DSC discusses Google’s Mobile Search Results.
One of the big stories this week seems to be the antitrust charges to be filed against Google. As recent news has suggested, it seems that Google’s attempts to settle and avoid charges have failed and they can expect to see a fine of around 6 billion dollars (£4bn). That’s around 10 per cent of Google’s annual revenue.
The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal have some pretty decent information on the topic, or you could head over to The Washington Post for a deeper look into the “tough cookie” that started it all.
On that topic, Google also reportedly cited incorrect traffic data in a blog post attempt at defending themselves. The post has been updated now, but Google is no doubt a little red faced over the matter that has been deemed an honest mistake by some, an attempt to manipulate data by others.
Heading over to mobile news (don’t worry, we’re not going on about mobilegeddon again), Google have begun replacing the URL in the search snippet on mobile searches with the site name and breadcrumb path. They’ve been experimenting with this for years, but it seems they’ve settled on it and the breadcrumbs are currently rolling out worldwide.
You might need to wait a little longer to see the site name change, however, as it’s only in the US at present.
Google have also announced that app install buttons may appear in users’ search results if they’re performing a Google search on an Android device. This applies if you’ve implemented App Indexing and your indexed content is relevant to the search. You can have a read about that here. Okay that’s kind of related to mobilegeddon, sorry.
Finally, Google revealed a new novelty feature for finding lost phones this week. In a nutshell, if you have the Google app and you’re logged into your Google account on both your phone and a computer, then you can find the mobile from your desktop. Simply search the phrase “find my phone” on Google and a map appears which should find your device.
There’s also an option to tell Google to ring your phone for you – so it could even work if it’s simply lost under the bed somewhere. Note, Google ‘should’ find your phone – neither the map nor the option to ring worked on my device. Perhaps it’s just my phone!
