Adriana Lee says, “Google has now made it easier for armchair physicians to find things to freak out about. The tech giant just announced the inclusion of medical information to its Knowledge Graph searches, allowing anyone to contradict their doctors right in their offices. Essentially, it amounts to Google’s own souped-up version of WebMD, but with a simpler interface and more direct access. (Of course, it could spell doom for the actual WebMD website, which is still alive and kicking, at least for now.)”. Google Now Gives Hypochrondriacs What They Want ReadWrite  [...]

Pete Pachal says, “Google has announced the dates for its annual developer conference, Google I/O. This year the event will be held on May 28-29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. Sundar Pichai announced the dates, published on the Google I/O event site, on Twitter Tuesday afternoon. Last year Google introduced a lottery system for developers to register to attend the conference, and the system is back this year. The Google I/O site’s registration page notes that developers can register from March 17-19. After that, attendees will be selected “at random.””. Google... [...]

Nina Zipkin says, “You can have the right to “be forgotten” online, but only in Europe, OK? Last May, the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Google users had the “Right to be Forgotten,” meaning they can petition Google to remove search engine results about them. In response to the ruling, the tech giant put together an advisory committee, including Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales. Led by executive chairman Eric Schmidt and Google’s chief legal officer David Drummond, the committee recently released a 44-page reportfollowing public meetings held in seven... [...]

Henry Kim says, “With 2 billion smartphone or tablet users expected to engage in some form of mobile commerce transactions by 2017, brands can’t afford to not be mobile. So why are consumers shopping on-the-go still being directed to sites with tiny text, excessive scrolling or worse – requiring Flash? Google, the undisputed leader in search, has decided websites need to meet the growing consumer demand for mobile performance and is rolling out a new “mobile friendly” label for smartphone search results. The new feature, which could soon affect websites’ search rankings, will... [...]

Derek S. says, “With many Internet professionals working on multiple accounts at the same time, mistakes, like in the form of wrongly deleted information, are bound to happen. Google Analytics has introduced a new feature to help users recover their deleted data called Trash Can. This new feature, a safety net of sorts, allows users to reclaim lost or accidentally deleted information. In order to reclaim their lost information, users simply select the Administration tab followed by selecting the Trash Can. Once users have navigated to this point they can choose which items they wish to have... [...]

Graham Charlton says, “Last week, I looked at how sites could identify that they had been penalised by Google. But how easy is it to recover from a penalty? Does Google provide enough information to aid recovery? Our panel: To answer this question, I’ve enlisted the help of some search engine optimisationexperts. They are: Andrew Girdwood, media innovations director at DigitasLBi. Kevin Gibbons, managing director of BlueGlass. Mags Sikora, an SEO consultant who we interviewed earlier this year on the current SEO landscape. Hannah Thorpe from the media flow”. Should Google do... [...]

Ginny Mrvin says, “Google says that only 1 in 5 marketers successfully completes the remarketing set up process in Google Analytics. Whether it’s tagging problems or other implementation challenges, a 20 percent success rate is a pretty good indicator that the process isn’t user friendly for most marketers. To improve that success rate, Google has released “instant activation” of Advertiser Features for users in Google Analytics. The fine print (or no print on the announcement, actually) is that this instant activation only applies to Universal Analytics users. Standard GA version... [...]

Graham Charlton says, “How can businesses find out that they have been penalised by Google?  I’ve been asking a number of search experts for the tell-tale signs to look out for… Types of Google penalties First up, I think it’s important to distinguish between manual penalties, for which sites will recieve notification via Webmaster Tools, and those caused by algorithm changes. The larger changes like Panda and Penguin are designed to cut down on nefarious practices like automated link building or on sites with thin content, as in the latest updates. However, Google also takes... [...]

Michael Cottam says, “This is a story about Panda, customer service, and differentiating your store from others selling the same products. Many e-commerce websites get the descriptions, specifications, and imagery for products they sell from feeds or databases provided by the manufacturers. The manufacturers might like this, as they control how their product is described and shown. However, it does their retailers no good when they are trying to rank for searches for those products and they’ve got the exact same content as every other retailer. If the content in the feed is thin, then... [...]

Greg Sterling says, “Google announced full year 2014 revenues of $66 billion, which was up 19 percent vs. 2013. The fourth quarter saw revenues of $18.1 billion, up 15 percent vs. Q4 2013. Quarterly revenues and earnings per share were a miss, based on consensus analyst estimates. Shares were down in after-hours trading (but have since recovered). The following are the high level numbers from the release: Consolidated revenues: $18.10 billion. Google sites: $12.43 billion (18 percent growth). Network: $3.72 billion (up 6 percent). Other revenues: $1.95 billion (up 19 percent) GAAP operating... [...]