Here are a few screen captures of what this looks like:

In this case, they keyword searched is the beginning of the word “hello” with several letter “L”s in the search field.

What is interesting is that as of the writing of this blog post, you can see this in Canada only. I tried using http://www.google.ca/ and can see it just fine. But so far I am not seeing this functionality in Google.com. Maybe it’s because Canadians have more trouble typing? (I’m joking!)

A hat tip goes out to JS Lascary for this tip.

Update:Barry pointed out to me that this was tested back in October but it now appears that it’s being rolled out to more people now.

To export your Sidewiki entries, go to http://www.google.com/sidewiki/ and follow the instructions. If you wish to export your Sidewiki entries, you will need to do this before December 5, 2011, after which time Google will be discontinuing support for Sidewiki and deleting all content.

Google is sending out emails to all of the Google Sidewiki account holders, reminding us of the fact that it’s being shut down. Here’s a copy of the email I received today:

Personally, I believe that it didn’t catch on with everyone simply because of the fact that it was so difficult to even get to Google Sidewiki. Not only did you have to have the Google Toolbar installed, you had to make sure that it was turned on. Sure, it was an interesting product at first–and could have caught on if it was not so darn tough for the typical Google users to implement and use. One thing that they could have done was to implement Google Sidewiki as part of the organic search results. Perhaps rather then making it so difficult to install and get to, Google Sidewiki could have been implemented as “reviews” are implemented for local businesses.

In any event, Google Sidewiki is being closed down. Here are the instructions for exporting your entries:

How to export your Sidewiki contributions

After December 5, 2011 Sidewiki will be closed down and all content will be deleted. To keep your Sidewiki contributions you must export them before December 5, 2011. You can do this by following these instructions:

1. Sign in to your Google account
2. Go to All my entries to see all your Sidewiki content created by you
3. Save the page on your computer and check that the saved page is readable

So many people think of Google as being a powerhouse on the Internet. And we sometimes forget that Google isn’t always the incredible company that we think that they are–Google has product failures. And Google Sidewiki is one of them.

comScore, Inc. (NASDAQ: SCOR) , a leader in measuring the digital world, has recently released its monthly comScore qSearch analysis of the U.S. search marketplace. Google’s web sites led the search market in September 2011 with 65.3 percent of search queries conducted in the United States.

More than 17.1 billion searches were conducted in September 2011, and Google Sites ranked first with 11.2 billion search queries (this is up 1 percent over the previous month).

Yahoo! came in second with 2.6 billion search queries during the month of September 2011, followed by Microsoft with 2.5 billion search queries during the month. Ask Network delivered 507 million searches, followed by AOL, Inc. with 265 million (up 16 percent). I am actually pretty surprised by the number of search queries on AOL, and that it has risen 16 percent from August 2011 to September 2011.

Also notable was the fact that in September, 67.4 percent of searches carried organic search results from Google (vs. 66.8 percent in August) while 26.7 percent of searches were powered by Bing (vs. 27.1 percent in August).

According to a new report by Imperva, their research shows that during an attack, hackers can generate more than 80,000 daily search queries to probe the Web for vulnerable Web applications. Hackers continue to use search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing, to find websites that are vulnerable–and which sites they can hack into and cause problems for website owners.

Let’s take, for example, the search query above. This is a search for “powered by oscommerce” “catalog” which use the OS Commerce application. That search query is not typical. There is really no reason why someone would want to find all of the websites that contain the entire catalog of websites powered by the OS Commerce shopping cart software unless they were up to no good.

There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of search queries that are not ‘typical’ search queries. The search engines are not doing enough to stop these queries from being made, time and time again. In this latest test, hackers were able to query Google over 80,000 times in one day, pulling data about websites that were vulnerable. If Google had intentions of stopping hackers, search queries such as these would not be able to be performed 80,000 times in one day.

According to Imperva, here is how hackers set up automated queries in order to get information they need from the search engines:

The Hacker’s 4 Steps for an Industrialized Attack:
1. Get a botnet. This is usually done by renting a botnet from a bot farmer who has a global network of compromised computers under his control.
2. Obtain a tool for coordinated, distributed searching. This tool is deployed to the botnet agents and it usually contains a database of dorks.
3. Launch a massive search campaign through the botnet. Our observations show that there is an automated infrastructure to control the distribution of dorks and the examination of the results between botnet parts.
4. Craft a massive attack campaign based on search results. With the list of potentially vulnerable resources, the attacker can create, or use a ready-made, script to craft targeted attack vectors that attempt to exploit vulnerabilities in pages retrieved by the search campaign. Attacks include: infecting web applications, compromising corporate data or stealing sensitive personal information

Google is not doing enough to stop hackers. Imperva, in their report, explains. “Although Google Hacking has been around – in name – for some time, some new innovations by hackers require another, closer look. Specifically, Google, and other search engines, put in place anti-automation measures to stop hackers from search abuse. However, by using distributed bots, hackers take advantage of bot’s dispersed nature, giving search engines the impression that individuals are performing a routine search. The reality? Hackers are conducting cyber reconnaissance on a massive scale. ”

Imperva’s report, titled “Hacker Intelligence Summary Report – The Convergence of Google and Bots: Searching for Security Vulnerabilities using Automated Botnets“, is a fascinating read.

One of the more serious, yet basic, optimization issues that I found was the fact that Google is creating all sorts of duplicate content on their very own web site: by linking internally to more than one copy of their directory home pages. And Google is not just doing this a few times: Google is doing this over 26,000 times! Take a look at all of the duplicate pages of content that Google has on their web site:

Recently, while reading Google’s own Webmaster Guidelines, I read the Duplicate Content section. What caught my eye specifically was the 2nd bullet point on that page:

Be consistent: Try to keep your internal linking consistent. For example, don’t link to http://www.example.com/page/ and http://www.example.com/page and http://www.example.com/page/index.htm.

It appears to me that Google is not following their own guidelines when it comes to duplicate content. In fact, Google has an extra 26,000 pages on their web site that should NOT be there: they’re duplicates of other pages on the site.

Here’s an example where Google is not being consistent in their internal linking. If you go to http://www.google.com/agencyland/ you will notice that the logo on that page, right there at the top, links to a duplicate page, http://www.google.com/agencyland/index.html. That is a classic “No, No” when it comes to search engine optimization best practices. Never link to the index.html, default.html, index.htm, default.asp pages. They are always going to be duplicates of what’s on your home page of that directory–and, if you ever change the CMS on your site, or go with another web server (i.e., you move from apache to Windows), you will be left with a bunch of URLs that you will have to redirect. I always recommend linking internally on your web site to the directory URLs (e.g., http://www.domain.com/directory/ ) rather than specific files.

But apparently those who are creating pages for certain services at Google haven’t read their own Google Webmaster Guidelines. Let’s look at another example:

If you look at the Urchin download page (http://www.google.com/urchin/download.html) you will notice that they have a “Home” link to Urchin’s home page: http://www.google.com/urchin/index.html. OOPS!! That’s NOT the home page for Urchin, the page is http://www.google.com/urchin/ and that’s where that “Home” link should link: not to the index.html page.

Like I mentioned previously, this is not a few isolated cases where Google has issues with their internal linking that’s leading to duplicate content on their site. In fact, it appears that they are doing this over 26,000 times, adding an additional 26,000 pages to their site.

It just goes to show that not even Google can optimize their very own web site properly based on the industry’s best practices. Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. But, I have to admit that when you are on the top of your game and demand that other web sites adhere to the industry’s best practices, it’s more helpful if you lead by example.

I recall removing personalization in the search results several years ago, and keep having to use this Google feature over and over again. It seems as if you have to do it more and more often, even if you are not logged into Google.

If you search Google and find that you are increasingly faced with personalized search results from Google, you are not alone. Not only is Google personalizing your search results when you are logged in, they are also determining your location and personalizing your search results according to your location. For example, Google “knows” that I am in the Dallas area. So, when I search for “moving” I get search results that are tailored as if I am in Dallas and moving to another location in Dallas, even if that is not the case.

So, at the end of the search results URL (in my web browser) I have to add “&pws=0″ to the end of the URL, hit “enter” and Google will de-personalize the search results for me.

To make it easier, though, I have developed a Firefox Bookmarklet (a bookmark) that you can use to automatically remove the personalization from the Google search results. All you have to do is click on the bookmarklet and it will remove the personalization for you.

How to Install the Bookmarklet
To install the bookmarklet I created for removing personalization, all you have to do is copy this URL below and bookmark it. In Firefox, you can add the bookmark to your bookmarks toolbar as a button. Here is the bookmark:

Remove Personalization

The above bookmark does not start with http, since it is actually a JavaScript directive to append &pws=0 to the current URL. So, in order for this to work properly you have to first search for something at Google and get to the search results page. Then, click on the bookmark or bookmarklet and it will remove the personalization in the Google search results for you.

Keep in mind that this will work differently depending on the exact keyword phrase that you’re searching for. You may or may not be able to force Google to remove certain personalization that they are doing.

Oh Really?

Let’s take a look at Google’s search results for a popular news item that I wrote about yesterday, Chitika’s FTC Settlement in regards to behavioral ad targeting. Let’s try a Google search for Chitika FTC.

Here is the search results on Google for Chitika FTC:

Take a look at the Google search results, and you will notice that Google has decided that a a duplicated (the same exact content) press release from PR Newswire, for more *MORE THAN HALF OF THE SEARCH RESULTS* on the first page of search results. C’mon, Google, is a press release, duplicated on all sorts of local news web sites, appropriate to show over and over again in your search results? I don’t think so.

Let’s take a look at the Bing.com search quality for the same exact search result, for Chitika FTC:

In the Bing.com search results for the Chitika FTC query, we actually see separate, non-duplicated search results. We see some news articles, my blog post/article about the subject, and then we even see the FTC web site. And even more unique, quality news articles about the subject.

So, which search results have better search quality, the Google search results that are filled with a PR Newswire duplicated press release from Chitika (do you think there’s some bias there?) or Bing.com search results, that have unique news articles on the subject? I guess we now know that if we want to get word out for a particular subject or about our company, all we have to do is pay PR Newswire to publish a press release for us.

Apparently Google’s recent Farmer update has not included web sites that are full of duplicate press releases. C’mon, Google, show one press release in the search results only, please.

For publishers all over the world, two main problems have often plagued the publishing world – how to get your content into the hands of those that want it, and how to profit from doing so. In the past, with print media the only business model that was available was a “one size fits all” type model. For example, there are people who just buy the Sunday paper just for the coupons while others are only interested in the Business, and Sports sections of the paper. For both customers, they are charged the same flat rate. Because of this, people have shied away from getting the Sunday paper because they have found other ways to get the information or resources that they want without all the extras that they do not. Magazines have a similar issue. Hopefully, this situation will soon become a thing of the past with the introduction of one of Google’s latest creations – Google One Pass.

Google One Pass is a payment system, powered by Google, that allows publishers to control how their content is accessed, and thus giving publishers the flexibility of offering various levels of content access without having to deal with various payment processors. It can be set to accept one time only payments, as well as, auto-renewal payments all from the same platform. Something else that is great about Google One Pass is that it allows users to just use one login to access the content anywhere. So the same login you used to access the content on your smart phone, you could also use to gain access through your electronic tablet, or laptop.

Another great thing about Google One Pass is its flexibility. From one easy to use interface, publishers can test out various levels of content access, and payment systems. So if you want to create a coupon that gives someone a one day pass, you can easily do that, and not have to worry about the access code giving them continuous access. Also, if you want to make it so that someone can have full access to your general content, and only be able to access other sections only if they have paid to do so, then that is possible as well, and the user can do all of this with just one login.

Google One Pass has some really great potential, and could definitely be a major game changer. Many publishers would love to better financially benefit from access to their content, but having to set up payment processors, and various access codes and logins can be time consuming, and intimidating. If Google One Pass lives up to the hype, then content creators can cater to the buying public’s various needs and wants. I am not sure if this feature is in there, but it would be nice if there was a counter to remind someone how much time they have left to access a particular piece of content. In short, Google One Pass could greatly change how membership sites, and other paid to access sites are set up in the future.

The trademark and domain name of Infoseek, a search engine originally founded in 1994 by Steve Kirsch and the first search engine to sell advertising on a CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) basis, will be put up for auction on December 8, 2010. The Infoseek trademark and domain name will be part of a brand name auction being held at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York City.

Currently, Infoseek.com redirects to Go.com, a web portal powered by Yahoo! Search (which is powered by Bing.com).

According to Wikipedia, the Infoseek search engine originally featured a “complex system of search modifiers, including boolean modifiers such as the most basic “OR” and “NOT”, parentheses, and quotes, up to being able to say that one wanted one word or phrase to appear within x number of words from another word or phrase.

Before being bought by Disney, Infoseek also offered a free web hosting package. It was free of advertising, and had no limit on the amount of file storage space that could be used. Advertising was added after the Disney purchase.”

In September of 1997, Infoseek had about 7.3 million visitors per month. Infoseek was bought by The Walt Disney Company in 1998, and Infoseek’s technology was merged with Starwave, another technology and company that Disney bought, to eventually form the Go.com network.

In December, the Infoseek trademark and domain name will be auctioned off to the highest bidder. Certainly this is a great opportunity for someone to acquire not only part of internet search engine history, but possibly revive the search engine. Personally, I would love to see another great competitor out there to compete with Google and Bing.com.

To register for the Infoseek auction and see the other brands and trademarks that are being auctioned, see http://www.trademarkauctioninfo.com.

Screen capture courtesy Search Engine Watch.

Here is what Google has to say about Instant Previews:

Instant Previews provides a graphic overview of a search result and highlights the most relevant sections, making finding the right page as quick and easy as flipping through a magazine. To use it, click once on the magnifying glass next to the title of any search result and a visual overview of the page will appear on the right. From there, hover your cursor over any other result to see a preview. For those of you who’ve recently stopped using your mouse to search, now you can navigate to a result, hit the right arrow key to see the preview, and hit the down arrow key to keep browsing.

Google also reports that from their testing they have found that “people who use Instant Previews are about 5% more likely to be satisfied with the results they click”. Is five percent really a big enough number to warrant adding such a feature to the Google search results? I’m not so sure.

In fact, we have seen thumbnails before and they did not last that long. Personally, I am not really a fan of these instant previews, especially since the page that you’re going to get may or may not be the actual page that is loaded. Especially on websites that change their content frequently. And I am sure that someone is going to figure out a way to “beat the system” so to speak and cloak the content (show Google and the users one Instant Preview) and show other content to you when you actually visit the page.

I took a look at a search result for my a search for my own name and found that Google is showing the Instant Previews in the search results. See the video below for a sample.

I would also note that when you’re actually logged into Google you do not get the Instant Previews option. Maybe this is only being done temporarily, but Google is not showing Instant Previews for those of us who are actually logged into Google.