Google+ Now Open To Teens 13 And Up

Google is opening up its social networking service Google+ to teens as of today, according to a post from Google’s VP, Product Management, Bradley Horowitz. The move puts the network in closer competition with Facebook, which also requires that individuals be at least 13 year old before creating an account.
Says Horowitz, everyone who’s old enough for a Google account (13+ in most countries), can now create a Google+ account too.
The announcement was made alongside news of a few new safety enhancements to the service specifically for teens, including those that focus on sharing content, hangouts (video chat) and notifications.
One of these is a message that appears when a teen tries to share outside of their circle of friends. The message reads: “When you share publicly, people you haven’t added to your circles will be able to view your post and may be able to comment.”
This seems a little obvious, but given Facebook’s ever-shifting levels of post visibility, it can’t hurt to bang people over the head with the definition of “public.”

Google will also place limits on its video chatting feature called Google+ Hangouts when used by teens. If a stranger (someone outside the teens’ circle) joins a hangout, Google will temporarily remove the teen from the hangout by muting the mic and video feed. It’s interesting that it wouldn’t just remove the stranger, or perhaps remove strangers ability to even join hangouts in progress, when posted by teens. But I suppose this move is targeted towards those teens who inadvertently (or naively) make their hangout public instead of private, which could invite in an unwanted element.

Notifications are also being restricted, so that only those in teens’ circles can contact them via IM, and blocking is easily accessible. This feature is not all that different than how chat operates by default for adults, to be fair. Any Google+ user can configure which circles are chat-enabled, for example.
It should be noted that not all countries have the same age restrictions. In Spain and South Korea, the age limit is 14 and up, while in the Netherlands, it’s 16 and up.
Google recently announced that it has now reached 90 million users worldwide. By opening up to teens, it clearly hopes to quickly grow once more. However, we have to point out that, unlike Facebook’s growth back in the day, Google+’s growth is more manufactured than organic. The company has carefully timed its feature releases and integrations with other Google services to provide ongoing boosts to user count numbers which it can then, in turn, proclaim to be “growth.” But in some cases, Google is forcing Google+ upon users – e.g., when a user creates a Google account, they’re given a Plus account, too. No doubt a few weeks after the teen surge, we’ll hear more about how much Google has “grown” yet again.
In case you’re wondering, Twitter used to require its users to be 13 and up, too. The current Terms of Service make no mention of an age requirement.

Google Consolidates Privacy Policy; Will Combine User Data Across Services

Google has more than 70 different privacy documents over its range of products, which overwhelming for any user to comb through (and that’s after Google pared down its policies in 2010). Today, the search giant is rolling out a new, comprehensive privacy policy which the company says will consolidate more than 60 of the separate privacy notices into one simple policy. The company says the changes will take effect on March 1, and will be starting to notify users today via email and a notice on its homepage.

The main change, say Google, is that if you are signed into your Google account, Google will combine user info across its products to better serve account holders. As Google says: In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience.
This is exemplified, says Google, in its more personalized search product that debuted recently, and received major criticism. You’ll see Google+ posts and data in your search results, and allows for the seamless transfer of data in between other services, including Docs, Calender, Gmail and more, says Google.

Google wants to make the entire web experience more personal, including advertising, location-based reminders, spelling suggestions of friends names and more. “People still have to do way too much heavy lifting, and we want to do a better job of helping them out,” according to the blog post.
The company also says it has rewritten its privacy policies so they’re easier to read and understand. And Google reiterates that it “remains committed to data liberation,” won’t sell personal information, or share it externally without permission and will continue to try to be transparent about the information collected from users.

How to Use Keywords on Your Social Networks

Although looking up specific companies on social networks has been a common practice for years, many consumers have now discovered that they can use social networks to actually find a company that deals with the product or service they need.
If a consumer is in need of a law firm, all they have to do is type “law firm” into the social network’s search bar and a list of law firms will show up. If a consumer wants to find an auto repair shop—well you get the point. Social media search is slowly evolving into a search service similar to Google.
So how can your company get to the top of a social media search page? By using keywords. Smart keywords choices and placement will give you a better chance of moving up on a social media search page. In this article, we are going to show you, step by step, some of the places and different ways you can use keywords on your social media pages.

Step #1: Find the right keywords for your social media accounts.

Using keywords on social media sites is very similar to using keywords on company websites. For those who are unfamiliar, this practice is called search engine optimization (SEO), and this process involves selecting a keyword and optimizing the website for that keyword. A keyword simply means a word or short phrase that people use to search for something.
Before deciding which keywords are important for you, it’s important to realize that the keywords you decide to use will be different for different social media accounts. It is not a “one keyword fits all” operation. There are a few things you can do to find the right keywords for each of your social media sites:

• Lay Terms: Think about a common word that someone would use to describe your company. If someone couldn’t think of your company name, what would they type in the search bar of a social media site? To-do List Software? Picture app?
• Desired Association: You may want to consider choosing a keyword that you want to be associated with. If you want to show up when the words “daily deal app” are typed into the search bar, make that one of your keywords.
• Competition Check: Competition isn’t a big issue when it comes to nabbing the number one spot of a social media search query, but it’s still something to consider. Once you think you have a good keyword, type it into the search bar and see what comes up. If there are a lot of very relevant companies, you may want to try a more specific keyword.
• SEO Keyword Research: If you have already performed SEO keyword research, it would be wise to revisit your findings and use some of those same keywords.
• Prepare for Different Social Media Sites: For example, if you’re an electronics company, think of keywords related to popular product models that will be useful on your Facebook page. For your LinkedIn account you may want to consider keywords to attract talent like “engineers”, “developers”, “jobs”, and “positions”.

The screenshot below shows what I mean when I say “social media search query.” In this example, the search query is “paper company,” which is shown by the top arrow, and the top two companies who show up when typing in that keyword are shown by the bottom arrows. As you will notice, there is only one paper company that shows up when I type in this search query. Therefore, the keyword phrase “paper company” would be a great choice if you are a paper provider trying to optimize its social media accounts (Dwight Schrute would be thrilled).

Once you have found a keyword that’s right for you, it’s time to actually start optimizing.

Step #2: Use the keyword in photo captions

The goal is to use keywords on your social media site whenever possible. One of the first things you can do is use these keywords to describe your company photos.
Most companies generally have several photos on their social accounts, but few actually put thought into the captions. It may take some creativity, but the more you can incorporate your keywords the better.
Below is one example that works well if you’re hoping to pop up when the keyword “Hawaiian specialty pizza” is typed into the Facebook search bar. After all, if this is what you’re targeting this month, people are bound to type in the keyword!

Step #3: Use your keyword when linking and tagging webpages.

Social media keywords generally work best with sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook, but this ideas works just as well when it comes to Twitter. If you are ever going to update a status on your account, try and use your keywords as much as possible. Although this may be difficult when linking back to another webpage, it’s entirely possible to add it into a status description or use as a hash tag. Consider the example below:

I typed in the search box the keyword phrase “responsive web design” and this is what popped up. As you will notice, the keyword phrase is bolded in all of the results, which illustrates the idea that if you used your target keyword in a status update, your company would turn up on the list of relevant pages.
Although Twitter is fast moving and it can be tough to always appear at the top of a Twitter feed, people often turn to Twitter for great articles and/or companies that can offer advice on certain topics. Therefore, it’s always something to keep in mind.

Step #4: Include the keyword in your headline

All of the major social networks have a place for a small blurb about the person or company. For example, the company Higher Visibility may want people to find their company when they type the word “internet marketing agency” into the search box. By placing it in the headline, they’re optimizing their page for that keyword.

There is an additional benefit to paying extra attention to your headlines. Headlines are on-page drivers for SEO, so you can bet that search engines will be indexing important headline content often. In addition, Google+, Facebook and Twitter are all trusted domains, so they tend to rank higher in search engine results than the company website sometimes.
This is almost always true when it comes to an individual, but it’s something for companies to also consider. Ranking on major search engines like Google is important, so it’s always a good idea to give your social media accounts the extra push by using your target keywords.

Step #5: Include your keyword in your summary and “about” section

Although this doesn’t quite work with Twitter, it works well to use your keyword in the summary section of LinkedIn and the “about” section on Facebook and Google+. This is a great time to really lay on the keyword usage thick. You don’t want your summary sections to sound strange or unnatural, but if you have an opportunity to use your keyword, go for it.
The following example was found on Northern Illinois University’s LinkedIn page. You will see that they used the term “prepare college-educated teachers” once and “preparing teachers” once. If they were really going to optimize their social media account, they would probably add keywords like “teaching credential” and “master in education” (assuming those were keywords they wished to rank for).

What This Means for Your Business

Getting to the top of a search page on a social network is considerably easier than trying to get to the top of a Google search page. People search for things on social networks all the time, but the idea of optimizing an account to reach the top of the search results is relatively new. There isn’t a lot of competition, but there can be a lot of gain for companies using social media keywords. In other words:

• Transfer Your SEO Skills Into these “New” Social Media Search Boxes
• Get Ahead of the Curve Before Your Competition
• Watch Your Followers and Friends Increase

One Final Note:

As the social graph continues to opens up over time, the general consensus is that search engines will be using this social data to improve their search results. Optimizing your social media accounts now is a great way to keep ahead of the competition.

Google Trims The Fat

Google has more than 40 core products, and hundreds of products depending on how you count them. Even with over 30,000 employees, that’s a lot to support. In the name of refocusing, today the company announced that Picnik, Sky Map, Urchin, Needlebase, Google Message Continuity, and the Social Graph API are all headed for the deadpool, open source, or absorption into more central divisions.
Today’s culling follows this summer’s shut downs of Google Labs and most of the products internally developed by former acquisition Slide. While Google has long encouraged experimentation, its found itself overextended. The company needs all hands on deck fighting the wars for social, mobile, and the cloud.
Google typically reassigns employees from scrapped projects rather than fire them. The teams from Picnik and Sky Map could increase the concentration of product leaders working on Google+. With any luck they can give Google’s social network a more human feel.
Now, the fate  of the forsaken:
Picnik – The browser-based photo editor Picnik will be shut down on April 19th and its team likely integrated in to Google+ and Picasa. Premium customers will receive refunds. Google+ already offer Creative Kit, which includes basic editing, filters, and decorations. Picnik uses almost an identical interface, but includes advanced editing , frames, and seasonal effects that could soon show up in Google’s other photo products soon.

Google Sky Map – The augmented reality star gazing Android app will become open source. Google appears to be moving away from standalone apps, given the recent deaths of Disco, Photovine, and Pool Party. This will make it easier for the iOS developers of Starmap and Star Walk to develop Android versions.
Social Graph API – Google’s graph of public interconnections between people on services like Twitter and Flickr will be deprecated on April 20th. The API allowed developers to pull in information about their users to improve their products, but Google says “The API isn’t experiencing the kind of adoption we’d like”. Google will instead be working on catching up to Facebook by developing its own social graph with Google+.

Google Message Continuity – No more resources will be wasted on a cloud backup system for on-premise enterprise email. Google will dedicate itself to support for its fully cloud-based enterprise system Apps, which has proven much more popular.
Urchin and Needlebase – The acquired client-based predecessor to Google analytics and its data management platform are being formally shut down. The Urchin team is now work on browser-based analytics, while Google is still considering whether to integrate or simply eliminate Needlebase.
A firm handshake and hearty pat on the back to all those working on these projects. Remember, you don’t have to toil away on more small features. Consider this your opportunity to go Do Great Things.

Why Google + May Become a Necessity for Internet Marketers

I’m not one to throw around the word “necessity” since I think marketers should make their own decisions as to how they want to run their campaigns, but it seems as if Google is starting to force our hands…or our campaigns that is. Google just rolled out its Search Plus Your World update which gives users results targeted to their social profiles and personal preferences. It incorporates within its search results targeted content and recommendations based on your personal search behavior.You will have the choice to view “Personal Results” which yields a personalized group of results based on your social connections and web behavioral patterns.
According to Google software engineer, Amit Singhal, in an interview with Danny Sullivan from SearchEngineLand, “The social search algorithm, and the personal search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful.” According to Google, when you are signed in you will see the results of your personal search.
The personal results will reveal:

• Normal web results you are accustomed to seeing
• Results affected by your past search behavior and links you clicked
• Results influenced by your social profiles and connections along with recommendations
• Your private posts from Google+, your photos or Google Picasa photos (will be private or “limited”)
• Public posts from your Google+ profile, photos or Google Picasa photos

Why is this update important to marketers?

Google is favoring your activity on Google+ and using its data for algorithm purposes.
What about Facebook and Twitter profiles appearing in personalized search? According to Singhal, “Facebook and Twitter and other services, basically, their terms of service don’t allow us to crawl them deeply and store things. Google+ is the only [network] that provides such a persistent service,” Singhal said. “Of course, going forward, if others were willing to change, we’d look at designing things to see how it would work.”
In a nutshell, right now the only social site that is being utilized in the search results is Google+.
Take a look at these instructions as listed on the Google Plus Your World page:

1. Fill out your profile
   The instructions state that filling out a Google+ profile will make it easier for people to find you.
2. Post your favorite content
   Google says it will share your content with the people in your Google+ circles when they are searching.
3. Appear in search results
   The new personalized search will also include the profiles of related Google+ profiles.

Did you hear that? Your Google+ profile could possibly rank in Google in these personalized searches if it is related to a user’s search.According to Google, “The more quality content you create and the more people that engage with you, the more prominent your profile will become.”
So, essentially, if you want to rank in Google without PPC or organic search, you must create a Google+ profile and grow it enough to show up in the search results.With the “Related People and Pages” function, you will find Google+ profile recommendations related to your search keywords. Below, Google shows the example of a search for the word “music” and what users will see…

Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz did one of his whiteboard Friday topics on the “Search Plus Your World” update. In it, he showed an example of a Google search with the keyword SEO. The SEOMoz Google+ profile along with Danny Sullivan’s profile appeared on the first page of Google search results even though none of their web properties appeared on the first page in a normal search. The profiles seemed to be ranked by the number of people in their Google+ networks and how many +1s their content had received. Below his profile were the words, “Learn how you can appear here too.” Rand alludes to the fact that Google is trending towards including more and more social signals in its algorithms and using them as ranking factors in an attempt to fight link spam. Are you convinced yet? If you haven’t created a Google+ profile yet, will this new update compel you to give it a try? Let us know in the comments below!

Does Google+ Really Have 60% Daily Engagement? Probably Not

With 90 million users, it would seem that things are going quite well for Google+. Those numbers don’t mean much without context, though. Google+’s Vic Gundotra seemingly providedsome of that context by posting an image that said “over 60% sign in daily” and “over 80% sign in weekly,” but it looks like Google is being rather vague about whether this means that 60% and 80% of Google+’s total users sign into Google+ or if they sign into Google (or if it means something completely different instead).

At first sight, quite a few pundits took this to mean that the daily Google+ engagement rate for its users was 60%, which is higher than Facebook’s and surely a number Google would want to get out. It’s a bit more complicated than that, though. On today’s earnings call, Google CEO Larry Page also kept things (intentionally?) vague, but provided enough context to clarify that those engagement numbers probably mean something quite different than most of people thought at first.

Is Google Being Intentionally Vague?

“Engagement on + is also growing tremendously. I have some amazing data to share there for the first time: +users are very engaged with our products — over 60% of them engage daily, and over 80% weekly.“
Here is how I read this: Google+ users are big Google fans. Over 60% of them engage with Google’s products daily (note that Page says “products”). So in my view, this doesn’t mean 60% of Google+ users engage with Google+ daily, but 60% of Google+ users engage with any Google product every day.

Google: No Comment

I did, of course, ask Google PR about this, but Google prefers not to comment on this beyond what Gundotra and Page already said.
Google+ has lots of skeptics out there (and I’ll go on the record that I’m not one of them and actually really like the product). This kind of stuff just isn’t helping it to win those skeptics over. When it comes to user numbers, saying “we have 90 million users” doesn’t mean much. What matters is daily engagement. Lots of apps claim they have a million downloads on iOS, for example, but that doesn’t mean they have a million active users (or even 10,000 for all we know). Google would really help itself here if it clarified these numbers but the company would prefer to keep things vague instead, it seems.

Google Chooses Its Fiber-Networked City Of The Future

Back in February 2010, Google announced its plans to build out a fiber-optic network for a city in the United States, promising connection speeds around 1Gb/s — 100 times faster than the broadband most people are used to. The announcement led 1,100 cities to apply, and today Google has just announced the winning city: Kansas City, Kansas.
For you lucky Kansas City residents, Google has launched an informational page outlining what their plans are (it also provides some background about Google itself). The site’s FAQ says that Google hopes to begin building the network by the end of the year and that service should begin in the first quarter of 2012, with plans to roll out to all communities in Kansas City. Once the service is live pricing will be “competitive to what people are paying for Internet access today” though Google hasn’t yet named the plans.
Dont be too depressed if you happen to live somewhere outside of Kansas City, though. In the video below announcing the news, Sergey Brin says, “That’s why we’re rolling out to communities, starting with Kansas City, that are going to give one gigabit of access to every home.” So it sounds like we’ll be hearing about more community launches in the future. And hopefully Google’s roll-out will put pressure on major broadband providers to speed up their fiber roll-outs.

Google Takes Annual Science Fair Global With Support For Submissions In 13 Languages

Last year, in its first year, the Google Science Fair became the largest online science fair in the world with over 7,500 entries from more than 90 countries. Google Science Fair, which is in partnership with CERN, The LEGO Group, National Geographic and Scientific American, is open to students around the world who are between the ages of 13-18. Today, Google is announcing the second annual Science Fair, with an emphasis on making the contest even more global.

Similar to last year, contestants can build and submit a project (via photos and videos), a hypothesis, as well as written observations online using Google Sites Either individually or in teams of three. This year however, Google will be accepting submissions in 13 languages (compared to English-only last year).

Prizes include a trip to the Galapagos Islands with a National Geographic Explorer, scholarships and real-life work opportunities (i.e., a 5-day trip to CERN in Switzerland). This year, Google is also issuing a new reward, called The Science in Action award, sponsored by Scientific American. This award goes to a top science project that addresses a social, environmental or health issue to make a practical difference in the lives of a group or community. For example, a project that seeks to eliminate power outages in rural India (this was an actual project from 2011, although the award did not exist then). Google says there are a separate set of judges for the Science in Action prize.

Google will choose 90 regional semi-finalist selections, 30 each from the Americas, Europe-Middle East, and Asia Pacific. 15 finalists will be invited to Google headquarters in mid-July to present their projects to a panel of judges. The winner will receive a $50,000 cash prize, one year of mentoring to help realize their project goals, and will also be flown to Mountain View in July to be recognized alongside the other finalists.
Judges for this year include Vint Cerf (Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist, Google), Steven Cowley (Director of the Culham Fusion Science Centre), Mariette di Christina (Editor-in-chief, Scientific American), Silvia Earle (Oceanographer, explorer, author and lecturer), David Gross (Particle Physicist and String Theorist), Maggie Johnson (Director of Education and University Relations, Google), Albert Lin (National Geographic Emerging Explorer and National Geographic 2010 Adventurer of the Year), Steve Myers (Director for Accelerators and Technology, CERN), Paal Smith-Meyer (Head of the New Business Group, LEGO), Ada Yonath (Weizmann Institute of Science (WIS) Kimmel Professor) and Shree Bose (Google Science Fair 2011 Grand Prize Winner).

We sat down with Cerf to chat about the success of last year’s fair and his ambition’s for this year’s contest. “I can’t think of anything more exciting that getting people interested in science and technology,” he tells me. One area which he is particularly excited about is Google’s openness to accept submissions from other languages. In terms of the criteria judges will be looking at, the best projects will have originality, an enthusiasm for science and technology, adequate data collection and results and the hypothesis.
Of course the judges have a hard task on hand, as Cerf says the quality of submissions from last year were extremely impressive. Lauren Hodge won in the 13-14 age group and studied the effect of different marinades on the level of potentially harmful carcinogens in grilled chicken. Naomi Shah took the stop spot in the 15-16 age group and endeavored to prove that making changes to indoor environments that improve indoor air quality can reduce people’s reliance on asthma medications.

And Shree Bose won the 17-18 age group, and overall prize, discovering a way to improve ovarian cancer treatment for patients when they have built up a resistance to certain chemotherapy drugs.
“It’s always a struggle to choose between best science and wanting to make sure that someone in each age group gets credited,” Cerf explains.
As for Cerf himself, he can’t recall any of his favorite science fair projects from when he was an adolescent. He favored entering math and chemistry contests, he tells me.

Watching Video TV vs Online

At this factor, movie is just a frequent part of the web. But how is it gaining on frequent TV viewing. Just with regards to visitors arrive at, Nielsen quotes that almost 145 thousand people watch movie online in the U.S., compared to about 290 thousand who watch conventional TV. So the penetration of movie is already about half of the overall TV-watching inhabitants.

Yet for all the movie people watch on the web, it is still a tiny fraction of how much they watch on TV with regards to your energy and effort used. In a report put out yesterday on the State of the Advertising outlining 2011 data, Nielsen quotes Americans invest a typical of 32 some time to 47 moments per weeks time viewing conventional TV. They only invest a typical of 3 some time to 58 moments per weeks time on the Web, and only 27 moments per weeks time viewing movie online. All those billions of videos watched online still only represent 1.4 percent of time used viewing conventional TV.

In this light, movie still has a extensive way to go before it can hope to match time used in front of the TV in the family room. Except it’s not quite so simple. Remember, these are earnings across the complete inhabitants and across the complete Web. When you drill down into the viewing patterns on the largest movie websites on the web, a different picture emerged.

Even on the web, there is a change between the movie websites which attract the largest audiences and those which are the most engaging. The top 5 movie websites by unique visitors are YouTube, Vevo, Yahoo, Facebook, and MSN. But the top 5 movie websites by time used are Blockbuster online, YouTube, Tudou, Hulu, and Megavideo.

The real outlier with regards to your energy and effort used is Blockbuster online, which boasts a typical of 10 time monthly per audience. Visitors invest about four times as time on Blockbuster online than on any of the other top 5 movie websites, including Hulu. Individuals tend to look at 2 hour films on Blockbuster online instead of 30-minute TV shows or 3-minute films, which explains the change at some factor used.

Compare the 10 time on Blockbuster online to about 130 time monthly for TV, based on the weekly statistics reported above. The gap is still enormous, but not as vast as the normal statistics between TV an internet-based would suggest. And the number of your energy and effort used on Blockbuster online, Hulu, YouTube, and the other top movie websites will continue to expand quickly, narrowing that gap. How extensive will it take Blockbuster online to go from 10 time monthly (the equivalent of 5 movies) to 20 time or 50 hours?

When it comes to movie, time used is the best measure of visitors attention. As the leading movie websites command more and more of all time, promoters and major media companies will notice. The a longer period we invest on these services, the better chance they will have to compete on an equal footing with cable TV channels. It is still beginning, but once we are getting close to an inflection factor, and once we arrive at it, the movie industry (both on the world wide web off) will change very quickly.

How to Analyze SEO Status of a Site in Just 5 mints

Instant SEO Analysis Tips

Usually Managers assign a task to check SEO status of a site and they will come back in 10 to 15 mints for the response. Is it possible to check SEO status of a site in 15 mints? I hope, Most of the SEO's will say No. However i would say YES.

SEO's might face the same problem while attending an interview, interviewers might ask you to analyze a site for 5 mints and requests to explain positive and negative factors of the site. There is a possibility to check all these factors with the help of few free tools.

Following are the list of respective factors which needs to be analyzed for a quick review:

Basic SEO Factors for Instant Analysis:

• Domain Extension
• Page Loading Time
• Page Rank
• Alexa Rank
• Google, Bing & Yahoo Indexed Pages and Back Links
• Domain Age
• Canonical Redirection
• Title & Meta Tags
• Header Tags
• Image Tags
• Xml sitemap
• Html sitemap
• Robots.txt
• Google analytics account
• Google webmaster tools account