A lot of people who aren’t interested in search engine optimisation might not realise the quantity of products that Google offers outside search. Google spend a lot of time developing new and innovative features to strengthen their hold on the search engine market and advertising, that generates the majority of their revenues. They also build and own many products outside what would typically be thought of as’ search’, and some of their most notable products include YouTube and Android as well as Gmail. In this SEO blog I’ll cover some of those products you might not have heard of, and discuss a little about what they can be used for. In no discernible order…here they are:
Google Code is their site for developer tools, APIs and technical resources. On ‘Code’ there are application programming interfaces (API) available for Google Maps, YouTube and a number of other Google Apps. This site also features several developer products and tools that have been built specifically for software developers. These include the Google App Engine, a hosting service for web apps and the Google Web Toolkit, which allows developers to use the Java programming language to build Ajax applications. This particular Google product is obviously aimed at people with a technical or programming background that use Google on a regular basis.
Google Scholar is a platform that allows users to browse scholarly literature that has been uploaded to the web. The ‘Scholar’ concept was first trialled in 2004, but the service received an upgrade in 2006 when Microsoft released ‘Windows Live Academic Search’, which could have been a potential rival. Journals or articles in ‘Scholar’ can be found in a number of formats, with the most popular being PDF, and while some can be downloaded free, the majority have to be paid for after a free sample. Google Scholar is most likely to be used by students, academics, or researchers looking for academic texts relating to a specific topic.
3. Google Translate
Google Translate is a free machine translation service offered by Google, which translates a section of text, a website or a document into another language. The user can choose between 63 different languages, including Welsh, Afrikaans, Basque, Yiddish, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, Persian and Polish. Google announced earlier in the year that they are to close down the free version of the service due to the financial burden caused by people abusing it, however, it is to be replaced with a paid service. This product had numerous users, including website owners who might want to publish their content in the native language of geo-specific domains, or just casual users who need a phrase translated. Google’s decision to shut down the free service has been widely criticised.
Google SketchUp is a 3D modelling program designed to be used by architectural and structural engineers, game makers, filmmakers and other related professions. The software, which has been designed for ease of use can be downloaded in two versions; one free and one paid for. The free version is marketed as being intuitive and fun to use, allowing users to re-imagine living spaces and model buildings for Google Earth. The paid version, called SketchUp Pro offers the same features as well as the ability to exchange files with other software, the creation of compelling design documents, and the option to generate reports and PDFs.
5. Google Trends
I have spoken about Google Trends in the past and how it can be of benefit for both SEO and internet marketing campaigns. As Google puts it, Google Trends allows you to compare the world’s interest in your favourite topics. Essentially, it allows you to enter five different topics, and Google will provide the corresponding search volume data for each of those queries, allowing you to look for trends in the data. It can be used by SEOs to identify patterns in user behaviour, specifically seasonal behaviour, and what keywords an audience use at a specific time of year.
6. Google Talk
Google Talk is a downloadable chat application. There are two ways that users can operate Talk. One is through a video and voice plug-in, which allows chat within Google Mail, iGoogle and Orkut, and the other is a downloadable software application which allows you to host ‘MSN’ style chats from your dashboard.
7. Google Earth
Google Earth is an application that lets you go anywhere in the world and view satellite imagery, terrain, 3D buildings and numerous other features that make this product a fantastic play-thing as a well as a potentially useful tool for professionals. Google Earth can be operated from the user’s desktop, in Google Maps and also on mobile devices, and there is the option to save information about the places you visit and share that with friends.
8. Picasa
Picasa is a product Google acquired, which helps users organize, edit and share their photos – it’s almost like having a digital photo album for free. The name is a blend of Picasso, the famous artist, and the Spanish word ‘casa’, which means house and this quite delicately sums up what the product represents. This is another user product that doesn’t necessarily have a definitive or strict user base, but it’s intuitive and user-friendly design has been almost universally praised by critics.
9. Google Product Search
Google Product Search is a hybrid of two former Google products called ‘Google Products’ and ‘Froogle’. It is a price comparison service where users enter the desired product into the search box, and Google returns results about numerous products relating to the search query, and price listings for a select number of vendors. Unlike many other price comparison websites, Google doesn’t receive money for listing vendors, nor can those vendors pay to have their items listed at the top of a Google product search.
10. Google Alerts
Google Alerts is a service that lets you have emails sent to you when Google finds new results related to a search term that you have entered. The Alerts the user asks Google to send can be as broad or as defined as the user dictates because you can choose specific result types to get alerts for as well as how often you receive them. Google Alerts could be used if the user is following a particular news story – perhaps they are waiting for the verdict of a court trial. They could ask Google to alert them as soon as a result is found relating to the trial verdict ensuring they get the information almost as soon as it released.
So, those are my top 10 Google products you might now have heard of. If you don’t agree with my list, or would just like to contribute your own suggestions then please feel free to comment and someone from SEO Consult will get back in touch with you.
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