Bing Enabled Webmaster Tools To Track Data for Pages beyond Your Website.

A new feature was announced in Bing Webmaster Tools called “Connected Pages” this new feature lets you claim and connect your official social media pages to your BWMT account so you see data as it relates to those connected locations.

Now you can connect a full range social media pages as long as those pages have a link back to your verified website, you need not provide Bing with any special permissions for your social media accounts, so your privacy is still fully intact.

Here is the list of social media pages that Bing’s connected pages currently support:

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Google+
Windows Store
Google Play
Apple Store
Pinterest
Windows Phone Store
YouTube
Instagram
MySpace

All you have to do is log into Bing Webmaster Tools and select connected pages and complete the URL path for the various media networks associated with your page on that network and click verify. This may take a few moments, especially if you fill out multiple networks at the same time.

The feature is available to users immediately, though it will take up to 72 hours for Bing Webmaster Tools to start populating the data related to connected pages.

Google Helpouts –New Video Streaming Tutorial Service

Google has officially announced the launch of Google helpouts after several months, it’s a new offering that people and businesses can use to make money via live social video.

Google said on its blog that its goal with Helpouts is simply to “Help people help each other.” Helpouts can open a new brand new revenue stream for the Mountain View, Calif.-based search company.

Five ways Google can make money of its new Helpout service.

Charge Experts

Google allows now experts to set a price for their help. When Google tested this service, it took a 20% cut of the paid Helpouts as a platform fee. It should also be noted that Google will not charge medical professionals for health care Helpouts.

Charges Brand

You can get help from individuals or from brands you already know and trust. Google could promote these Helpouts in search results, similar to how advertising works in Google Maps, it will be another tool Google can add to its ever-growing portfolio of marketing services.

Bring More small Businesses to Google Service

It will give small businesses a chance to market their expertise for free or cheap and maybe generate a few extra dollars for the company. For Google, it’s another way to get more small businesses involved in its lucrative advertising platform.

Traffic from About.Com and WikiHow

Google search is the number one destination for people to answer a question or get help. With Helpouts Google can keep this traffic for itself, as well as the advertising revenue that the traffic generates.

More users on Google Plus

Google continues to push its Google plus social network by requiring users to sign up in order to use other services. Gmail accounts, YouTube and Hangouts are all tied to Google plus platforms and Helpouts are no different. Google Helpouts appears to be a service that benefits everyone involved, including users, small businesses, big companies and of course Google.

The beauty of Helpouts is its simplicity and it is a wonderful simple idea, using a webcam to show someone how to do something seems blindingly obvious-but this is the first time it has really been implemented in such a way as to be accessible and workable.

Google Glass Getting An App Store in 2014

Google will reportedly be launching a special app store just for Google Glass apps in 2014.

Earlier this summer, there were signs of Glass being supported in the Google play store, but nothing more has happened since then.

Glass is a tiny eyeglasses-mounted device capable of shooting photos, filming video, navigating through maps and surfing the internet in addition to offering text messaging. These have only been made available to developers in the US through Google’s Glass Explorer programme, but are expected to see a public release in 2014.

It would be interesting to see if Google would offer apps for Glass through a special section in its Play Store or develop a different destination for it.

As it stands Glass has no real storefront for developers to list their Glassware, although Googler Tomothy Jordan mentioned recently on Google+ that a process was coming soon. It’s also unclear whether or not Glassware will be available via play store as Glass currently only supports via web apps. It’s entirely possible standard APKs could be in the pipeline but it doesn’t seem like that’s really the focus for now.

Google will likely want a place that easily displays all Google Glass has to offer as people can buy it, so it makes sense to separate it out, even if it’s not completely separate from Google Play.

LinkedIn Updates For iOS7 And Adds Endorsements

LinkedIn announced a slew of updates for those that access the professional social network for their phone or tablet.

LinkedIn’s mobile site now lets you endorse connections, as well as accept endorsements from your connections and add skills to your profile. New members visiting LinkedIn from a mobile device will now be greeted with a step-by-step guide that explains how to build your network, join groups and follow channels for “professional news.”

It’s finally turned to get dressed up for the iOS 7 party. The new app falls in line with iOS 7’s design changes and LinkedIn says its features “flatter, cleaner and more modern designs” like sharp edges and soft colors. Basically it fits in with iOS 7’s look. You can download the new versions from Apple’s App store: LinkedIn and Pulse.

LinkedIn promises that more mobile updates are on the way and it has been pushing hard to keep its mobile apps fresh. Although updates tend to take a while to arrive, their frequency has certainly increased as of late.

Google’s New Algorithm-Hummingbird

Google has been around for fifteen years now, and Hummingbird is apparently the biggest thing they’ve done to algorithm in twelve.

What is Hummingbird and how do you know if it’s affecting your site’s ranking?

Hummingbird is the nickname that’s been assigned to update, 90 % of searches are affected. By comparison, that’s much higher than most of the Google algorithm updates we see from Google.

Google announced the algorithm update at a press event on Thursday along with some other interface and knowledge Graph tweaks. Hummingbird was described as the biggest algorithm change since the caffeine and that it is designed to let Google quickly parse entire questions and complex queries and return relevant answers, as opposed to looking at queries on a keyword-by-keyword basis.

In particular, Google said that “Hummingbird is paying more attention to each word in a query, ensuring that the whole query-the whole sentence or conversation or meaning-is taken into account rather than pages matching just a few words”.

A lot of people are worried about its impact and of course Panda and Penguin which we’ve been talking about all summer and even last year, are those dead? The answer to that seems to be, no, not entirely. They are using elements that they learned through Panda and Penguin in this new Hummingbird update.

This is really just an extension of Google’s ongoing strategy to become less dependent on keywords, which does have implications for SEO, and while webmasters may not have to worry about a major drop-off in rankings like with updates Panda or Penguin this could be more of an ongoing struggle for those competing to get on search results pages.

For now, according to Google (per Sullivan’s report), you don’t need to worry about anything, and Google’s normal SEO guidance remains the same.

Google launches new knowledge Graph

Google announced some new features in celebration of its fifteenth birthday. Google spoke about being able to process more complex queries, and part of that is evident in the new comparisons feature that presents Knowledge Graph facts side-by-side.

Just pull up your phone and say to Google: “Tell me the Expressionist artists”. You will see who the artists are and you can dive in to learn more about each of them and explore their most famous works. If you want to switch to Abstract artists, you can do that really easily with our new filter tool”.

The way Google is trying to build information about real world connections is by building a knowledge Graph. For example if we do a search for a famous person, it collect relevant data about them, such as their date of birth, how tall they are. One of the first features that are introduced which applies knowledge Graph is a panel next to the web results. On both the desktop and mobile devices, you can do searches.

Let’s say wanted to learn about the most important Renaissance painters, you might search for “Leonardo Da Vinci” because he is the only Renaissance painter you know about. Now you’ll see information right in the search results that helps you to explore broader topic of Renaissance painters. You’ll see the most famous paintings from that era, like the Mona Lisa and discover other painters at that time like Michelangelo and Raphael.

Google’s Amit Singhal says that “We keep expanding features of the knowledge graph so it can answer more questions-even those don’t have a simple answer. Our new comparison tool gives you new insights by letting you compose new answer.”

Google will soon launch an update to the Google search app for iPad and iPhone that will provide Now-based reminder notifications across devices. Google is also launching a new design for mobile search results and ads.

Google turns on secure search, except for Ad clicks

Google is now beginning to roll its encrypted secure search feature to more people. Earlier, secure search was only available to those who were signed into their Google accounts, now it’s working to make secure search the default for everybody even those who are not signed into a Google account.

In essence various sites are reporting that the “NOT PROVIDED” percentage of organic keyword referrals has jumped from 50-60% up to 95%, 99% or 100% , so sites are not able to pull full international statistics yet, but all signs point of SEOs and webmasters not being able to pull data on Google driven keyword traffic anymore.

Google’s latest move is interesting in the context of its own actions against the NSA as well as recent leaks regarding the agency’s activities. The leaked prism slides from early June revealed that the NSA can collect “notifications of target activity” and “special requests” both of which may involve searches, from the tech companies that are allegedly involved. If Google supplies encrypted searches to everyone, it may be able to slow down the pace at which the NSA can obtain search information from it.

The motivation here is not to drive the ads site-it’s for search users. It’s not still clear why Google seems to have ramped up things.

Android 4.4 KitKat will be out in October

A Posting to Nestle’s Facebook account in Germany Confirmed as “Android 4.4 KITKAT is available from October”

So what can we expect from the Android 4.4 Kitkat? Well, Google was elusive in a statement: “It’s our goal with Android Kitkat to make an amazing Android experience available for everybody”

As far as release date and timing, there’s been rumors floating around the net’s that Google could be planning to unveil the Nexus 5 as early as October and with that, the next version of Android 4.4 kitkat in the process.

The search giant has been in news ever since it announced the next iteration of its mobile operating system, with the Nexus 4 successor, which is expected to be the platform lead device for Android 4.4 jelly, making multiple appearances on the internet via FCC filling and image leaks.

The updated OS is expected to debut on Google’s upcoming Nexus 5, with updates being pushed out for the Nexus 4 and new Nexus 7 shortly after its official unveiling. Given that October is just around the corner, we imagine Google is getting prepared to send their press invites in which they’ll want to give attendees ample time to plan for the trip.

Google wallet app for all Android Phones

Google announced that they will release the newest version of Google Wallet this week to all Android phones running Android 2.3 or above.

What is this new app all about?

This new Google Wallet app will allow users to send money from anywhere using email addresses that have been linked to bank accounts, keep store loyalty cards in a locker of sorts with a quick scan of your card, find and use Google offers with ease and see all of your purchase activity in one place.

With the new Google wallet app, you can leave all your plastic loyalty cards at home and carry them on your phone. To add your cards simply scan the barcode or input the card number into the app. You can easily join new programs like Alaska Airlines, Belly and Red Mango within the Google wallet app. And coming soon, choose even more programs including Avis Car Rental, BJ’s Restaurants, Cosi, Hard Rock International, InterContinental Hotels Group, Marriott International, Raley’s and The Body Shop.

The app will still make purchases via tap-and-pay over NFC, but your phone-as was the case in the past-needs to be on their approved device list, which currently includes 29 different devices. Google did mention that they have more NFC-enabled devices on the horizon as they “continue to invest in NFC with partners”.

Continue to check the Play store, the new app will roll out this week or update your existing Wallet app.

Google webmaster tools-Link report now with more diverse data

Google announced they have improved the linkage data from Google webmaster tools “Links to your site” export option for “Download sample links”.

Earlier, the download sample links report downloaded a sampling of links in alphabetical order and stopped after a maximum of 100,001 links, it wasn’t that useful to users when they could get so many results from a single domain and there was no way to sort them.

Now the sampling of links is not done in alphabetical order, instead it is ordered in alphabetical order but rather it is now “sampled uniformly from the full spectrum of backlinks” said Google.

Shortly, when you download your data, you’ll notice a much broader, more diverse cross-section of links. Site owners looking for insights into who recommends their content will now have a better overview of those links and will find easier to see where to spend their time and effort.

This is a great change and has already gone live, so now you can download a better cross-section of your backlinks in Google webmaster tools.