Let's Talk Tech
Ok. I’m a fan of Microsoft’s recent moves, but this is hilarious.
Engineers at Google started to suspect that Bing was copying their search results, so they set up a sting, tying nonsensical strings of letters to dummy web pages. Quickly after indexing each page and fake word search, Google Engineers found they could search for the same nonsense and get the dummy page on Bing.
Microsoft has yet to comment on the matter, but it would appear that not just consumers, but even Bing prefers Google…
Unifying controls is the name of the game!
Now across all of Google’s products you can initiate a voice search with the phrase “OK Google”. Installing a Chrome plugin will enable this new feature.
Take heart you security conscious folks, the feature is held primarily to whenever a Google search tab is open, but even on a Google search tab, it’ll stop listening after five minutes. I personally think persistent observation is creepy, so I’m happy to see there are user activated controls to keep it in check.
Download the extension for your Chrome browser, and maybe it’ll come in handy while your hands are messy this Thanksgiving! I always seem to need to search for something when my hands are covered in gunk…
Happy Birthday Google! Why didn’t I get a B-Day reminder on G+?
The present to open is an entirely new Search algorithm dubbed “Hummingbird”. This is a complete departure from their previous search updates. Instead of focusing on keywords and meta-data, the things SEO gurus always push, Hummingbird is Google’s first attempt at semantic search. Good SEO will still matter, but good content will matter more.
It’s an ambitious undertaking as computers aren’t always great at judging what we mean by what we say, but ranking content by what its made up of, instead of its keywords, should mean that organic search terms should provide more meaningful results. Users should get better hits now simply by asking the questions they would ask other people. Real live humans don’t like having to parse terms. Now typing “Where can I find the best pie in San Francisco?” should get us closer to eating good pie than before where keywords would’ve been pulled out of that query. Hopefully in execution it should start to resemble the way IBM’s Watson is able to make meaningful responses to conversationally asked questions.
Get the full scoop at Inside Search, or hit up Google.com to try it out, and while you’re there play the Piñata Doodle Game! BIRTHDAY!