I do not get to see breaking news very often but once I awhile I am in the right place at the right time. Today was one of those days. I just happened to do a quick search this morning to see where I was ranking for “blog consulting” and noticed something odd. All of the sites listed were showing “This site may harm your computer” below them. I thought that was odd, so I did a search for LGR Internet Solutions, and again all the results were showing the same thing. Odd, as far as I know there is nothing on my website that will harm another persons computer.

LGR Internet Solutions search on Google on January 31, 2009 AM. Google falsely reporting it will harm a computer.

I then did a search on Google for Google and can you guess was I discovered? That is right, Google says that the Google website will harm your computer. I thought I would not get to see that again so I grabbed another screenshot and posted it to my Flickr account.

Google May Harm Your Computer

Taking a quick look at Twitter and discovered that this was going on all around the world. TechCrunch broke the story first. Google Flags Whole Internet As Malware.

The problem lasted for about 30 to 40 minutes with the entire Internet being flagged as malware by Google. Google’s blog states that is was human error and a problem with an update from StopBadWare.org. A post on their blog suggests it was not a problem on their end that was the cause. Whatever the cause Google appears to have fixed the problem.

If you are still seeing “This site may harm your computer” for results for your website, you should investigate your website in case it has been compromised. There is of course a huge question about the damage that Google can do to a company and website when errors like this occur. Google has caused problems in the past when their Google News service picked up an old story and published it as new news on Google News about an airline going bankrupt. Why did the Google team not check the update for such an error before pushing it out on to the production servers? I am sure this is not the end we have heard about this.

I use several of Google’s applications everyday and there are some things that I with they would add. So in no particular order here is my wishlist of things I would like to see added/changed in Google for 2009.

Export Data into Google Docs

Exporting data in Google Analytics. Where is Google Docs?

I like Google Docs. It makes it easy to have the latest spreadsheets and documents that I am working on in Google Docs. The problem is I also use AdSense, AdWords, AdManager and Analytics. They all offer the ability to export data but not one of them offers me the option to export data to Google Docs? GMail will allow me to export attachments into Google Docs, but nothing else. If I had the option to export into Google Docs I would use it more, instead I download the export file and do what I need to do in my spreadsheet. Want me to use Google Docs more, make it easier for me to get the data in.

FeedBurner Stats in Google Analytics

Google bought FeedBurner long enough ago that this should be possible.
Update Jan. 17, 2009 – Logged into Feedburner today and got a message that Feedburner accounts and feeds were being moved to Google.

Chrome for Linux

I heard this was coming and it would be nice to have a version that worked on Linux. I use Chrome occasionally on the Windows machine here at home. It runs well and is fast. It would be great if it has support for addons like Firefox as well. And don’t forget support for 64bit Linux!

Google Calendar Syncing

I use Google Calendar. My wife uses her Palm calendar and syncs it with an older version of Outlook. I have not found a way to sync the older version of Outlook with a Google Calendar and no way to directly sync a Palm to a Google Calendar.

Native Linux version of Picasa

The wine based version does not cut it. Make a native Linux version please and again don’t forget the 64bit version.
Update: Apparently there is a native Linux version. Trying it out now.
I stand corrected. See comment below.

Google Gears on Linux 64bit

Starting to notice a trend? I use 64bit Linux on my main desktop but sadly Gears only works on 32bit Linux.

Google Search Wiki Off Button

I don’t mind the new Google Search Wiki, but I have to agree with TechCrunch, an off button would be nice.

Report Spam Button

Google Webmaster Tools has a report spam section that let’s you submit a report that there is spam in the index. The only problem is it is incredibly inconvenient to report spam this way. Move the report spam feature to the search results, where most of the data already is. You could place the button right beside the Remove button in search wiki. If they are serious about removing spam from the index they need to make it easier to report.

Video Chat in Linux.

And don’t forget the 64bit version!

Intergrate Google Reader in GMail

I realize I can do this in iGoogle, but I don’t sit with iGoogle open most of the day. Perhaps I will have to make a change and use iGoogle instead.

Allow Mulitple Logins

I use GMail for my email but several of my clients have Blogger blogs, seperate AdSense, AdWords and Analytics accounts. I can’t login into their accounts to work on their blogs etc without being logged out of mine. I have been opening two different browsers and working that way but allowing multiple logins would be nice.

OpenSocial Gadgets to Work with FriendConnect

It is great the Google announced that you can add a social playlist to FriendConnect but there needs to be an official OpenSocial gadget directory with gadgets that work with FriendConnect. Add to that a way to login to comment on blogs with the Google login similar to Facebook connect needs to be done. The fact that you can do that with Facebook already leaves FriendConnect behind.

This list has gotten longer than I thought it would be. What would you add or change with Google in 2009?

I have been visiting a few Google Friend Connect websites and have noticed an interesting trend. No one seems to want to edit the canvas.html file to display the correct site name. To be fair it does not say much on the Friend Connect website about the file just “This file can be edited to match the aesthetics of your site.” People do not even seem to make easy edits to the file. Even the largest Friend Connect website I have joined so far, Mashable, has not edited the file.

If you want to make a minor edit to the canvas.html file all you need as a text editor, like Notepad. If you routinely code HTML you can use your favorite editor. Simply open the canvas.html file that you downloaded and to make your website name display when people look at the Friend Connect gadgets in full screen. To change the site name look for the following line, in my editor it is line 87.
<div class="site-header"><span class="section-title">Site Name</span></div>

Simply edit the Site Name to be what ever you want, your website name would probably be the best, but you could be creative I suppose. When you are done, upload the file to your web server per Google instructions. Here is a screenshot of my canvas when you enlarge the members gadget.

There is a lot more that is possible, but that is the bare minimum that you can do to at least have the canvas page display your proper website name instead of “Site Name”. You could go and skin the whole canvas page to have your website look if you are feeling more ambitious, but I don’t have the time to do that today.

Google Friend Connect was opened up to the world in early December and I have finally gotten a chance to take a look at what it offers. According to the Google Friend Connect website Friend Connect has three advantages to offer website owners.

Enrich your site
Choose engaging social features from a catalog of gadgets by Google and the OpenSocial developer community.

Attract more visitors
Your users can easily invite friends from social networks and contact lists to visit and join your site.

No programming whatsoever
Just copy and paste a few snippets of code into your site, and Friend Connect does the rest.

Enrich Your Site

The first statement on the Friend Connect website is that the gadgets will enrich your website. You will be able to add social gadgets from the Friend Connect website as well as choose from many of the OpenSocial gadgets. In a perfect world this could give you hundreds of social gadgets to choose from to add to your website. Unfortunately we do not live in a perfect world. Of the number of gadgets I have tried from the OpenSocial directory I was only able to get the Twitter one to work and that was after I did some editing to the XML code that was on the OpenSocial website. What that means is until the developers create gadgets that work with Friend Connect, the gadgets that work best are the gadgets available from Google.

The gadgets from Google include a members and sign in gadget, and two social gadgets, a wall and a rate and review gadget. This has created a number of comparisons of Friend Connect to services like MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog, because the members gadget is similar to the widgets offered by those services. Overtime the gadgets available from Friend Connect and OpenSocial will be more advanced and offer more interaction. It is possible that at some point in the future the gadgets could allow a website owner to create their own social network similar to Facebook and MySpace, except on your own domain name. At the moment we really only have a couple of choices. Do the gadgets enhance a website already is still up for debate.

I personally have added the Google Friend Connect Members gadget here, but I held off on adding the Wall and Rate and Review gadget. I would prefer to have people comment on the posts themselves. It wold be nice to see a way to tie the Google Friend Connect login in with the comment form, similar to Facebook Connect, so people could login and comment with that. That will probably be on the list of things to do in the near future.

Attract more visitors

I have only been noticing the Friend Connect members box on a few websites and blogs so far. As more websites install it there is a possibility of gaining more visitors. There needs to be more widespread acceptance of the platform and you will need to be active in other websites before you gain a significant amount of new visitors. There is a possibility that your current visitors could find more value in your website with the social gadgets installed making them visit more often and stay longer. As more social gadgets are created this could certainly be the case.

No Programming Whatsoever

This is something Google does well. The success of Adsense is partly based on how easy it is to add to a website, copy and paste the code and you are up and running. Friend Connect is similar. Copy and paste and you can easily have the gadgets provided on the Friend Connect website installed and running on your website. Compare it to Facebook Connect, that I have also looked at, and Friend Connect wins easily. No programming is only true for the default Google gadgets though. If you are thinking of adding any OpenSocial gadgets be prepared for playing with code and things not working properly.

Should You Use It?

This is probably the question most people want to know, should you use it on your website. If you like to live on the edge and try new technologies on your website I would say go for it. The Google gadgets seem to work well, but I would stay away from any of the OpenSocial gadgets unless you like pulling out your hair in frustration. I am surprised that Google launched it with such few gadgets working. Did any of the Google Friend Connect engineers try any of the OpenSocial gadgets with it? If they did they could create a list of ones that work and ones that don’t.

Another reason to look at adding Friend Connect early would be to add some social media components to your website if you don’t have any already. For example if you don’t have a commenting system on your website you could quickly add the Wall gadget and allow people to start commenting on your site with very little work. The Rate and Review gadget could also be a great addition to an ecommerce website to allow people to rate and comment on the different products you have available.

Here is a video from Google about Google Friend Connect if you want some more information.

I will be keeping the members gadget here on LGR Internet Solutions for a little while and seeing how it goes. Feel free to join, I always enjoy getting to know more about the people that visit. If you are interested in having Google Friend Connect installed on your website and don’t want to do it yourself, I would be happy to give you a hand, just drop me a note and I can arrange to have that done for you.

One of the things I have had on my to do list was to replace the WordPress search with the Google Custom search. The WordPress search gives decent search results, but it is hard to compete with the accuracy of Google website search. I was reminded about that today when I was searching for a post I knew I had written about url canonicalization but I could not find it with the WordPress search quickly. I have written about Google custom search in the past and decided that this was the time to add it to the site.

Adding a Google Custom Search to your website or blog is a very easy thing to do. The first step is to visit the Google custom search to create your new custom search. Click the nice big button that says “Create a Custom Search Engine” to get started.

You will then be presented with a screen similar to the one below. Follow the simple instructions to setup you website search engine by giving your search engine a name and description. You probably want to skip the keywords box for a website search engine. It is important to select “Only sites I select.” under what sites you want to search, unless you have network of websites that you want to including in your results. In the select some sites input box make sure you take a look at the “Tips for Formatting URLs. You need to enter the URL correctly or your search engine might not search your entire website. For example to search all of a website you need to enter it like this:

Entire sites: Specifying www.mysite.com/* will include all the pages on www.mysite.com.

Once you agree to the terms of service you can then try out your new website search engine and manage many if the smaller details about it. Some of the sections you might want to pay attention to to manage your website search include the look and feel tab and the code sections. The look and feel options allow you to customize the search box, colors and add your custom logo to the Google hosted results pages. Whether you choose to host the results on your website or let Google host the results it is always nice to blend the results with your colors and logo.

The code tab allows you to setup the search to host the results on your own website or blog instead of relying on Google hosting the results. This is great to keep people on your website and blog as well as blend the website search even more with your website. In order to host the results on your own website you need to create a new page for it. Depending on what content management system you use or blogging software this can be different for everyone. The basic requirement is you need to create a new page to host the results with the Javascript code that Google gives you. For example using WordPress I created a new page called Search Results and I published it. I hide it from the menu using the Page Link Manager plugin. Once you have the URL for the page, paste it into the Google Custom Search Code page then you can copy and paste the search results Javascript code into the search results page you just created.

You will also need to include the search box on your site somewhere. An easy place it to copy it into a sidebar text widget or place it directly into your theme like I have. Once this is all done you can use your new search engine to search your website.blog and make it easy for people to find what they are looking for all with them not leaving your website. The added bonus is that the the Google Custom Search can also be linked to your Adsense account, making you money every time someone clicks on an ad on the search results.

I took me roughly 20 minutes to add a Google custom search to the LGR Internet Solutions website and blog but it has already been a benefit to my users. I have noticed people doing searches in my statistics and reading more pages on the website. As a result my overall bounce rate has gone down and my page views have increased. While that is not just because of the search box, it has helped to keep people here and reading. Take a look at adding a Google custom search to your website/blog. It could help them find exactly what they are looking for.

If you use Google Analytics for you web statistics you might have noticed a slight change in the look of the site recently. While that change is nice take a look at these videos about some of the major changes that are coming! I can’t wait to see the Adsense integration with the reports. That will be so nice to have.

TechCrunch has a good writeup on some of the new features, as well I read about it first over at the Google Analytics blog.

I talked a little while ago about how link building is dead. The whole point of the post was that the method some people and businesses go about building links is, to be blunt, stupid. Shortly after I created that post there was a great post over at SearchEngineLand entitled “Conversation With An Idiot Link Broker“. In that post Danny Sullivan exposes the way some people go about creating links to their website. That is exactly the kind of stupidity I was talking about.

One of the best ways I have found to create quality links back to a site is to participate in the conversations on people’s blogs the hardest part is finding blogs to take part in. This is where Google Alerts comes in handy. You can create an alert for a topic you are interested in and Google Alerts will send you an email when it discovers a blog that has created a post on that topic. All you need to do then is visit the blog post and leave a comment.

It is important to not leave spammy comments otherwise your comment will probably not be approved and your work will be for not. Take the time to actually read the post, and contribute to the conversation that is taking place on the blog. There have been several blogs that I have found using Google Alerts that I now regularly participate on and I also get regular visitors from as well.

Some of you might be saying to yourself “but Lee most blogs use nofollow on comments so I don’t get any Google juice by doing this.” If your sole purpose on building links to your website is to get some magical Google PageRank juice then don’t even bother. Creating quality links that will bring real people to come and visit your website or blog is of much higher value than some magical Google PageRank juice. Remember you should be building your website or blog for your users not for search engines, so work on getting links and visitors.

This is just one of the tools I use regularly to keep in touch with what others are saying on topics I am interested in on the web. What are some tools you use to help your commenting and building links back to your website or blog?

Google Chrome web browser has been released to the world now and I just could not help but download it and install it to see how it looks and works. My first impressions are that it installed quickly and runs fast.

The install was smooth. Chrome even imported all of my bookmarks and some other settings in from Firefox. I imagine it would do the same if Internet Explorer was set as my default web browser. Once it was installed it launched and I was presented with the default home page which in my case was blank. Now that I have used it a little the home page presents me with thumbnails of my most visited websites.

Websites seem to load fast in Google Chrome. I have not sat down and tested the load times but websites do feel like the are loading faster. GMail and Google Reader definitely feel faster. Google Gears is built into the browser and is installed along with it. I have not bothered trying Google Gears until now, but I can see why people like using it. Using Google Reader in offline mode is considerably faster.

Some other first impresssions of Google Chrome that I like:

• Google Gears being built in. Very easy to use in offliine mode.
• Application shortcuts to create a slimline browser mode for GMail, Google Reader, Twitter and any website you want. Combined with Google Gears this makes Google Reader into a nice desktop application.
• I like the home page showing the most visited sites. But I am sure I could do this in Firefox if I wanted to.
• The “Omnibox” so I can search right from the address bar but Firefox does this already as well.

Things I already miss from Firefox:

• Addons – Like Adblock, TwitterFox, Web Developer etc. Things that I use all the time while I am using Firefox. I can’t see using Google Chrome full-time until it supports similar addons.
• That is all I can think of at the moment.

The best thing about the browser is: it is fast!. It will be interesting to see how the browser progresses. What are your first impressions of Google Chrome?

I first read about this project over at Google Blogoscoped. Apparently they sent a comic book in the mail talking about Google Chrome, Google’s Web Browser project. Google’s official blog now has a post on the project. Looks like they sent out a copy of the comic book early. TechCrunch has a story on the new browser as well. It looks like the beta will be out tomorrow with a Windows only version available right a way with Apple and Linux versions to come later.

It is interesting that Google has decided to create its own web browser. It has basically funded Mozilla Firefox, but apparently that is not enough for Google. The Google Chrome web browser is open source project so other projects can look at what Google has done and use that in their projects. It is nice to have more open source web browser innovation. That will certainly keep Microsoft on their toes. If they were worried about Firefox taking away their web browser share, what will a web browser created by Google do to Microsoft’s web browser share. This should also help Google make their web applications more accessible, since Google Gears could at some time in the future be an integrated part of the web browser.

Things I am not to happy about Google introducing a web browser.

• It means I have yet another web browser that I need to test websites in. Granted things should look similar to Firefox, but you never know.
• The paranoid part of me is not so sure I like the idea of using a Google web browser. Google can already track me and my preferences through search, advertising on their network, RSS subscriptions that I read, sites I maintain through Webmaster Tools and most people don’t even realize that if they have a Google account their web history might be being recorded already by Google. Not to mention the Google Toolbar. Do we really want Google to know every website we visit and keep a record of it? I don’t know if the Google Chrome web browser will do that, but it would not surprise me.
• The TechCrunch article talks about malware and phishing sites. “Google will also continually download a list of phishing sites and list of malware sites to your computer, which will be used to warn you when you visit them. Site owners will be notified when their sites are put on either of the lists so false positives can be remedied.” How will site owners be notified? How do you report a false positive if your websites makes it on the list? Will you competitors go and submit your websites to the malware/phishing list and force you to fill out a reconsideration request?

I guess we won’t know all the details until the browser is released. With the release of Google Chrome web browser can the Google Web OS be very far behind?

I know what I will be trying out tomorrow on my Windows computer.

Google has announced on the official Google blog that Knol has been opened up for everyone. Knol is Google’s version of Wikipedia and Squidoo mashed up together. You can create a Knol on a variety of topics much like a Squidoo Lens. You can also collaborate with others to help build a Knol making it more like a Wiki.

Creating a Knol is pretty simple. Just visit http://knol.google.com/ and click “Write a Knol”. You will need a Google account to be able to create Knol’s. It is a simple process to get started.

I really wanted to try out this new service so I created a small Knol on my company. It is fairly basic at the moment and does not contain a great deal about what I do, but it only took me a couple of minutes to write up and publish.

The editing interface is simple and resembles more of a word processor, so it would be easy to use for all those that are just getting started publishing on the Internet. One of the things I like about Squidoo Lenses is the ability to add some interactive elements like polls and comments and the ability to import RSS feeds and other items from social media. These do not seem to be present in Google Knol, I could find no way of adding my latest blog post into the Knol.

If you want to check out Google Knol go and create your own Knol and tell the world what you know. I will have to update mine when I get some time.