It’s been a couple months since Google Penguin made its debut, but some website owners are just now becoming aware of the major search engine change that could have affected their site traffic. For those that were aware, you are probably just now recovering and finishing the cleanup required to fix your Google rankings.
JT Website Design has recently learned that Google will begin charging for Google Shopping Listings this fall. This is obviously to the dissatisfaction of the thousands of merchants who have always relied on free listings in Google search results – perhaps like many of you. The change, scheduled for August 2012, will mean that merchants will have to buy paid listings from the Google Product Listing Ads program if they want to get exposure in Google Shopping. This even includes Google Shopping widgets on Google.com search results pages. Google claims this move is an attempt to “level the playing field” between large and small retailers. But if you’re a small business e-commerce operation, you probably want to call it what it really is: annoying.
So, you signed up on Google+…what now? You may be ready for some Google Plus tips and shortcuts. Here are the latest I have discovered.
Google is constantly adding new services in an attempt to compete with emerging technologies, and social networking is no exception. Now, the search engine giant is rolling out Google+1 (also known as Google Plus), which aims to give the most significant social networking tool for businesses – the Facebook “Like” button – a serious run for it’s money. If you haven’t yet tried Google Plus, now may be the time to do so.
Just a year after its initial release, Google has announced its plans to discontinue development on Google Wave. Looks like it didn’t really catch on after all, and we will now be “waving” goodbye to it (had to do it, sorry). Why didn’t it gain popularity as expected?
Google has announced that it will be starting a new venture, this time in the network provider’s realm. They released a statement that they wish to provide ultra high-speed broadband to up to 500,000 homes in the United States. But is an undertaking this massive even viable? Or are they just pulling our leg? I’ll review a little more information, and you be the judge…
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So… the Wave is coming. But what is it, and how is it going to benefit us? In the showing of the developer’s preview demo, Wave seems to have much promise and it’s quite an impressive app. There are so many features and possibilities it’s mind boggling. You can check out the one and a half hour demo to learn more. That’s right. 1.5 hours of Google Wave. OR you can check out the 10-minute abridged version on YouTube.
What is it?
To sum it up, Google Wave is a powerful open-source communication and collaboration tool. Its creators, Lars and Jes Rasmussen (who also developed Google Maps), wanted to create a new powerful technology that could be used within a browser. When e-mail was first created, there were no web 2.0 apps like blogs, collaboration tools, social networking, and so on. So Google’s question is “what would e-mail look like if it were invented today?”. The answer: Google Wave – a tool that combines the power of just about every web 2.0 app you can imagine and packs it into a powerful collaboration tool.
Now, for the feature break-down.
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