Better More Recent Google Results
Need better search results on Google?
Need more recent results for Google searches?
Want to reduce irrelevant Google search results?
Consider using the More Search tools menu located in the left toolbar on the Google search website.
I’ve noticed a lot of Google search users arriving here on Best Hubris and other websites are trying to add dates to their searches in order to get better Google search results and reduce irrelevant Google search data. For example, several searchers appear to be inputting 2010 into Google searches hoping to get results from the current year.
Unfortunately, the Google search ranking algorithm doesn’t work that way very well. Any webpage that has the number 2010 in its text will qualify, while webpages and articles posted during 2010, but without the actual number used in the text will not qualify. This webpage for example has the keyword 2010 on it three times so far. That means it will match searches for 2010 better than many other pages that are just as current.
So, if you are looking for current HP LaserJet 1012 drivers for Windows 7 by putting 2010 in your search, you might find this page instead of the one on this website that actually has a way to use HP LaserJet 1012 printer drivers on Windows 7 with a workaround.
Most searches will show a choice of dates limiting functions that include Past Month, and Past Year. Using these search date parameters will do a lot to make your Google search results more relevant.
For more specific date range based searches, use the custom date search function.
A good tip for better Google searches made easy is to just enter a start date into the custom date search interface. Google will automatically use the current date as the end date giving users a way to search the Internet from a specific date up until now fast and easy.
For example, if you are searching for information about how to use Windows 7 or want to search on new Windows 7 features, limit your Google search dates to March 1, 2010 or April 1, 2010 start dates to capture information published about the actual full Windows 7 release software and avoid all of those webpages and articles that were written about the Windows 7 beta.
That way if you want more information about advanced search in Windows 7 you won’t be reading all the speculation about what might be in the final product, or trying to match up screen shots of Windows 7 search features that were taking on Windows 7 Release Candidate instead of the full retail version of Windows 7.
Google Command Line Tool
Google announced today, and that announcement was re-broadcast via unofficial Google spokesman Matt Cutts to make sure people actually noticed, that the company had released a long-awaited command line tool for accessing Google.
Well, sort of. If by accessing Google, you mean accessing everything except for the core Google service of search.
Ready made for the “much ado about nothing” files, come the Google Command Line Tool and Google API. Unoriginally titled, GoogleCL, Google Command Line (I guess) is a Python application build using Python gdata libraries in order to make Google Data API calls from a command line. This would be so very important and a great tool for web developers and search engine researchers everywhere, if it only had any functionality at all related to search. Instead, GoogleCL allows you to play with a bunch of the toy Google products and services.
Want to upload a bunch of pictures to Picasa from the command line? Sure, no problem.
Want to create Calendar events from your command line? You can do that too!
Want to read about Southwest airlines rewards credit card? Oh, wait, that’s my thing. Oops.
What about managing contacts from the command line? You bet!
How about posting YouTube videos? Of course.
If it is a tangential side Google service developed in order to show up Microsoft or Apple, then it can be accessed using the Google command line tool.
How About Command Line Search Tool and API?
No! What are you crazy? People would use that to poke holes in the already fragile Google search index and search results rankings by being able to automate tedious processes like checking search ranking positions, whether or not a particular webpage has been indexed or not, and how many incoming links point to a webpage, and where they come from.
Google wants you to like them, and wants you to think that they are the best source of cool, free, open-source tools in the galaxy, but they aren’t dumb. Search makes money. Sure, AdWords brings in the actual dollars, but the only reason anyone bothers is because advertisers know that “everyone” uses Google search regardless of operating system, browser, and in many cases, even location.
The reason everyone uses Google’s search is because it is the best search engine on the Internet. Of course, the entire underpinnings of the company’s search rankings is coming apart at the seems as more and more content publishers seek to manipulate Google’s search rankings for their own benefit. Now that SEO is something that everyone, everywhere, does and pretty much everyone does the same way, the only thing that really matters any more is link count and how close the title tag matches the search. A command line interface might expose that reality to more people (or at least allow it to be proven beyond doubt).
So, enjoy the latest plaything from Google. Just don’t expect it to change your life.
Have a great day.
Facebook Ad Revenue Growth Real?
Facebook is not a publicly traded company. Although there are many people speculating that Facebook will go public in the near future. As a privately held company, Facebook is not required to release any financial information to the public. Furthermore, the company does not have to have its finances audited either. That doesn’t keep financial writers from trying to guess how much money Facebook is making.
Recent stories, like this one from Reuters, continue to suggest that Facebook is growing fast and that it is raking in tons of advertising revenues. The source of all this incoming cash, of course, is paid advertising. Some investors expect Facebook to earn more money than Google from advertising in the near future. The idea is that, unlike Google, Facebook users can be shown ads that are relevant to users even when they are not searching.
“We can provide really good, relevant advertising to people because they tell us exactly what they are interested in, and who they know, and those people tell us what they’re interested in,” Facebook Chief Executive Zuckerberg said at the All Things Digital conference this month.
Relevant Ads Worth More Money On Facebook
The business strategy behind Facebook’s rising advertising revenue is sound enough.
A user fills out a profile in which they state that they have “Interests” in various things. For example, a user might say that they are interested in chess. Then, theoretically, that user would be more likely to have advertisements related to chess appear than a user who had indicated interest in other topics. But, does the reality of Facebook ads bear this out?
If you are a Facebook user you may have noticed the various ads that appear on the right side of the screen. These ads are the ones that are supposed to be relevant and “targeted” to users based upon their profiles and other preferences. However, to most users, these ads appear to be thinly targeted, if at all, to their interests.
Recently, some advertisements tried to make use of the personal information in Facebook profiles by using the person’s age in the advertisement. Ads like “If you are 24 years old, you can get car insurance for $20 a month” appeared. Is this what Facebook means when they say, relevant advertising?
Other ads seem to be vaguely geographically targeted. For example, users in Phoenix get advertisements that make use of the word Phoenix (even for national brands and ads) or, in some cases, ads for actual Phoenix businesses. This is indeed useful, but hardly revolutionary. Unless you take advanced measures to frequently wipe out your Google cookies and other information you’ll get plenty of local ads there too.
Ironically, ads that are actually irrelevant and uninteresting to users will frequently appear on the user’s Facebook screen. For example, users that block Facebook games like Farmville or Cafe World still often see ads for those games despite having indicated that they are not interested. Users who are members of a Ford fan club, have tons of posts by themselves and friends about Fords, and have hundreds of “likes” for Ford related sites and information still see ads for Chevrolet. In fact, members of groups like Chevy Sucks or I Hate GM will still see advertisements for those products on Facebook.
Facebook Ads Not Relevant To Users – Worthless?
It is often said that reality is perception. Facebook frequently states how they can target users based upon their personal preferences and information and that concept is often repeated by journalists and analysts. But, is anyone actually checking to see such targeting is being done?
Going beneath the surface and doing some actual business analysis takes more time than many pundits can commit. Savvy technology writers, however, may uncover some interesting nuggets about Facebook’s so-called relevant advertising. The question is, can Facebook establish its “reality” or get a Facebook IPO stock for investors strategy executed before the world starts asking the hard questions?
Time will tell.
Newsweek Drinks the Kool-Aid
Technology bloggers and their tech media compatriots are infamous for proclaiming things revolutionary at seemingly random intervals. It seems that every new product or startup company signals the end of computing or networking or technology as we know it. These proclamations are based on nothing more than hype or taking one possible outcome way out past its logical conclusion.
For the most part, this desire to anoint everything as the next big thing is harmless since most readers of such technology focused writers and websites are techies themselves who have their own very established beliefs about the future direction of various technologies.
This time, one of the writers over at Newsweek decided to get in on the action. He proclaims that the personal computer is dead and that the obvious, nay inevitable, future is mobile devices. Specifically, the future is a two-way battle over mobile technology with Google on one side and Apple on the other.
The author does generously offer that the personal computer will not disapear overnight, which is probably a good thing since the iPad can’t do anything for business yet, and iPhones require you to use an inferior wireless carrier in order to buy one.
This is all based on…well, that’s where everything falls apart.
In the article itself, the author cites a bizarre string of “evidence” that things are changing.
First, he points out that Apple sells way more iPhones and iPads and so on than it does computers. This is very true. However, that says more about Apple’s ability to sell computers than it says about the future of computing.
Second, he cites some very big sales numbers as further proof about how mobile computing is growing faster than traditional computing. Again, this is true. However, what people keep forgetting is that computers have been around for a very long time and are fully implemented in almost every business and household in the country. Put another way, 20% growth in personal computing is larger than 50% growth in mobile computing devices.
On the other hand, there are TONS of people who do not own smartphones or other mobile computing devices. That makes growth a lot easier. While a computer maker has to wait for a customer who already has a computer decide that they need to buy a new one, the mobile computing computing can count on both sales from current users who are upgrading as well as new consumers who have never owned that type of device before.
Most laughable of all is the way the author proclaims that one day we will all use very powerful mobile computing devices instead of paying big bucks for a computer with tons of storage space.
Just what existing device is he referring to?
Certainly not the iPad which costs as much as a mid-tier computer. He can’t seriously mean the new iPhone which only costs less than a computer if the purchase is subsidized by AT&T in exchange for locking into a contract.
Where is this low-priced powerful computing device, then?
It doesn’t exist! Of course, mobile computing devices will get cheaper and more powerful in the future, which could be a pretty good argument if the same thing were not true about more traditional computers as well.
Not that it really matters, because even if one concedes that these cheap mobile devices will let everyone, “…manage photos and videos and music that will be stored online, somewhere out on the Internet cloud,” how can that possibily spell a revolutionary transformation?
Is that really all the author thinks that computers do?
While I agree that it is super neat-o that you can update your Twitter status and send cat videos to your friends on your iPad, out here in the real world, people use computers for other things like processing data, contact management, product design, engineering, and so on. Will those functions be taken over by inexpensive mobile appliances?
Devices like the iPad and iPhone are not radical departures from how computers are used. What they really represent is the next step in the world of personal entertainment electronics.
Let’s see if I can make this clear enough for the article writer to follow.
Start with the Sony Walkman which makes personal entertainment (music) portable.
Now, implement the standard improvements that eventually come to virtually all technology:
- Make it smaller or bigger (depending upon device).
- Make it more powerful.
- Make it cheaper.
- Add new feature.
- Improve that feature.
- Make it cheaper.
- Add new feature.
- Make it cheaper.
- Repeat
In this case:
The Sony Walkman made smaller and more powerful (digital with bigger storage) = iPod.
iPods get cheaper.
Add color screen.
Cheaper.
Add video to iPods (and more storage) = 5th generation iPods.
Add networking connectivity = iPod Touch.
Add phone functionality = iPhone.
Add bigger screen = iPad.
Where is the revolution again?
