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Beanstalk's SEO News Blog

At Beanstalk Search Engine Optimization we know that knowledge is power. That's the reason we started this SEO blog. We know that the better informed our visitors are, the better the decisions they will make for their websites and their online businesses. We hope you enjoy your stay and find the SEO news contained within this blog useful.

April 26, 2012

Week One with Google Drive

Well Google Drive has been making a lot of headlines about ownership of files, depth of file privacy, virus scanning, archive support, etc.. etc..

One item I have not seen anyone mention is the installer/login system that Google Drive is using.

As an SEO who has to be able to test a multitude of browser versions, I’ve managed to work myself into a neat situation where each time IE is called upon to render something I get a warning message about the version I have installed.

The warning message is great because it lets me know when an application is cheating and using IE for displaying information vs. using default system calls built into windows. The most common application I see doing this is VMWare’s ESX console which has a very graphical summary of the virtual devices.

So imagine my amusement yesterday when installing Google Drive and seeing this:

“O RLY?”

Ownership of Files

A certain technical news source (rhymes with SEENET) that’s famous for publishing outright false information, misleading articles, and brainless technical pieces, one-up’d itself yesterday by trying to scare people away from Google Drive by publishing a hard hitting new post about Google Drive an it’s terms of service.

In order to make the story work however, they had to omit the first sentence of the section they were complaining about. Anything less wouldn’t make the post seem worth writing, much-less reading. After considerable hate from readers they actually had the nerve to ‘tack on’ the honest truth, at the very bottom of the post, instead of removing it entirely due to it being completely worthless.

The bottom line with Google and privacy is that NOBODY would use them if they abused your trust so you can rest assured that Google is doing everything they can to keep your files safe. The clauses in the TOS that state Google has rights to your files is clearly there so they can more accurately provide services that interest you.

If you take a lot of high resolution photos of animals, Google knows you work with animals. If you upload videos of cars on a race track, Google can guess you like race cars. Etc..

I’d much rather have my screen space wasted with info about the next WRC event than see a bunch of adverts for a local dog grooming outfit (I don’t hate animals, but I also don’t have pets).

File Privacy

Lots of folks are wondering how private the files are in a Google Drive.

The truth is that unless you’ve changed something from the defaults, every file uploaded is private to you. You can share files and folders with a few clicks, and there’s multiple options for how files are shared (read-only, contribute, full control), but it’s up to you to manually allow sharing.

One fellow even claimed that Google Drive was modifying the JPG files uploaded from his digital camera!?

I tested this on my own this morning with a 5.8MB .JPG @ 3968 x 2976 resolution. Yes, indeed, if I choose to view or preview the image Google isn’t going to waste my time viewing a 6MB .JPG, and instead it renders a much smaller preview to get the image on my screen quickly.

However if I choose to download the image I get the exact same file I uploaded with no changes whatsoever, EXIF data included!

Archive Support

So far I’ve had no problems with .RAR and .ZIP archives in Google Drive, and I have the option of opening the archives which means downloading individual files inside an archive is very easy. I’ve only tested Google Drive with Windows and Ubuntu so far, but as expected it’s making things very easy to share between the machines and the OSes.

.7z (7ZIP) support is not enabled yet, but at the moment the format isn’t very widely used so I doubt many users will mind the fact that you have to download the whole archive vs. opening it on-line. Obviously anti-virus scanning isn’t available on archives that aren’t supported.

Protected archives are also supported in that you can browse the unencrypted contents, but Google Drive doesn’t make any attempts to get passwords out of you, which should help with all the tin-foil-beanie types.

Limitations of Use

This one is yet to be determined. Google clearly won’t allow you to upload a 4.7GB DVD and then share it public with no limits, that would be amazingly poor insight from a company that takes great efforts to plan each move.

How much ‘sharing’ you can get away with seems to be an unanswered question at the moment, but given the lazy pirates around the globe I’m sure someone’s going to put this to the test immediately.

Another rumour floating around is that the largest single file you can store on Google Drive is 10GB. While that’s a MASSIVE file allowance for a single file, it still seems odd that such a cap would exist since you would have to be a paid user at that point. Since the cost of trying the commercial version is very low I’m going to give it a whirl and see what I find.

More to come!

Beanstalk Minecraft Map Contest!

I haven’t been flogging this very much, which is bad form given my profession, but we still have a glorious brand new Android tablet with Minecraft PE installed to give away!

How do you win this approx ~$300 prize? You play a video game, and you have fun creating a map that will be displayed and recognized by fellow gamers on our website. Yeah, life is rough eh?

Our initial contest winner of the $50 prize, Faragilus from the Ukraine, got his prize this week and we will be featuring his work with the rest of the winners at the end of the contest.

For more information please look at the original post here: Beanstalk Minecraft 1.2 Contest

PPS: I know this is a REALLY long post today but I had to toss in a Google Chrome video that really is neat. While Microsoft is spending time and money trying mock it’s competition, Google’s having fun with demonstrating it’s products and how they help people on-line connect in real life.

SEO news blog post by Ryan Morben @ 12:06 pm

Categories: beanstalk,Browsers,Google,Google Chrome,Internet Explorer,Internet Law,internet security,Privacy,Technology
Tags: Chrome, Contest, Google Drive, Minecraft —

November 3, 2011

IE – Outfoxed and Polished Off?

At the end of this month major traffic watchers and statistical houses started releasing data showing that for the first time, Internet Explorer is below the 50% market share level for internet browsers.

out·fox (out-foks)
tr.v. out·foxed, out·fox·ing, out·fox·es
To surpass (another) in cleverness or cunning; outsmart.

pol·ish (polish)
v. pol·ished, pol·ish·ing, pol·ish·es
Phrasal Verb:
polish off Informal
To finish or dispose of quickly and easily.

The Data

As anyone experienced with data will tell you, the flaw is in the details.

Data can only be as complex and smart as the sources it’s coming from, which is always a problem. So as you gaze at the various data sources, remember that nobody can really track every browser session, the best they can try for is a ‘fair average’.

To that end here’s one of the best charts I could locate:

First thing to note is the decline of IE, but more interesting is that Chrome, and Safari (hiding behind the others) are gaining ground while FireFox is losing some ground. Technically Safari is growing faster than Chrome, but when you consider that Safari is the default browser of all those iOS devices selling like hot-cakes, the fact that Chrome’s growing almost as fast, really tells us something.

I know there’s been some ‘landmark’ moments in browser shares before. I think I’ve even blogged on here about it before, but this is a unique moment that I don’t think we’ll see again for some time.

Short lived losses?

Windows 8 will be a really big win for IE market share.
This is how Windows 8 will greet the user by default:

..notice the inception of Microsoft Bing, inside Microsoft IE, inside Microsoft Windows 8?

I’m sure milk comes shooting out of Google’s nose when they see stuff like this going on with new products that will be sold to the world.

I won’t rant on this point, I’ll just remind readers of the post I’ve already made on Windows 8 earlier this year.

In a nutshell I’m almost tempted to print the above image (here’s a larger version) and stick it on the wall because once Windows 8 rolls out I don’t think we’ll see that blue section that small for a long time.

SEO news blog post by Ryan Morben @ 12:42 pm

Categories: Misc,seo articles,SEO Tools
Tags: browser market share, Chrome, firefox, internet explorer, Opera, safari, Windows 8 —

October 13, 2011

A Google Engineer who sees the outsider perspective?

I know that as a stubborn old nerd I can be pretty hard to win over, and as much as this Google Engineer claims to have accidentally leaked his rant, I read this as intentionally made public from the get-go just by the way it was written to ‘everyone’ in a few spots. I could be wrong, but I’m not reading this as a leak, just as a rant.

The full post is, amazingly enough over on Google+ as a public post (although the original author has pointlessly deleted it). I shouldn’t say it’s really amazing that the post is still public, people duped it instantly so there’s no point in trying to remove it now.

Make no mistake, there’s a few good points from Steve Yegge; I find some of the observations to be true but mostly from an outsider standpoint which is shocking because it was written by a fellow with almost 6 years of experience in the company. Google does have platforms, they do use them, and they do share them. True there’s always been an obvious panic towards security that’s effected accessibility, but then Google’s track record probably wouldn’t be as amazing with a more casual approach to giving outsiders access to core tech.

Amazingly of all the points made, the one that echos most with my opinion is that Google is becoming arrogant and almost needs two versions of projects like Google’s Chrome browser. One version that runs super secure, fast, compatible, and sleek, with no frills or compromises. The other needs to be as bloated as FireFox/Opera, and it’d run like a buggy mess of poorly considered features that are starkly incompatible with themselves. To quote Steve on arrogance and Chrome development:

“You know how people are always saying Google is arrogant? I’m a Googler, so I get as irritated as you do when people say that. We’re not arrogant, by and large. We’re, like, 99% Arrogance-Free. I did start this post — if you’ll reach back into distant memory — by describing Google as “doing everything right”. We do mean well, and for the most part when people say we’re arrogant it’s because we didn’t hire them, or they’re unhappy with our policies, or something along those lines. They’re inferring arrogance because it makes them feel better.

But when we take the stance that we know how to design the perfect product for everyone, and believe you me, I hear that a lot, then we’re being fools. You can attribute it to arrogance, or naivete, or whatever — it doesn’t matter in the end, because it’s foolishness. There IS no perfect product for everyone.

And so we wind up with a browser that doesn’t let you set the default font size. Talk about an affront to Accessibility. I mean, as I get older I’m actually going blind. For real. I’ve been nearsighted all my life, and once you hit 40 years old you stop being able to see things up close. So font selection becomes this life-or-death thing: it can lock you out of the product completely. But the Chrome team is flat-out arrogant here: they want to build a zero-configuration product, and they’re quite brazen about it, and F*** You if you’re blind or deaf or whatever. Hit Ctrl-+ on every single page visit for the rest of your life.”

As Steve deleted the original post he put up a good bit on why it’s bad to have such things in public:

“Please realize, though, that even now, after six years, I know astoundingly little about Google. It’s a huge company and they do tons of stuff, and I work off in a little corner of the company (both technically and geographically) that gives me very little insight into anything else going on there. So my opinions, even though they may seem well-formed and accurate, really are just a bunch of opinions from someone who’s nowhere near the center of the action — so I wouldn’t read too much into anything I said.”

I really couldn’t agree more. If this had come from someone working with Google’s engineers on something such as the GO language it would have been a different story, but Steve’s admittance of the scope of his role is very honest and worth considering as you read his rant.

TL;DR – Google guy rants about Google’s strategies from an outsider’s perspective and calls out some of the lingering issues with Google’s dev teams/arrogance. Everyone would like to see Google bend more and give more, though nobody can seem to qualify themselves to say if it’s really the wisest strategy.

SEO news blog post by Ryan Morben @ 11:07 am

Categories: Google,Google+,internet security,Search Engine News,seo articles,social media
Tags: Chrome, google, public rant, Steve Yegge —

July 28, 2011

What do you love ~ Google Thorough-Good

Just when I was wondering what Google’s been doing to tie it’s products together for the uninitiated, they launch the ‘What do you love?’ service.

I could hyperlink the URL, but it’s super easy to memorize, just wdyl.com
(as in What Do You Love)

*UPDATE: If this does not work for you, try it again tomorrow. I’m getting reports that the host name is broken for external DNS? Personally I’m using Google DNS which is 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 for the primary/secondary DNS addresses.

This is tying together the following services:

Google Translate
Google Trends
Google Books
Google SketchUp
Google YouTube
Google ImageSearch
Google Alerts
Google Maps
Google PatentSearch
Google Moderator
Google Chrome
Google Gmail
Google Voice
Google Groups
Google Calendar
Google Earth
Google News
Google Blogger
Google Mobile
And more products as they are released..

What do *I* love? Google! (It’s not a very interesting result when you put ‘Google’ into the WDYL tool, oddly enough?)

Just typing in random words can be fun, interesting, and even educational. I have to admit that as much of a ‘fanboi’ as I am with Google, there’s a few services I haven’t explored enough and this one site bridges that gap for me. From an SEO stand-point, there’s really no harm in trying your keywords in this new tool to see what comes from it. Worst case you may find some new avenues to look into for your business and on-line rankings?

Oh and for something just a bit different, on the topic of new stuff from Google, OK Go and Philbus have whipped up a treat. For users of Chromium browsers (including Google’s Chrome (yes they are slightly different)) this latest ‘Chrome Experiment’ can be a lot of fun, if a bit excessive for the purpose.

I should mention it’s showing off Chromium’s multi-threading, so if you have a slow machine or don’t have multiple cores in your CPU, you may want to skip this?
All is not lost – Chrome Experiment

SEO news blog post by Ryan Morben @ 11:51 am

Categories: Google,Google,html 5,just for fun,Misc,Rankings,Search Engine News,SEO Tips,SEO Tools
Tags: Chrome, Chromium, google, HTML5, WDYL —

July 4, 2011

Google’s Evolution Innovations

After being away for a few days on a mini vacation, I thought I would touch base on what has been making news since my last post. It seems Google is still dominating the news in several instances.

It was announced this week by StatsCounter that for the first time Google’s internet browser Chrome has risen to a 20.7% share of all browser usage in the market. Since 2009, Chrome has gone from only 2.8% share to become a major contender in the internet browser market.

In the same time, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer dropped from an 59% down to 44%, while Firefox only dropped marginally from 30% to 28%. It should be noted however that StatsCounter tracks totally surfing and not the total number of users in their stats. What this means is that it is the internet "power" elite that seem to be driving Chrome to its increasing success.

Source: StatCounter Global Stats – Browser Market Share

Starting at the end of last month you may have noticed a few changes to the look and feel of various Google products. Google has embarked on an aggressive new design (or redesign) strategy and part of their Multi-Month User Experience Update. In a blog post titled: "Evolving the Google Design and Experience"

The way people use and experience the web is evolving, and our goal is to give you a more seamless and consistent online experience—one that works no matter which Google product you’re using or what device you’re using it on. The new Google experience that we’ve begun working toward is founded on three key design principles: focus, elasticity and effortlessness.

Here are some of the implementations they will be rolling out:

Focus: A large part of Google’s new focus is an attempt to reduce the amount of on screen clutter that has been becoming problematic for some time. By making a more user intuitive approach by making changes such as using bolder colors for actionable buttons, or hiding navigation buttons until they’re actually needed, which Google feels can help you better focus on only what you need at the moment.
Elasticity: Due to the multiple, various types of mobile devices, tablets and high-resoultion monitors, Google, states that the new design(s) will soon allow you to seamlessly transition from one device to another and have a consistent visual experience. Google says they aim to bring you this flexibility without sacrificing style or usefulness.
Effortlessness: Google goes on to show that their design phiolosohy is to combine power with simplicity by using clean, simple design architecture while embracing latest technologies such as HTML5, WebGL and the faster browsers available (like Google Chrome for instance).

Google has certainly come a long way over the last several years in the way they continue to change and evolve the look and usablility of their products. By studying how users use and navigate through the Google and related technologies, Google continues to keep itself on top of a very competitive market.

SEO news blog post by guestpost @ 7:09 pm

Categories: Bing,Google,Search Engine News,Yahoo!
Tags: Chrome, google, IE, internet explorer, Opera, safari —

June 9, 2011

Chrome XII Released

If you’re not too busy playing around with Google’s tribute to Les Paul’s 96th birthday..

..you may have time to check out some of Chrome 12′s new features.

Chrome’s never been big on fluff, and most users upgrading to the version 12 release are going to have to look carefully to see anything new. Part of this is due to the very speedy release cycle that Chrome adheres to.

Some of the changes include:

Proactive alerts on malware detection to avoid downloads
Full flash integration with local shared object management
Hardware support for accelerated 3D CSS transforms
Small tweaks like the new default favicon:

H.264 is still in place even though many speculated that the next release would be dropping H.264 to pave the way for more open standards with HTML5 like WebM and Theora.

The flash integration gives access to cookie management and more:

Flash management screen in Chrome 12

Release 12 wouldn’t be a new version without some issues, and much like the recent performances by the Canucks this latest version has a few failings:

Proxy support is broken. If you need to use a proxy, there is a fix. Check here for updates.
The version jump has enraged numerologists around the globe to the point where I couldn’t resist busting out the Roman numerals. Version 20 next week?
Native HTML5 Netflix support is still not working for everyone

So while it could have had a bit more time on the ironing board, it’s here now and we can try it out. If you wanted to see the 3D CSS transform upgrades try viewing this HTML5 video demo before and after you upgrade.

SEO news blog post by Ryan Morben @ 5:15 pm

Categories: css,html 5,web design
Tags: Chrome, flash, google, H.264, HTML5, Netflix, Theora, WebM —