A peek into our search factory

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience</span><br /><br />Today we hosted an informal gathering -- a factory tour of sorts -- to offer a glimpse into what we think is most exciting about search, and where innovation is most likely to come from. We also gave an update on Google Health.<br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BraxN10dHmU&hl=en"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BraxN10dHmU&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object><br /><br />On the search front, we wanted to share news about the way we think search is expanding. When we talk about search, we mean images, news, finance, books, local, and geographical information as well as web search. These media types are becoming more and more integral in our core universal search, but each presents its own challenges, innovations, and triumphs. Today R.J. Pittman, Director of Search Properties, showed some of the amazing advances we've made in image search -- we now offer an early form of face recognition on advanced search, for example -- as well as how ads might work to enhance the user experience on image search. He also demonstrated the interesting innovative technologies that Google News has deployed to support features like <a title="quotes from newsmakers" href="http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&qsid=an4ad4P71nIJ" id="k-9j">quotes from newsmakers</a> and better quality search for local news.<br /><br />Carter Maslan, Director of Local Search Quality, talked about our Geo products (Maps and Earth and their features) and the fact that they represent a considerable search problem: how do you take all of the information about the physical world and make it searchable? How do you label disputed borders? How can Street View help you <i id="r11v0">find </i>where you are going? Google Earth has helped archaeologists find things they've looked for for years (i.e. a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4267238.stm" id="rhur" title="Roman villa in someone's backyard">Roman villa in someone's backyard</a>). User-generated content is the rage right now, but in addition to entertaining shared videos and photos, the user-generated content that we're seeing on geo products is profoundly useful and helps us better understand the world.<br /><br />Then, we turned to core search quality and got the latest update on web search from Johanna Wright, Director of Search Quality. It's amazing to me how sophisticated web search has become in such a short period of time. We've accomplished a lot with universal search this past year by bringing new form and function to our results page. Now, our search quality team is turning its attention toward the ever-elusive "user intent" ("this is what I typed, here's what I meant"). This will help us make universal search even more useful. You'll get pictures or maps when that's what you meant. Understanding user intent also helps us break down language barriers and find the best possible answer regardless of what language it's in or where it lives on the web.<br /><br />In terms of new products, we made<a title="Google Health" href="http://www.google.com/health" id="h72z"> Google Health</a> publicly available. It offers users a safe and secure way to collect, store, and manage their medical records and health information online. How many of us have touched, or even seen, our medical records? In this day and age of information, isn't it crazy that you don't have a copy of your medical records under your control? You could use those records to develop a better understanding of your health and ultimately get better care. It's your data about your own health; why shouldn't you own and control it?<br /><br />Back in February, I <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/google-health-first-look.html" id="zraq" title="wrote">wrote</a> about how Google Health will harness the power of the Internet to put users in control of their own medical records. Data will stay with you -- if you change doctors, want a second opinion, if you're traveling -- and not stay siloed or stuck in files or databases that you can't get to. To break down these information silos, we launched Google Health today with several <a href="https://www.google.com/health/directory?cat=importrecords" id="f37l" title="partners">partners</a> and <a href="https://www.google.com/health/directory?cat=healthservices" id="ilrd" title="third party services">third party services</a> already integrated. These partners are as committed as we are to solving this urgent need. Our flagship partners include everyday brand names such as <a href="http://www.walgreens.com/">Walgreens</a>, <a href="http://www.questdiagnostics.com/">Quest Diagnostics</a> and <a href="http://www.longs.com/">Longs Drugs</a>, to name just a few.<br /><br />In addition to helping you get better control of your medical information, we've also put strong <a href="https://www.google.com/health/html/privacy.html" id="l-sn" title="privacy policies">privacy policies</a> in place to keep your information safe and private. (Read more about this on our <a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-health-privacy-and-hipaa.html">public policy blog</a>.) There's a lot left to do in health -- literally thousands of partnerships to forge and petabytes of data to move around -- but we're looking forward to hearing feedback from early Google Health adopters about our first step.<br /><br />Unrelated to Google Health but in the interest of helping people get healthier, we launched our <a href="http://google.com/goforgood/" id="f7pz" title="Go for Good">Go for Good</a> campaign with the Cleveland Clinic. The Walk for Good <a href="http://www.google.com/ig">iGoogle</a> gadget encourages you to be good to yourself by walking regularly and tracking your progress. If you finish week 15 of the program by October 25th this year and have completed at least half of the total walking program by then, you can vote to tell us which of the health charities from our list should receive part of a $100,000 donation.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">Updates: </span>Added links to partner sites and related public policy blog; embedded webcast from the event.

A peek into our search factory

Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP Search Products & User Experience Today we hosted an informal gathering -- a factory tour of sorts -- to off...

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Responding to the earthquake in China

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Kai-Fu Lee, President, Google Greater China<br /></span><br />One week ago, an earthquake of 7.8 magnitude struck in Sichuan. Everyone in China was shocked and then heartbroken as reported deaths climbed from 10,000 to 20,000 to more than 32,000 people. The death toll is still rising, and the number of injured and missing is many times greater.<br /><br />But the Chinese people have faced this disaster with resilience, compassion, and courage. There have been non-stop airlifts, blood donations, and rescue missions. One bold executive drove hundreds of miles in his jeep, started digging, and saved several lives. Taxi drivers stopped carrying passengers and drove to affected areas to help. One hundred thousand brave soldiers risked (and some gave) their lives to look for every possible survivor. Here in Beijing more than a thousand families have volunteered to adopt children who have lost their parents. Everyone is eager to help -- and that includes Googlers.<br /><br />Within hours of the earthquake, our China-based teams pulled together to use Google's resources and technology to help. At the request of the government, we obtained new satellite images of Sichuan province (<a id="f_t_9" href="http://mw2.google.com/mw-earth-vectordb/china_earthquake/china_earthquake_cn.kml"><span id="f_t_10">Earth KML</span></a>) to help them better focus their recovery efforts. We developed and launched a <a id="f_t_14" href="http://www.google.cn/qinren">“lost loved one” search</a> based on our Custom Search Engine (CSE). To populate the CSE index, hundreds of Googlers worked around the clock looking through published tables, hospital records, news reports, and community sites. We tuned our Chinese <a href="http://news.google.cn/news?q=%E6%B1%B6%E5%B7%9D%E5%9C%B0%E9%9C%87&hl=zh-CN&ned=ccn&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=in"><span id="f_t_20">news search</span></a><span id="f_t_25">, <a href="http://video.google.cn/videosearch?q=%E6%B1%B6%E5%B7%9D+%E5%9C%B0%E9%9C%87&so=1">video search</a></span><span id="f_t_30">, <a href="http://images.google.cn/images?q=%E6%B1%B6%E5%B7%9D%E5%9C%B0%E9%9C%87&hl=zh-CN&ned=ccn&sa=N&tab=bi">image search</a></span><span id="f_t_35">, <a href="http://blogsearch.google.cn/blogsearch?q=%E6%B1%B6%E5%B7%9D%E5%9C%B0%E9%9C%87&hl=zh-CN&ned=ccn&tab=vb">blog search</a></span>, and <a id="f_t_39" href="http://www.google.cn/search?hl=zh-CN&q=%E5%9C%B0%E9%9C%87&btnG=Google+%E6%90%9C%E7%B4%A2&meta=&aq=f"><span id="f_t_40">oneboxes</span></a>. We also partnered to build <a id="f_t_44" href="http://laiba.tianya.cn/laiba/Community?cmm=281">community sites</a>, and launched both <a id="f_t_49" href="http://www.google.cn/">homepage promotions</a> and a <a id="f_t_54" href="http://ditu.google.cn/earthquake">map-based information page</a>. Google China has an extremely dedicated and passionate team and I am deeply honored to work alongside them.<br /><br />In addition to these efforts here in China, Googlers worldwide have also made substantial financial donations to the relief operations. As a company, we’ve committed $2 million for disaster relief and rebuilding, in addition to donating a large advertising budget for donation ads and public service announcements to aid organizations throughout the world.<br /><br />We have also created a <a href="http://www.google.com/chinaearthquake">Google</a><a id="f_t_65" href="http://www.google.com/chinaearthquake"> Checkout donations page</a> so you can easily donate to <a id="f_t_70" href="http://www.mercycorps.org/chinaearthquake/">Mercy Corps</a>, which works with the <a id="f_t_75" href="http://www.fupin.org.cn/en/index.asp">China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation</a>, or the <a id="f_t_80" href="http://tsinghuafoundation.org/earthquake08/">Tsinghua Foundation</a>, which works with the <a id="f_t_85" href="http://202.108.59.10/english/index.htm">Red Cross Society of China</a>. Both organizations have assured us that all of the proceeds will go directly to earthquake relief.<br /><br />Our efforts are but one piece of a giant effort now underway, bringing together the governments, private companies, NGOs and countless heroic individuals -– all striving to address this disaster as quickly and comprehensively as we can.<br /><br />Please pray for the victims of the earthquake. May the injured rest and recover. May the survivors be resilient. May all of us learn from the Chinese people to turn our anxiety into courage, misery into compassion, and sorrow into love.

Responding to the earthquake in China

Posted by Kai-Fu Lee, President, Google Greater China One week ago, an earthquake of 7.8 magnitude struck in Sichuan. Everyone in China was ...

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Opening our content network to third parties

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Rajas Moonka, Senior Business Product Manager</span><br /><br />Today, we're announcing that Google is accepting third-party advertising tags on the Google content network in North America. This will empower advertisers to work with approved third parties to serve and track display ads, including rich media ads, across the Google content network through AdWords, giving them more options, flexibility and control over their campaigns.<br /><br />We had not accepted third-party tags in the past because we didn't have a process for reviewing ads to make sure that they comply with our <a href="http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=guidelines.cs&topic=9274&view=all">format standards and policies</a>, which were established to ensure that ads we serve provide the best possible user experience. Now that's in place.<br /><br />Ad servers, rich media ad agencies and research firms can now go through a certification process that ensures the highest level of advertiser service and user experience. In fact, advertisers and agencies now have the ability to serve ads and measure performance through these certified third parties:<br /><ul><li>Advertiser ad servers: DoubleClick (DFA), Mediaplex</li><li>Rich media agencies: DoubleClick Rich Media, Eyeblaster, EyeWonder, Interpolls, PointRoll, Unicast</li><li>Research firms: Dynamic Logic, IAG Research, InsightExpress, Factor TG</li></ul>We will be certifying more third-party partners in the future.<br /><br />Advertisers and agencies will now be able to manage their Google content network campaigns with the same systems they use for other online campaigns, which is helpful for determining the effectiveness of their online advertising mix. Further, this new service gives advertisers and agencies more opportunities to increase their return on investment and reach new audiences in informed and creative ways. The response from those testing early versions of the program have been positive.<br /><br />For publishers on the network, this program offers a way to expand their advertiser base and enable advertisers to better understand the value of their inventory, with the goal of increasing their overall revenue. And they'll be able to show more compelling display ads to their visitors, enhancing their web experience.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Update: </span>Check out our <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prh9kf1Jbmw&feature=PlayList&p=8B3E2B4EDB0555FC&index=0&playnext=1">three-part video series</a> to see how it all works.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Update 2: </span>Review our list of <a href="https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=94149">certified third parties</a>.

Opening our content network to third parties

Posted by Rajas Moonka, Senior Business Product Manager Today, we're announcing that Google is accepting third-party advertising tags on...

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Google Treasure Hunt update

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Phillip Grasso, Manager, Engineering/Operations</span><br /><br />Avast, matey! As announced on the <a href="http://google-au.blogspot.com/2008/05/google-treasure-hunt.html" id="v30r" title="Google Australia blog">Google Australia blog</a>, we've launched Treasure Hunt — a puzzle contest designed to test yer problem-solving skills in computer science, networking, and low-level UNIX trivia. You'll find the first of four brainteasers at <a href="http://treasurehunt.appspot.com/" id="jf4l5" target="_blank">http://treasurehunt.appspot<wbr id="jf4l6">.com/</a>. A new puzzle will be posted every week for the next three weeks, and a few lucky gobs to submit correct answers to every question will receive a prize.<br /><br />The second puzzle will be appearing soon — to be exact, 936266827 seconds before Y2K38, so keep yer eyes open. We'll also be highlighting our Mountain View mother ship, so step smartly, lads and lasses, and good luck!<br /><br />In case ye missed out on the first week's puzzle, it's still available, so 'tis not too late! ARR! (Can you tell we can hardly wait to <a title="Talk Like a Pirate" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Talk_Like_A_Pirate_Day" id="mpmh">Talk Like a Pirate</a>?)

Google Treasure Hunt update

Posted by Phillip Grasso, Manager, Engineering/Operations Avast, matey! As announced on the Google Australia blog , we've launched Treas...

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Google Translate adds 10 new languages...

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Jeff Chin, Product Manager</span><br /><br />...and that's great news any way you say it. Language is one of the biggest challenges we have in making information universally accessible. As part of the machine translation team within <a id="kzlh" href="http://research.google.com/" title="Google Research">Google Research</a>, I'm happy to report we've been hard at work to overcome this challenge. We've recently added translation capabilities for 10 new languages to <a title="Google Translate" href="http://translate.google.com/" id="jrwu">Google Translate</a>, bringing the total to 23 languages. The newly featured languages include Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hindi, Norwegian, Polish, Romanian and Swedish.<br /><br />In addition, you can now translate text and web pages as well as perform <a style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);" id="ikf7" href="http://translate.google.com/translate_s" title="cross-language searches">cross-language searches</a> between <span style="font-style: italic;">any</span> two languages that we offer. For example, we now support Chinese translation to/from any of our languages (e.g., Chinese to French). So for those of you who will be following or attending the Olympics in Beijing this fall, you'll be able to more easily find and access content from local sources.<br /><br />We've also added a "<a title="Detect Language" href="http://translate.google.com/translate_t?sl=auto&tl=en" id="hvn:">Detect Language</a>" option to help you automatically identify the language of the text you're trying to translate. Keep in mind that the longer the text, the more accurate it will be. And for those of you who have embedded the <a id="qvf8" href="http://translate.google.com/translate_tools" title="Google Translate My Page gadget">Google Translate My Page gadget</a> in your website to give it global reach, these new languages will automatically appear. Developers can also take advantage of these new languages in our <a title="AJAX language API" href="http://code.google.com/apis/ajaxlanguage/documentation/#SupportedPairs" id="tvp8">AJAX language API</a>.<br /><br />While our system is quite good, we know it's not perfect. Machine translation is a hard problem, but it plays an important role in helping people access content they might otherwise be unable to read. We’re constantly working to improve the quality, so if you find a translation that’s not quite right, let us know by using our <a id="hdqw" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/03/suggest-better-translation.html" title="“Suggest a better translation”">"Suggest a better translation”</a> feature.

Google Translate adds 10 new languages...

Posted by Jeff Chin, Product Manager ...and that's great news any way you say it. Language is one of the biggest challenges we have in m...

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Demographics now available in YouTube Insight

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Nick Jakobi, Product Manager, YouTube</span><br /><br />When we first <a id="q2x33" title="announced" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/insight-into-youtube-videos.html" target="_blank">announced</a> YouTube Insight, our free video analytics tool for YouTube, we were excited to see just how users, partners, and advertisers might creatively use information about the viewing trends of their videos. We've since learned that some users and partners are <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/16/AR2008041603478_pf.html">modifying their upload schedules</a> based on when they know their audience is tuning in, and advertisers are <a href="http://www.clickz.com/showPage.html?page=3628920">studying geographic traffic patterns</a> to assess the effectiveness of regional ad campaigns.<br /><br />Today we've added some new features to Insight. One is a new demographics tab that displays view count information broken down by age group (such as ages 18-24), gender, or a combination of the two, to help you get a better understanding of the makeup of your YouTube audience. We show you general information about your viewers in anonymous and aggregate form, based on the birth date and gender information that users share with us when they create YouTube accounts. This means that individual users can't be personally identified.<br /><br />Insight now also displays statistics based on the combined total views of all the videos you've uploaded. Just as you can explore the view counts and popularity of individual videos, with this feature you can see your account's total number of views, and your relative popularity on YouTube compared to other users, based on geographic location.<br /><br />As with Insight's other features, we hope this new information helps you learn how to create more compelling content that best engages the audiences you want to reach. You can find these new metrics under the "Demographics" tab within the Insight dashboard. Click on the "Insight" button under "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/signup?next=/my_account">Account</a> > <a href="http://www.youtube.com/signup?next=/my_videos">My Videos</a>."

Demographics now available in YouTube Insight

Posted by Nick Jakobi, Product Manager, YouTube When we first announced YouTube Insight, our free video analytics tool for YouTube, we were...

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Registration open for 2008 scalability conference

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Andrew Schwerin, Software Engineer</span><br /><br />As we <span id="rvj18"><a id="rvj110" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/seattle-conference-on-scalability-2008.html" target="_blank">noted earlier</a></span>, our Conference on Scalability is taking place in Seattle on Saturday, June 14. And now <span id="rvj18"><a id="rvj111" href="http://services.google.com/events/seattle_scalability2008" target="_blank">registration is open</a> </span> until June 6.<br /><br />We have some great talks lined up from industry and academia, covering everything from scalability of storage, communication and transactions to scaling applications into the mobile space or, in one case, under water. Space is limited, so do sign up now.<br /><br />We're excited to bring together so many talented people from the Seattle area. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Registration open for 2008 scalability conference

Posted by Andrew Schwerin, Software Engineer As we noted earlier , our Conference on Scalability is taking place in Seattle on Saturday, Jun...

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