Steve Johnston
The Google Blog of a Google Consultant

Microsoft are at it again. Following my Feb 14th post, my MSN Messenger 7.0 BETA offered me an upgrade this morning, which, like a good little lamb, I took (build 7.0.0429). Whilst I am sure there are a host of important improvements in the update, the only one I could actually spot, was the introduction of a 'Search the web' text entry box below my contacts and above the advert in the footer. Naturally it is unconfigurable, sending every query to MSN Search. Call me cynical but....

Been a bit quiet lately due to the launch of a web site I am involved in. StoryCode is a book recommendation service - for novels (fiction) only - which is based on the idea of readers submitting personality profiles for the stories they have read, that allow for a structural comparison of the stories. It is early days, but please go and have a look, and let me know what you think. The best place to start is to browse for book recommendations through the existing stories in the database, which will give you an idea what it is all about. My favourite StoryCode Match is for Catcher in the Rye; 83% match with..... Enjoy.

Just off to buy this: Google and the Mission to Map Meaning.... It's had mixed reviews, but should prove interesting.

According to a recent piece of sponsored research:

roughly half of all online shoppers conducted related research at a search engine before making an online purchase

Didn't I tell you?!

Okay, so the sponsor is a bit self-interested, but hey, it's bound to be close.

There is no such thing as a controlled search engine experiment!

The result of the Florist in Bath search below seems to have been unduly affected by my own link to the section, with the result jumpimg to 3rd position on Google, before the changes we had made to the Near site had been indexed, but after my blog had been re-indexed with the link in place. Our next test on the value of outbound links will not get a link from me here, in order to control at least that variable.

We are now modifying a section that is already spidered regularly. If you are curious, do a search for 'Truro city council office' on Google. The page you see from Near - currently 8th place - now has had outbound links added, and was spidered by Google, with the new links in place, this morning at 4.50am. If there is any change we should see it within the next 12 hours.

Footnote: In case any of you are wondering, I don't believe any of this activity is bordering on the unethical, as far as Google would see it. Google supports the proper classification of web content by webmasters as it improves the quality of their results, and if you have excellent content, as we do with Near, then there is every justification for trying to ensure it is properly classified.