SCOTIA SYSTEMS BLOG

Google have just announced that they’re currently rolling out new look search results as part of a new spring release.

The new look allows you to easily filter result by type, such as News, Images etc.  

They’ve also implemented some small colour palette changes to improve the interface.

The following video gives an overview of the interface changes, and uses an example search of “solar power” to show how to filter results with the new side menu.

Posted in Google | No Comments »
Tags: Google

As rumoured earlier, Google are now taking the Streetview cameras into businesses.   The idea being that you can now check out the inside a shop or a restaurant etc before actually visiting them.

Google have announced that they have professional photographers ready in 30 major cities across the US, Australia and Japan.   They also state that they’ll be rolling out to other countries soon.

The photographers will take panoramic shots within the business premises which will then be uploaded to Streetview.

Google adds that the idea isn’t new – because businesses have had the opportunity to upload their own photographs before.

You can see which cities are covered and further details of the roll-out in the Google Announcement.

View Larger Map

Posted in Google | No Comments »
Tags: Google, Streetview

As expected, on Friday Google officially announced that they’re now using web site speed as a ranking factor in their algorithms.

The announced came via a webmaster central blog post by Armit Singhal and Matt Cutts.

In the post they explain that the change to the algorithm was made a few weeks back and they don’t expect it to affect many sites (fewer than 1% of queries).

The reason given for the change is to improve the user experience and also reduce operating costs.

Check out our post over at SEOMoz for advice on how to improve your site speed for SEO.

Posted in Google, SEO | 1 Comment »
Tags: Google, SEO, Site Speed