Raise Your Marketing IQRaise Your Marketing IQ

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Maybe you’re a great programmer or IT professional, but marketing isn’t your thing. Or perhaps you’re a tech-savvy search engine marketer who wants a peek under the hood of a search engine optimized web site. Searc… More >>

Professional Search Engine Optimization with PHP: A Developer’s Guide to SEO

• ISBN13: 9780136068686
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• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

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The #1 Step-by-Step Guide to Search Marketing Success…Now Completely Updated with New Techniques, Tools, Best Practices, and Value-Packed Bonus DVD!
“My copy of the first edition of Search Engine Marketing,… More >>

Search Engine Marketing, Inc.: Driving Search Traffic to Your Company’s Web Site

Web users perform billions of searches every year, leaving the folks at Google with a fount of interesting information. When the year ends, GOOG rounds it all up into their yearly zeitgeist. This year, Twitter and Michael Jackson lead the way.

A bit more about how Google puts their zeitgeist together:

To compile the 2009 Year-End Zeitgeist, we studied the aggregation of billions of queries people typed into Google search this year. We use data from multiple sources, including Insights for Search, Google Trends and internal data tools. We also filter out spam and repeat queries to build out lists that best reflect “the spirit of the times.” All of the search queries we studied are anonymous-no personal information was used.

The Google Zeitgeist always provides an interesting overview of what was on our minds in any given year, so give it a look and share what interesting finds you can dig up in the comments.

Ctrl+K puts your cursor in the always-visible Firefox search box. Chrome’s omnibox searches Google by default when you don’t enter a URL. Every browser has a built-in search box, so why would anyone ever go to the Google homepage?

Yesterday we showed you how to make the minimalist, fading Google homepage your default, but we can’t help but wonder: What’s the point?

Do You Ever Use the Google.com Homepage to Search the Web?(polls)

Give us more specifics for your answer in the comments.

Grabbing Dropbox files from a web browser got a bit easier overnight, as the file synchronizing service added search, bulk operations for separate items, Gmail-style keyboard shortcuts, and a mobile interface for non-iPhone browsers to its web site.

The site as a whole got a visual overhaul, actually, but what established Dropbox users are going to most appreciate is the ability to create new ZIP-ed packages of different files—a few files, one or two folders, and maybe that picture, all at once—and grab them. The Dropbox team also added a search bar and “Gmail-style keyboard shortcuts,” although we haven’t seen a guide to those shortcuts as of yet.

Update: Reader Samuel points out that keyboard shortcuts are something you have to enable from the “Other Preferences” section of your Account settings on Dropbox’s web site. Once you do, hitting “?” brings up the shortcut list you see here. Very Gmail-like indeed.

The non-iPhone mobile version, assuming I’m seeing it on my Android model, works fairly well, providing quick access to files and recent changes. We’re still waiting on a dedicated iPhone app—submitted for Apple’s approval about four weeks ago—but these changes, mobile and otherwise, are a nice step forward for grabbing files when you’re at a non-synced computer or on your mobile device.

Google’s actual web-based search home page isn’t a primary interface for most experienced web browsers these days, and its dimensions were definitely set before high-resolution, wide-screen monitors came along. So Google bumped up its size, making the search box bigger and the font sizes larger for text input and search suggestions. Small, but definitely helpful change.

What’s better than a search box with two buttons? A bigger search box with two buttons, says Google.

Today the search giant implemented and announced a subtle but noticeable change to the size of the search text field on the Google home page: it’s bigger. It also features a larger font size as you type in the field, with correspondingly larger text for Google Suggest results below (that are occasionally good for a laugh).

The company says the reason behind the change is to remind us that Google’s focus is on search. That’s a relief, because with that smaller text box in place before, we just weren’t sure. Check out a visual comparison of the before and after below.

The change is interesting in light of Google’s recent patent on its minimalist homepage interface… that the company is now changing. Of course, it’s not the first time Google has tweaked the homepage, and if you’re interested, here’s a slideshow timeline showing off the various changes through the years.

What do you think: does a larger textbox make the search engine more “fun to use”? Or if we hadn’t told you, would you even have noticed?

Tags: Google, Search, UI, web design