Google toolbar 5 review #2

Posted by multippt

Great, after the first review, I’ve got another one to add on. In case you are wondering, Google toolbar 5 is the latest revision in testing for Internet Explorer 6 and above, and can be downloaded here.

Google Find just turned my Internet Explorer into Firefox

Pressing Ctrl+F will no longer bring up a box that Microsoft put in. Rather, it will show up a toolbar at the bottom, similar to Firefox, that allows you to search for text in a page as you type. It will also highlight other occurences of text in the page. Of course, since Firefox already has that, Google doesn’t need to put that. In case you want to go back to the old-fashioned Ctrl+F search box, simply disable the “Find” tool via settings.

“Up one level”, just like Windows Explorer

Looks like Google decided to put in a new featured called “Up one level”. What this does is similar to what Windows Explorer does with a button with the same name. In Windows Explorer,  pressing “Up one level” brings you to a parent folder. In Google’s case, it’s a little different because it is all online. Up one level will bring you to the parent directory (e.g. google.com/webmasters/start to google.com/webmasters). If there are no more parent directories, it will go by sub-domain (e.g. mail.google.com to google.com).

Searchaholic

Google made other aspects of it’s search features available. Now you can easily choose to search at Google code or other stuff via clicking on a button inside the search box. While this is already present in Google toobar 4, Google made the feature more visible, and included a little more search options.

Error 404? No more WTF

Google toolbar helps remedy problems associated with mistyping links. If you have mistyped a page, Google would suggest links that might be where you are trying to reach. Typing google.co will cause Google toolbar to prompt a suggestion for google.com.

Configuration with less hassle

Aside from a change in looks of the configuration manager, Google toolbar now allows you to configure some aspects of the toolbar with more flexibility. It is now easier to shift your custom buttons and reorder them: just drag and drop. No more clicking on the “move up/down” button endlessly. Google has also pre-configured the button to show many more custom buttons that the previous toolbar, exposing some of its lesser known services - now no more looking at “Features” and “More” to get the most of Google toolbar, just go to “Tools” and enable what you need.

My wishlist for Google toolbar 5

Here are some possible improvements Google could have done to it’s new toolbar.

1. Make the PageRank icon larger

It’s so microscopic that I need to zoom in just to see the pixels; the new PageRank meter looks nice, but it is hard to see the values.

2. Allow reorder of “tools”

While custom buttons can be reordered, tools can’t. Reordering them will allow you to organise your tools. Show/hide is no longer just an option.

3. Allow separators for custom buttons

You got separators for your tools, why not custom buttons? Separators help split your buttons into groups.

4. Fix that PageRank information glitch

“Current Page is not ranked” is different from “No PageRank information for this page”: It is a matter of whether the page is penalized or not!

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So that’s about the second review of Google toolbar 5. If you would want to view the earlier one, it is right here.

Google toolbar 5 - beta

Posted by multippt

Google has silently dished out yet another update to its Google toolbar. Since it is in beta, always proceed with caution, though maybe in Google’s case, all betas are fairly stable enough (who says GMail can’t stay in beta for 2 years?). You can get the toolbar from this page. This toolbar is only available to Internet Explorer users.

Interface 

This beta seems to change quite a few usual things compared to the previous one. For one, the icons do look more nicer and organised, particular the smaller PageRank icon and separators. Though, the PageRank icon does give a sort of an eyestrain - it’s so tiny and hard to see, one even needs to guess what PR a site has because a unit difference in PR corresponds to a pixel difference (and, a pixel is really small). Overall, the older icons look unchanged, but I guess what concerns more is the features right? Right on to it. More »

w00t being the word of the year?

Posted by signup

It seems as many visitors wanted to add the word w00t to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, and FaceBook being runner up. W00t has been named the Word of the year (2007) by dictionary gurus from the Merriam-Webster. These were also voted and searched commonly. Famous words such as “Google” and “Blog” were added to the site’s dictionary database and server from winning the votes.

Blackholing as SEO?

Posted by multippt

Of course, Google have explicitly mentioned that backlinks will add to a site’s PageRank. However, through experience it is found that outbound links have an opposite effect to backlinks. So, before you add that link to your site, think again. Similarly, internal pages act as outbound links, except that you have more control over them. This is based on the assumption that links act as the path where the highly fluid link juice can flow. Thus, the theory might be useful in search engine optimisation (SEO).

Blackholing?

The idea of a blackhole is that it traps everything inside, letting little stuff come out. Link blackholing employs the same idea. Some backlinks, few outbound links. Of course, don’t forget internal pages - these links pass PageRank too. So, for ideal blackholing, you should have some backlinks, few internal links, few outbound links. Thus, it traps some link juice in your site.

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Google may treat sub-domains as folders

Posted by multippt

Originally, sub-domains remained in the grey area, treated as more of an independent domain. Thus, multiple pages from the same site may appear at once in the results page in Google. Now, Google decided to finalize the decision to treat sub-domains as folders. This means that sub-domains under a domain will appear at most twice in the search results - similar to folders. In a Google results page, a domain can have at most 2 directories under it (indented). If these “directories” happen to be sub-domains, then it will also display another set of two.

The change is a response to the number of repeated pages coming from the same domain for certain keywords. Although this was in effect for a few weeks now, no one actually noticed it until Google mentioned it at PubCon.

Though, it might be a big problem for sites hosted by certain web hosts, where by individual sites are hosted on sub-domains. While the easiest solution is to probably get a domain, not everyone can get one. In addition, those who are getting ‘pseudo’ domains (e.g. ???.uni.cc) would be affected by the change.

Fortunately, Google did put up an exception list. Blogs hosted by Google’s Blogger for example, will not be affected by the new rule. Certain domains may be added to the exception list as well. These sub-domains will be treated the same way as in the past - as domains. Matt Cutts also mentioned that sites that are highly relevant may also appear several times in the results (rather than indented as normal).

Google makes it clear it disallows paid links

Posted by multippt

One can say that the whole idea of link selling has almost vanished even since Google began conducting serious checks across the board. From day one, Google forbid webmasters from selling links. However at that time, not many really bothered about it. This is until when Google grew prominant enough to put a plug to link monetization.

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Rectifying paid links where they don’t exist

Posted by multippt

Sometimes, in the process of building links, your links may end up in places where you may not really expect. These very places can result in a penalty. The problem is, Google expects webmasters to know that they have a problem with their websites, and they should do something about it, even if they don’t know what hit them.

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