Google Apps highlights – 4/16/2010

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label "Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Today’s update includes a big batch of new functionality in Google Docs and several new capabilities in Gmail. So the next time you’re in Google Apps, give these new features a spin.

Google Docs reloaded
On Monday we released a preview of the new Google Docs, which brings added features, higher fidelity for imported documents, more speed and faster collaboration to our browser-based productivity tools. Documents sport features that weren’t feasible with older browser technology, like a new ruler for margins and tab stops, better bullets and numbered lists, easier image placement and character-by-character real-time collaboration in the browser. Spreadsheets now have a formula editing bar, drag-and-drop columns and cell auto-fill. They support up to 50 simultaneous collaborators, and are much faster and more responsive overall. We added Google drawings to the mix as well, so you can work with others to create flow-charts, schematics and other kinds of diagrams together in real-time.



Calendar integration in Gmail
To make it easier to schedule time with people without leaving your inbox, now you can see people’s availability (if you have permission) and send event invitations from Gmail. As you’re composing a message, click the “Insert: Invitation” link to choose a time that works for the recipients on your email and add details about your event. When you’re done, the email message will display details about your event.


Drag-and-drop attachments in Gmail
Yesterday we introduced a simpler way to add attachments in Gmail: just drag files onto Gmail from your desktop or from a folder as you compose a message. You can drag multiple files at once, and on a Mac, you can even drag files from folders in the Dock. This feature works in Chrome or Firefox 3.6+ right now, and other browsers may support this feature in the future.

Nested Labels and Message Sneak Peek in Gmail Labs
Last week we launched two new Labs features in Gmail. Nested Labels lets you create hierarchies of labels, giving you more flexibility how you organize your saved email. Message Sneak Peek lets you preview messages without having to open them. Just right-click a message in your inbox to sneak a quick peek.


Gmail on the Apple iPad
We released a new version of the Gmail web interface specially designed for the larger screen of the iPad. Gmail on the iPad has a convenient two-pane display with a list of your conversations on the left, and full messages on the right.


Who’s gone Google?
More and more colleges and universities are moving to the cloud with Google Apps. This week we’re pleased to welcome the University of Wisconsin at La Crosse, UNLV, Meredith College and Belmont Abbey College. The State Library of Kansas, the Mind Research Network and more than 50,000 other businesses and organizations have also gone Google in the last few weeks.

I hope you're making the most of these new features, whether you're using Google Apps with friends, family, coworkers or classmates. For more details and updates from the Apps team, head on over to the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Search with fewer keystrokes and better spelling

We spend a lot of time thinking about search results, but we also spend a lot of time thinking about search queries. Today we’re announcing three enhancements to help you input your searches more quickly and easily: more localized Google Suggest, improved spell correction for names and auto-correction for 31 languages.

Feel at home with Google Suggest
Last year we launched localized Google Suggest by country, offering relevant popular search queries tailored for different regions. However, just as people in the U.K. often look for different things than people in U.S., we’ve found that people in Seattle tend to look for different things than people in Dallas. So last week, we rolled out a version of Google Suggest that is tailored to specific metro areas in the U.S. You may notice that the list of queries beneath the search box will seem more locally relevant than it used to:

• In San Francisco [bart] is probably not Bart Simpson; it’s probably Bay Area Rapid Transit:

• In Chicago it’s easy to find out about your local NBA team:

Spelling enhancements for names
While Suggest can help you find good queries, sometimes you can get stuck because of misspellings. That’s why for years we’ve offered corrected spellings for mistyped searches (with the “Did you mean” link). We’ve steadily improved this spelling technology over time, but recently we made some big strides in correcting misspelled names.

People often search for people’s names — and not just celebrities and old friends. They look for doctors, horse trainers, hang-gliding instructors... the searches are just as diverse as the personalities in your hometown. We’ve noticed that people sometimes struggle to correctly spell names, and it’s not surprising. Names can be complicated and often there are multiple common spellings.

Our new technology is based on the concept that people often know something else about the person besides the approximate spelling of his name. People often include other terms such as "composer" or "lawyer sparta wisconsin" in their search query, which provides valuable context to help us narrow the range of possibilities for the spelling correction. We use these additional descriptive words to offer you better suggestions. Some examples: [matthew devin oracle], [yuri lehner stanford], [simon tung machine learning]. With these improvements you’ll start seeing more useful spell corrections for names.

For now this enhancement is available in our English spelling system in the U.S. We'll be rolling out the change to other parts of the world and other languages in the coming months.

Spelling auto-correction in 31 languages
Another improvement we made recently to the spelling system is auto-correction. If you search for [aiprt], rather than showing you a link on your results page that says “Did you mean: airport” we’ll take you straight to the results for the corrected search. We auto-correct when we’re highly confident in our correction in order to get you the information you’re looking for that much faster. In the past week we’ve expanded auto-correction to 31 languages across over 180 domains, with more to come.

Did you make a typo while looking for [chocolate strawberries and cream] in Italian? The right word is so close you can taste it:

While saving you that unnecessary click, we make search that much faster.

Posted by Pandu Nayak, Member of Technical Staff

Brits search for a leader

Today, leaders of the three largest British parties took part in the U.K’s first live televised debate in the run up to the May 6 general election. Alastair Stewart of ITN hosted Prime Minister Gordon Brown of the Labour Party, Conservative Party leader David Cameron and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg as they discussed domestic affairs before a Manchester T.V. studio audience.

Nick Clegg, his Liberal Democrat Party, and its manifesto generated many queries as people searched for Lib Dems and Liberal Democrat manifesto 2010. Searches for David Cameron and the Conservatives beat out the well-known incumbent Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Labour, but the two parties’ manifestos generated about the same number of searches.

Many Brits sought to watch the debate, searching for ITV election debate and live political debate, while others sought real-time polling information with queries such as debate polls, leaders debate poll and who is winning the debate.

Gordon Brown told David Cameron, “I'm grateful, by the way, David, for you putting up these posters about me and about crime and about everything else. You know, there's no newspaper editor done as much for me in the last two years, because my face is smiling on these posters, and I'm very grateful to you and Lord Ashcroft for funding that”, generating queries for Gordon Brown poster and Lord Ashcroft. David Cameron’s statement, “We’re going to get rid of some of these quangos” sent users scurrying to determine what a quango is. Nick Clegg’s repeated railing against renewing the Trident missile and David Cameron’s repeated railing against the jobs tax, a one percent increase in National Insurance contributions, were the other issues generating queries. Overwhelming these debate-related queries was the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano and the closure of British air space.


During the three weeks, follow the run-up to the May 6 British general election by watching debate highlights on YouTube and searching web trends using Google Insights for Search.

Posted by Jeffrey D. Oldham, Software Engineer

The goats are baaaahk!

Last year, in our quest to minimize our carbon footprint (and keep people on their toes), we turned to an unlikely solution for mowing an overgrown field: goats. More than 200 goats from California Grazing have once again arrived at our Mountain View headquarters where they’ll stay for over a week chomping away on grassy goodness. The cost of bringing in the goats is comparable to hiring lawn mowers for the same job and the green benefits are clear: the goats eliminate mower emissions, reduce noise pollution, restore plant species and fertilize while grazing.

Don’t worry, we’re not going to be in the business of chèvre anytime soon, but in the meantime we’re having a lot of fun watching our new colleagues.



Posted by Dan Hoffman, Director of Real Estate and Workplace Services for NorCal, and Chief Goat Herder

Webmasters - configure Google services at your hosting panel

Webmaster Level: All

Today, as announced on the Official Google Blog, we’ve taken an additional step to improve access to Google webmaster services. Parallels, one of the leading providers of control panel software to hosting companies, has integrated Google Services for Websites into Parallels Plesk Panel, used by millions of website owners globally to manage their websites.

If you use Plesk for managing your hosting and website services, you can easily configure Webmaster Tools, Custom Search, Site Search, Web Elements and AdSense for your website right from within Plesk.

Since Plesk knows what domains you own, it automatically registers your domains to Webmaster Tools and allows you to automatically login to the Webmaster Tools console to verify your sites, as shown below.

We’re always trying to make our tools easier to use and easier to access. Since you’re probably visiting your hosting control panel on a regular basis, we hope that you find this integration convenient. If you have feedback please let us know in the Webmaster Forum.

Posted by Jonathan Simon, Webmaster Trends Analyst

Google services now available at your hosting control panel

Last year, we announced the program that enabled hosting companies to integrate Google services into their platforms for easy access to their customers. Several hosting companies have adopted the program since then, and thousands of websites have benefited from configuring services like AdSense, Custom Search and Webmaster Tools.

Today, we’ve taken an additional step to improve access to these tools. Parallels, a leading provider of control panel software for hosting companies, has integrated Google Services for Websites into Parallels Plesk Panel, used by millions of website owners globally to manage their sites.


Any hosting provider using Plesk 9.5 can now enable Google Services for Websites for their customers. Website owners generate more traffic to their websites by optimizing them using Webmaster Tools. They can engage their users with inline Web Elements, including maps, news, videos and conversations. Custom Search and Site Search provide Google-quality search on their websites for better user retention. AdSense helps website owners monetize their sites with relevant advertising. And besides providing these valuable services to millions of customers, hosting companies can also generate additional revenues through referral programs.

More information is on the Google Services for Websites page. If you are a hoster using Plesk, please contact Parallels for more information. You can learn more about the specific services integrated at the Inside AdSense blog, the Custom Search blog and the Webmaster Central blog.

Posted by Rajat Mukherjee, Group Product Manager, Search

The 2010 tax season story, as told by Google search

Today, April 15, is the due date for federal tax returns in the U.S. Now that everyone’s submitted their taxes in on time (we hope!) we wanted to take a look back at the last few months and tell the story of this year’s tax season through Google search.

Spoiler alert — we’re starting our tax season search story at the end. As the filing deadline has approached over the last few days and weeks, we’ve seen a flurry of search interest about taxes and tax related topics. Compared to search volume from the final week of the 2009 tax season, we’ve seen significant increases in searches for terms like [file taxes] and [tax filing extension]. As of late last week, searches for [file taxes] had increased by 16% from last year. This spike in search interest leading up to April 15 prolongs a pattern of search trends that we’ve seen for the last several years; from 2006 to 2009, searches for [file taxes] rose an average of more than 51% between April 8 and April 15.

Perhaps less expected than this final peak is the sizable spike in search volume that we see several months before April 15, around the time that W-2 forms become available. This occurs in early February and, as you can see below, there’s a noticeable increase in searches such as [get W2 form] that are related to the beginning of the tax-filing.

In general, tax season search trends look pretty similar each year, but if we dive deeper, there are lots of mini-trends to explore, often triggered by unforeseen and/or unique world events. For example, we saw a flurry of search interest following the passage of the healthcare reform bill in March. The sharp increase in searches for terms like [taxes healthcare] and [healthcare tax increase] likely reflected curiosity about the implications of the new law on tax filings.

We saw a similar trend following the tragic earthquake in Haiti. The outpouring of support for victims in Haiti generated increased interest in the details of charitable donations as they related to taxes; searches queries like [haiti donation tax] were noticeably high in January.

Unfortunately, the implications of heightened unemployment levels were also top of mind this year, and we saw an interest in the effects of joblessness on tax payments and tax filing. Queries like [unemployed taxes] and [unemployment tax refund] were noticeably elevated compared to 2009 search volume, in particular around the season’s first spike.


Hopefully, we’ve shed some light on what your fellow taxpayers were interested in over the course of tax season and, via search trends, provided a sense of the different types of events that might affect taxes and tax filing. Until next year!

Posted by Jon Kaplan, Director, Financial Services