Posted on

Google Doodle: Ruth Asawa

Today’s Google doodle celebrates the sculpture artist, Ruth Asawa.

This is how the Google front page looked like:

Google front page with Ruth Asawa.
Google front page with Ruth Asawa.

Here is the doodle by itself:

Ruth Asawa Google doodle.

The doodle linked to a search for Ruth Asawa:

Google search for Ruth Asawa, linked to by today’s doodle.
Posted on

SEO: Images Are Important Too

Search Engine Land posted an insightful article today: Apparently Google is featuring images more often in its search results than in the past: https://searchengineland.com/google-starts-showing-more-images-in-the-web-search-results-315804 .

For example: search Google for a keyword, and if Google decides you might be interested in an image search, it’ll show an image bar within the search page. Now this images bar has always existed, but the Search Engine Land article indicates that this bar is becoming more frequent/being added to more searches. Here’s a demonstration:

cupcake
Google search for cupcake.
Google search for cupcake. Note the “Images for cupcake” bar on top. Note that this is a regular search results page – Google thought I might be interested in pictures, so it’s showing an images bar.

With this new emphasis on images, it’s important to properly SEO images on your website. Make sure to fill out the ALT attribute on the IMG HTML tag, and have a caption explaining the image. Use a high quality image if available.

Posted on

Notre Dame Fire

During today’s Notre Dame fire, Google updated the search results for Notre Dame to indicate the emergency. Here is what Google Maps showed (note the little fire icon above the cathedral):

Screenshot of Notre Dame on Google Maps.
Screenshot of the Notre Dame on Google Maps. Note the little fire icon above the Notre Dame cathedral itself.

If you Google searched for the fire, or clicked the link from Maps, you’ll see the following screenshot. Note the emergency alert at the top, and the map of the fire’s affected area underneath the news section.

Google search for Notre Dame fire.
A Google search for Notre Dame fire.

Posted on

Google Introduces before: And after: Date Searching

Google recently posted the below Twitter thread, introducing the before: and after: search operators. Now instead of using advanced search to limit searches by date, you can use these operators straight in the search box.

Google Twitter thread discussing the before: and after: search operators.
Google Twitter thread discussing the introduction of the before: and after: search operators. Click the image to expand.

For example, if I need to search for Star Wars content before 2018, I can try:

star wars before:2018
Star Wars 2018, Google Search
A search for Star Wars content, limited to documents before 2018.

Compare that to a regular search for Star Wars content, which includes news released in this year – 2019.

star wars
A Google search for Star Wars.
Posted on

Google Testing New GoogleBot – Capable Of Rendering More Web Apps

Search Engine Land announces they’ve spotted a new version of GoogleBot in the wild – it’s based on a more recent version of Chrome and can therefore render (and index for search) more advanced web applications:
https://searchengineland.com/google-spotted-testing-version-of-googlebot-that-can-render-more-content-315322 . A Googler even confirms the story through Twitter.

While we know that the GoogleBot is constantly improving, it’s good to see that Google is investing more time into GoogleBot being able to see modern web applications.

Posted on

Google Easter Egg: Do A Barrel Roll

In computing, an Easter Egg is a hidden trick that an application or web site can do. There are a lot of famous easter eggs buried in various programs, and Google is no exception.

If you have a reasonably modern web browser, search Google for do a barrel roll. The Google screen itself should rotate through 360 degrees in imitation of a barrel roll. Here are some example screenshots of the rotation:

do a barrel roll
Part of the barrel roll.
Part of the barrel roll.
The barrel roll almost completed.
The barrel roll almost completed.

If you want to see the barrel roll recorded on video, try this YouTube video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksJ8uy09KkA .

The do a barrel roll phrase was popularized by 4chan, but originated from Star Fox 64, where a major character repeats that phrase to encourage dodging from enemy fire. See Know Your Meme for an explanation or this YouTube video for gameplay footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIkJvY96i8w .

Posted on

Google Search Operator: The Number Range

Suppose you need to find a web page containing a number, but you don’t know the exact number. Enter the Number Range operator. The number range operator looks like this: #..#.

For example, if I wanted to search for content from the Google I/O conventions between Google I/O 2016 and Google I/O 2018, I could search for the following:

google io 2016..2018
Search for Google IO 2016..2018

As you can see from the videos top bar, I found content from Google IO 2018 (the keynote), and Google IO 2017 (Introduction to Kotlin).

The number range operator works for prices as well. Suppose I wanted to buy a laptop, but my budget is only $550 to $700. Let’s try to find a laptop using Google search:

laptop $550..$700
laptop $550..$700

As you can see from Google’s bolded text, I found multiple laptops within my price range of $550 to $700.