-End Google Zeitgeist is online. It shows you the Top Searches, of the year, in different categories such as most popluar Wedding or Divorce search terms and also some graphic charts.
And here are the Top Searches of 2006 (family friendly edition): 
 
  1. bebo
  2. myspace
  3. world cup
  4. metacafe
  5. radioblog
  6. wikipedia
  7. video
  8. rebelde 
  9. mininova
10. wiki 

Add comment December 18th, 2006

Google acquired Internet mapping solutions company

Today John Hanke, Director of Google Earth & Maps announced the acquisition of the Internet mapping solutions company Endoxon.

“Endoxon is a developer of internet mapping solutions, mobile services, data processing, cartography, direct marketing and the Trinity software suite. Since 1988, Endoxon and its 75 employees have created ground-breaking solutions for a wide variety of geographic needs. Endoxon is a pioneer in AJAX mapping technologies. Endoxon technologies enable the integration and processing of geo-referenced data and high-resolution aerial and satellite images for dynamic internet and mobile services.”

Seem, that Endoxon will build out and improve the functionality of Google Earth and Google Maps across Europe.

Add comment December 18th, 2006

Google & Orange to release ‘Google phone’?

The Observer has information, that Google and the mobile phone operator Orange held talks about a partnership to create a special ‘Google phone’ which makes it easy to search the web wherever you are.

“Their plans centre on a branded Google phone, which would probably also carry Orange’s logo. The device would not be revolutionary: manufactured by HTC, a Taiwanese firm specialising in smart phones and Personal Data Assistants (PDAs), it might have a screen similar to a video iPod. But it would have built-in Google software which would dramatically improve on the slow and cumbersome experience of surfing the web from a mobile handset.”

Orange is owned by Europes second largest telecoms group the France Telecom, and keeps around 88.6 million mobile customers across 23 countries in touch.

1 comment December 17th, 2006

Image Optimization for Search Engines and Visitors

Vanessa Fox posted some useful tips on using images at the Google Webmaster Central Blog:

• Don’t put the bulk of your text in images. It may sound simple, but the best thing you can do is to put your text into well, text. Reserve images for graphical elements. If all of the text on your page is in an image, it becomes inaccessible.
• Take advantage of alt tags for all of your images. Make sure the alt text is descriptive and unique. For instance, alt text such as “picture1″ or “logo” doesn’t provide much information about the image. “Charting the path of stock x” and “Company Y” give more details.
• Don’t overload your alt text. Be descriptive, but don’t stuff it with extra keywords.
• It’s important to use alt text for any image on your pages, but if your company name, navigation, or other major elements of your pages are in images, alt text becomes especially important. Consider moving vital details to text to ensure all visitors can view them.
• Look at the image-to-text ratio on your page. How much text do you have? One way of looking at this is to look at your site with images turned off in your browser. What content can you see? Is the intent of your site obvious? Do the pages convey your message effectively?

Add comment December 17th, 2006

Google partnered with GoDaddy and eNom to offer Domains

According to the their Official Blog, Google has partnered with the two domain registrars GoDaddy.com and eNom, to offer domain registration for their Google Apps service. This service allows organisations to set up private-label Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, and customizable start pages for their custom domains. Until now, a organisation needed a already registered domain, to sign up for Google Apps. Now the domain can be registered at the sign up process. At the beginning there are .com, .net, .org, .biz, and .info domains available. The price for a domain is $10 per year and includes private registration.

Add comment December 15th, 2006

Microsoft and Baidu announced a strategic alliance

Microsoft and Baidu today announced a strategic alliance on paid search services, which will officially commence in December 2006. As a result of this strategic alliance, Microsoft will display Baidu’s paid search listings on the search results pages of certain Microsoft websites, including MSN, Live, and other partner websites in China. More details can be found at Shanghai Daily.

Add comment December 15th, 2006