It has been rumoured by many and mentioned by Google since late last year that the speed of a website is a very important factor. It should come as no surprise then, that Google made the official announcement that they are including a new signal into their search ranking algorithms: site speed.

Simply put, site speed reflects how quickly a website responds to a web request. The speed of a website (time that it takes to load) is very important, to all Internet users and specifically, site owners.

Google says that their users place a lot of value in speed and after doing some internal studies they have found that if they slow users down [on Google.com] thay have seen less engagement. They have come to the conclusion that users love fast sites and that a faster web is a good thing for everyone.

Faster sites create happy users, improves user experience and reduces operating costs. If a site responds slowly, visitors spend less time there.

This is enough motivation for Google and why site speed is taken into account in search rankings.

How does Google measures page speed?
There are two primary ways Google will measure page speed:

1. How a page responds to Googlebot
2. Load time as measured by the Google Toolbar

Tools for you to test your site’s speed
If you are a site owner or webmaster, here are some free tools that you can use to evaluate the speed of your site:

• Page Speed, an open source Firefox/Firebug add-on that evaluates the performance of web pages and gives suggestions for improvement.
• YSlow, a free tool from Yahoo! that suggests ways to improve website speed.
• WebPagetest shows a waterfall view of your pages’ load performance plus an optimization checklist.
• In Webmaster Tools, Labs > Site Performance shows the speed of your website as experienced by users around the world as in the chart below. We’ve also blogged about site performance.
• Many other tools on code.google.com/speed.

According to Google, site speed is a new signal and it does not carry as much weight as the relevance of a page. They are saying that currently there are fewer than 1% of search queries affected by the site speed signal and that the signal for site speed only applies for visitors searching in English on Google.com.

Your site may, or may not, be affected, but it is widely suggested that you start looking at your site’s speed to improve your ranking in search engines and improve everyone’s experience on the Internet.

Sources:
Using site speed in web search ranking
It’s Official: Google Now Counts Site Speed As A Ranking Factor

Images are important elements in any website as they can be used for various purposes such as delivering a visual attraction, relaying a specific message, used for branding or enhancing the feel of a brand. Images, in general, are used to illustrate what we are saying and it is used commonly on millions of websites to help people understand what they see or read. Without images, the Web would be a very bland experience.

That of course is great when people stumble onto your website and have the opportunity to see it, but what can you do to get your images onto the Web?

Most of you have heard of Image SEO, optimizing images by adding an alternative image desciption and by giving images keyword related filenames, etc. That is certainly the way to go, but as of yesterday, Google is making it even easier for us to inform them of the images that we think are important.

Google announced that you can now use a Sitemaps extension to provide Google with exactly this information. By using the Sitemaps extension you can, for each URL you list in your Sitemap, add additional information about important images that exist on that page. Sitemaps are an invaluable resource for search engines as it can be used to highlight important content on a site and allow search crawlers to quickly discover it.

To add your image URL’s, it won’t be required to create a new Sitemap, you just add information about images to the Sitemap you already use. Follow the instructions in the Webmaster Tools Help Center or refer to the following example:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<urlset xmlns=”http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9″
xmlns:image=”http://www.google.com/schemas/sitemap-image/1.1″>
<url>
<loc>http://example.com/sample.html</loc>
<image:image>
<image:loc>http://example.com/image.jpg</image:loc>
</image:image>
</url>
</urlset>

Now you can check in quickly, from anywhere, and monitor what is happening in your Adwords account. Google just rolled out AdWords for Mobile with a new interface for Android, iPhone, and Palm Pre devices.

AdWords for Mobile provides mobile access to your account, key alerts and statistics as well as a facility to make quick changes to your AdWords settings even while on the move.

You have to customize your experience for your mobile device. To do this you should first log in from your desktop computer and choose the parts of your account that you want to monitor closely. You are able to set up custom alerts for key account events such as when your campaing reaches a certain threshold of your daily budget or to monitor when traffic drops significantly.  You can also set “saved filters” to flag your most important keywords and campaigns.

The interface was designed to access the essentials in your account by viewing and making basic edits to campaigns and keywords. If you need access any other areas of your account then you can switch to the desktop version of AdWords through a link at the bottom of the screen.

AdWords for Mobile is now the default mobile interface for a small percentage of English language advertisers, and Google will be enabling the feature for additional advertisers and languages in the coming weeks.

To try out AdWords for Mobile immediately, simply direct your Android, iPhone, or Palm Pre to http://adwords.google.com/dashboard/Dashboard

Its official there is a new big dog in the social media space. Just a week after Google launched Buzz, the social media service is already rattling the cage of top dogs Facebook and Twitter. It seems as if Google has finally made a successful foray into the social media world. Despite initial privacy flaws Google Buzz has proven to be an absolute success.

Google Buzz has surprised many experts who thought Google would never make it in the social media world. In the past Google suffered embarrassing setbacks with their attempts at creating a rival to Facebook and Twitter. Google Friend Connect and Orkut never really left the ground but Google Buzz shot into outer space.

The growth of the newest challenger to the social media crown has been phenomenal. According to statistics released by Google, just after the launch on the 9th of February 2010, there have been over 9 million posts and comments in about 56 hours, amounting to around 160,000 posts and comments per hour.

Google Buzz also generated big shock waves in mobile phone market. Google revealed that over 200 mobile check-ins per minute, nearly 300,000 mobile check-ins per day. The key to this success is the fact that Google Buzz is embedded into Gmail.

Gmail has millions of users around the world and by putting the Google buzz tab just under the inbox tab; Google applied a very innovative idea. When a user logs into their Gmail account they are greeted by a Google Buzz tab. The system is almost similar to Twitter the greatest difference is its integration to Gmail.

Many Gmail users find the system very convenient, when they open their e-mail account, they can quickly read the newest mail and won’t have to leave the account to create a social media post. Twitter, Flicker, Picasa and Google Reader can also be connected to the system. You can share pictures but this will be saved at Picasa. The most convenient aspect of Google buzz is that you don’t have to set it up if you have a Gmail account.

Key Features

• Simple interface
• No set up required
• Social media integration
• E-mail integration

Initially there were major privacy concerns. The system had an auto follow function where a user automatically followed people he regularly sent e-mails to. According to Ben Parr Co-Editor of Mashable “the auto follow function can let people figure out your email habits.” Google has changed this to an auto suggested model. This allows you to control who you follow. Another concern is that your inbox can be flooded by Buzz spam.

There are clear indications that Google Buzz is already taking some market share from Twitter and Facebook. People are spending more time on their Gmail accounts than before and this is surely taking some time from Twitter and Facebook. The Buzz threatens Twitter and Facebook’s ad revenue. Advertisers are certain to be impressed with the reach that Google Buzz has.

The future of Google Buzz will depend on how it is going to react to upgrades by the two social media giants. Some predict there is going to be a major dog fight between the three networks. If this fight gets very intense Google buzz will be the last network standing. Google has immense resources and will be able to match any upgrade. Google has been salivating for some time now at the prospect of properly sinking its teeth into the social media world. It has shown great determination at penetrating the social media realm overcoming numerous setbacks. Like a hungry dog biting into a bone it won’t let go of its new grip on social media.

If you were a Indian Webmaster, why wouldn’t you want the Google Search Quality team to analyze your website and offer constructive advice on accessibility and improvements that can lead to better visibility for your website in Google’s search results?

According to the official Google India blog a new Site Clinic launched yesterday and will accept site submissions until 20 January 2010. Indian Webmasters can register their sites for the site clinic by simply filling in all the information requested on a form and by complying to some guidelines such as being registered on Google’s webmaster tools and by meeting Google’s quality guidelines.

There is also a Site Clinic especially for the Spanish-speaking market launched by the Google Webmaster Central blog in Spanish in September 2009.

For the rest of us, it seems we simply have to do the work ourselves via our own Google webmaster tools accounts and by meeting Google’s quality guidelines. Who said everything is fair?

Little has been said about the Nexus One since Google gave the device to its employees last month for final testing, but now it is official, Nexus One is the first phone designed by Google’s own engineers and many speculate that while this is a much anticipated new arrival, it may not be a BlackBerry or iPhone killer, just yet.

Google is calling the Nexus One a super phone, obviously trying to set the device apart from the other players, saying that the Nexus One represented the next frontier in the company’s $20bn (£12.4bn) core business – selling advertising through search.

The dictionary definition of Nexus is ‘point of convergence’, simply explained as ‘a means of connection’. Nexus One is where web meets phone.

This is perhaps not earth-shattering news, but Google, like many in the industry, recognises that more and more people are accessing the web via their mobile phones rather than through their desktop or personal computers.

2010 will become more about the mobile web, and therefore companies like Google, who make their money by advertising online, is shifting paradigms. According to David B Yoffie, a professor at Harvard Business School, “This has the potential to change the economics of the internet business and to redistribute profits yet again.”

It may still be early days but Apple may have their work cut out for them to stay ahead of the game.

At the moment, the Nexus One is only available in the US but will be sold in Europe, Hong Kong and Singapore in the spring through Vodafone. Google said it hoped to add other devices and carriers for sale in the future. It won’t be available in South Africa for some time to come.

For more in-depth news and technical specifications, read Google’s new phone to protect mobile advertising base and Liveblogging The Google Nexus One Phone Launch.

Google Maps South Africa is launched today. There is an event in Johannesburg today officially announing it, but thus far I can’t find an official release or any activity surround this just yet, but just one tweet from Dave Rooney (@RoverRoons) – “Local launch of Google Maps SA” and another by @EveD saying that EasyInfo helped Google with the data…

We’ve been promised and have waited a long time for Google Maps SA to go live, and now the wait is over.

Update: A lot more tweets coming in regarding Google Maps

What can you do with SA Google maps

• Get directions for drivers and pedestrians from any specific point to another
• Search for any location, places of interest
• Personalise your own maps and create My Maps – add information to your own locations
• Market yourself or your business by getting a free Local Business Listing
• Use Google Maps on your phone

Google’s Sidewiki is finally in full effect and it’s potentially one of the coolest tools to come from the Google team this year. For those that may not know what I am talking about, here is a short introduction:

“Google Sidewiki allows you to contribute helpful information next to any webpage. Google Sidewiki appears as a browser sidebar, where you can read and write entries along the side of the page”.

Basically, this is an easy way that visitors to a site can share their insights with other visitors about a page on the web. In addition, it has been stated that Google’s goal – through SideWiki – is to be something more than another commenting system. “I think we would have failed if people were using it to say ‘Obama sucks’,” said Sundar Pichai, vice president of product management at Google.

[There is a video that cannot be displayed in this feed. Visit the blog entry to see the video.]

Cool Google SideWiki features include:

• Sidewiki allows brands to leave special Sidewiki entries on their own pages – entries that are distinguished by a green background.
• People can add useful links to other pages or related sites.
• You can highlight and comment on a specific line/paragraph on a webpage.
• To determine what comments are shown and in what order, Google uses the ‘secret sauce time’ algorithm: “All comments are not created equal. Using multiple signals based on the quality of the entry, what we know about the author, and user-contributed signals such as voting and flagging, we work hard to ensure that only the highest quality, most relevant entries appear in the sidebar. Most of the engineering work for Sidewiki was dedicated to this ranking algorithm”.

As cool as Google SideWiki may sound, many website proprietors have cited it as a scary tool because of the ability for people to visit your web pages and leave messages whether you want them to or not.

If you own a website then I’m sure you must be asking yourself this question: “Have you lost control of your own website?”
According to Search Engine Land, there have already been several instances of rude, insulting comments being left on the pages of major corporations. Search Engine Land responds to this by outlining that:

There are some raised eyebrows over whether Sidewiki is even legal and Google has to show some concern over spammers, flamers and so on.

I guess spam / negative comment cannot be avoided but the good news according to Google is that, “there is a ban process that allows people to complain about content”.

In my view Google SideWiki is a revolutionary tool allowing people to add insights or “Verbal Graffiti” on web pages for others to read and benefit from. I urge everyone to try this tool as it builds on your Google Profile and adds value to web page content through your contributions. You can read more on the Google Sidewiki here.

Look out for my next post on Google Sidewiki’s influence on SEO ..

Yesterday, Stephen Newton, the Country Manager of Google South Africa, announced that Google will be starting to collect imagery in some of South Africa’s major cities for Google Street View.

With the World Cup fever building, people from around the globe are keen to experience everything that South Africa has to offer, so over the coming months Google will help bring South Africa’s vibrant cityscapes to the world. You can expect to see one of a fleet of Toyota Priuses on the road in Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and Durban.

So what is Street View?

It is a hugely popular feature of Google Maps that is already available in more than 100 metropolitan areas around the world. It allows users to virtually explore and navigate a neighbourhood through panoramic street-level images. It is also available in Google Earth and on Google Maps for Mobile.

Images collected by the cars in South Africa will be processed and carefully stitched together, a technological process that can take several months. They will be made available at a later date in Street View on Google Maps for South Africa. As with all Street View imagery, Google will apply face-blurring and license plate blurring to all these images to protect people’s privacy. Once images are available, people will be able to report images for removal or additional blurring by clicking on ‘report a problem’ on the bottom left hand corner of the image.

If you’re driving around any of these city’s and happen to spot a Toyota Prius kitted out with our amazing camera technology, then smile broadly!

Toyota Prius kitted out with amazing Google camera technology

The next 12 months will see changes made to Facebooks privacy policy after agreeing to give users more control over their privacy settings. Changes will include clarification as to why Facebook needs users personal information, a new authority system for 3rd party aps and more information regarding deletion of accounts.

With huge amounts of information circling the web these days I’m sure these changes will be welcome ones. Sky News brings you more details.