Google Viewer for Gmail Attachments

Last month, I mentioned that Gmail links to a new viewer for PDF attachments, powered by Google Docs. It turns out that Google’s viewer doesn’t work only for PDF files and Google intends to replace the outdated “view as HTML” option with a proper application.Right now, you can use Google Viewer for PDF, DOC and PPT attachments, but the option is enabled by default only for PDF files. Here’s… Continue reading

Google blogging in 2008

Every year right about now we round up our blogging activity across Google. Ready? Here goes.This is our 368th post of the year on the main Google blog, which is 23% more than in 2007. In addition to more posts, we are thrilled to know that we have many more readers now — 78% more, to be exact. The number of unique visitors jumped from 6,738,830 last year to more… Continue reading

Google Simplifies the Format for Video Results

After removing the useful option to play videos inline*, Google no longer displays the duration and the rating for universal video results. Here’s the same YouTube video in 2007, when Google launched universal search, and today. The only difference between video results and regular web pages is that videos have thumbnails and the options to find similar pages and to see the cached version aren’t included… Continue reading

Translate Google Maps Reviews

Google Maps has a new option that automatically translates reviews written in a foreign language. This is especially useful if you are planning to visit a different country and most of the reviews are not available in a language that you speak. Here’s a list of results for [bistro, paris, france] in the English interface of Google Maps and a search for [pizza ny] in the French… Continue reading

A grateful season

The holidays are a time for giving, and Googlers across the globe have found some creative ways to give back to their communities this season. From raising money and crafting greeting cards to building gingerbread houses and giving blood, Googlers from east to west have been busy spreading good cheer. We’ve highlighted just a few of these efforts here, and we’re looking forward to many more opportunities to give back… Continue reading

One Week Until Macworld

With one week until the start of Macworld, we wanted to give you a glimpse of what to expect at Google’s booth.

At any given time, there will be plenty of Googlers at our booth available to answer questions about any Google software made for Mac or iPhone.  Demo stations will be placed throughout the booth so that attendees can try out Google software on their… Continue reading

Japanese WMC Blog launched

Konnichiwa! Hajimemashite! *Hello, Nice to meet you!We just launched a new Webmaster Central Blog in Japanese. For those of you who feel more comfortable reading Japanese, and are interested in webmaster-related information from Google, and even learning about issues specific to our region and language, we hope you enjoy on our Japanese version of the Webmaster Central Blog Written by Naoko Imai, Search Quality Team

Oxymoronic Google Trends

Randall Munroe from xkcd imagines some correlations between Google searches and people that are unlikely to use them. The #1 US state for [men kissing] is indeed Utah, but the other correlations are made up.Tip: track the fastest rising queries from your region using the Insight for Search gadget. { Image licensed as Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial. }

Feliz Navidad from the Spanish Webmaster Central team!

About three and a half months ago we kicked off the Spanish Webmaster Central blog hoping to reach many webmasters. Given the time of the year, we would like to say a big ¡Muchas Gracias! to all our readers.It’s been both a pleasure and a great opportunity for us to share our knowledge and hear your feedback. A few of this year’s highlights:For the blog, we had:

• Matt Cutts talking

Predictions for Google’s 2009

1. 10% market share for Google Chrome.2. Google’s search engine will lose a significant amount of market share as Live Search’s position will consolidate.3. Google’s Q&A service, used to implement Google help forums, will become a part of Google Apps.4. GrandCentral will be publicly available in the US and the interface will integrate with Gmail.5. Google will launch a mobile browser for feature phones and non-Android smart phones.6… Continue reading