Filipe C Santos

June 2009 - Recent Google Updates

Posted by Filipe Santos on 28 September 2009 | 0 Comments

Tags: Google, Updates, Webmasters, Search Engines, SEO

Recent Google Updates

Google made a slew of changes to their services and search algorythms. These are the ones published and in public knowledge at this point whcih are faily recent:

Google Flash Files Indexing - Googlebot, Google's search engine spider software will now be indexing external content & websites used in SWF files (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/06/flash-indexing-with-external-resource.html)

Google Webmaster Central - Reconsideration requests filed within webmaster central cna now come with notifications so that you will have a status on your filing (http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/06/reconsideration-requests-now-with.html)
Google Custom Search - Automatic Transilteration feature allows users to type in one language but see results the in another language (http://googlecustomsearch.blogspot.com/2009/06/automatic-transliteration-for-custom.html)
Google AdSense - Now allows users to change font size for ad display units (http://adsense.blogspot.com/2009/06/font-size-matters.html)
Google Maps & Transit - Added seven new transit authorities to their panel

1. Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County, Houston, TX
2. VIA Metropolitan Transit in San Antonio, TX
3. Utah Transit Authority, Salt Lake City, UT
4. Metro St. Louis, St Louis, MO
5. Foothill Transit, San Gabriel Valley, CA
6. Riverside Transit, Riverside, CA
7. Charlotte Area Transit System, Charlotte, NC
8. Pinella Suncoast Transit Authority, St. Petersburg, FL

Google Book Search - Was redesigned and now includes embedded links, book search within each book, thumbnail views, content drop-down menu, plain text mode, page turn button and animation, as well as an updated book overview (http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-features-on-google-books.html)

Microblogging Search Engine - A claim by the unofficial Google Operating System blog (http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2009/06/google-to-launch-microblogging-search.html) mentions that Google may be releasing a microblogging service similar to twitter and would complete against Twitter and Facebook, utilizing a similar feature set to Facebook's search tests (http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/090617-005456)