Creative SEO News UK, Search Engine Optimisation & Search Marketing News » google maps

Lock Ness Monster Spotted on Google Earth by Security Guard.

Creative SEO — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:24:51 +0000

A British security guard has found an image on Google Earth which resembles the legendary Lock Ness Monster, but has the illusive creature finally been caught on camera?

The image shows a large unidentified object, which resembles a sea creature, on the surface or beneath the water. The image can be found by searching Google Earth and entering coordinates Latitude 57°12’52.13″N, Longitude 4°34’14.16″W.

Adrian Shine, a Loch Ness researcher has called the image “Really Intriguing” and is said to be investigating the story further.
Google have been so intrigued by the findings that on Thursday, they sent the new Google Street Maps Bike to circle the lake and record further imagery for the Street Maps project, hoping to capture more evidence.

It has been suggested that the image is of the Lock Ness Express, a boat which regularly tours the lake. Another image of the boat can be seen on Google Earth by entering the coordinates Latitude 57°10’8.21″N, Longitude 4°37’53.37″W.

It’s unknown at this time exactly what the image is but internet users are eagerly awaiting the launch of the new Lock Ness Google Street Map imagery, just in case they spot something else.

Article by Creative SEO – Search Engine Optimisation

Google Updates Maps, Adsense, YouTube, Reader and Books!

Creative SEO — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:08:43 +0000

Google has been busy updating its services this week, Google Maps, Adsense, YouTube, Google Reader and Google Books have all been updated as part of Google’s continued development. So the big question is, “What’s New?” Here’s a brief overview.

Google Maps has added Picasa photos to Street view. As long as the image has been Geo-tagged Google will include it in Street View.

“Millions of people already rely on Picasa Web Albums to share their photographs with friends and the internet community. Now, their public geo-tagged photos will help Google Maps users to get a better impression of a geographic place, especially for areas where we may not have any Panoramio photos,” Daniel Cotting, software engineer, Google Zurich, wrote on Google’s Lat Long Blog.

“We’ve selected these photos by looking for geo-tagged public images in Picasa Web Albums. We apply face detection to screen out images with identifiable individuals and image matching so that we’re including the most relevant photographs.”

Google AdSense is conducting email interviews to find out exactly what it’s publishers want. Google are obviously keen to understand more about the needs and requirements of their publishers in light of the new Bing Yahoo search deal. Bing and Yahoo pose a potential threat to Google and customer feedback will help Google to improve the service further. Adsense has also launched a Beta Category Filter system for English Language feed ads.

YouTube recently ran a 1,024 recipe multivariate experiment using Google’s Website Optimizer. The results were fantastic, a 15.7% increase in new account signup based on minor changes to the site layout and text.

Google Reader has introduced a new sharing option allowing you to share content with Twitter and Facebook.

Google books have added a Creative Commons license option for its partners, to protect published content.

Article by Creative SEO

Google Maps New Features, Attractions, Points of Interest

Creative SEO — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 12:18:54 +0000

Google Maps changed the way we search for location information, directions and mapping data. Google are continuing to evolve and develop the product by adding more and more new layers of data and functionality. Images, Articles, Video content, user lists and itineraries are all currently available to view. The latest new additions to Google Maps include attraction information and points of interest.

Users can now discover businesses, attractions and other key points of interest on the maps but only at a high level of zoom. New icons show key points of interest and each of these icons can be clicked to reveal detailed information about the location.

These new functions yet again improve the user experience and offer greater levels of information to the end user. The only worry is that will there eventually be too much data to view at any one time. We are convinced that Google has plans to implement a new and improved filter menu system to combat this very issue. Possibly utilising existing filtering technology, maybe even using a similar interface to Google Earth, we will have to wait and see.

Article by Creative SEO News

Coronation Street First UK Soap to be included in Google Street View

Matt Blay — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 09:05:36 +0000

Google Street views, the controversial 360 degree virtual mapping service has come to Coronation Street.
Coronation Street, the UK’s longest running soap, has been visited by the controversial Google Street Views mapping car. Very soon you will be able to take a virtual 360 degree tour of the whole of Coronation street, walking in the footsteps of the stars. Famous locations that have been included are Rita’s Kabin, Roy’s Rolls, and Rovers Returns.

Google Street Views is a new generation of 3d mapping service which has been integrated into the existing Google Maps and Google Earth systems. It allows users to virtually walk or drive down a 3d photographic representation of a road. The system takes hundreds of thousands of static images which are reassembled to create a virtual 360 degree representation of the location.

“Thanks to Street View, fans will be able to have a good nose around the set in a way that would have been unimaginable almost 50 years ago when the show was first aired”. Explained an ITV spokesman.

The service is due to be launched in the next few days. So if you’re a Coronation Street fan this is one new Google feature that you can’t afford to miss.

Article by Creative SEO – Search Engine Marketing

Google Maps adds Celebrity Favorite Places, A Test for shared Community favourite Places?

Creative SEO — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:48:08 +0000

Google Maps adds a collection of Celebrity Favorite places from around the world, is this the first stage of testing a new system which allows Google users to share their favourite places?

Google Maps has revolutionised the internet and online mapping. Local companies are able to add their businesses directly to Google Maps, showing the location of their company and advertising there business under local search terms and all this for free.
Google are constantly trying to improve the service by adding more and more places and destinations to Google Maps. Google Local Business centre has been extremely successful but still only a small proportion of businesses have taken the time to add their company. Google needs to look at new alternative methods of populating attractions, businesses and places of interest in order to continue to add value to the service.

Google have added a New feature to Google Maps called Favourite Places which currently shows the favourite destinations of celebrities and a comment about why they really like each location. The data for this initial experiment has been accumulated from a variety of different sources including: United Airlines, NYC & Company, Time Out and Le Figaro.

This is a fun service but with around 200 celebrities revealing their Favorite places from around the world, how will this truly benefit the end user?

Google have let slip to the potential of this service and it seems they will be using the service to discover and recruit more local businesses to appear in Google Maps.

“With this project we also hope to send a friendly message to local businesses — people are looking online for local information, and you should be here.” Taken from the Official Google Blog.

As the service stands this would not be possible, but by allowing Google users to add their own personal favourite places, Google could potentially massively improve their ability to discover and add new Local businesses, places of interest and attractions. Allowing the Google community to help with the discovery would be an act of genius and would add yet another unique feature to the service, maintaining Google’s industry leading position.

More and more people are turning to the internet in order to find local businesses, restaurants, bars, clubs, stores etc through the use of computers and mobile devices.

“It’s estimated that 80% of U.S. Internet users use web search to find restaurants, stores and other local businesses, and yet only about half of local businesses currently have a website. By working with local experts to highlight the power of the web, we’re encouraging local business owners to build out their online presence.” Google.

Consumer demand is high and it’s clear to see that Google are taking this demand seriously. Adding more local businesses to Google Maps would add value to the service allowing users to find the local services they were looking for. If Google were to open up favourites to the Google Community, the potential functionality would be extremely exciting. Local businesses could be assigned a level of popularity based to direct searches for specific locations and business types. Users could accurately rate a business based on personal experience. The list of functionality goes on, we will have to wait and see exactly what Google has planned, but as always this is an exciting time.

Article by Creative SEO UK

Google Location Based Search Upgrade, Location Images added next to Maps.

Creative SEO — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 10:20:35 +0000

Google has upgraded its Location Based search facility, which is part of the main Google search interface. When searching for a location, for example “London UK”, Google will provide a small map of London as part of the returned search engine results. The map is often at the top of the page. Google has enhanced this service by adding 6 thumbnail images of the searched location, to the right hand side of the map, in the search results page. This allows users to see images of the location and enhances the existing service.

This offers yet another incentive for Search engine marketing professionals, where appropriate, to start optimising their sites image content based on location. Google Location based search offers another indirect route to marketing a website. It’s still early days for this technology and there is a very big opportunity for sites to utilise the service and indirectly market there website content.

Article by Creative SEO – a Search Engine Optimisation Consultant based in Devon.

New Google Maps Gadget, Embed in Your Website and Offers Direction to your Customers

Creative SEO — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:39:50 +0000

Google have created an amazing new gadget which allows your websites visitors to search for direction to your business directly from your website using Google Maps.

This great new tool allows any business to provide customised directions to their clients using Google Maps. You will no longer need to type out complicated lines of directions, the Google Gadget does all the hard work for you and all your customer needs to do is update their own location and away you go.

“The gadget allows you to pre-fill the “To” field with one or multiple addresses. Customers are able to print their directions with a single click. And for those who prefer not to drive, the gadget also provides walking and public transit directions.” Taken from the Official Google Blog.

This is a great Gadget and one that could be utilised by almost any business. It only goes to show that sometimes the simple ideas are the greatest ones.

Author: Creative SEO UK

My Location button added to Google Maps Desktop Version

Creative SEO — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:27:45 +0000

The mobile version of Google Maps has always had a “My Location” button which will plot your exact location using your mobile device and GPS. Google have now added the “My Location” button to the desktop version of Google Maps. In order to view the new icon you will need to be running a compatible web browser, currently this is Google Chrome 2.0 and Firefox 3.5. You can also use any web browser with Google Gears installed on it.

The new icon is located below the onscreen compass interface and above the zoom and street views icon.

On testing we were able to get a location but unfortunately it was 5 miles away from our actual geographic location. Apparently the location can be calculated by using local Wifi points to triangulate the approximate location of the user. It would be interesting to hearing your comments on whether you have had any success using the new button. It might be that there is no public access points is our direct location which has resulted in the results being inaccurate. Have you been able to make this service work, let us know?

Author: Creative SEO UK

Google Joins the Real Estate Market adding real estate and property listings to Google Maps

Creative SEO — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:53:28 +0000

Google joins the real estate market allowing users to search for a property to buy or rent using Google Maps.

The launch of Google Maps has revolutionised the internet and now Google has taken it one stage further with the introduction of Real Estate and Property for sale listings which now appear directly on a local property search within Google Maps. This service is available on the US version of Google Maps but this does include UK and worldwide property listings.

It is obvious that this service is in testing and is still in an early stage of development but you have to be impressed with the quality of the results. Finding the link to the service is a little difficult and could easily be missed. If you perform a Google maps search for “New York Real Estate” in Google Maps US you will notice a small Advertisement above the sponsored links on the left hand side of the map interface. The text reads “Real estate on Google Maps”. If you click on the link you will be taken to the new Google Maps real estate interface. Currently the service allows you to search and filter results by listing type, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms and the square foot Area. You can also search for properties within a certain value range i.e. from $100,000 to $150,000.
Each property result is shown directly on the map and offers links to get directions, search for properties in the surrounding area, visit the property on street view, save the property or send the property details by email or directly to your phone or GPS device.

The full page description offers further details including images, web pages and estate agent and realtor details. You have to remember that this is currently a completely free service and data is currently being pulled by Google from real estate websites and Google base. With that in mind this truly is a great service allowing users to view properties for sale in an area, from a variety of different agents, on one easy to use map interface.

We will have to wait and see how the Realtor and Estate Agency industry reacts to the service, the National Association of Realtors have been quoted as calling Google a site “Scraper”. It’s important to see this not as a threat but as a new channel of marketing properties and with that in mind Realtors need to embrace the technology and make sure there properties are listed as soon as possible.

Article by Creative SEO UK

Free Google Travel Planner, Google City Tours, Google is testing a new Holiday Vacation planning service.

Creative SEO — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:01:53 +0000

As the recession continues travelling abroad might not be an option this year for many families. More and more holiday makers are choosing to stay at home, planning their own holidays in their own countries. This is where Google has stepped in, yet again, with the launch of a new experimental product called Google City Tours.

It’s very evident that this product is in an early stage of development, there are many bugs and a few browser errors. What’s important is to look at the concept which looks to be very strong. The idea would be to allow a user to plan a holiday itinerary, directly onto Google maps, setting up travel times, visits to attractions, hotels and more. The system will print an itinerary which can be used on your holiday.

City Tours offers even more, it will analyse a destination and plan an itinerary based on the destinations local attractions and landmarks. Potentially City Tours could use search popularity to recommend the most popular attractions in any given destination.
Google City tours has the potential to become a very useful and popular product, its still very early in its development but it is well worth a visit. Click here to visit City Tours.

Article by Creative SEO