Google blogging in 2010

On the last day of 2010, it’s time for us to reflect on the past year of Google blogging. This year, we published 454 posts (including this one) on the Official Google Blog—7 percent more than 2009. Those posts had an astonishing number of readers: 24,768,052 unique visitors stopped by this year, more than 70 percent more than last year. (The huge increase is mostly due to this year’s April Fools' post, which benefited from a link in a prominent location; more on that below.) People come to the blog from all around the world; the top countries sending visitors in 2010 were the U.S., U.K., Canada, India and Germany, but readers came from dozens of other places as well.

The top posts this year run the gamut from policy changes to product arrivals:

1. A different kind of company name - 10,604,183 unique pageviews, more than 30 percent of the year’s total. Our April Fools' Day post about changing our company name to “Topeka” had a crazy-high number of pageviews, in large part because there was a link to our humble blog on Google’s homepage that day. That’s a lot of eyes!
2. A new approach to China - 924,335. We post about our new approach to business in China; we will no longer censor search results on Google.cn.
3. Introducing Google Chrome OS - 653,803. This post introducing our open source operating system was published in July 2009 (and was the top post of 2009), but continued to draw readers this year. (This month, we launched a pilot program for Chrome OS notebooks.)
4. Think big with a gig: our experimental fiber network - 483,399. We announce our plan to build and test ultra high-speed broadband networks in a small number of trial locations across the United States.
5. Update on Google Wave - 469,164. We share the news that we don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product.
6. Introducing Google Places - 341,136. The Local Business Center (the tool that enables business owners to manage their presence on Google) becomes Google Places.
7. Announcing Google TV: TV meets web. Web meets TV - 314,991. At Google I/O, we unveil a new experience for television that combines your familiar TV with the freedom and power of the Internet.
8. Our new search index: Caffeine - 271,393. Our new indexing system provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches than our last index, and is the largest collection of web content we‘ve offered.
9. A new approach to China: an update - 228,591. In March, we stop censoring our search services on Google.cn, redirecting users from there to Google.com.hk for uncensored search in simplified Chinese. (Later, we introduce a landing page for Chinese users that links to Google.com.hk.)
10. Introducing Nexus S, with Gingerbread - 220,482. We introduce Gingerbread, the latest version of the Android platform, and Nexus S, the next Android device from the Nexus line of mobile products.

Other popular posts included Google’s new look, the ability to change the background image on your Google homepage, Google Instant, a playable PAC-MAN doodle, the ability to call phones from Gmail and—oh, that—cars that drive themselves.

In 2010, we kept up with our search and apps series, and introduced a few new ones: about small businesses using Google’s products, updates from YouTube, great Google stories from users and a bunch of new “Search On” videos. We also shared our thoughts on the future of display advertising. We had fun with giant photo collages and other wall art, got into the spirit of the World Cup and shared a new kind of musical experience built for the modern browser. We shared imagery of Haiti after the January earthquake and the Gulf of Mexico after the oil spill. We also talked about how Google Earth played a role in the discovery of a rare hominid ancestor in South Africa, celebrated quite a few milestones, and gave you a glimpse of the bzzz-iest Googlers on campus at the Hiveplex.

In December, we revamped our blog directory so you can more easily find the exact place to get the news you’re looking for; you can sort by category, language or region. We revamped our Twitter directory too, and added new directories for our Facebook pages and YouTube channels.

Speaking of Twitter, this was our second year of tweeting officially on @google. We crossed the 2,000-tweet mark earlier this month and now have more than 2.6 million followers. Our Twitter family grew by leaps and bounds as well—you can now follow Google on more than 100 Twitter accounts posting news of all kinds, from API updates for developers to product news in countries around the world. Twitter was also our biggest referrer to this blog in 2010 (excluding Google search, Google properties such as google.com/places and Feedburner)—followed closely by Facebook.

As always, we’re grateful to all of our readers for keeping up with us over the year, and we’re looking forward to bringing you more news in 2011!

Posted by Emily Wood, Google Blog Editor

Perenungan Di Ambang Pergantian Rotasi Waktu

Tik....tik.....tik.....
Tik....tik.....tik.....
Tik....tik.....tik.....
Tik....tik.....tik.....

Selirih bunyinya, setajam rasanya
ketika melihat dentuman waktu terhela

Hey!
Detik, jam, hari, minggu, bulan, dan....tahun
Melintas bagai cahaya, berranjak di dalam lamun

Ini tahun hampir berlalu
Matahari segera kembali ke awal baru

Tengok ke belakang
Tawakah?
Lepaskan, lampiaskan

30 Fakta Aneh dan Ga Penting Tapi Penting Untuk Diketahui

Sebelumnya, kira-kira bingung ga ya baca judulnya? Maksud ane tuh, fakta-fakta (dan emang bener-bener fakta) dunia ini emang ga gitu penting tapi aneh. Saking anehnya, maka penting banget untuk kita ketahui. [Sigh...] Malah tambah bikin bingung ya? Hahaha! kalo gitu langsung baca aja deh, ini nih fakta-faktanya:
 Kumbang memiliki rasa seperti buah apel, tawon (lebah besar) rasanya seperti biji

Untuk Mereka yang Tak Lelah Berkata Indah

Sepertinya malam segera beranjak
Lepas sudah tempat berpijak
Pernaungan ini tak lagi membekas jejak
Meski tertulis beribu sajak....

Kelu lidahku untuk mengulas kata
Karena duniaku tak lagi berjuta
Ini aku dan nyata
Tak lagi bersahabat dengan tinta

Kawanku, bukan aku ingin menghilang
                 bukan aku ingin menghalang

Cintaku, Ada saat dunia bertanya
              Dan aku mesti

Tips Mengetahui Pencuri Konten Artikel Blog

Artikel ini ditulis karena saya banyak mendengar dari teman-teman blogger yang mengeluh karena konten-konten hasil karyanya sendiri banyak yang telah disalin utuh tanpa meninggalkan jejak link apapun. Sebenarnya banyak blogger yg tidak mempermasalahkan hal ini, namun sebagian blogger lainnya sangat merasa bahwa ini sebuah pelanggaran, karena tulisan-tulisan yang dibuat itu bukanlah hasil

Menulis Artikel Blog Sendiri, Gimana Caranya Ya?

Hmmmm, artikel.... Kata ini sudah sangat lazim dan akrab bagi telinga para blogger.
Artikel blog memiliki jenis bermacam-macam, tergantung dari konteks dan tujuan blog yang dibawa. Hal ini nantinya berpengaruh terhadap tipe artikel yang hendak diusung dalam blog.

Apapun Blognya, Artikel Makanannya!
Menulis artikel adalah makanan sehari-hari yg tak terelakkan lagi. Dalam sudut pandang tujuan,

"It's on Google! YAY!" - Getting webmaster help in our forum

Webmaster level: all

It's been a bit more than five years now that our Webmaster Help Forum has been up and running, helping webmasters around the world. Over the years, over tens of thousands of users have discussed various topics in well over 100,000 threads, helping each other to improve their websites and to solve a variety of issues that web publishers are confronted with. Among those users is a group that we call the "Bionic Posters," users who have proven to be consistently helpful and knowledgeable, selflessly helping others to tackle seemingly insurmountable problems.

It's great to have such an awesome community -- but thanks is best said by those who are helped. Here is some of the feedback that we collected this year:

• "Thank you for the time you have spent helping me. It is genuinely appreciated."
• "Thank you to everyone who helped with my problem! My creaky old 1996 era website is all cleaned up and doing just fine now! Good Guys Rule!"
• "WOW!!!!!!!! Thank you so much for your help! I was reluctant to post because I thought you guys might think my site is too small, too insignificant, etc. Thanks so much! To me, it's a BIG deal!"
• "My traffic has doubled and I am now either top or close to the top in search terms"
• "Thanks. Hopefully my late night paid off then, all the help and information has been great!!!!!!!"
• "Wow Webado Thank You Again.. You Really Know Your stuff! (…) You Are a True professional and Seriously The Only Person That Could Even Figure This out. I even Spoke to Other Top Specialists and YOU were the Only one who told me what to do and what was wrong."
• "You are AMAZING! Thank you so much!"
• "Finally, thanks so much for your concern and prompt reply, Squibble. Can't imagine a person would deligated his efforts to someones you don't even know and met. (…) Thanks for your help!! It means everything to me!"
• "Wow thanks so much! I have just been to the hot springs in Banos Ecuador, the volcano is rumbling and the town has evacuated but I am still here talking Apache, now that is dedication, I will test your helpfulness out 2moro! Thanks so much!!!"
• "THANKYOU THANKYOU THANKYOU! YOU ARE SOOOO AMAZING! MY BLOG IS GONE FROM GOOGLE AND ALL THE OLD POSTS ASSOCIATED WITH THAT TOO! THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU!"
• "It worked! Thank you very much for your help Cristina :)"
• "I could NEVER have seen what's possible without this forum. I am so grateful."
• "Thank you so much for your detailed response to my questions. In 10 years of me having a website, no one has explained these concepts better to me than you did."
• "IT WORKED!!! Thank you so much for saving me the grief and embarrassment of this problem. I truly appreciate both your knowledge and guidance."
• "Thank you so much for such a detailed answer and putting into terms I can easily understand. (…) Where shall I send the batch of brownies?"
• "Thank you so much Squibble you are a hero. I have done what it says and i will check to see if i appear in google! Thanks again!"
• "you guys are amazing! thank you so much redleg! (…) and if you happen to ever be in san carlos give me a shout - you deserve at least a beer and a lunch! "
• "Thank you Squibble, Vanessa, Cristina, and Ishigaki for weighing in on this and helping me. I hope I can pay it forward one day."
• "Great info Guys. I really appreciate it. It was awesome of y'all to help me out. I really appreciate it. Thank you."
• "Your amazing :-) i love you lol xx im sorted now thanks and never in a million years would i have found that out!"
• "THANK YOU! I love Google and appreciate that they have these safety precautions in place for those nasty hackets - especially when we can fix the problem! Thanks so much for your help. Whew."
• "Thank you very much, Robbo! With a little tweaking it worked perfectly!"
• "yay!!! I think it finally went through - THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!"

If you have a question that you would like to ask, a problem that you need help with, we'd love to see you in the forums! We just ask that you please take the time to read through our frequently asked questions, and search the forum before posting. Chances are high that a question like yours has already been answered. Tell us a little bit about yourself and then join us to learn more and help others!

Posted by John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst

Memperindah Kotak Comment Blogger/Blogspot Dengan CSS

Cara ini saya dapat setelah sedikit belajar otak-atik CSS dengan teman karena pengen banget membuat kotak comment (yang sebelumnya terkesan "biasa" di dalam template Blogger ini) terlihat lebih "berwarna" dan "senada" dengan warna template blog ini.
Akhirnya kita menggunakan konsep frame untuk menghias sekeliling kotak comment tersebut. Caranya pun sangat sederhana dan mudah. Berikut

FACEBOOK WARNING!: Jangan Klik "Seorang Gadis Bunuh Diri Karena Status Ayahnya"

Sebelumnya, saya baru saja menemui kondisi ganjil dan mencurigakan setelah terus-terusan mendapat pop up chat dari account teman saya yang berbunyi begini:"Is this you?"Kemudian di bawahnya ada link aplikasi yang disisipkan:http://facebook.com/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Begitu terus hingga berkali-kali. Setelah saya buka, aplikasi ini tidak jelas sebagai aplikasi apa dan terlihat aneh karena meminta banyak

18 Fakta dan Dampak Facebook yang Mungkin Anda Belum Tahu

Seperti yang sudah banyak diketahui, Facebook adalah situs social network yang memiliki user terbanyak di dunia. Ada beberapa hal yang menarik yang patut kita ketahui dibalik hingar-bingar dan popularitas situs jejaring temuan Mark Zuckerberg ini, diantaranya adalah:Jika Facebook adalah sebuah negara, maka Facebook adalah negara terbesar kelima setelah Cina, India, Amerika, dan

Free Sitemap Submitter | SEO Tools

Sitemap (peta situs) merupakan rujukan bagi search engine dalam melakukan crawling sebuah website/blog. Maka, proses indeks menjadi lebih cepat dan tidak ada url/halaman yang terlewatkan oleh spiderbot (robot crawler). Tentu saja, sitemap kemudian menjadi sangat penting bagi usaha peningkatan SEO.
Sitemap submitter dapat memperpendek waktu kerja pendaftaran sitemap blog/web ke beberapa search

Sending Video Sitemaps Q&A holiday cheer

Webmaster Level: Intermediate to Advanced

To the fabulous, savvy audience that attended our Video Sitemap webinar several months ago, please accept our re-gift: a summary of your questions from the Video Sitemaps Q&A!

To those who were unable to attend the webinar, please enjoy our gift of the summarized Q&A -- it’s like new!

Either way, happy holidays from all of us on the Webmaster Central Team. :)

Our entire webinar covers the basics of Video Sitemaps and best practices -- nearly everything you’d need to know when submitting a video feed.

1. Can the source/content of the video (perhaps a third-party vendor) be hosted on another site? For example, can I host my videos on YouTube and still be eligible for Video Search traffic?
   
   Yes, you can use a third party to host videos. Only the play page--the URL within the <loc> tag--needs to be on your site. <video:content_loc> and <video:player_loc> can list URLs on a different site or subdomain.
   
   For example, here’s a snippet from a valid Video Sitemap that shows content hosted on a different subdomain from the play page:
   
   

   <url>
     <loc>http://www.example.com/videos/some_video_landing_page.html</loc>
       <video:video>
         <video:thumbnail_loc>http://www.example.com/thumbs/123.jpg</video:thumbnail_loc>
         <video:title>Grilling steaks for summer</video:title>
         <video:description>Alkis shows you how to get perfectly done steaks every time</video:description>
         <video:content_loc>http://video-hoster.example.com/video123.flv</video:content_loc>
         <video:player_loc allow_embed="yes" autoplay="ap=1">http://www.example.com/videoplayer.swf?video=123</video:player_loc>
       </video:video>
   </url>



2. If I’m using YouTube to host my videos, can Google verify that I’m the legitimate owner?
   
   Currently, there doesn’t exist functionality that allows you, as the uploader, to verify that you’re the owner of a video. The issue of authorship is a hard problem on the web, not just for videos, but nearly all types of content.


3. Because Google owns YouTube, should users who embed YouTube videos still submit Video Sitemaps or is it unnecessary?
   
   Google treats YouTube as just another source for video content -- though you don’t need to submit a Video Sitemap if you only want your YouTube-hosted videos indexed. If, however, you’re using YouTube as a online video platform (i.e., with play pages on your own site), then we do recommend Sitemap submission.


4. How long does it take for Google to accept and verify a Video Sitemap?
   
   Video Sitemap submission is a two-part process:
   
   
   
   1. We fetch the Sitemap and parse it for syntax errors. This happens within minutes.
   
   
   2. We fetch the assets referenced in the Sitemap, perform checks, validate metadata, do more cool stuff, and last, index the video. This step can require varied amounts of time depending on your site and our system load.
   
   
5. What tags and categories are most important in Video Sitemaps or mRSS? Should I create my own categories or is there a list that I should conform to?
   
   Currently, the most important metadata to include is title and description -- both are required. The category tag is optional, and there isn’t a list from which to select.


6. Do I have to use HTML5 to use Video Sitemaps?
   Does HTML5 help with discovery?
   Or, if my site is HTML5 compliant, do I still need to submit a Video Sitemap?
   
   None of the Video Search principles change with HTML5. We still recommend using a Video Sitemap regardless of the markup on your site. HTML5 can be helpful, though, because tags like <video> make it easier for our systems to verify that video exists on the page.


7. If I use an iframe rather than embedding my videos, can Google still find it?
   
   We do not recommend using iframes to embed video content on your pages.


8. Can I have multiple videos on one URL?
   
   You can. We’ve found, however, that users may not consider it the best experience. When users click on a video search result, they most often don’t like being forced to locate the correct video among multiple videos on the resulting page.


9. Do I need to specifically create a robots.txt file that allows Googlebot, or do I just need to make sure Googlebot isn’t blocked?
   
   Just make sure that Googlebot isn’t blocked.


10. I provided a thumbnail, but it’s not being used. Does Google create their own thumbnails from my videos?
    
    We try to use the thumbnail you provide if it’s valid. If not, we’ll try to generate a thumbnail ourselves. We recommend that you provide thumbnails that are at least 120x90 pixels. We also accept many thumbnail formats, such as PNG and JPEG.


11. Any video filesize limitations?
    
    At this time, there aren’t video filesize limitations on content submitted through VIdeo Sitemaps.


12. Is there any way to indicate a transcript or closed captioning for a video?
    
    Currently there isn’t, but perhaps down the road.


13. What if I’m using Lightbox or a popup to display a video; can it still be indexed?
    
    Depends on the use case and how it’s rendered, but if indexing by search engines is important to you, it’s not the safest method. In the Webmaster Help Center, we explain that “When designing your site, it's important to configure your video pages without any overly complex JavaScript or Flash setup.” Most often, for bots, simpler is safer.

Have a safe and happy holiday!

Written by Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead

30 Fakta Menarik Seputar Dunia Internet

Mungkin sebagian fakta atau trivia di bawah ini  sudah anda ketahui, tetapi tetaplah fakta-fakta ini menarik dan bisa memberi gambaran ke kita mengenai dunia internet sesungguhnya. Ini dia:
Penemu frase World Wide Web (WWW) adalah Tim-Berners-Lee pada tahun 1990.
Penyebaran Internet di dunia dengan capaian 50 juta pengguna adalah yang tercepat, yaitu hanya dalam 5 tahun, dibanding radio

Battle of the Demos: Musical Holiday Edition

Nothing brings out holiday spirit like caroling around town or sharing a good time with friends. But when you combine both of those fun activities with Google technology, Weezer, Greyson Chance, and Demo Slam, you get Battle of the Demos: Musical Holiday Edition.

This winter season, Weezer and Greyson Chance stepped to into the Demo Slam arena to show the world their most creative tech demos. We know they can both sing, but who will win in a battle of technology?

Spending his Christmas home in Oklahoma City, Greyson Chance figured he could combine Google Local Search and caroling to spread some musical cheer around town:



Weezer is known for their adoring fans (well, at least one adoring fan authoring this post). Check out this slam that gets the whole crowd involved:



Head over to demoslam.com to vote and help decide whether a voice search performed by 3,000 people or crooning through the streets of Oklahoma City will reign supreme.

Posted by Laura Melahn, Weezer Fan Club and Amanda Kelly, Greyson Chance Cheer Squad

Cara Membuat Blog Gratis di Blogger/Blogspot & WordPress

Cara membuat blog sekarang ini jauh lebih mudah. Memulai blog dengan layanan dua raksasa blogging: Blogger dan WordPress, merupakan awalan yg baik. Meskipun ada puluhan situs penyedia layanan dan hosting  blog gratis lainnya di seluruh dunia. 
Blog semakin menjadi media ekspresi di internet yang paling booming. Ada jutaan blogger di dunia; rata-rata memilki eksistensi yg bisa dibilang bagus.

Paket Internet Unlimited GSM Three (3), Lemot kah?

(Review Paket Internet Unlimited GSM Three pada ZTE MF-100 GSM USB MODEM)Berbagai macam paket internet unlimited ditawarkan oleh berbagai operator/provider di Indonesia, baik yang berbasis CDMA ataupun GSM, dengan harga paket yang beraneka macam dan dengan kelebihan serta kelemahannnya masing-masing.
Kali ini saya ingin mereview Paket Internet Unlimited Three. Pada dasarnya saya belum

Cara Mempercepat Koneksi Internet Speedy

Mungkin banyak yg berlangganan speedy (terutama paket personal) mengeluh karena koneksinya yg saat ini terhitung lambat.Namun jangan kawatir, saya memiliki beberapa tips yg saya dapat dari hasil browsing serta informasi yg saya dapat dari teman-teman blog lainnya. Cara ini sudah berhasil saya terapkan untuk mempercepat koneksi speedy saya.Salah satu caranya adalah dengan mengutak atik

Rahasia: Fungsi Lain Google Search Engine

Banyak dari kita menggunakan mesin pencari Google sehari-hari tetapi apakah anda tahu bahwa google juga merupakan alat yang ampuh untuk hal-hal lain? Ada beberapa trik sederhana namun hebat hasilnya yg dapat digunakan ketika mencari dengan menggunakan fitur-fitur Google. Kita lihat yuk!

1. Gunakan Google sebagai kalkulator.Google telah memiliki built-in calculator, dengan memasukkan

3 Cara Membuat Artikel Blog Dalam 10 Menit

Mungkin sobat tidak percaya setelah membaca judul dari posting ini. Masa sih membuat artikel blog hanya dalam waktu 10 menit? Tapi saya akan berusaha sekuat tenaga hingga bisa meyakinkan 100 persen dengan 3 cara berbeda berikut ini:
1. Cari artikel-artikel blog mancanegara atau news terbaru, pilih artikel yg menurut sobat menarik banyak pembaca. Tidak perlu membaca isinya karena itu akan

Improving our help content: stocking stuffers in our Help Center

Webmaster Level: All

We provide lots of information for webmasters across many different channels — you can stay up to date with the latest features here on our blog, browse articles in our Help Center, have discussions in our forums (in 17 languages!), watch videos on our YouTube channel, or even read in-depth interviews (in English, Portuguese, and other languages).

There’s no shortage of useful information, but sometimes the relevant bits may be a bit difficult to locate, especially for novice webmasters. We see the same questions popping up over and over again, so we’ve tried to make our most frequently searched information as accessible and visible as possible:

We analysed the questions asked over the past year and a half and identified the issues you are most interested in. We then picked out the relevant bits from across our different resources and collected the answers to those questions in one new convenient FAQ page in our Help Center (available in 20 languages).

We also frequently get questions on how to get in touch with us, so we’ve put together all the different ways you can:

...tell us about a page you want to remove from our search results;

...tell us about spam you found;

...let us know when you’ve fixed issues on your website;

...and many more! All of these contact channels are now listed conveniently in one article with direct links to the relevant forms: Webmaster help and contacts (available from the homepage of our Help Center, also in 20 languages).

Now isn’t that a nice stocking stuffer (-:?

Happy webmastering in 2011, and keep the feedback coming!

Posted by Mariya Moeva, Search Quality Team, Dublin

Dashing through the snow... with NORAD and Google

(Cross-posted from the Lat Long Blog)

Every Christmas Eve, children all over the world ask themselves—and their parents—questions about Santa’s magical journey. How does Santa visit so many children in one night? Will he eat the cookies I left out? How does he fit all those presents into his sleigh? These childhood mysteries are part of what makes the Santa tradition so special.

There’s one timeless question that we’re proud to say we can help answer: Where in the world is Santa at this very moment? Thanks in part to recent advances in warp-speed GPS technology and some very clever elves (elveneering?) NORAD Tracks Santa is once again prepped and ready to go.

Starting tomorrow, December 24 at 2:00am EST, visit www.noradsanta.org to follow Santa as he journeys around the world delivering presents to children in more than 200 countries and territories. There are a few different ways to find the jolly old man in his unmistakable red suit over the course of the day, so feel free to track him using any of the following methods:

• See Santa on a Google Map: On your home computer or laptop, visit www.noradsanta.org and choose your preferred language. You’ll see a large Google Map on the page displaying Santa’s current location and his next stop. Click the video icons to watch “Santa Cam” videos, and click the gift icons to learn more about each city.
  
  
• Watch Santa fly with the Google Earth Plug-in: From www.noradsanta.org, click on the link Track Santa in Google Earth. You'll see Santa steering his sleigh right on the webpage. If you don't have the Google Earth plug-in, you can get ready by downloading it ahead of time.
  
  
• Follow Santa on your phone: Track Santa from your mobile phone by opening Google Maps for mobile and searching for [santa]. Or, visit m.noradsanta.org on your phone’s browser.
  
  
• Subscribe to his YouTube channel: Santa’s home on YouTube is at http://www.youtube.com/noradtrackssanta. That’s where you can find videos from his journey throughout the night.
  
  
• Get real-time information about Santa’s location: Use Google’s Realtime Search to get updates from social networks, news and micro-blogs like Twitter at @noradsanta, and keep up with news about his journey on this Facebook page.

For any techie questions you might have, we’ve also put together some helpful tips and tricks about all the cool ways you can experience Santa’s journey. Now that you know how to follow Saint Nick on Christmas Eve, it’s our tradition to tell the story of how this all started...

NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) first began to track Santa in 1955 when a misprinted advertisement in a Sears & Roebuck catalogue mistakenly led callers expecting a Santa-hotline to the NORAD commander-in-chief's telephone. Embracing the spirit of the season, NORAD used its satellite and radar capabilities to offer callers sleigh-location updates, and has tracked Santa's whereabouts on Christmas Eve ever since. Then in 2004, Google started tracking Santa on Google Earth as a 20% project, which in 2007 grew into a partnership with NORAD, adding the mapping technology of Google Maps and Google Earth to the NORAD experience. Over the years, other Google teams have also joined in the holiday fun (YouTube, Google Voice’s www.SendACallFromSanta.com and Google SketchUp).

As we approach this year’s Christmas Eve adventure, Santa was able to take a break from the preparations to visit the New York Stock Exchange this past Monday. His helpful elves kept everything at the North Pole on schedule while folks from Google and NORAD attended the Closing Bell ceremony, and stood alongside Santa from Macy’s going over last minute details about tomorrow’s big ride.

Santa with NORAD, Google and members of the Marine Toys for Tots Foundation (that’s me, the tall guy in the back row clapping)

So don’t forget to visit www.noradsanta.org tomorrow morning starting at 2:00am EST when Santa embarks on his flight. From all of us here at Google, happy holidays and here’s to a very happy New Year!


Posted by Brian McClendon, Original Google Engineering Elf

Video Sitemaps & mRSS vs. Facebook Share & RDFa

Webmaster Level: Intermediate to Advanced

What are the benefits of submitting feeds like Video Sitemaps and mRSS vs. the benefits of Facebook Share and RDFa? Is one better than the other? Let’s start the discussion.

Functionality of feeds vs. on-page markup

Google accepts information from both video feeds, such as Video Sitemaps and mRSS, as well as on-page markup, such as Facebook Share and RDFa. We recommend that you use both!

If you have limited resources, however, here’s a chart explaining the pros and cons of each method. The key differentiators include:

• While both feeds and on-page markup give search engines metadata, Video Sitemaps/mRSS also help with crawl discovery. We may find a new URL through your feed that we wouldn’t have easily discovered otherwise.


• Using Video Sitemaps/mRSS requires that the search engine support these formats and not all engines do. Because on-page markup is just that -- on the page -- crawlers can gather the metadata through organic means as they index the URL. No feed support is required.

	Feeds (Video Sitemaps & mRSS)	On-page markup (Facebook Share & RDFa)
Accepted by Google	⎷	⎷
Helps search engines discover new URLs with videos (improves discovery and coverage)	⎷
Provides structured metadata (e.g. video title and description)	⎷	⎷
Allows search engines without sitemap/mRSS support to still obtain metadata information (allows organic gathering of metadata)		⎷
Incorporates additional metadata like “duration”	⎷

If you’re further wondering about the benefits of specific feeds (Video Sitemaps vs. mRSS), we can help with clarification there, too. First of all, you can use either. We’re agnostic. :) One benefit of Video Sitemaps is that, because it’s a format we’re actively enhancing, we can quickly extend it to allow for more specifications.

All this said, if you’re going to start from scratch, Video Sitemaps is our recommended start.

	Video Sitemaps	mRSS
Accepted by Google	⎷	⎷
Been around for a long, long time and pretty widely accepted		⎷
Extremely quick for Google Video Search team to extend	⎷

“Starving” to start conversation about feeds or on-page markup? Join us in the Sitemaps section of the Webmaster discussion forum.

Written by Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead

Deja Vu: Mimpi Atau Kenyataan ya?

Sepertinya kata deja vu sudah tidak begitu asing bagi telinga kita. Bahkan kita tidak jarang membicarakan fenomena ini dengan teman-teman kita. Suatu ketika, dalam suatu kesempatan, mungkin kita atau salah satu dari teman kita nyeletuk, "Eh, tau gak, rasanya kok aku kaya udah pernah ngalamin ini ya sebelumnya. Persis banget loh! Aku kaya udah pernah duduk persis di kursi ini, kamu di depanku,,dan

Investing in New York

Google New York started in a Starbucks on 86th Street with one person in 2000—a scrappy, highly-caffeinated sales “team.” After moving to a larger office in Times Square, in 2006 we relocated to our current home in Chelsea, at 111 Eighth Avenue—a former Port Authority building. In June of 2008, we took additional space in the Chelsea Market building at 75 Ninth Avenue. Now we have more than 2,000 Googlers working on a variety of projects in both sales and engineering—and we’re hiring across the board.

Today, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve closed a deal with the partnership of Taconic Investment Partners, Jamestown Properties and the New York State Common Retirement Fund to purchase 111 Eighth Avenue (also known as 76 Ninth Avenue). As part of the deal, we’ve retained Taconic Management Company to continue the leasing oversight services and management of the building on our behalf, providing the same level of customer service the building’s tenants have come to expect. We believe that this is a great real estate investment in a thriving neighborhood and a fantastic city.

Like the city, our New York office is a melting pot of cultures and ideas—it’s home to Googlers from more than 35 countries who speak more than 40 languages. They live in the five boroughs and spread across the tri-state area. We’re excited to continue to build our presence there.

Posted by David Radcliffe, VP Real Estate and Workplace Services

Ring in the new year with accessible content: Website clinic for non-profits

Webmaster level: Beginner

Cross-posted on the Google Grants Blog

In our previous post, we did some source code housekeeping -- just in time for the holidays. But once users have landed on your site, how can you make sure they’ll know how to get around?

As it turns out, easily accessible content on your site can make a big difference. Users tend to have a better experience when a site helps them find and understand its content. Having an accessible site not only empowers users, it also helps search engines understand what your site is really about.

So if you’ve resolved to boost your site’s user experience and online presence for the new year, improving your content accessibility is a great way to start. Thankfully, there are tons of features you can add to make your site more accessible. In this post, we’ll highlight three of them:

• Intuitive navigation
• Concise, descriptive anchor text for links
• Unique, accurate page titles throughout the site

Intuitive navigation

Help users avoid confusion by providing them with intuitive navigation, so that when they arrive at your site, they’ll know where to click to find the information they’re looking for.

Here are three features you can implement in order to lead your users down the right path:

• Navigational menu: Having a menu with links to the site’s most important pages is the fastest, easiest way to show users where to click next.
• Text-based links: While drop-down menus, image-based links, and animation-based links can be appealing, keep in mind that users on text-only devices and some search engines may not be able to see or understand these links. Thus, many users prefer text-based links, which are also easier for search engines to crawl and interpret.
• User-viewable site map: 59% of our submissions did not have a user-viewable site map. By providing one, you display the structure of your site and give the user easy one-click navigation. If users are having trouble finding specific pages on your site, a site map can help them find their way. Don’t send your users into the wild without a map!

Let’s explore how these features can make a site’s navigation more intuitive by looking at one of our submitted sites, Philanthropedia.

Thanks to this site’s clean navigational menu, users can find all of the site’s important pages within a few clicks. Wherever users end up on the site, they can always click on the “Home” button to return to the main page, or on any of the links in the menu to return to the site’s important subpages. Like all of the links on this site, the links in the navigational menu are text-based links, which make it easier for both search engines and users to access the site’s content. Finally, Philanthropedia has included a user-viewable site map, shown below, in case visitors are looking for a specific page not listed in the main menu.

Concise, descriptive anchor text for links

Anchor text -- the clickable text of a link -- can help users quickly decide which links they want to click on and find out more about. Meaningful anchor text makes it easier for users to navigate around your site and also helps search engines understand what the link’s destination page is about.

20% of our submissions could improve their sites by improving the anchor text used in some of their internal links. When writing anchor text, keep two things in mind:

• Be descriptive: Use words that are relevant to the destination page, avoiding generic phrases like “click here” or “article.” Make sure the user can get a snapshot of the destination page’s overall content and functionality by reading the anchor text.
• Keep it concise: Anchor text that contains a few words or a short phrase is more attractive and convenient for users to read than a sentence or paragraph-long link.

Let’s take a look at how anchor text played out in two user-submitted examples:

Organization	Anchor Text Examples	User Friendliness	Anchor Text Behavior
The Mosaic Project	Work for Mosaic Order Our Curriculum Guide Outdoor School	High: Users can get an accurate idea of the content on the links’ destination pages just by reading the anchor text.	Active verb phrases and rich nouns accurately describe the pages that the links are pointing to.
Asian Liver Center	Learn more here	Low: The anchor text is too generic and does not give users an idea of what the linked-to content is.	Generic phrases give little insight into the pages that the links are pointing to.

You can learn more about anchor text and internal linking strategies by checking out this blog post on the importance of link architecture.

Unique, accurate page titles throughout the site

Each page on your site is different, so flaunt your site’s diversity by giving a unique title to each page. Giving each page a unique title lets search engines know how that page is distinct from others within your site. In our analysis, over 28% of sites could have improved their site quality by adding unique page titles.

Let’s check out a few more examples to see what a difference unique, accurate page titles can make:

Organization	Page Title Examples	User Friendliness	Page Title Behavior
VAMS International	Upcoming Events | VAMS International Request Service | VAMS International FAQ’s | VAMS International	High: Each page’s content is relevant to its title, and the user can get a good idea of each page’s unique offerings and functionality.	Concise, rich language joined with the organization’s name accurately describes the corresponding pages. The titles show how each page is unique while also acknowledging that they are all associated with one organization.
MHCD Evaluation and Research	MHCD Evaluation and Research	Low: This site contains a lot of diverse content and rich functionality; however, the uniform page titles do not convey these strengths.	This page title is too general and does not accurately describe the content on each page. The same title is used across all the pages on this site.

Wrapping things up

We hope that this blog post has given you some ideas on how to ring in the new year with improved content accessibility, which can boost the user experience and online presence for your site.

To learn more about the features discussed here and in our previous two site clinic posts, check out our SEO Report Card and SEO Starter Guide.

This blog post wraps up our website clinic for non-profits. We send our warmest regards to all the great non-profit causes you are working on, and thanks to everyone who took the time to submit their sites and read our posts!

Posted by Jen Lee and Alexi Douvas, Search Quality Evaluation Team

Contributors: Aditya Goradia, Brandon Falls, Charlene Perez, Diara Dankert, Michael Wyszomierski, and Nelson Bradley

Trip report: Google and YouTube in Pakistan 2010

Earlier this month, a team from Google and YouTube went to Pakistan to explore business and content opportunities, following up on Google’s Clinton Global Initiative commitment to Pakistan and to sponsor and participate in Pakistan’s first International Youth Conference and Festival. It’s hard to imagine a country more at the nexus of geo-politics today than Pakistan, and our team learned a lot about the state of the Pakistani technology, media and non-profit sectors.



Internet connectivity in Pakistan is quite low—estimates put penetration at around 10%—but opportunities for growth are evident. For one thing, broadband costs are quite cheap compared to other parts of the world—around $13/month. Smartphone usage is also on the rise, and there are a growing number of Pakistani developers who are creating mobile applications for sale both in Pakistan and abroad. Around 60% of Pakistanis have a mobile phone, and their average bill is around $3/month. Not surprisingly, SMS is one of the primary means of communication in Pakistan.

One of the keys to bringing more Pakistanis online is the amount of local Pakistani content available on the Internet. There are some great examples so far: for instance, Coke Studio, a “fusion” music project sponsored by Coke that features popular Pakistani musicians, grew so popular on YouTube last summer that it was the 11th-most viewed channel on the site. Dozens of news organizations have begun to use YouTube as a global distribution platform as well, reaching not only Pakistanis online but the diaspora abroad. The Pakistani media is young and voracious—it was just eight years ago that the government opened up the airwaves to allow non-state media channels to exist, and in that short time the media has grown to become an important player in the public discourse in Pakistan, despite occasional crackdowns from authorities. Citizen media has also played an increasingly big role in Pakistan: for example many Pakistanis used cellphone cameras to document the devastation wrought by the floods in Pakistan last summer.

Google.org granted $1 million to Pakistani flood relief in September, localized crisis response tools, and launched a flood relief landing page. On our trip we met with several non-profits who are doing incredible work to help the affected citizens get back on their feet. Our products, in particular Google MapMaker, proved to be of use to flood relief agencies for tracking development in the wake of the tragedy. Over countless cups of hot chai and mixed grilled barbecues, we heard stories of ordinary Pakistanis using Google technology to document the flood and connect with one another during the crisis.

Pakistan’s future no doubt lies with its youth—an incredible 62% of Pakistanis are under the age of 25. Perhaps the highlight of our trip was the International Youth Conference we participated in, which was run by an organization called Khudi. Khudi was founded by the dynamic Maajid Nawaz, a former extremist who changed his views towards moderate Islam and has since devoted his life to educating young people on freedom of expression and anti-extremism (Nawaz also spoke at Google Zeitgeist this year). It was inspiring to meet leaders like Nawaz who are committed to emboldening Pakistan’s younger generations to use the web to bring Pakistan to the rest of the world, and to give the rest of the world a more complete picture of Pakistan. In this way we saw an opportunity for technology to not only foster economic development, but also to break down borders in the region. We asked a few of the Pakistani leaders we met with to talk about Pakistan’s future, and here’s what they had to say.



This was the largest delegation of Googlers ever to visit Pakistan, and we’re looking forward to continued engagement in the region.

Posted by Steve Grove, Head of News & Politics, YouTube and John Lyman, Google.org

Some cool Android tips and tricks

Last week, I sent a note to my team with some of my favorite tips and apps for Nexus S, which features Android 2.3, Gingerbread. A lot of Googlers liked it, so we thought some of you might enjoy it as well. (Note: Many of the tips are specific to Android 2.3.)

Tips

• Visual cue for scrolling: When you are in a scrollable list (like your Gmail inbox) and you reach the end of the list it shows an orange hue—a visual cue that you can’t scroll anymore.
• Notification bar icons (Wi-Fi, network coverage bars, etc.): Turn green when you have an uninhibited connection to Google, white when you don't. Hint: if you're in a hotel or airport using Wi-Fi, the bars won't turn green until you launch the browser and get past the captive portal.
• Voice actions: Tell your phone what to do by pressing the microphone icon next to the search box on the home screen, or long press the magnifying glass. You can tell it to send an email or text message (“send text to mom, see you for pizza at 7”), call someone ("call mom"), navigate somewhere (“navigate to pizza”), or listen to music ("listen to Mamma Mia").
• Find things you’ve downloaded from your browser: Your downloads are now neatly collected in a Downloads manager, which you can find in the apps drawer.
• Turn a Gallery stack into a slideshow: In Gallery, when you are looking at a stack of photos, put two fingers on the stack and spread them. The stack spreads out and the pictures flow from one finger to the other, a moving slideshow that lets you see all of the photos.
• Walk, don’t drive: Once you’ve gotten directions within Google Maps, click on the walking person icon to get walking directions.
• Easy text copy/paste from a webpage: To copy/paste from a webpage, long press some text, drag the handles around to select the text you want to copy, and press somewhere in the highlighted region. To paste, simply long press a text entry box and select paste. Gmail is a bit different: you need to go to Menu > More > Select Text.
• Turn your phone into a Wi-Fi hotspot: Go to Settings > Wireless & Networks > Tethering & Portable Hotspot. (You may have to pay extra for this feature.)
• Look at Maps in 3D: With the latest release of Google Maps, you can now look at 3D maps. Tilt the map by sliding two fingers vertically up/down the screen, and rotate it by placing two fingers on the map and sliding in a circular motion, e.g., from 12 and 6 o’clock to 3 and 9.
• Cool shutdown effect: When you put the phone to sleep, you’ll see an animation that resembles an old cathode tube TV turning off.

Keyboard tricks

• Shift+Key to capitalize a word: In Gingerbread (and supported hardware), you can Shift+Key to capitalize a letter instead of going to a separate all caps keyboard.
• Auto-complete: The space bar lights up when auto-complete can finish a word.
• Quick replace: Tap on any previously typed word, then tap on a suggestion to automatically replace it with the suggested word.
• Easy access to special characters (like numbers, punctuation): Press and hold any key to go to the special character keyboard. You can also press and hold the "," key for an extensive punctuation keyboard.

Applications

• Angry Birds: Popular game that lets you knock down blocks by slingshotting birds.
• Astro: Awesome file explorer app. Browse and access the directories on your phone, and take full advantage of its capabilities. Great if you’re a power user.
• Chrome to Phone: This one is really useful for Chrome users. You can send anything you browse on your computer to your phone. So if you are heading out to a restaurant or party and look up directions on your computer, just click the “send to phone” button (requires Chrome to Phone extension) and that exact page will open on your phone. Same with virtually any webpage.
• Flash: Install from Android Market to watch Flash videos embedded throughout the web. Runs even better on Gingerbread.
• Fruit Ninja: A juicy action game that tests your ability to smash flying fruit. A fun time-killer on the bus or train.
• FXCamera: Popular photo sharing app with slick effects and filters.
• Google Maps: Use your device as a GPS navigation system with free turn-by-turn voice guidance, and take advantage of other Google Maps features like Street View, Latitude and Places.
• Instant Heart Rate: Measure your heart rate using your camera.
• Phoneanlyzr: Track your phone usage: who you text most, call most, average call length distribution, etc.
• RemoteDroid: Control your computer from your phone. Gives you a mobile wireless mouse and keyboard. Great if you’re using your computer for music or movies.
• Shazam: Identifies virtually any song you are listening to.
• SoundHound: Record a snippet of a song and get it identified instantly. You can even hum (if you can carry a tune!).
• Tango: A free, high-quality video call app that works on both 3G and Wi-Fi. If your device has a front facing camera (e.g., Nexus S), you will love this app.
• YouTube: New UI. Plus, portrait-mode player, and view comments and drop-down box video information

Posted by Jonathan Rosenberg, Senior Vice President, Product Management

Holiday source code housekeeping: Website clinic for non-profits

Webmaster Level: Beginner

Cross-posted on the Google Grants Blog

As the holiday season comes around, we all have a bit of housekeeping to do. This is precisely why we wanted to focus the second post in our site clinic series on cleaning up your source code. Throughout our analysis of submitted non-profit websites, we noticed some confusion about what HTML markup, or tags, to use where, and what content to place within them, both of which could have significant impact on users and how your website looks on the search results page.

Before you deck the halls, deck out your <title> elements

Out of all the submitted non-profit websites, 27% were misusing their <title> elements, which are critical in letting both Google and users know what’s important to your website. Typically, a search engine will display ~60 characters from your title element; this is valuable real estate, so you should use it! Before getting into the actual code, let’s first take a look at how a great title element from one of our submitted sites, Sharp, will appear in the search results page:

Ideally, a great <title> element will include the name of the organization, along with a descriptive tag line. Let’s take a look at some submitted examples:

Organization	<title> source code	User Friendliness	Tag Behavior
Sharp	<title>Top San Diego Doctors and Hospitals - Sharp HealthCare</title>	Best	Includes organization’s name and a descriptive tag line
Interieur	<title>Interieur 2010 - 15-24 October Kortrijk, Belgium</title>	Good	Includes the organization’s name and a non-descriptive tag line
VAMS International	<title>Visual Arts and Music for Society | VAMS International</title>	Okay	Includes only the organization’s name

If you don’t specify a <title> tag, then Google will try to create a title for you. You can probably do better than our best guess, so go for it: take control of your <title> tag! It’s a simple fix that can make a huge difference. Using specific <title> tags for your deeper URLs is also important, and we’ll address that in our next site clinic post.

Keep an eye on your description meta tags

Description meta tags weren’t being utilized to their full potential in 54% of submitted sites. These tags are often used to populate the two-line snippet provided to users in the search results page. With a solid snippet, you can get your potential readers excited and ready to learn more about your organization. Let’s take another look at a good example from among the submitted sites, Tales of Aussie Rescue:

If description meta tags are absent or not relevant, a snippet will be chosen from the page’s content automatically. If you’re lucky and have a good snippet auto-selected, keep in mind that search engines vary in the way that they select snippets, so it’s better to keep things consistent and relevant by writing a solid description meta tag.

Keep your <h> elements in their place

Another quick fix in your housekeeping is assuring your website makes proper use of heading tags. In our non-profit study, nearly 19% of submitted sites had room for improvement with heading elements. The most common problem in heading tags was the tendency to initiate headers with an <h2> or <h3> tag while not including an <h1> tag, presumably for aesthetic reasons.

Headings give you the opportunity to tell both Google and users what’s important to you and your website. The lower the number on your heading tag, the more important the text, in the eyes of Google and your users. Take advantage of that <h1> tag! If you don’t like how an <h1> tag is rendered visually, you can always alter its appearance in your CSS.

Use alt text for images

Everyone is always proud to display their family photos come holiday season, but don’t forget to tell us what they’re all about. Over 37% of analyzed sites were not making appropriate use of the image alt attribute. If used properly, this attribute can:

• Help Google understand what your image is
• Allow users on text-only browsers, with accessibility problems, or on limited devices to understand your images

Keep in mind, rich and descriptive alt text is the key here. Let’s take another look at some of our submitted sites and their alt attribute usage:

Organization	Source Code	User Friendliness	Tag Behavior
Sponsor A Puppy	<img alt="Sponsor a Puppy logo" src=...	Best: the alt text specifies the image is the organization’s main logo	Uses rich, descriptive alt text to describe images, buttons, and logos
Philanthropedia	<img alt="Logo" height=...	Good: the alt text specifies the image is a logo, but does not further describe it by the organization or its behavior	Uses non-descriptive alt text for images, buttons, and logos, or uses alt text only sporadically
Coastal Community Foundation	<img src="...”>	Not ideal: alt text not present	No use of alt text, or use of text that does not add meaning (often seen in numbering the images)

A little window shopping for your New Year’s resolution

Google has some great resources to further address best practices in your source code. For starters, you can use our HTML Suggestion Tool in Webmaster Tools. Also, it’s always a good practice to make your site accessible to all viewers.

Posted by Alexi Douvas and Jen Lee, Search Quality Team

Contributors: Aditya Goradia, Brandon Falls, Charlene Perez, Diara Dankert, Michael Wyszomierski, and Nelson Bradley