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- [G] Our big gift for small businesses
- [G] Your questions, your State of the Union
- [G] Google search and search engine spam
- [G] Supporting computer science education with CS4HS
| [G] Our big gift for small businesses Posted: 24 Jan 2011 02:22 AM PST Official Google Blog: Our big gift for small businesses(Cross-posted from the Google Small Business Blog) To help, we gave them each of them $100,000 in AdWords spend for 2011 as well as free consultations with AdWords representatives. Because we know online presence means more than just AdWords, we'll also be providing them with web consultations, wireless service for the year as well as a few other little surprises. See footage from our surprise visit below: We're looking forward to making big investments in small businesses far beyond these lucky five. Small businesses have long benefited from Google products and services; now our hope is that all small business owners can have greater access to the tools and training they need to develop a cohesive strategy for doing more business online. We started last year by creating the Google Small Business Center and asking small business owners about their biggest wishes for 2011. We received an overwhelming response from business owners who, like the owners of these shops, want to do more business in the clouds in 2011.  We're thrilled to help these five small business owners find online success in 2011 and we think we have a lot to learn from their experiences. We'll check in on them from time to time and report on their successes as well as their growing pains. In the meantime, check the Google Small Business Blog for updates, and if you're a business owner, visit the Google Small Business Center for information on how you can bring your business online in 2011. Posted by James Croom, Product Marketing Manager, Google Small Business Team  URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/our-big-gift-for-small-businesses.html       |
| [G] Your questions, your State of the Union Posted: 24 Jan 2011 02:22 AM PST Official Google Blog: Your questions, your State of the Union(Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog) In fact, you can get started today. Health care. Education. Foreign policy. What would you like to ask the President about the most important issues our country faces? Go to youtube.com/askobama to submit your question now, or watch the speech on Tuesday night with your webcam or video camera nearby so that you can record and submit your question as soon as it strikes you. This year, you'll also be able to ask your question via Twitter: just include the hashtag #askobama in your tweet. And be sure to have your say in what should be asked by voting on questions submitted by others, too. A few suggestions before submitting your questions:
This interview is the first in a series of world leader interviews coming to YouTube in 2011 as part of YouTube World View. These interviews will give people around the world the chance to engage in conversation with their elected officials and other influential people from the world of business, philanthropy, technology, media and the arts. Check back on the channel in the next few months for more opportunities to participate. You have until Wednesday, January 25 at midnight ET to submit your question for President Obama. The YouTube community made history last year when the President answered your questions in the first ever citizen-powered interview of a United States president. If you didn't get an opportunity to ask the President a question last year, make sure you don't miss out this time—get your submission in early. Remember, after the President's address you'll have the opportunity to watch Congressman Paul Ryan (R-WI) deliver the GOP response to the State of the Union as well. And within the month, we'll be holding a similar YouTube Interview with a prominent Republican leader—more details soon. Posted by Olivia Ma, YouTube News and Politics  URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/your-questions-your-state-of-union.html   |
| [G] Google search and search engine spam Posted: 24 Jan 2011 02:22 AM PST Official Google Blog: Google search and search engine spamJanuary brought a spate of stories about Google's search quality. Reading through some of these recent articles, you might ask whether our search quality has gotten worse. The short answer is that according to the evaluation metrics that we've refined over more than a decade, Google's search quality is better than it has ever been in terms of relevance, freshness and comprehensiveness. Today, English-language spam in Google's results is less than half what it was five years ago, and spam in most other languages is even lower than in English. However, we have seen a slight uptick of spam in recent months, and while we've already made progress, we have new efforts underway to continue to improve our search quality.Just as a reminder, webspam is junk you see in search results when websites try to cheat their way into higher positions in search results or otherwise violate search engine quality guidelines. A decade ago, the spam situation was so bad that search engines would regularly return off-topic webspam for many different searches. For the most part, Google has successfully beaten back that type of "pure webspam"—even while some spammers resort to sneakier or even illegal tactics such as hacking websites. As we've increased both our size and freshness in recent months, we've naturally indexed a lot of good content and some spam as well. To respond to that challenge, we recently launched a redesigned document-level classifier that makes it harder for spammy on-page content to rank highly. The new classifier is better at detecting spam on individual web pages, e.g., repeated spammy words—the sort of phrases you tend to see in junky, automated, self-promoting blog comments. We've also radically improved our ability to detect hacked sites, which were a major source of spam in 2010. And we're evaluating multiple changes that should help drive spam levels even lower, including one change that primarily affects sites that copy others' content and sites with low levels of original content. We'll continue to explore ways to reduce spam, including new ways for users to give more explicit feedback about spammy and low-quality sites. As "pure webspam" has decreased over time, attention has shifted instead to "content farms," which are sites with shallow or low-quality content. In 2010, we launched two major algorithmic changes focused on low-quality sites. Nonetheless, we hear the feedback from the web loud and clear: people are asking for even stronger action on content farms and sites that consist primarily of spammy or low-quality content. We take pride in Google search and strive to make each and every search perfect. The fact is that we're not perfect, and combined with users' skyrocketing expectations of Google, these imperfections get magnified in perception. However, we can and should do better. One misconception that we've seen in the last few weeks is the idea that Google doesn't take as strong action on spammy content in our index if those sites are serving Google ads. To be crystal clear:
People care enough about Google to tell us—sometimes passionately—what they want to see improved. We deeply appreciate this feedback. Combined with our own scientific evaluations, user feedback allows us to explore every opportunity for possible improvements. Please tell us how we can do a better job, and we'll continue to work towards a better Google. Posted by Matt Cutts, Principal Engineer  URL: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/01/google-search-and-search-engine-spam.html   |
| [G] Supporting computer science education with CS4HS Posted: 23 Jan 2011 09:56 AM PST Official Google Research Blog: Supporting computer science education with CS4HSPosted by Terry Ednacot, Education Program ManagerRecent statistics have shown a decline in the number of U.S. students taking computer science AP classes, which also leads to a decline in students declaring computer science as their majors—a concerning trend in the U.S. as we try to remain competitive in the global economy. With programs like Computer Science for High School (CS4HS), we hope to increase the number of CS majors —and therefore the number of people entering into careers in CS—by promoting computer science curriculum at the high school level. For the fourth consecutive year, we're funding CS4HS to invest in the next generation of computer scientists and engineers. CS4HS is a workshop for high school and middle school computer science teachers that introduces new and emerging concepts in computing and provides tips, tools and guidance on how to teach them. The ultimate goals are to "train the trainer," develop a thriving community of high school CS teachers and spread the word about the awe and beauty of computing. In 2011 we're expanding the program considerably and hope to double the number of schools we funded in 2010. If you're a university, community college, or technical School in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Middle East or Africa and are interested in hosting a workshop at your institution, please visit www.cs4hs.com to submit an application for grant funding. Applications will be accepted between January 18, 2011 and February 18, 2011. In addition to submitting your application, on the CS4HS website you'll find info on how to organize a workshop, as well as websites and agendas from last year's participants to give you an idea of how the workshops were structured in the past. There's also a collection of CS4HS curriculum modules that previous participating schools have shared for future organizers to use in their own program. Previous organizers have told us that teachers have left their workshops excited about the new materials they learned and the innovative ideas they've discussed with other teachers. We're hopeful that they'll pass on to their students not only the skills that they learned but also that passion.  URL: http://googleresearch.blogspot.com/2011/01/supporting-computer-science-education.html   |
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