Google Commerce Search: Google-Quality Search and Speed for Your Online Store

Ever wanted to have Google quality search and ultra fast speed for your online store? Now you can. Today we are launching Google Commerce Search to provide the search on your retail website. Google Commerce Search also leverages the data feed that you submit through Google Merchant Center so you don't need to submit your data again to use Google Commerce Search for your online store.

Google Commerce Search (GCS) is a hosted, cloud-based offering that brings the relevancy, speed, and Google ease-of-use to e-commerce sites.



GCS also has a bunch of user-friendly features that make shopping on online stores easier, and search results more refined and accurate. Some of those features are:

• speed – GCS leverages Google's ultra fast platform, because it's hosted, providing sub-second response times to users.

• Google quality and ranking – GCS analyzes every item in our index using proprietary signals to determine its optimal placement in the result set, for more accurate query results for shoppers.

• parametric search and sorting – GCS allows users to refine or sort results by category, price, brand, or other attribute; this is fully-functional parametric search for e-stores.

• product boost and promotions – Retailers can boost the relevance of certain items, or highlight specific products during a sale, and cross-sell related products.

• spell check, stemming and synonyms – By leveraging the larger Google engine, GCS can include these advanced search and synonym options, so the shopping experience is smoother for customers – even customers who mistype.

• fast deployment and scale – Since this is a cloud-based offering, GCS can be deployed in days and, because it's hosted on the Google platform, retailers can scale to meet their higher-demand periods like the holidays without worrying about slowdowns or spikes.

Birkenstock USA has implemented Google Commerce Search on one of their online properties and found it has already made an impact on their business. "Google Commerce Search is improving user satisfaction -- bounce rates have decreased and we're seeing more return customers,' said Jeff Kilmer, COO, Birkenstock USA. 'The search results are ultra-fast, so customers more easily find the specific products they're looking for. We deployed Google Commerce Search quickly and easily, and we've seen dramatic conversion improvement since implementation. It has also meant a better shopping experience for our customers, which is critical given the holiday season rush."

For more information check out google.com/commercesearch.

Posted by Matthias Zenger, Max Loubser Google Commerce Search Team

Historical Imagery Updates for Berlin

With Historical Imagery in Google Earth, we've made it possible to use Google Earth imagery to see how the world has changed over time. We've been adding imagery since the feature launched in February, and today we announced on our Google Germany Blog that we've added historical images of Berlin from 1945 and 1953. To view these new images, you'll need Google Earth 5.0. Historical imagery can be accessed by clicking on the clock icon in the top menu bar. Here's a sample of what you'll find as you explore the imagery:

Berlin 1945

Berlin 1953

Berlin 2009

Posted by Stefanie Schneider, Google Germany

Googlers Beta - 2009 Edition!

We continue the Googlers Beta Series with a story from Alyssa Daw, a Google Summer Intern and BS student from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, who will share with you her experience as a Software Engineer in Test (SET) Intern in our Kirkland office.

Interested in joining our next class of summer interns? Visit www.google.com/students to apply today!

Alyssa Daw was offered as an Software Engineering in Test (SET) with Google last winter and prepared vigorously by taking advanced coursework in computer science. "I was absolutely ecstatic when I got an internship at Google and I immediately set out to prepare myself by registering for the most difficult courses that I could for spring quarter," she says.

After her winter quarter, Alyssa was diagnosed with a rare medical condition and, after considering the severity of her situation, she contacted Google to give up her offer. "I called my manager to say that he could find someone else," she says. "But instead of taking me up on my offer, he offered to hold the job for me for as long as I wanted it - even if it meant finding shorter projects in case I needed to start late."

Alyssa joined Google this summer in the Seattle office as an intern in our SET group. And although her situation caused her to begin the internship behind schedule, she still had a very successful summer with us. "In the end, I did have to start a couple of weeks late, but the experience was amazing! I definitely felt the support from my whole team, especially my host who ended up getting Vice President approval for some of my accommodations."

Alyssa knew she was going to spend her summer as an SET, but she didn't quite understand what that meant at the time. "Before my internship, I thought that a Test Engineer primarily spent their time testing, and I am sure that in some cases this is true. However, during my internship with Google the only tests that I ran were against my own code - just like any other developer. I also got the experience of talking to users (in this case, other Googlers), and designing and developing a product that fit their specifications."

Her contribution to Google? A tool that allows admins to organize and display information about test labs. "I have never worked in a place where it was so easy to write quality code, test the code, have the code reviewed, and see all the comments, changes, test coverage, and more in one place. This is all thanks to some stellar internal tools. As I got into my own project, it hit me: I was adding to the stellar tools! It felt great to be giving back in this way, and to know that future Googlers would use my tool to make their lives easier.

Choose which messages get downloaded for offline use

Posted by Maria Khomenko, Software Engineer

Like an increasing number of people these days, I like to stay productive during my flights (even those without wifi access). A long flight is a perfect opportunity to go through everything in my inbox and catch up on older mail. I use Offline Gmail in Gmail Labs to access my mail while disconnected. However, up until now, Offline Gmail heuristically picked which messages get downloaded for offline use. This meant that sometimes not enough mail from my Inbox would be available, but the Chat logs that I certainly didn't need on the flight would be there.

From now on, once you enable Offline Gmail from the Labs tab under Settings, you can choose which messages get downloaded. On the Offline tab under Settings, you'll see your current settings and be able to set how much mail you want to download from each of your labels. I chose to download everything in my Inbox and important labels, as well as recent messages from the last month from other labels.


When you hit save, Gmail will synchronize new messages you didn't have downloaded before and remove the ones you're not planning to read from your hard drive. You can always change your settings back to keep fewer or more messages later on -- fewer messages means Offline Gmail runs faster. Questions or comments? Let us know!

Featured Map Maker: Mihai

Name: Mihai Voiculescu (Cartograful)
Day job: Web programmer at itbox.ro
Region mapped: Romania

Until last month, Romania wasn't on Google Maps. Users started a Facebook Cause and a Twitter Petition to get Google's attention on adding Romania to the map. "I found out about Map Maker opening in Romania over Twitter -- I follow Google Maps on Twitter," says Mihai Voiculescu. Mihai is now the #1 mapper in Romania with more than 5,000 map edits made since Google Map Maker opened in Romania in August, and as of last month many of those edits are now live in Google Maps for the world to see.

Like many mappers, Mihai started by mapping his hometown -- Târgu Jiu, the city in the southwest of Romania where sculptor Constantin Brancusi lived and where several of his large works of sculpture have become tourist attractions. From there, Mihai went on to help map Bucureşti (Bucharest) -- the video below shows how the map of Bucharest grew quickly from 5 highways to a complete city over a two week period:

Mihai runs a Romanian travel web site (itbox.ro) that uses the Google Maps API, and says that having a detailed and accurate map of Romania on Google Maps is important for local tourism. "Many people who came to Romania asked me why Romania isn't on Google. People think that Romania is empty, like a desert. Having Romania on Google Maps is a big plus." Mihai also uses Panoramio and has had some of his photos published in Google Earth; "I love the Web, programming and travel," he says.

Normally, Google Map Maker mappers use Google's satellite imagery to draw roads and locate schools, parks and businesses. When the satellite imagery isn't clear enough (due to clouds or low resolution) to trace from directly, Mihai uses a GPS device to create GPS tracks for roads or to locate hotels, then exports the tracks as KML files and uses the Map Maker Overlays feature to draw the roads and hotel locations accurately. He also uses KML files to locate hotels on the map for his travel web site.

Mihai collaborates with other Romanian mappers and co-created a Romania Map Maker discussion group. "I met these people online," says Mihai. However, he will soon be getting together with his fellow mappers in person as they have scheduled a Map Maker training event and mapping party in Bucharest at the Bucharest Academy of Economic Sciences on November 14th (a Google team member will also attend the event in person). "I want to thank all the people from Romania who contribute to build the map on Google."

Posted by Jennifer Mazzon, Maps Community Organizer

Building your business around Google Docs

How do you turn Google Docs and a passion for music into a business? Ask Taylor McKnight, co-founder of SCHED*, who used Google Docs spreadsheets to help attendees of more than 80 conferences and festivals more easily organize their event schedules and not miss a thing. It all started at SXSW when Taylor wanted an easy way to share his band recommendations to friends. His solution - an easy to update and customize scheduling application built on Google Docs spreadsheets that spread like wildfire. It helped him organize information on the 4,000 panels, films, and parties happening at SXSW 2008 and now powers interactive scheduling for other events like Lollapalooza, The Next Web, and theUK Labour Conference. Here's an example from another event:



Taylor credits Google Apps' easy learning, freedom from server overhead, and reliability with enabling his app to support rapid growth. He also made use of the Google Docs API and built-in chat, which let him provide real-time suggestions as clients entered and formatted new information. Read more on the Google Enterprise blog about how Taylor created an elegant solution to a problem "rabid music fans" like Taylor might appreciate.

Posted by: Serena Satyasai, The Google Apps Team

With Google Sites and Docs planning Thanksgiving is easy

Every year families come together from all over to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday. To some people, Thanksgiving brings to mind images of family gathering around a turkey dinner and catching up over heaping servings of pumpkin pie. Others, especially the hosts and hostesses out there, worry about the stress of cooking for 20 people, getting stuck in traffic, picking up relatives from the airport and figuring out where everyone will sleep. If you fall into the second group, why not use Google Docs and Sites to help organize your Thanksgiving chaos this year?

A Google Site is a great way to let everyone know what to bring, provide directions, organize flight arrival times and even plan some post-Thanksgiving events, like football marathons or a little exercise to burn off those pumpkin pie calories.

Use a list page to split up the cooking and show your family what meals they need to prepare.


You can also embed a Google spreadsheet to keep track of everyone's arrival times and get volunteers to pick people up from the airport. You can even insert a flight arrival time gadget so you can avoid circling the airport by making sure flights aren't delayed. To find this gadget, choose 'More gadgets' from the 'Insert' menu and then search for "flight."


Adding announcements to your site will help family members get up to date information. You can display the announcements on the front page of your site, or your family can subscribe to RSS feeds so they get updates whenever there is a new announcement.


Hopefully Sites and Docs make planning your Thanksgiving a little easier this year. Happy Thanksgiving from everyone on the Google Docs and Sites teams.

Posted by: Ashley Chandler, Sites and Docs User Operations

November Imagery Update

Having worked on updates to Google Earth/Maps imagery for some time, I've always enjoyed seeing how the world changes through our regular updates. But, I've wanted to see them more often. Today, I'm happy to announce that we're increasing the frequency of our updates to bring you the world's freshest and most complete imagery.

As a part of this announcement, we're also making some changes to the way that we tell you about new imagery. We'll continue to publish a blog post for our updates but instead of our regular 'Where in the World' quizzes, we're going to start to embed a web-based Google Earth view of the updates in our blog post (like we have below), and continue to link to the KML file for viewing inside the Google Earth application.

In addition, you can share your cool new imagery finds with us using Twitter! After looking at the updates in the viewer below, tweet your cool finds and add the #GEarthIMG hashtag to your tweets. For some added fun, point the Twittersphere to the precise location using EarthURL.org. In a few weeks time, we'll follow things up with a round-up of tweets from those of you using the hashtag and share them with all of you. We'll also be re-tweeting some of your finds from @googleearth.

Updates are noted with a red frame

We hope you have fun tweeting all of the great new imagery finds from the cities, countries, and regions we're making available in this new release.

Posted by Matt Manolides, Senior Geo Data Strategist

2010 Google Online Marketing Challenge

"Students have first hand experience with real clients and real budgets to get real results. Is there a better way to gain experience with the real world?"

"The Challenge energized me and my students. The ability to work with a real-life client and spend "real money" on Google AdWords was unique and exciting."

Registration for the 2010 Google Online Marketing Challenge is now open!

The Google Online Marketing Challenge is a global student competition open to any higher education institution anywhere in the world. The 2009 Challenge had over 10,000 students in 57 countries competing and we want this year's Challenge to grow even more .... please help us to get the word out!

How it works ....

Teams of 3-6 students receive US$200 of online advertising with AdWords and then find local businesses to work with to devise an online marketing campaign. Teams outline a strategy, run their campaign, assess the results and provide the business with recommendations to further develop their online marketing. The winners are judged by an international panel of independent academics.

The challenge is a great way to get you and your classmates involved in the quickly evolving world of online marketing. It's a skill you'll want to have as you graduate and prepare to enter a tough job market and it's definitely a fun way to gain real-world experience with a real client.

Registration ....

Your professor, lecturer or whoever teaches you, enters their student team into the Challenge. If you think your professors, lecturers or tutors might be interested in signing their classes up for the Challenge, let them know about this opportunity! Your professor can obtain more information in the Academic Guide (http://www.google.com/onlinechallenge/academic_guide.pdf) which is filled with information your professor will want to know to decide if the Challenge is right for their class.

The Challenge is open to any university, any discipline, at the graduate or undergraduate level in any country.

Timeline ....

Registration closes: January 22, 2010

Challenge starts: January 28, 2010

Challenge ends: June 4, 2010

Winners announced: July 2010

Register now at www.google.com/onlinechallenge.

Posted by Meghan O'Farrell, Talent & Outreach Programs Specialist

Bookmark sync and more speed in the latest beta release

Fresh from a Halloween weekend, we're excited to introduce a brand new beta for Google Chrome, which includes a few new treats and cool tricks for our users.

For those of you who use several computers -- for example, a laptop at work and a desktop at home -- you've asked for a way to keep your Google Chrome bookmarks in sync across multiple computers. Today's new beta release allows you to do just that! You can keep your Google Chrome bookmarks synchronized and up-to-date across the multiple computers you use, without needing to manually recreate your bookmarks every time you use a different computer.

For more on how to use bookmark sync, check out the video below from one of our team members, Anthony LaForge:

Once you've activated Google Chrome bookmark sync on each of your computers, any changes you make to your bookmarks will appear on all synced computers in just a few seconds. (For those of you who are curious, this bit of magic is made possible by the same XMPP-based servers that power Google Talk).

As with every release, this new beta comes with many speed improvements. In particular, as web applications we use every day become increasingly dynamic, browsers like Google Chrome need to be able to construct and change elements on web pages as fast as possible. We've improved performance scores on Google Chrome by 30% since our current stable release, as measured by Mozilla's Dromeao DOM Core Tests, and by 400% since our first stable release.

The beta channel provides a sneak preview of things to come with occasional rough edges and before most users see them, but it's a great way for us to quickly churn out new features and get your feedback. To try out bookmark sync and other beta features, download the beta version of Google Chrome.

Posted by Idan Avraham and Anton Muhin, Software Engineers

Autumn updates for Google Transit

The days may have just gotten a little bit shorter, but that's not going to stop the Google Transit team from working hard to add new agencies. Over the past few months, we've launched with several partners in many places all around the world.

If you're traveling to Europe, you may be particularly pleased with some of our newest additions in popular tourist regions. In France, we have completed the coverage of Bordeaux, a famous red wine hub, and an UNESCO World Heritage site. In Italy, we launched coverage for the entire regions of Tuscany, Reggio Emilia, and Brescia. If you are in need of some Spanish tapas and sun, the Asturias region in the north of Spain can offer you that -- and we can offer public transit to get you around. The Czech Republic now has the Student Agency and the city of Pardubice covered, and in the UK the launch of the East Anglia region joins the existing East Midlands and Southeast.

This represents great progress in Europe, adding partners in countries where coverage was previously quite thin. We're very excited about this, but we are still far from our end goal of having a public transit alternative for every driving directions search, so we're hoping to keep up our momentum.

We have not neglected the rest of the world, and we have launched many smaller regions in the US, such as Gainesville, Florida and Long Beach, CA. I'm particularly excited about the addition of Bear Transit in Berkeley, which is where Google Transit originated. We also launched our first routing in the Middle East, with data from the Roads and Transport Authority in Dubai, UAE. And coinciding with the announcement of the host of the 2016 Olympic games, we launched a full coverage for Rio de Janeiro. We also launched the first city in New Zealand - Wellington, the Kiwi capital.

Our mobile users also got special treatment. With the launch of Google Maps for Mobile 3.2, the transit layer is available on Symbian S60, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, and the new Motorola DROID, and transit directions were added to the Palm Pre. This means now transit directions are available in Google Maps on all major smartphone platforms.

You can find more information about Google Transit and our current coverage at http://maps.google.com/transit.

Posted by Noam Ben Haim, Product Manager

Are you seeing red?

It's National Cyber Security Awareness Month, the perfect time to shed some light on a few Google Chrome alerts that are designed to help protect your browsing experience on the web.

You may have run into one of Google Chrome's red alert messages when trying to visit a site and wondered why the browser did not immediately bring up the page you requested. These are messages triggered by the phishing and malware protection feature that's enabled by default in the Options menu. Here's an example:

Whenever you see this warning, Google Chrome has detected that the site you're trying to visit may contain malware. Malware is code that attempts to steal your personal information or download harmful software onto your computer.

Besides the malware warning, Google Chrome also checks the security certificates of sites that claim to be properly encrypted (such as bank sites or shopping sites), but that may also ask you for your personal or financial information under false pretenses. If a site's certificate is suspicious, you may see one of the following messages:

• "This is probably not the site you are looking for!"
  This message comes up when the URL listed in the site's certificate doesn't match the site's actual URL, which means that the site you're trying to visit may be pretending to be another site.
  
  
• "The site's security certificate is not trusted!"
  Since anyone can create a certificate, Google Chrome checks to see whether a site's certificate came from a trusted organization. This message means that the certificate wasn't issued by a recognized third-party organization.

• "The site's security certificate has expired!" or "The server's security certificate is not yet valid!"
  If you see one of these messages, that means the site's certificate is not up-to-date. Therefore, Google Chrome can't verify that the site is secure.
  
  
• "The server's security certificate is revoked!"
  The third-party organization that issued the site's certificate has marked the certificate as invalid. Again, Google Chrome can't verify that the site is secure.

It's a good idea to heed these messages you see, even if the site you're trying to visit is owned by someone you know and trust. Hackers can take advantage of security holes on a site without the site owner's knowledge. So even though you've visited your friend's blog without any problem in the past, the warnings can still show up one day if someone exploits a vulnerability on the site. (And if you're seeing this message for a site you own, we're here to help! Just follow these instructions in the Webmaster Help Center. Also, check out this blog post we've written about detecting and removing malware.)

Google Chrome goes to great lengths to help keep you safe on the web. If you want to learn more about protecting your computer, website, and personal information, check out our security series on the Google blog or visit http://www.staysafeonline.org.

Posted by Fiona Chong, Online Editor

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