Breaking news - Google found spammers - will change its algorithm

As per inside breaking news, Google is set to make changes to its search ranking algorithm to combat the spate of links leading to malicious web pages appearing at the top of Google's search results, according to an inside source. 

While Google's search business faces threats from malicious blackhat spammers, Google News receives the brunt of not-so-veiled threats from the Associated Press, regardless of a licensing deal. 

Over the past few months, cybercriminals have been using blackhat SEO techniques to manipulate search rankings. When it first began, they were marginally successful at following Google Trends to find buzzy search queries and elevating a newly created targeted webpage. 

But after a short period of time, these same gangs appear to have become disturbingly effective. Last week, when researching a news story, I found the top five results all led to fake scareware pages. 

Obviously if Google fails to do something about this manipulation, users will lose trust and the good ole days of Google will be over fast. A Googler speaking on condition of anonymity told WebProNews a ranking change is pending that tackles spam of this kind. Once the change goes live, users shouldn't see it "nearly as often." 

A report from security company PandaLabs identified over a million links targeting malicious webpages ranking for auto part searches. Google noted that many of the phrases mentioned in the report were rare. A phrase like [1989 Nissan Pickup Truck Engine Check Light Troubleshooting], for example, only appears on attack sites set up by spammers, which explains why Google brought back so many attack sites in response to it and similar queries. 

Is this a good enough explanation in your opinion? Comment. 

Google's response seems also an admission of how difficult it is to provide fresh, timely search results while simultaneously combating spammers. Part of the appeal of Twitter to many people is the platform's ability to provide real-time information; the live Web works remarkably well there so far because Twitter's set up isn't very conducive to spam (yet). At least Twitter has to some extent control over accounts. 

Google, on the other hand, cannot control for content appearing on the Web at large, and historically its famous algorithm performed better than any other at weeding out spammy webpages and malicious results. Unfortunately, that was a version of the Web that was more static. The live Web presents entirely new challenges manifesting as the first major weakness the search engine has faced. 

The company naturally didn't have a comment on the recently pondered "link velocity" ranking factor. Search engine optimization experts have identified the speed at which organic links appear as a possible important influence. 

Link velocity therefore aids in explaining how blackhatters were able to manipulate search results by dropping enormous amounts of link spam into comment and discussion areas of social sites. The freshness or buzzy nature of a query also aided in this pursuit, and cybercriminals merely have to follow Google Trends and Google News to know which keywords and phrases to target. 

Display Ads - Microdoft, Yahoo Common Grounds

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)--As per breaking news, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) and Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) are at the table to discuss - yet again - a combination of their Internet businesses. A new twist: The possibility that Yahoo take over Microsoft's display advertising business.

On Friday, a person familiar with the situation said Microsoft Chief Executive Steve Ballmer and Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz had met to discuss potential partnership structures. A range of ideas were being discussed, though a full acquisition of Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo is not among them, the person said.

An intriguing aspect of the new talks, which stem from discussions that started last year, is the concept of Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft turning over its some of its display advertising operations to Yahoo, the leader in the Internet billboard market. This would likely be part of a broader collaboration that includes the much-larger search advertising market, where Yahoo and Microsoft trail far behind rival Google Inc. (GOOG).

The new wrinkle is tacit recognition the two companies have far more to gain by joining forces to battle Google than they stand to give up in terms of independence or control. Microsoft has a tiny share of both search and display advertising, but has the resources, technical capacity and will to take on Google because the company's ubiquitous software is the way many users will access Internet search.

And despite all its problems, Yahoo has an Internet brand that few companies can hope to match. It is still the largest player in the display advertising market.

Whether the two sides can cut a deal remains an open question. Since Microsoft's $47.5 billion unsolicited takeover offer collapsed last May, the relationship between the two companies has been guarded at best. Relations have thawed since co-founder Jerry Yang surrendered stewardship of Yahoo to Bartz in January. Investors, many of whom feel taking on Google individually is near impossible, are pushing the companies to collaborate.

Andrew Frank, an analyst at research firm Gartner, said a partnership between the companies would allow them to get the best of each others' businesses and technologies, while preventing needless duplication and competition. Some disciplines, like advertising sales, would naturally fall to Yahoo. Microsoft could better focus on its strengths like helping Internet publishers manage ad inventory.

Of course, a display deal wouldn't be a silver bullet for either company. Display advertising is less than a fifth of the $23.6 billion market for Internet advertising in the U.S. The big money is made in search advertising and the lion's share of it is being made by Google.

Still, a display deal may pave the way for a larger collaborative relationship that resolves both companies' thorny search problems.

Breaking News - Google to Acquire Twitter

Website:	twitter.com
Location:	San Francisco, California, United States
Founded:	March 21, 2006
Funding:	$55M

Twitter, founded by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006…

Here’s a heck of a rumor that as per breaking news and sources from two separate people close to the negotiations: Google is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter. We don’t know the price but can assume its well, well north of the $250 million valuation that they saw in their recent funding.

Twitter turned down an offer to be bought by Facebook just a few months ago for half a billion dollars, although that was based partially on overvalued Facebook stock. Google would be paying in cash and/or publicly valued stock, which is equivalent to cash. So whatever the final acquisition value might be, it can’t be compared apples-to-apples with the Facebook deal.

Why would Google want Twitter? We’ve been arguing for some time that Twitter’s real value is in search. It holds the keys to the best real time database and search engine on the Internet, and Google doesn’t even have a horse in the game.

If this is accurate, it’s a brilliant deal for Google - the value of Twitter is only going to go up over time. And it will be Twitter founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone’s second sale to Google - they sold Blogger to them just five years ago. But there’s one big question - where’s Microsoft in all this? Letting Twitter go to Google only hurts them, badly, in the long term search game. This is an asset they need to be competing for aggressively.

Of course, it’ll be sad to see Twitter become just another subsidiary of Google, if this happens. I would have liked to have seen the company spread its wings a little longer to see what it could do.

Updated: Yet another source says the acquisition discussions are still fairly early stage, and the two companies are also considering working together on a Google real time search engine. But discussions between the companies are confirmed.

Update 2 (4/3/09): In a non-denial blog post entitled “Sometimes We Talk” Twitter co-Founder Biz Stone says: “It should come as no surprise that Twitter engages in discussions with other companies regularly and on a variety of subjects.”

Breaking News - Google Acquires Yahoo

As per breaking news, a news recently came out about describing that Google acquires Yahoo. But no costs explained about how much Google paid for acquiring Yahoo. As per latest news, no confirmation received yet from Google officials upon acquiring. "We are not planning such kind of activities right now.But some day it will be seen." stated by Mr. Google to esolgsmnews on contacting. On the other side as per breaking stories, when our team contacted to Yahoo officials to confirm such news. They said that "Yahoo officials are not looking for such plannings. This news is not more then an April Fool." Yahoo officials clarified.

Google tells us what we look for

What do Sarah Palin, Facebook and Euro 2008 have in common?

According to our technology news reporter, They are all on the list of the top 10 fastest-rising queries on Google during 2008.

The search engine has published its year-end Zeitgeist, the tool which reveals what internet users are searching for.

Google Zeitgeist monitors what people are searching for

The most searched term for Google users in the UK was Facebook while the BBC came second and its iPlayer service was the fastest rising query, live news channel reported.

The list also reveals what global preoccupations are and this year the US election candidates and the Beijing Olympics figure high.

The things people around the globe have in common are a strong interest in socialising and politics, according to Marissa Mayer, vice-president of search at Google.

"Social networks comprised four out of the top 10 global fastest-rising queries while the US election held everyone's interest around the globe," she wrote on Google's official blog.

Google-Search-Now-Will-Hear-You !!!

SAN FRANCISCO — Pushing ahead in the decades-long effort to get computers to understand human speech, Google researchers have added sophisticated voice recognition technology to the company’s search software for the Apple iPhone.

Enlarge This Image

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Google’s voice search software works only with iPhones, but the company plans to make it available to other phones.

Enlarge This Image

Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Vic Gundotra, right, and Gummi Hafsteinsson, of Google, with an iPhone running the voice search.

Users of the free application, which Apple is expected to make available as soon as Friday through its iTunes store, can place the phone to their ear and ask virtually any question, like “Where’s the nearest Starbucks?” or “How tall is Mount Everest?” The sound is converted to a digital file and sent to Google’s servers, which try to determine the words spoken and pass them along to the Google search engine.

The search results, which may be displayed in just seconds on a fast wireless network, will at times include local information, taking advantage of iPhone features that let it determine its location.

The ability to recognize just about any phrase from any person has long been the supreme goal of artificial intelligence researchers looking for ways to make man-machine interactions more natural. Systems that can do this have recently started making their way into commercial products.