Content Central Blog

We appreciate your interest

2011-05-31T14:27:00.000-07:00

Thanks to everyone who has been a loyal reader of this blog. After some consideration, we recognize that we're just not generating enough content here to warrant your time, so we won't be posting here any longer. We encourage you to visit our website to browse and access tools for sharing content, and the Webmaster Central blog for a timely dose of relevant news about content partnerships.

Posted by Rachel Durfee, Google Blog Team

Google and paid content

2009-12-03T11:55:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted from the Google News Blog.)

As newspapers consider charging for access to their online content, some publishers have asked: Should we put up pay walls or keep our articles in Google News and Google Search? In fact, they can do both - the two aren't mutually exclusive. There are a few ways we work with publishers to make their subscription content discoverable. Today we're updating one of them, so we thought it would be a good time to remind publishers about some of their options.

Google has strict policies against what's known as cloaking: showing one web page to the crawler that indexes it but then a different page to a user. We do this so that users aren't deceived into clicking through to a site that's not what they were expecting. While the anti-cloaking policies are important for users, they do create some challenges for publishers who charge for content. Our crawlers can't fill out a registration or payment form to see what's behind a site's paywall, but they need access to the information in order to index it.

One way we overcome this is through a program called First Click Free. Participating publishers allow the crawler to index their subscription content, then allow users who find one of those articles through Google News or Google Search to see the full page without requiring them to register or subscribe. The user's first click to the content is free, but when a user clicks on additional links on the site, the publisher can show a payment or registration request. First Click Free is a great way for publishers to promote their content and for users to check out a news source before deciding whether to pay. Previously, each click from a user would be treated as free. Now, we've updated the program so that publishers can limit users to no more than five pages per day without registering or subscribing. If you're a Google user, this means that you may start to see a registration page after you've clicked through to more than five articles on the website of a publisher using First Click Free in a day. We think this approach still protects the typical user from cloaking, while allowing publishers to focus on potential subscribers who are accessing a lot of their content on a regular basis.

In addition to First Click Free, we offer another solution: We will crawl, index and treat as "free" any preview pages - generally the headline and first few paragraphs of a story - that they make available to us. This means that our crawlers see the exact same content that will be shown for free to a user. Because the preview page is identical for both users and the crawlers, it's not cloaking. We will then label such stories as "subscription" in Google News. The ranking of these articles will be subject to the same criteria as all sites in Google, whether paid or free. Paid content may not do as well as free options, but that is not a decision we make based on whether or not it's free. It's simply based on the popularity of the content with users and other sites that link to it.

These are two of the ways we allow publishers to make their subscription content discoverable, and we're going to keep talking with publishers to refine these methods. After all, whether you're offering your content for free or selling it, it's crucial that people find it. Google can help with that.

Posted by Josh Cohen, Senior Business Product Manager

Your world, your base map

2009-10-07T09:30:00.000-07:00

Today we released new base map data for the U.S. in Google Maps, Google Earth and other Google services. We developed this map by integrating data from many sources, including datasets provided by government agencies and other organizations with an interest in making their mapping data widely available.

One such organization is the USDA Forest Service, which provides comprehensive and detailed data for all of the national forests within the U.S. Using this dataset, we've been able to show the boundaries of U.S. National Forest-managed forests and grasslands in our base map, making these lands more visible in Google Maps. We've also used Forest Service data to improve roads and trails on these public lands.

"An important part of the mission of the USDA Forest Service is informing the public about the forests and grasslands we manage. In order to achieve this, we want information about our lands to be accessible to as large an audience as possible," said David George, Geospatial Service and Technology Center, USDA Forest Service. "We are very pleased that Google has used our geospatial datasets to improve the base map in Google Maps and Google Earth so that everyone can easily discover, navigate and enjoy these public lands."

National parks, forests and other public lands in the Pacific Northwest, based on data from the USDA Forest Service, the U.S. National Park Service and other sources

We've also created the Base Map Partner Program to enable organizations with mapping data to contribute their data to Google Maps and Google Earth. This program, like those we've introduced for other map content types, offers organizations with mapping data -- and an interest in making it more visible and useful to internet users -- a straightforward process for adding this data to Google's services. We now provide specifications on the types and formats of base map or "vector" data we welcome, including new roads, housing developments, parcel data, points of interest and bike trails. We hope that organizations with mapping data, such as local governments, regional GIS consortia or real estate developers, will take this opportunity to improve and enrich our base map for their community.

If the opportunity is of interest to you, tell us about your organization and your data. If you don't have large datasets to provide, but do have edits to the map to suggest, then try our tool for easily suggesting edits.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Posted by Megan Quinn, Business Product Manager

Introducing the Google Merchant Center

2009-09-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted from the Google Merchant Blog.)

Today, we're excited to announce that we're launching the Google Merchant Center, which will replace Google Base for those of you submitting Product-type items to Google. If you submit products to Google, Google Merchant Center is now the place to upload your feeds, check on the status of your items, and get information on the performance of your listings.

Google Base is still available for other types of structured content, but the Merchant Center provides a better, optimized experience specifically for product listings. The Merchant Center is where we'll continue adding features and improving the tools for uploading and managing product listings.

In general, the Merchant Center interface is very similar to the Google Base interface, so we hope it's easy to transition. Sign in to the Merchant Center using the same Google Account information you did for Google Base. Your existing data feeds, items, FTP settings, etc. will be there for you.

For any non-product items you've submitted to Google Base, those will remain there and you can continue using Google Base to manage those items and settings. If you used the same account to submit both product and non-product items, you'll need to go into Google Base and reset your FTP settings. There's more info in the FAQs about this and other questions you may have.

As part of the launch of Google Merchant Center, this blog will be replacing the Google Base Blog. Please update your bookmarks and subscriptions, and visit us often!

Posted by Ioannis Kalafatis, Product Manager, Google Merchant Center

And please give a warm welcome to....the Map Content Partner Help Center

2009-09-28T10:18:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, we discussed how we've been taking steps to make it easier for government agencies and other organizations to add their authoritative mapping data to Google Maps and Google Earth. Since then, we've been working to expand our programs for map content partners so we can welcome additional types of mapping data. In support of these programs, and in response to feedback received during our participation earlier this year in a conference of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC), we've developed a help center just for organizations who contribute mapping data to Google.

Our goal in launching the Map Content Partner Help Center is to be as transparent as possible about the partnership and content licensing process, the types of map content we welcome, the data formats we're able to accept, and other questions we frequently hear. Through the help center, we also provide a few ways to contact our Map Content Partnerships team, whether you want to tell us about data you'd like to add to Google services or want to raise a specific question or issue related to our partnership.

Like all good online help services, we hope to keep this help center up-to-date to address the many -- and sometimes out of left-field -- questions you send our way about partnering with Google. It's not that we don't like to interact with our partners and field questions personally. It's the fact that we're developing these partnerships globally, there are only so many of us in our U.S.-based Map Content Partnerships Team, and we're only fluent in three languages (four if you count Canadian). So, in rolling out this help center, we are better able to communicate with organizations the world over -- currently in English, and soon in other languages, eh?

Posted by Dylan Lorimer, Content Partnerships

Place Pages for Google Maps: There are places we remember!

2009-09-24T16:30:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.)

Google Maps is a great tool for exploring places — you can pan around the map, zoom in and see nearby places, look around in Street View and search for whatever you want. But what I always wanted to do is be able to get a clear understanding of what a place is all about. Instead of doing the research all over the web, wouldn’t it be great to see all the information about one place in...one place?

Starting today, you can do that on Place Pages for Google Maps. A Place Page is a webpage for every place in the world, organizing all the relevant information about it. By every place, we really mean *every* place — there are Place Pages for businesses, points of interest, transit stations, neighborhoods, landmarks and cities all over the world.

You can get to a Place Page by clicking on "more info" in search results, or by clicking "more info" in the mini-bubble. Now, instead of just getting a slightly bigger bubble, you'll get an entire page of rich details, like photos, videos, a Street View preview, nearby transit, reviews and related websites.

Here are some of my favorite places, and what you can discover about them using Place Pages:

Tartine Bakery: My favorite bakery in the world. The "Place Summary" section compiles voices from all over the web praising the desserts but warning you about the lines. The "Details" section aggregates material from over 500 authoritative sources; for example, you can find the menu from Zagat.com. The "Related Maps" sections shows user-created maps that include this bakery, such as this delicious California dessert map.

Yoda statue: One of my childhood heroes in real size! The "User Content" section shows excerpts from all over the web describing this hidden little gem; "Nearby Transit" helps you find the best way to get there by public transport; and there’s even some useful local ads in case you want to get one of these at home.

Tokyo: I've spent a lot of time here lately as it's home to part of the Place Page team. On the city's Place Page, you can find out the most popular hotels, parks and major landmarks in Tokyo, browse local photos and videos, see what other people are searching for and access maps about the city from all over the web.

Zurich Hauptbahnhof: I’ve traveled through the central train station in Zurich several times over the last year, visiting the local team that made Place Pages possible. Place pages for transit stations are particularly useful because they'll show you a list of all the lines serving that station, as well as provide a timetable of upcoming departures.

As the Beatles' song in this post's title suggests, we want to make it easy to remember places: pages will come with a friendly URL that is easy to remember and link to under google.com/places. For example, the San Francisco Place Page will be found at google.com/places/us/california/san-francisco-city. Right now we include cities and most businesses, but we're working hard on bringing this to all Place Pages.

We want there to be a Place Page for every place in the world, but we might be missing a few places here and there. If you're a business owner, you can add or update your business details through the Local Business Center. This allows you to make sure your Place Page reflects the most accurate, authoritative and recent information about your business. And if you don’t have a business, but you discover a place that doesn’t have a Place Page, you can add it through community edits or Google Map Maker, depending on the country you’re in.

Whether you're searching for a great local florist or planning a trip across the globe, we hope Place Page for Google Maps makes your explorations easier and happier.

Posted by Lior Ron, Senior Product Manager, Place Page team

Supporting Facebook Share and RDFa for videos

2009-09-15T15:48:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted from the Webmaster Central Blog. Editor's note: If you have videos on your website, you'll likely find this blog post interesting. It offers insights into how to help Google discover and index video content. It's the first in a series of posts on the topic; you can follow the full series on the Webmaster Central Blog.)

Have you ever wondered how to increase the chances of your videos appearing in Google's results? Over the last year, the Video Search team has been working hard to improve our index of video on the Web. Today, we're beginning the first in a series of posts to explain some best practices for sites hosting video content.

We previously talked about the importance of submitting a Video Sitemap or mRSS feed to Google and following Google's webmaster guidelines. However, we wanted to offer webmasters an additional tool, so today we're taking a page from the rich snippets playbook and announcing support for Facebook Share and Yahoo! SearchMonkey RDFa. Both of these markup formats allow you to specify information essential to video indexing, such as a video's title and description, within the HTML of a video page. While we've become smarter at discovering this information on our own, we'd certainly appreciate some hints directly from webmasters. Also, to maximize the chances that we find the markup on your video pages, you should make sure it appears in the HTML without the execution of JavaScript or Flash.

So, check out Facebook Share and RDFa and help Google find your videos!

Facebook Share:

<meta name="title" content="Baroo? - cute puppies" />
<meta name="description" content="The cutest canine head tilts on the Internet!" />
<link rel="image_src" href="http://example.com/thumbnail_preview.jpg" />
<link rel="video_src" href="http://example.com/video_object.swf?id=12345"/>
<meta name="video_height" content="296" />
<meta name="video_width" content="512" />
<meta name="video_type" content="application/x-shockwave-flash" />

RDFa (Yahoo! SearchMonkey):

<object width="512" height="296" rel="media:video"
resource="http://example.com/video_object.swf?id=12345"
xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/searchmonkey/media/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/terms/">
<param name="movie" value="http://example.com/video_object.swf?id=12345" />
<embed src="http://example.com/video_object.swf?id=12345"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="512" height="296"></embed>
<a rel="media:thumbnail" href="http://example.com/thumbnail_preview.jpg" />
<a rel="dc:license" href="http://example.com/terms_of_service.html" />








</object>

Posted by Michael Cohen, Product Manager, Video Search Team

Introducing the Street View Partner Program

2009-08-17T14:19:00.000-07:00

Street View is one of the most popular features of Google Maps. It already lets you virtually behold amazing sights like Yosemite's El Capitan and the Roman Coliseum without ever leaving your computer. So it's no wonder that, practically since the feature launched, organizations have been asking us how they can be displayed in Street View. Street View users have also chimed in with excellent suggestions ranging from universities to tourist destinations to racetracks. We've worked hard to implement some of the best ideas, and today we launched some of our first Street View partners, including Legoland California, Thunderhill Raceway, Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, and San Diego State University.

To accommodate all the enthusiasm and allow for more great additions, we are also excited to introduce the Street View Partner Program. Now, any organization or business can apply to have their property featured in Street View. Street View is available from Google Maps, Google Earth, and Google Maps for Mobile, and provides a unique platform to showcase your property to millions of users around the globe.

If you are the owner or authorized property manager of a university, tourist destination, outdoor shopping center, or any other interesting location, please visit our partner website and sign up for consideration. Displaying your property in Street View provides a number of benefits:

Build your global audience and encourage visitors via the #1 mapping site in the world.
Add Street View of your location to your website using our API.
Show off your property to users who might otherwise not be able to visit you.
Best of all, it's free!

While we can't accept every property into the program, we are committed to providing Street View for as many interesting locations as possible. We even built new Street View vehicles, like the pedal-powered Trike, to easily and safely collect locations with pedestrians, delicate terrain, or narrow paths.

Now you can get on the map in a whole new way! To get started, visit our partner website to learn more about the program and submit your property for consideration.

Posted by Philippe Dauman Jr., Content Partnerships

Your country on Google

2009-06-09T15:05:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted from the Google Lat Long Blog.)

You've heard it before: Google is interested in partnering with government agencies to include specific types of mapping data in Google Maps and Earth. We've recently been focusing this partnership effort on national governments of developing world countries as well as international organizations active in these countries. We hope to complement the work of Google Map Maker's users, now rapidly mapping many developing world countries, by incorporating the authoritative data - such as political boundaries, aerial imagery and road centerlines - that governments and other public sector organizations are well positioned to provide.

If you belong to or are involved with one of these public sector organizations, our message is simple enough: Hundreds of millions of internet users have turned to Google Maps and Google Earth to better understand and navigate their world. We know that these users expect to find a complete and accurate map, whether they're looking for the location of a store in a major city in Europe or the route to a village in a corner of Africa. And so our goal is to provide accurate mapping data all over the world and present it in the world's most common langauges.

If you find that we don't offer a complete or accurate map of your country or a country where your organization operates, and if you have better data to share, we want to hear from you. Some concrete examples of the benefits of sharing your mapping data:

Tourism and economic development: high-resolution imagery and vector data exposes your country's diverse landscape to the rest of the world on Google Maps and Google Earth, encourages visitors, and improves our existing data. One popular way users interact with Google services is by posting photos of places they have traveled to so that others can see pictures of interesting places they'd like to visit, such as Machu Picchu in Peru, or the Sphinx in Egypt.

Trade: high-resolution imagery of modern, urban and commercial areas as well as imagery of natural resources can encourage interest in foreign direct investment. Vector data of populated places, points-of-interest, roads and other important data gives investors valuable information about how to navigate your country. For instance, in Panama, the recent promotion of Panamanian real estate to the international market could be supported by geographical data and visibility to the targeted audience through Google products.

Emergency services coordination: accurate mapping data like roads and place names is crucial for relief aid work in times of crisis and emergencies, such as natural disasters, and civil and international conflicts. For example, when Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar, Google was able to publish data on Google Maps that helped disaster response teams quickly provide aid to the regions that needed it the most.

Cultural heritage promotion: sometimes place names are in two or three different languages, dialects, or scripts; we can display them in each. Some examples are Belgium and Thailand.

It's also simple to work with us. In some cases, we are able to communicate with you in your local language and we may be able to work under local law when entering into a content license agreement.

If your organization or government agency has high-quality basemap data that you're interested in contributing to Google to improve the coverage and accuracy of geographic information available for your country, contact us and tell us more about your organization and your data. Help us give the world the opportunity to discover and understand your country as well as you do.

Posted by Naureen Kabir, Strategic Partnerships

The Local Business Center dashboard opens its doors

2009-06-05T11:08:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog. Editor's note: The new Local Business Center dashboard is only available to individual business owners that have verified they are business owners through the Local Business Center.)

If you're a local content partner, chances are you interact with local business owners regularly. They may be interested in learning about an exciting new tool that Google launched today, to help local business owners better understand how Google users interact with their listing.

If you're a local business owner, it's likely that Google plays a role in helping customers find you. And we're not just talking about your website — thanks to Google Maps and Google Search, you may also be getting a lot of online traffic to your business listing. You've probably seen one of these listings before:

You also probably know how they tend to work: A potential customer does a search on Google.com or in Google Maps, comes across your listing, clicks on it to see your reviews and details, and then gets directions to your location.

Now, imagine if there were a way for you to get a better understanding of how those customers are finding you. Did they search for "pizza" or "pasta" to get to the listing for your Italian restaurant? Do they live across town, but drive miles for your great selection of camping gear? What happens to traffic to your new dental practice when you start advertising in the local paper? With information like that, you'd be able to make better informed decisions on how to drive more traffic to your listing and attract more customers.

Later today, you'll be able to do just that, thanks to a new dashboard feature we're launching in the Local Business Center (www.google.com/lbc). The LBC is a free tool that enables business owners to control the content of their business listings as they appear in Google Search and Google Maps. All you have to do is claim your listing in the LBC and go through a quick verification process to get access to the following kinds of data:

Impressions: The number of times the business listing appeared as a result on a Google.com search or Google Maps search in a given period.
Actions: The number of times people interacted with the listing; for example, the number of times they clicked through to the business' website or requested driving directions to the business.

Top search queries: Which queries led customers to the business listing; for example, are they finding the listing for a cafe by searching for "tea" or "coffee"?
Zip codes where driving directions come from: Which zip codes customers are coming from when they request directions to your location.

The new dashboard will also let you dig into that data using all kinds of lists, maps, and graphs like this one, which measures impressions and actions for a hotel's business listing:

When you sign in to the LBC today, you'll find that we've already populated the dashboards for claimed listings with data from the last 30 days. After that, new information will be added every day, so you can check in often to see how things are going. We're also working hard to add more historical information, and to make this available for businesses outside the U.S. All the data we share through the dashboard will be anonymous and aggregated, to protect the privacy of Google users.

We're really excited to be able to open up this data to local business owners. Before now, you could track usage metrics on your website using a tool like Google Analytics, but data about how customers found you in other ways never got back to you. That all changes today, and we think business owners will really get a lot out of this new information. So if you're a local business owner and you feel the same way, be sure to check out this new dashboard.

To learn more about accessing and using the dashboard, take a look at the video below and then visit the Lat Long Blog for a more in-depth overview.

Posted by Amer Shahnawaz, Software Engineer, Local Business Center

Bring on the public data

2009-04-30T11:51:00.000-07:00

Two years ago today, Google announced an effort we'd initiated with a number of U.S. state governments, including California and Virginia, to make it easier for their citizens to locate information on state agencies' public websites through search engines. The problem we set out to solve is common to governments worldwide: The more information a government seeks to make available online in the form of public records, the more difficult it can be to house this information and ensure it's indexed by search engines--and thus found by the public for whom the records are intended. Since then, we've observed many governments taking up our proposed solution, providing search engine crawlers a sitemap. As a result, many millions of public records are now just one search away.

Earlier this week, we introduced an effort of a similar kind to make it easier for people to locate public data. Now, when our users search for the population of a U.S. state or the unemployment rate in a county in the U.S., we provide relevant statistics and graphs in the search results. Clicking these graphs opens a page that presents larger, interactive graphs that further illuminate the data and can be customized and shared. The data we present in this new search feature are drawn from datasets published by the recognized sources for such information, the U.S. Census Bureau's Population Division and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, respectively.

Our ambition with this new search feature is to enable our users to more easily find and use many more types of public data. How do we define public data? The first part is easy: By "public" we mean any data that an organization now offers, or would like to offer, for free public use, including in a commercial service like our public data search feature. Defining what we mean by "data" is more complicated, as we'd prefer not to limit the range of data that organizations could consider making available through this feature. However, in a contact form for organizations that want to tell us about their public data, we do offer some sense of scope and examples:

1. Statistical data: GDP per capita, average temperature, life expectancy

2. Raw data: building permits, reported car accidents, economic transactions

3. Reference data: registered vaccines, endangered species, classifications of types of crimes

4. Hierarchical data: diseases and their sub types like diabetes type 1 and type 2, primary economic sectors broken down into secondary sectors

5. Geographical data: political boundaries, rivers, ISO codes

We're now looking to identify data from recognized sources to consider adding to this feature. We're also seeking organizations that would like to help us determine how we can collectively develop the right data standards and technology for enabling broader access to and use of public data. If your organization has such data to share and you would like to work with us, tell us about your organization and your data. Of course we won't use any data that compromises the privacy of individuals or infringes upon any proprietary rights.

We look forward to hearing from government agencies, research institutes, non-profits and even private organizations. While we won't be able to individually reply to every party that contacts us, we may be in touch to learn more about your data.

Posted by JL Needham, Strategic Partnerships, and Manuel Tamez, New Business Development

Join Us on Maps: Instructional Video for Local Business Owners

2009-03-11T14:25:00.000-07:00

The Local Business Center allows business owners to edit the content of their existing listing, or to add a brand new listing to Google's local database. By ensuring that basic information is up-to-date and providing additional details, like photos, hours, and coupons, business owners can stand out on the map to attract more customers.

To make the process even easier, our Google Maps team put together a "Getting started" video that walks you through the sign-up process for the Local Business Center. With millions of people searching Google Maps, it’s smart to meet your potential customers where they are looking.

Posted by Steffanie Johnson, Strategic Partnerships

Video Sitemaps: Make your videos discoverable

2009-02-26T13:29:00.000-08:00

[Original Post by Amit Paunikar, Product Manager]

Indexing video content presents some unique challenges, and if you have videos on your site, you're probably wondering how to make sure your videos are discoverable through Google. We want video publishers to know that we've made it easier to submit your videos to Google. First, we've simplified the submission process for sharing your Sitemaps with Google. Second, we also extended our Video Sitemaps support to include Media RSS feeds. You do not have to specify the Sitemap file type—we'll determine the type of data you're submitting automatically.

The more information you make available, the easier it is for us to crawl your videos. Here are a few simple things you can include in your Sitemaps to make your videos easier to find:

1) Landing page URL: This is the page where the video is hosted. It's better to have a unique landing page for each video on your site.

2) Video thumbnail URL: Thumbnails provide a strong visual cue to the user. Your video thumbnail should be representative of a snapshot from the video, and should not be misleading in any way.

3) Title & Description: If these are accurate and descriptive, they not only help Google understand your video, but also help users choose the best video search result. Providing information about category, keyword tags and duration is always helpful.

Whether or not you have Video Sitemaps or MRSS feeds, of course, it's important that you make sure that Google can crawl and index your video sites correctly. Make sure you understand how Google crawls, indexes and serves the web. Review the Webmaster Guidelines that will help Google find, index and rank your site. We've also updated the Google Video Help Center to include more information for video publishers. While there's no guarantee that our spiders will find a particular site, following these guidelines should increase the chances of finding videos from your site in the search results.

We hope your videos find the audience they deserve. Take a look at our help content for Video Publishers and Webmasters to get started.

Posted by Steffanie Johnson, Strategic Partnerships

Taking in the view: Introducing Google's Imagery Partner Program

2009-02-05T09:56:00.000-08:00

When people think about Google Earth, they often think satellite imagery. Yet, since the early days of Google Earth, we've been working with local governments and other public sector organizations to add their aerial imagery (collected by a plane-mounted camera and used for their agency operations) as well. Thanks to this data sharing, we're able to offer our users a more current representation of thousands of communities and a higher resolution view of countless geographic features. With this week's launch of the historical imagery feature in Google Earth, we're now able to partner with public sector organizations and other imagery content providers to present users a view of their community or geographic features, such as mountains or lakes, evolving over time.

For organizations that would like to share their aerial imagery, we’ve just put out the welcome mat — a new website for our Imagery Partner Program where you can learn the ins and outs of adding your organization’s imagery to Google's services. As you'll see, we've learned from our partnerships with many governments and have structured this program to make it as easy as possible for your organization to license and deliver your data to Google. Wondering what aerial imagery formats we welcome or how we handle data transfer or other details? Visit the site and check out the FAQ.

Now that we've expanded the number of partner programs we offer, which already include the Cities in 3D Program and Google Transit Partner Program, we want to make it easier for you and your colleagues to learn and stay informed about all the ways you can add your map content to Google's services. Check out our new site for Map Content Partners, with the easy to remember URL, google.com/mapcontent, and spread the word.

Another reason to get on the map!

2009-01-16T13:44:00.000-08:00

[Cross-posted on Google Mobile Blog]

Is your business on the map? Millions of people look for businesses on Google Maps every day, and an increasing number of users are turning to their mobile devices to make real time location-based decisions. Last week, the Maps team launched a server-side change that makes it easier to get directions to businesses. A user can now get directions to restaurants, stores, and other points of interest by entering their names in the start or end point. Consider this example:

Until today, if a mobile user tried to get directions and entered a business name, "Starbucks" for example, as the end or start point, Google Maps for mobile did not understand that it meant Starbucks the business. Rather, Google Maps for mobile would search for an address with "Starbucks" in it. Google Maps for mobile now recognizes when a end or start point is a business and not an address.

What does this mean for you?

As we continue to improve the user experience on mobile devices, there is an ever increasing need for local businesses to be where their customers are...on the go! If you own or manage a business, please visit our website to learn how to create or edit a Google Maps business listing. You can add your hours of operation, photos and more. See you on the map!

Posted by Constantinos Michael, Software Engineer

Quick and easy tips for the holiday rush

2008-12-22T10:06:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted on Official Google Webmaster Blog)

Season's greetings, webmasters! We've compiled a list of quick and simple tips for websites preparing for the holiday rush. For online and offline retailers, we understand that your website is a big part of your business, especially this time of year. Whether it's to make the sale online or to increase foot traffic to your brick-and-mortar location, your web presence is a critical part of your business plan. The tips below are fast, free, and can make a big difference.

Verify that your site is indexed by Google (and is returned in search results)
Check your snippet content and page titles with the site: command [site:example.com] -- do they look accurate and descriptive for users? Ideally, each title and snippet should be unique in order to reflect that each URL contains unique content. If anything is missing or you want more details, you can also use the Content Analysis tool in Webmaster Tools. There you can see which URLs on your site show duplicate titles or meta descriptions.

Label your images accurately
Don't miss out on potential customers! Because good 'alt' text and descriptive filenames help us better understand images, make sure you change non-descriptive file names [001.jpg] to something more accurate [NintendoWii.jpg]. Image Search is one of our largest search properties, so you should take advantage of it.

Know what Google knows (about your site)
Check for crawl errors and learn the top queries that bring traffic to your site through Webmaster Tools. See our diagnostics checklist.

Have a plan for expiring and temporary pages
Make sure to serve accurate HTTP status codes. If you no longer sell a product, serve a 404. If you have changed a product page to a new URL, serve a 301 to redirect the old page to the new one. Keeping your site up-to-date can help bring more targeted traffic your way.

Increase foot traffic too
If your website directs customers to a brick-and-mortar location, make sure you claim and double check your business listing in Google Local.

Usability 101
Test the usability of your checkout process with various browsers. Ask yourself if a user can get from product page to checkout without assistance. Is your checkout button easy to find?

Tell us where to find all of your web pages
If you upload new products faster than Google crawls your site, make sure to submit a Sitemap and include 'last modification' and change frequency' information. A Sitemap can point Googlebot to your new or hard-to-find content.

Manage your sitelinks
Your site may be triggering Sitelinks in the search results, so check the links and make sure the destination pages are fully functional. Remember: in Webmaster Tools you can remove any sitelinks that you don't think users will find useful.

Don't forget to check out these additional resources:

Read our recently released SEO Starter Guide.
Watch our Tutorials for Webmasters.
Find out what information Google has about your website in Webmaster Tools.
Get your other questions answered in our Webmaster Help Center.
Ask your last-minute questions in the Webmaster Help Forum.
Countdown to 2009!

Posted by Matt Dougherty, Search Quality Team

A one-two-three on licensing your content to Google

2008-12-16T12:59:00.000-08:00

(Cross-posted with the Google Lat Long Blog)

With Google Maps and Google Earth, we strive to provide our users with the most comprehensive, accurate and compelling representation of the world. We believe that integrating the geospatial data produced by governments and other public sector organizations is vital to achieving these goals. The positive effects of governments using Google Maps and Earth to share their geospatial data are many, but this post isn't for our standard sales pitch. Rather, my purpose is to address a specific question that we hear over and over from organizations around the world: "What's the process for licensing our geospatial data to Google?"

Glad you asked. There are three steps to licensing--or granting Google the legal rights--to publish your organization's geospatial data on our services:

Step 1: Tell us about your organization and the data you have to share.

The best way to tell us about you and your content is to fill out our contact form. The more details you provide the better, so that we can determine if your content is a fit with our services.

Step 2: Sign our content license agreement.

If your content is a fit, we will send you our content license agreement that you and your organization's legal authority can review and agree to accept. It's with this agreement that you affirm that your organization has the necessary rights to provide the content to Google. The agreement also defines what Google will and won't do with your content.

For governments, we offer a "government-friendly" version of this content license agreement that is tailored to the unique legal status of public sector organizations. In some countries, we're able to provide this agreement in a "click-to-accept" format. We send you an invitation by email to review this online document and you can just click to agree to the terms. For other countries, we email you a conventional paper agreement. In all cases, we strive to keep the process simple for your organization and Google, and to eliminate the need for negotiations over legal terms, so that we can quickly get to work integrating your geospatial data on our services.

Step 3: Provide the content to Google.

Once you've clicked or signed to accept the content license agreement, we will work with you to get your content transferred to us. Our preferred method for transferring geospatial data is to download the datasets from your FTP/HTTP(S) server. Alternatively, you can send your data on DVD, or, for larger datasets, we can arrange to ship you a hard drive that you can send back to us at your convenience.

That's the whole process. And when done right, it can happen very fast!

If you're interested in hearing more about how to add your geospatial data to Google Maps and Earth, listen to a recent Very Spatial podcast in which a couple members of our Content Partnerships team discuss Google's efforts to partner with governments around the world.

Posted by Michael E. Jones, Content Partnerships

Only 27 Shopping Days Until Christmas!

2008-11-28T10:52:00.000-08:00

For many merchants who are submitting items to Google Product Search, the holiday season is the year's biggest shopping season. Over the past months, we've launched a bunch of new additions to your Google Base account that you can leverage to help you get the most of your Google Product Search feeds this holiday. They can help you improve the quality of your data feeds, prioritize the types of data to send to us, and help more shoppers find your products.

Include tax and shipping information
You can now submit tax and shipping information for your products via your Google Base account. We have started displaying this information on Google Product Search to provide buyers with more accurate price information. Buyers use tax and shipping estimates to help them determine what to buy and which merchant to buy it from, so we strongly encourage all merchants to submit this data. Here's more information on how to do so.

Give the data quality tab a spin
We recently added a new "Data Quality" tab in your Google Base account. On this tab, you'll find a host of suggestions for improving the quality of the item listings in your product feed. For example, you can find recommendations on the length of your title and description fields, or get a snapshot of the number of items in your feed that are missing key attributes. By addressing these issues, you'll be able to improve the quality of your feeds and help more shoppers find your products.

Use our new taxonomy
We also recently unveiled our new categorization system that you can use for describing the product type of your items. We recommend that you use the category paths and values from this new product taxonomy when including the product_type attribute. This is an optional attribute that you can use to indicate the category (or categories) of the product being sold.

If you're not currently submitting feeds to Google Product Search, you can get started right away by using existing feeds you've prepared for other shopping engines, saving you time and effort. You can take advantage of this option when you register a data feed in your account, when you'll have the opportunity to chose from a drop-down list of feed formats. Remember, it's free to submit products to Google Product Search, and it's a great tool you can use to reach shoppers when they are searching on Google for gifts this holiday. For more information on Google Product Search, visit our Information for Sellers page.

Posted by Jessica Ng, Product Marketing Manager, Google Product Search

Share information securely with your users on iGoogle

2008-11-19T10:21:00.000-08:00

Following the recent iGoogle launch, today we announced new gadgets from MySpace, AOL, and Google Book Search. Users can read, manage, and compose AOL Mail messages, see their updates and inbox from MySpace , and manage their Google Book Search library collection.

To make this happen, the iGoogle team implemented a new authentication feature for gadgets called the OAuth Proxy. OAuth is a relatively new privacy-preserving security standard that defines how a user can give consent for their data on one website to be accessed by another website (or in this case a gadget running on iGoogle). This consent is done without iGoogle ever seeing the user's password on the other site, such as their AOL or MySpace password, and the gadget displays the user's data from the other site without storing any of it on Google's own servers (read more details about OAuth on our Security Blog).

While we started by working with a limited set of partners, this feature is open to sites of all shapes and sizes. So, if you work for an airline, a bank, an e-commerce vendor, or run a small web service and your users could benefit from easy access to their private information, please create an OAuth-enabled gadget. To do so, this overview will get you started on exposing an API that can be accessed using OAuth. If you already know which OAuth-enabled API you want to access, you can jump directly to the gadgets documentation. Additionally, to include a canvas view in your gadget, please see these instructions.

Posted by Don Loeb, Content Partnerships

Unlocking access to millions of books

2008-10-28T10:37:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted on the Inside Google Book Search blog.)

We've always said that in a sense, Google Book Search is as old as Google itself. Back in their Ph.D. days, Larry and Sergey dreamed of a way to make it easier for anyone, anywhere, to access the information held within the world's books.

Today, we're excited to announce an agreement with U.S. authors and publishers that dramatically expands access to millions of books online, taking us one big step closer to fulfilling that dream. If approved by the Court, this agreement will unlock access to millions of out-of-print books to the benefit of users, authors and publishers.

To read more about the agreement, head over to the Official Google Blog. To read more about what this means for users, check out our microsite.

Posted by Adam M. Smith, Director, Product Management

Branded Entertainment

2008-10-24T11:00:00.000-07:00

Here at Google, we're always trying to come up with innovative ways to support the discovery and monetization of partner content and provide positive advertiser experiences. One good example of this is Google Branded Entertainment (BE), a cross-functional initiative that combines the appeal of original, advertiser-friendly YouTube partner content with the distribution power of the Google Content Network to present a win-win scenario for content creators and their sponsors.

Last month, Google BE got a big boost with the launch of two new campaigns. The first, Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy, consists of 50 2-minute animated comedy shorts produced by Media Rights Capital and crafted by Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane for exclusive release on the web. The second, PopTub, is Embassy Row's daily dish show covering the latest and greatest in the world of online video. For both projects, Google worked with the content creators to put together a pitch package outlining the mega-distribution options available for potential sponsors. The BE media plan options available include Google Gadget Ads, YouTube InVideo and banner ads, YouTube homepage ads, and YouTube Promote Your Video units.

A key component of the Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade and PopTub campaigns is the 300x250 Gadget Ad, which can be demo-targeted and blasted out across YouTube and Google Content Network (GCN) sites in areas reserved for AdSense ads in order to reach the content's most likely audience. While MacFarlane's shorts and PopTub's videocasts are being hosted on their branded YouTube partner channels, the videos are being distributed in gadgets across the web in order to deliver impressions and get the content out to users on multiple sites.

Another important element in these campaigns is the ability to integrate the sponsor's brand. In the case of Cavalcade, MacFarlane drew up customized animated pre-rolls for sponsor Burger King that feature "The King" running away from multiple dangers - including being chased by tribesmen trying to shoot him with poison darts – and wrap with a "Presented By Burger King" logo. The whole intro takes about 15 seconds and is entertaining to watch. A Burger King brand channel was also launched on YouTube, featuring the 10 Cavalcade shorts they are sponsoring, plus drawn MacFarlane logos and a sweepstakes where the winner will be given a chance to buy Seth MacFarlane dinner at Burger King; it's a prize certain to make fans of The Family Guy salivate. For PopTub, branding for sponsor Pepsi was incorporated into the banner design of the partner channel and into links that appear within the videos encouraging viewers to visit the channels of the YouTubers being reviewed in the show. The Cavalcade/Burger King and PopTub/Pepsi brand integrations represent exactly the way advertisers should be looking to integrate themselves into online video to minimize drop-off and maximize unaided recall with viewers.

As we continue to review the successes of these current campaigns, we see significant promise in Branded Entertainment as a creative and technology-packed solution for creators and advertisers looking at online video. Through BE, Google looks forward to seeing more entities like these bring fresh, engaging content experiences to users.

Posted by The YouTube Content Partnerships and Google Branded Entertainment teams

A new look for your dynamic content

2008-10-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

Tens of millions of users visit iGoogle to stay up-to-date on news, get updated weather information, and even play games.

With this week's launch of the new canvas view in iGoogle, users will get an even richer experience. For instance, users can now get news and video from The New York Times, full-sized comics (yeah, Doonesbury!) from GoComics.com, TV listings from TVGuide, gas price information from GasBuddy.com, and cool videos and stories from Current News. A gallery of some of the newest gadgets that take advantage of the canvas view is here.

Wondering what you can do with a canvas view gadget? Want to drive traffic or monetize your distributed content? Do any of the above gadgets inspire you? (Good! Glad we're not talking to ourselves.) Please see our handy how to guide and the iGoogle Developer Blog for tips, tricks, and all the information you need to create a compelling experience.

Questions, comments, or have a favorite gadget? Post it in the comments!

Posted by Don Loeb, Content Partnerships team

Google Book Search Goes to the Frankfurt Book Fair

2008-10-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

It's October, which means it's time again for the publishing world to assemble in Frankfurt, Germany for the annual Frankfurt Book Fair. One of the largest book industry events of the year, the show has a rich history going back to the 15th century, when Johannes Gutenberg invented movable type only a few miles down the road.

For the Google Book Search team, Frankfurt is an opportunity to meet with publishers from all over the globe. We'll be holding meetings and giving talks to present Book Search to those who want to learn more about the program; for publishers already enrolled in Book Search, this week will be a time to get program updates, learn about new features, and spend time with their account managers.

One exciting announcement is a new set of tools that allows website owners to embed Book Search previews right into their site. For publishers and authors, this means that books can now be discovered and purchased by users all over the web; for website owners, these tools provide the opportunity to enhance site content and encourage users to interact with that content in new ways. With the traditional Book Search security measures in place, these Google-hosted book previews are being embedded on retailer, library, social networking, publisher and author sites. At Frankfurt, we'll be showing publishers how we've already partnered with a number of online booksellers to enable preview functionality for their sites, so that readers will be able to browse content while shopping online for books.

We're excited to discuss these developments with our publisher partners, and to see these tools aid us in our aim to match readers with books. If you are interested in learning more about these embedded book previews, partnerships and free tools, take a look at our post on the official Book Search Blog.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Posted by Genevieve Brennan, Google Book Search Team

Getting out the vote in Ohio

2008-10-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

(Cross-posted on the Google Public Policy blog. We partner with and provide tools to government agencies worldwide to help ensure our users are able to find the information and services provided by their government. Among these efforts is making it easier for voters in the US to register to vote and locate their voting location.)

As election day approaches on November 4, Google is working with state and local election officials across the country to make voter information as widely available and as accurate as possible. Today, we announced a big step forward in that effort with the State of Ohio.

Thanks to the leadership of Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, Ohio is the first state to make comprehensive voting information available through our U.S. Voter Info Guide, a searchable database of election information powered by Google Search and Maps.

In addition, when voters in Ohio do a Google search for “where to vote” or “where to register," they will be directed to maps.google.com/vote, where they can enter their addresses and find registration information, absentee and early vote details, and their polling place.

Our guide already includes voting locations for a number of states and the District of Columbia, and we are aiming to have voting information for all 50 states added by mid-October. We hope that this tool will equip voters with the information they need to make it to the polls on election day. Don't forget to vote!

Posted by Ginny Hunt, Google Elections Team

Opening the door to geospatial data

2008-09-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered how your organization could add your geospatial data, such as aerial imagery or places of interest, to Google Maps and Google Earth? Maybe you're using the Google Maps API and want to enrich our basemap with your own data. Or perhaps you'd just like to expand the reach of your organization's investment in GIS (geospatial information systems) by putting this data in places where people in your community are more likely to encounter it. You are not alone.

Some of us in Google's Public Sector Content Partnerships team attended the recent ESRI International User Conference where we met hundreds of local government GIS managers and others who eat, sleep and breathe GIS data. There was one comment we heard over and over: "We'd like to share data with Google, but we don't know how to contact anyone there."

Admittedly, we haven't done a great job of explaining how to get your GIS data into Google's services--like what types of data we welcome and in which formats and at what quality level. But we're working on it, as you'll see in two these examples:

Earlier this year we introduced the Cities in 3D Program through which we invite local governments, community groups and educational institutions to take ownership of the 3D representation of their community on Google Earth. In a video tour of "Cities in 3D" and case studies of successful 3D modeling projects, this site makes the case for producing and sharing 3D models as a tool for planning and economic development, for fostering tourism or merely to simplify navigation. The site, which was recently made available in multiple European languages, also explains the steps to undertaking a 3D modeling project and includes a spec of the various data formats we welcome. And, of course, the Cities in 3D program site includes a contact form where an organization can tell us about 3D data (as well as aerial imagery and terrain data) they'd like to share.

Another example of how we're opening the door to making GIS data available to Google users is the Voting Information Project. Google is a founding partner in this initiative to make it easier for voters in the U.S. to find information online about registering to vote, locating a polling place, and knowing what to expect when you get there. Thanks to data shared by election officials in a growing number of jurisdictions, we're now able to point voters to their polling place on Google Maps and provide other relevant voting info.

So, the door is open. If your organization has 3D data to share, or would be interested in learning how to produce a 3D model of your community, we'd like to hear from you. If your organization provides official election information, including polling places, and you would like to ensure voters in your jurisdiction can readily find this info on Google Maps, check out the Voting Information Project's open format for election data sharing and let the VIP team know what you have to offer. And if you've got other GIS data types to share, just tell us about your interest at gisdata@google.com or stay tuned to the Content Central blog as we offer additional information about how to add your GIS data to Google services.

Posted by JL Needham, Manager of Public Sector Content Partnerships