Tag Archives | Google

Google Profiles Help with Vanity Searches

Apr/23 in Hot Web Topics

How many times have you told friends, family or co-workers to go Google you if they want to know all the things you do?

Google has decided to give us all a little more freedom and personalization when it comes to somebody searching for you by name.  Now, when you Google a person’s name, you will get a list of Google profiles that users have setup with that name, so in turn – one would hope you find that person you are looking for faster.

How do you get your own profile setup and customized?  Go check out the Google Profiles page for more information about that.  I played around with adding more information to my own yesterday here:

Now, when somebody searches for “Mitch Keeler” in Google, my Google profile shows up at the bottom of the page.  image

Kind of wish they would put it at the top, however then people might claim they are trying to push their own pages over the search index.  Go get your own profile setup, and make it easier for others to Google you too.

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Google is Connecting Friends

Apr/03 in Online Apps, Web Development Tutorials

I have seen this Google Friend Connect service coming up more and more via the web sites I visit, so I thought I would look a little more into the service.  Google wants to help you grow traffic by adding social features to your web site.  Now how do you do it?

How Does Google Make Things More Social?

Once you setup a site with Google Friend Connect, you can select from a number of different widgets you can place on your site.  When visitors sign up for your site through the friend connect service, they can do so via their login information with Google, Yahoo, AIM, or their OpenID account. 

The idea here is to make your web site more social.

This video does a good job at giving a good summary of the entire service:

Overall, I think Google Friend Connect is something worth checking out and looking into.  I like the openness of it all, and can’t wait to see more people use it so we can get more widgets developed for it.

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Automatic Backlinks Too Good to be True

Mar/30 in Online Apps, Web Development Tutorials

Fishy SEO Service

Now we all want to get to the top of the search engines, as it has been drilled into our brains, we must to have a successful web site.  However, I have found one service that just seems to make it a little too easy.  Automatic Backlinks promises to be an easy and automatic way to exchange links between sites.

The best way I have found to summarize this would be you have a large number of web sites, and they are all exchanging links to each other – but not exactly ever between each other.  One web site might link to another, but that doesn’t mean the “another” would link right back.  They would be linking to a different one. 

I don’t like it, and can’t recommend it.  It seems like a big link exchange web site, and that type of service has been frowned upon via the search engine overlords before.  You get more “link credit” to place more links on other people’s web sties depending on your Google PageRank.  That alone should be enough for Google to hate it right there. 

So stay clear of this one for right now, would be my best advice. 

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10 Free Ways to Search for Files Online

Feb/10 in Online Apps, Web Hosting

Need to find a file fast?  Over the years, I have collected some of the best (and maybe not so best) free file search web sites out there.  Here are the ten best resources to search for a file online.

What About Google? Of course, the ultimate alternative to all of these would be doing a file search in Google.  How do you do so?  Well, just start any Google search with filetype: and then put in the file type you want to search for.  Taken from Google, here are the most popular file formats you may want to search for using this trick.

  • Adobe Portable Document Format (pdf)
  • Adobe PostScript (ps)
  • Lotus 1-2-3 (wk1, wk2, wk3, wk4, wk5, wki, wks, wku)
  • Lotus WordPro (lwp)
  • MacWrite (mw)
  • Microsoft Excel (xls)
  • Microsoft PowerPoint (ppt)
  • Microsoft Word (doc)
  • Microsoft Works (wks, wps, wdb)
  • Microsoft Write (wri)
  • Rich Text Format (rtf)
  • Shockwave Flash (swf)
  • Text (ans, txt)

So if you are looking for a .txt file about hosting, you would type into the Google search box… 

filetype:txt hosting

So, if you are searching for a file on the web – you might try these resources or this neat Google tip.  Either way should get the job done for you.

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10 Green Envious Wallpaper Selections

Feb/02 in Desktop, Free Wallpaper

I like green. 

I always have, and I always probably will.  With that said, I wanted to both give you some great green wallpaper and try out a new Google search technique I picked up from an article on Lifehacker.

First, here are some of my favorite green wallpapers I have found from around the Web:

Green Wallpaper #1 Green Wallpaper #2 Green Wallpaper #3 Green Wallpaper #4 Green Wallpaper #5

Green Wallpaper #6 Green Wallpaper #7 Green Wallpaper #8 Green Wallpaper #9 Green Wallpaper #10

Now where is the trick?

Next time you search Google Images, be sure to try typing in, imagesize:1680×1050 green.  Changing the dimensions, will change the resolution of the picture you are looking for, and insert any search term you want (doesn’t have to be green) for the type of wallpaper you are looking for.

There you have it – two for one deal just for you.

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Google Search Warns Against WordPress

Jan/31 in Hot Web Topics

Got a weird message from Google this morning when searching for WordPress template code:

wordpressharmsme

WordPress.org is a site that may harm my computer?  Very weird.  Anybody else notice this?

Update: Looks like all of Google’s search results are showing this, I have a feeling somebody pushed the wrong button at Google’s HQ.

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Another All in One Bookmarking Site

Jan/07 in Online Apps, Web Development Tutorials

There are a few all in one bookmarking sites for users and web developers out there, and I am ready to toss in a new one for you to check out.  OnlyWire is here to give you one more way to share your content easily with a browser plugin, or a web site badge.

Link Sharing with OnlyWire

Using what they promise to be an optimized platform for enhanced performance and reliability, OnlyWire looks like it has all the bases covered.  You can submit your web site instantly to places such as:  ask, bibsonomy, blinklist, bluedot, bookmarksync, connotea, delicious, diigo, facebook, furl, googlebookmarks,  jumptags, linkatopia, multiply, mywebyahoo, newsvine, simpy, spurl, technorati, and twitter.

You can also use the limited service for free, or pay for more features:

  • “Pay” version — use fully-supported OnlyWire “ad free” by paying $2.99 per month or prepaying for 1 year ($24.99) and saving 30%. Pay customers are encouraged to embed
    the Bookmark & Share Button on your website to drive traffic and backlinks. You will also have the option to turn off OnlyWire advertisements.
  • “Promote” version — use fully-supported OnlyWire for FREE by adding the Bookmark & Share Button to your website or blog. You still enjoy the same functionality as the “Pay” version of OnlyWire, but promote the continued operation of the site through advertising.

Another interesting service they provide in an API to work with, to help you get yourself submitted to a number of different places automatically.

All in all, it is another alternative out there to some of the other “there can be only one” bookmark or link sharing sites out there.  If you are looking to auto-submit your bookmarks, give OnlyWire a shot.

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Top 5 Google Pop-up Bookmarklets

Oct/26 in Desktop, Online Apps

google-popup I love bookmarklets. I love Google.  So, mixing the two should not seem like that much of a stretch, right?  Sometimes opening in a different tab just doesn’t get the job done.  So why not open some of the simple services out there in their own popup window?

google Google

To open up Google, just drag this bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar:

+ Google

google Google Notebook

To open up Google Notebook, just drag this bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar:

+ Google Notebook

google Google Talk

To open up Google Talk, just drag this bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar:

+ Google Talk

google Google Calendar

To open up Google Calendar, drag this bookmark to your bookmarks toolbar:

+ Google Calendar

google Google Reader

To open up Google Reader, drag this bookmark to your bookmarks toolbar:

+ Google Reader

What other useful Google resources would make for a good bookmarklet?  These are the ones I find myself using the most, how about you?

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Site Usage in Google Analytics

Oct/09 in Web Development Tutorials

ga-site-usage

I have been using Google Analytics since its debut, and love it as a stats tool.  I probably use it more than I have any tools built into a hosting account.  Some people might be overwhelmed by some of the terms though, so to break it down I thought I would take a look at the first thing you see, the Site Usage section.

ga Visits – In Google Analytics, visits are the number of individual sessions initiated by all the visitors to your site.

ga Pageviews – With Pageviews, these are defined as a view of a page (inside of your web site) that is being tracked.

ga Pages/Visits – This number is an average of how many pages your average viewer are checking out inside of your site at a single time.

ga Bounce Rate – Once of the more confusing stats, it is the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page.  The lower the number, the better you are doing.

ga Avg. Time on Site – Ok, maybe this one doesn’t need to be explained. It is the average time a visitor spends on your web site in a single session.  The longer, the better (in most cases).

ga % New Visits – This is a comparison of new visitors with old visitors.  It is always good to bring new people into the fold, but you also want to make sure you give people something to come back for.

Now, at least, you have a better idea of what those numbers mean to your web site you are tracking.  Need help getting Google Analytics setup for your site?  WebHostingShow.com has a great guide on how to get started.

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Turn Search Results into RSS Feeds

Jul/17 in Online Apps, Resources

FeedMySearch is offering a new service that is sure to please some of us out there who keep an eye on search results.  Using their web site you can turn your Google searches into tiny RSS feeds.  This is helpful when it comes to getting instant updates whenever a new result appears on Google.  Another perk about this would be that you only get what is new when it comes to your search item.

feed-my-search

To use it, all you do is type in your keyword into the search box, then select from these types of searches:  web, news, video, blogs, local, books and patent.  Hit the “Feed my Search!” button and away you go.  Next you are given a preview of the search results and you can subscribe using a variety of different services or just grab the RSS feed itself.

If you spend a lot of time watching Google and how the results come up, FeedMySearch promises to save you time giving you the latest results instantly.

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