You may or may not notice, (depending on how long, unique or fast your queries are), that Google uses predictive text when you type in your search. But did you know that if you start with "I love" you get a lot of predictions, but if you start the phrase "I hate" you will not get any?

Insignificant trivia? Yes indeed.

Well, anyway, the actual point of this post is that predictive text could potentially help you with your search engine marketing. If people are slow typers, or maybe a bit indecisive, they may indeed start relying on Google predictive text.

Say you are looking for car insurance online. If you type in car insurance, all of a sudden you get a host of suggestions (although, if you type quickly and press enter, you may not notice this)...

If you saw this, you might change your query from 'car insurance' to 'car insurance quotes'. Or maybe the third suggestion, 'car insurance comparison'. This obviously has ramifications for car insurance companies who want your business - they will want to be ranking high for those terms you are most likely to choose. Or, maybe you will look more carefully and see 'car insurance nsw' and realise that is what you are really after - so maybe car insurers should optimise for that kind of local term?

In any case, if you are optimising for shorter terms, which are stems for longer queries, you might want to see what those longer queries are and whether you should optimise for them as well.

Strange results-  I previously blogged about this strange result - and I still don't know what it means - but if you Google 'hairdresser', the first predictive result is 'Hairdresser games'. Is this really so popular?! When Google did a search shake up earlier this year, the Hairdresser games certainly got a mention on page 1 for hairdresser.

Make sure to see what predictive text is saying about your brand, product or industry - and see if you are optimising for the options they are offering!

Google has updated their interface here in Australia, and at first I was confused and thought I was locked into some kind of 'Advanced Search' section.

I don't love the new layout, mainly because Google keeps moving further and further away from their traditional, simplistic layout.

Things I dislike
1. They have removed the Pages from Australia radio button on the main page

2. They still have the 'Feeling Lucky' button



3. The results page has a new menu on the left hand side - with ads up the top and on the right, this is just getting too busy

Things I like
Here it is with the expanded features in the left hand nav, and on 'pages with preview' mode;



1. I thought the 'pages with images' idea was interesting, but I can't yet think how this will be useful

2. The 'more shopping sites' and 'less shopping sites' button. while it is hidden way down the page, so maybe not many people will be clicking on it yet, it could become a big part of search in the future, and is somethign to watch out for.  I think the button should be more prominent.

3. The search within results option right down the bottom.

4. I really like the page preview feature as shown above. If people started using it more, it would give a whole new push to web design, and the need for enticing, attractive landing pages. I noticed, though, that at the moment this isn't working well for sites with flash landing pages, and even for normal HTML sites sometimes it is showing only one image from the home page.

So, while I do miss the old days of the simple Google results, I do appreciate the new preview page idea, which I feel like I will be using a lot going forward.

Google is constantly updating and refining their search results, and now there is a new addition. Under results which are discussion/forum/comments pages, Google now offers a 'Get More Discussion' results option, like this;



This will in turn lead to an 'advanced' search results page like this.



Personally, I am always looking for commentary/forums and discussions when I am searching, so this is a very useful addition for me. Now I no longer have to type +comment +forum, and do advanced search for the last week!

Today Google finally took definitive action on their position in the Chinese market. Visits to www.google.cn are now being redirected to www.google.com.hk where the results are not filtered.

Being in Australia, I can't yet tell if China has now blocked access to Google.com.hk. In any case, many people in China do have ways of getting around the firewall.

Unfortunately, I didn't, so I don't.

Yesterday there were a few stories circulating the web hinting that today Google would release a new feature for Gmail which was touted as being either a Twitter-killer, or a Facebook-killer, depending on which one you read.

I held off writing a piece about that, because until an official press release comes out you never know who to trust, and there were no reliable sources discussing it anyway.

Today, the Gmail blog (and Google blog) both published an article announcing Google Buzz, an add-on to Gmail, which is being rolled out over the next couple of days.

Yesterday I was sceptical, because to be honest, I don't like Gmail all that much. Other Google products in the social sphere have also been disappointing, like Orkut (only big in Brazil) and Wave (which is not yet out of beta, and which I also dislike anyway).

The big obstacle in the way of Buzz being a Twitter killer is that it is integrated into Gmail, which puts it behind the 8ball because gmail is such a user-unfriendly interface, whereas Twitter is so simple.  I suspect it would have been better to introduce a new, simple product with a nice interface rather than try to staple something on to Gmail.

What is Buzz?
Buzz, which you can kind of get from the name, is Google's next attempt at entering the social media sphere. It uses your current social network (i.e. your Gmail contacts) with new functionality to help you ' talk with them about things that are interesting you at the time'. Google is touting it as a new way to organise the social web.

It seems to be using a bit of the Google Wave technology, where you can easily share photo's, video's and links with a group, and any responses to things you post will get sent to your email where they are not 'static emails'  but rather ' live conversations' (like they tried to do with Google Wave).

You can also make things 'available to the whole world' if you want, by opening up your privacy settings.

Like Twitter you can follow people and find out what they are doing and sharing online, and like Twitter it uses @replies.


Why Did Google Do It?
Google is basically built on ad sales, and with more people spending time on non-Google social media sites, like Facebook and Twitter, this is reducing their ability to advertise.  With this new tool they hope to get a piece of the addictive-pie that is social media, and therefore be able to sell more ads on Gmail.

It is integratable with Twitter and Flickr already, with other sites likely to be introduced in the future, so basically it is hoping that you will stay on a Google site to view all your other social media information.

Interesting Features
Their mobile version is not just the small screen friendly version of the normal site, but also has an addition to the "what are you doing now"  status update, you can add a ' Where were you when you said that'  kind of thing. That is awesome if you are a Facebook stalker, you can take it to a whole new level.

My prediction
This is not a Twitter or Facebook killer.