Google Search has seen lots of changes in the past years, but none were as drastic as the changes introduced over the course of the last year. Even if you blend out all the search experiments like instantly updating search results that are only visible to a minority of users, you are left with a [...]

Categories: Uncategorized

Not all change is good, and it is often better to keep a system as is, than to add self proclaimed innovative features that many users might not want. Google has made lots of changes to Google Search in the past, and while some of them made sense, others did not. Google’s latest experiment is [...]

Categories: Google, Search Engines

Leveraging search engines to identify vulnerable systems and data in corporate networks, websites and services is generally known as Google Hacking, with Google standing synonymous for all search engines. Recent changes in Google’s SOAP-API rendered many security tools using Google useless. The aim of the Diggity project is to provide security researchers and network admins [...]

Categories: Google, Hacking, Security

One aspect of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the monitoring of search results in popular search engines. This can be done manually with some preparation, or automatically with search engine tracking software. While SEO’s usually do not have a problem assessing the position of a site in a standard ten results search engine results page, [...]

Categories: Browsing, Firefox, Google Chrome

Yahoo and Microsoft have been testing Bing powered search results offline for some time now. A recent email sent out to advertisers confirmed that the testing will be moved to the live search results shortly. During that period part of Yahoo’s Live search results will be powered by Bing, “with paid search volume in particular [...]

Categories: Microsoft, Search Engines, Yahoo

Imagine the surprise of a close relative when they were greeted by an iGoogle page instead of the classic Google homepage after opening their web browser. The search page looked slightly different. The Google logo now read iGoogle and a message below the search box told them that they have been signed out and needed [...]

Categories: Google, Search Engines

I switched to Bing recently and had my fair share of experience with Microsoft’s search engine. The main reason for switching was a deterioration of quality results in Google Search. It began in May and has not changed since then. That, and the noise that has been added to search result pages over the past [...]

Categories: Search Engines

The introduction of encrypted search at https://www.google.com/ a month ago has increased the privacy of search engine visitors by preventing people from intercepting search terms and results. Encrypting all communication between the client’s computer and Google Search had a few side effects though. It was for one not possible to use all Google services. Google [...]

Categories: Google, Search Engines

Google has made lots of changes to its search website in the past year. A few of the noteworthy, and often distracting changes, include the new fade-in homepage which only displays the search form until the visitor moves the mouse, the sidebar that is displayed on search result pages or design changes to buttons and [...]

Categories: Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera, Search Engines