Most of us have already heard about Google Custom Search, but still I’ll give you a brief introduction. Google Custom Search is a platform provided by Google that allows web developers to feature specialized information in web searches, refine and categorize Google Web Search queries and create customized search engines. It was launched on 10th May, 2006.

After three years of success Google Custom Search now has more than a million users serving many tens of millions of search queries daily and it is also now among the top two widgets available online, used by many small and big business entities. And to celebrate its third anniversary, Google has just included three new useful features of its Custom Search engine.

Custom Search Themes — Now with the ultra-configurable Element you can select from among a set of layouts and styles to use for your search results pages.  The themes are easily customizable and won’t lock you into the same uniform format.

Structured Custom Search — Google Custom Search results will now provide thumbnails and actions. You can now also restrict your search results according to these attributes based on the metadata that you provide. Custom metadata attributes and custom query restricts will make your searches truly structured.

Wikipedia Custom Search Skin — Google now puts search across all Wikipedia articles hence providing your users with highly contextual search results when searching within Wikipedia. You will get Google search across all Wikipedia articles as well as topical results based on the links on the Wikipedia article you are currently reading.

Many of these powerful Custom Search tools will help you get high-quality search quickly enabled on the websites.

For more information about these tools you can visit Google Custom Search Turns 3 or Google Official Blog.

The experimental Google Social Search service went live on 26th October, 2009 at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco. Google Social Search helps you find relevant public web content from people in your social circle via your Google Account. For example, if you search for [New York], Google Social Search includes your friend’s blog on the results page under the heading “Results from people in your social circle for New York.” And it should be available for everyone to try by the end of the day.

Google Social Search is good news because you can now get additional search results whenever you query Google for information. Those additional results do not appear based on any algorithm or Google-biased data but it comes from your social graph, the people in your social circle that Google knows about. However for this, Google must know about your social circle. This is possible if you have added a Google Profile, or use Google Reader, or Google Chat.

With Google Social Search, you will be able to find relevant public content from your social circle easily; your social circle consists of contacts from Gmail and sites listed in your Google profile; you can improve your social search results by expanding your social circle by creating a Google profile and encouraging your friends to publish content online.

Google always tries to improve its web search. The search engine giant always introduces new user friendly tools. C ontinuing the trend, Google introduced two more useful features, Similar Images and Google News Timeline in April, 2009.

Google News Timeline feature on Google Labs organizes many different types of search results on a zoom able, graphical timeline, presenting search results from a wide range of sources.

Similar images first added as an optional feature in Google labs is now a permanent feature as Google Similar Images. You may not know that Google has made this move right after Gazopa (a similar images search engine) launched in private beta last year. Although, Gazopa has much better features when compared to Google Similar Images , but still Google has given a tough competition to Gazoopa to compete.

For further information please visit Google official blogs for Similar Images and Google News Timeline.

Google has just announced a new Google Labs Feature called Social Search.

From what can be gathered the bottom of Google search results will have social networking information of your friends & their updates. The information will be pulled from Social Networks connected to Google Profile

If you have more profiles you’ll see more information

This feature will also affect Image Results. The feature will be integrated with Google Image Search & results will be made more relevant using Social Networking Data.

The feature will be launched in a few weeks.

If you are an upcoming webmaster & dosen’t have knowledge of web analytics. Now you can rejoice as
Recently, Google has started this service of google analytics moderator that can answer queries on analytics or any doubts that you have.
the link is http://moderator.appspot.com/#16/e=def3a
The answers are given in a video and is a very convenient and useful. People can even cast their votes in response to a particular query.

Search Engine Strategies (SES) is going to organize a conference in Berlin and Chicago. SES Berlin is the Search Engine Marketing event for German marketers, corporate decision makers, webmasters, and search engine marketing (SEM) specialists, including pay per click (PPC) advertisers and search engine optimization (SEO) consultants.

            SES Berlin scheduled to be held from 23rd – 25th November is likely to attract a large number of professionals in this field. You too can attend it with your peers and learn the Search Engine Marketing tips, plans, and strategies that will grow your business online. The program will feature mainly German speakers and some international high-level Keynote speakers. Note that besides the “Search around the World” track on Monday November 23rd; all tracks will be in German.

            If you want to know about the speakers who will be speaking at the conference along with their timeslots, please check their German program, and for English click here.

            In its 11th year, the only major Search Marketing Conference and Expo in the Midwest will be filled with 60+ sessions covering PPC management, keyword research, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), social media, link building, duplicate content, and other SEM topics. It will also offer high-level strategy, keynotes, an exhibit floor, networking events and more.

For further details please visit “A ranking in the top three”

Search Engine Strategies (SES) is the leading global conference & expo series that educate delegates on search engine marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and advertising strategies. In this series, two more events are going to be held; first event is in London on 26th October, 2009 and second is in New York on 5th November, 2009.

These workshops provide the practices, applications, and practical exposure you need to become a top performer in your field. Whether you are a consultant, site designer, website owner, or in-house marketing professional, this is an opportunity to get first hand experience in the latest developments in search engine strategy.

The workshop of London is based on “Essentials of a Successful SEO Project” instructed by Andy Atkins-Krüger (WebCertain Global Ltd & Dixon Jones, Receptional LTD) and the workshop of New York is based on “Conversion Optimization” instructed by Bryan Eisenberg (Co-Founder, Future Now, Inc.).

Venue for the workshop of London:

Incisive Media

32-34 Broadwick St,

London.

Venue for the workshop in New York:

Downtown Conference Center

157 William Street,

New York, NY 10038

For more details about these workshops please visit Search Engine Strategies.

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WordStream launched The Free Keyword Tool for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and search engine optimization (SEO) programs on 16th September, in Boston. WordStream’s new keyword tool is more inclusive and accurate than paid subscription versions of Keyword Discovery and Wordtracker.

Like many other keyword tools, WordStream does not limit the number of keyword suggestions. It also includes other useful features. For instance, after completing your query, you can email all results to your mail id. It provides you with not only important keywords, but also offers a list of negative keywords as well. Its database updates constantly.

WordStream knows that there are lots of things to be done for improving your online marketing results. This is the reason why they have provided this tool for free, although they also have paid subscription for keyword management software.

For more details visit Keyword Research Tool for PPC and SEO and Free Keyword Research Tool for PPC and SEO

While launching any SEO campaign you always focus on getting results in future and than start with a site that ranks almost nowhere in any of the Search Engines. We build backlinks, do on page and off page activities with the expectations that a few months from now, our site will start getting recognized and we will get relevant traffic and rankings on Search Engines.

But the important question is, the Keyword terms chosen being worthwhile over time? Will we get enough search volumes? Are there any more Key terms we can target to get ample traffic? What will our market be interested in this time next year?

Given that search engine ranking has a long lead time, it pays to think about keyword trends well ahead of time.

It is difficult to predict future. However, spotting trends is somewhat easier, and gives us an insight into how our niche is likely to develop. Trends typically follow a gradual, predictable pattern.

Let’s take a look at a few tools you can use to find more industry relevant keywords.

Trend Spotting Tools

Ideally, you want to find keyword areas that show an increasing level of interest, or areas where there is significant, steady interest over time. Google Trends is a useful tool for predicting rising interest in keyword areas. Search on your keyword terms, and see if interest in your niche is rising or falling.

It also helps us to drill down into the data in a variety of ways, including by date, by region, by category and by source. The related terms section is particularly useful for getting new keyword ideas, and analyzing trends.

Twitter Search is also a good tool for trend spotting. Possibly the most useful aspect of Twitter, as far as the SEO is concerned, is the ease of which you can spot keyword trends in terms of everyday usage. Search for your keyword term and make a note of the words people use in conjunction with your keyword terms.

Secure Sockets Layer is a protocol (by Netscape) for transmitting private documents through the Internet. The Secure Sockets Layer protects data transfer over http using server’s SSL Certificate encryption. When a browser points to a secured domain, an SSL handshake process establishes the secure session between the server and the client with unique session keys. An SSL Certificate contains a public key and a private key, public key is used to encrypt information and private key is used to interpret it. Generally, URLs that require an SSL connection start with https: instead of http:

If a user attempts to submit personal information to an unsecured web site (site not protected with a valid SSL certificate), the browser’s built-in security mechanism triggers a warning to the user, reminding that the site is not secure and that sensitive data might be intercepted by third parties.

For the best security practices, one should install a unique certificate on each server and choose a True 128-bit Certificate by purchasing a Server Gated Cryptography (SGC) (enables 128 or 256 Bit SSL encryption depending on the browser, operating system and host server). To install SSL certificate, you need the original private key, which was created when you first generated your Certificate Signing Request (CSR). If you cannot find or access it, you cannot use the certificate and you have to get a new one. A unique certificate keeps private keys protected, and an SGC enabled certificate ensures that every site visitor (using any browser or operating system) connects at the highest level of encryption the system is capable of.

For more information please visit http://blog.areawebsolutions.com/what-is-an-ssl-certificate.html.