Social Web Blog marked Google’s 80th official blog launch. The new blog was launched on February 9, 2009. It will cover news and updates regarding Google’s social networking and media efforts in future.

“We are launching this blog for anyone interested or involved in helping to make the web more social. Whether you own a site and want to add social features to increase community engagement, or you’re developing a great social application, this blog is for you. We will write about social initiatives within Google, such as Google Friend Connect, as well as community efforts like OpenSocial. We plan to share some success stories, present tips and tricks, provide updates when there are new developments, and much more”, the site added.

Google has launched a new blog called “Conversion room” The blog is run by European Googlers and is dedicated to improving conversions.
In addition, the Conversion Room will let users know about events taking place in Europe. It will also provide tips and information that are useful for a global audience. The most recent blog post talks about installing site search and tracking the results.

As part of marketing strategy, Yahoo! Canada has joined hands with the Air Miles Rewards Program to issue Air Miles collectors some free reward miles for doing everyday searches through Yahoo! With this partnership Yahoo! is all set to increase its market share in the world of search engine.

According to Gina Cothey, Director of Network Optimization, Yahoo! Canada,

Yahoo! has recently indulged in testing a new feature called “Search Pad,” which automatically collects sites and content when users conduct online research. The feature is almost similar to Google’s Notebook application (that has already been disposed!) But, now reports are that the webmasters are not happy with Yahoo’s Search Pad. According to them, it is a scrapper tool! Some of them are even willing to block this tool completely. The point is that the tool has not been getting much positive reviews!

Below is a video to help you know more about its working:

A lot of people have been speculating that Google AdSense is testing a new ad format. Various reports of publishers say that they are noticing the new ad format at DigitalPoint Forums
Have a look at the new format:

According to many, the new format will bring in more revenue.

Below are some of the responses from publishers:

Google Website Optimizer has launched its own channel on YouTube Now, users can get all the videos related to Website Optimizer. They will also get various tips on how to set up landing page tests, as well as how to interpret the results easily!

“We’ll continue adding more videos, both from Google and from our partners. If you want to keep up with all the new videos you can subscribe to the Website Optimizer Channel or add an iGoogle gadget to your homepage.” -Google

Google Analytics has launched Urchin 6.5 It includes AdWords integration, as well as improved geo-database functions and more.

According to the Google Analytics Blog: “Urchin can now automatically pull your AdWords cost-per-click data and integrate it into your reports, giving you the same kind of powerful search marketing analysis found in Google Analytics. No more manual downloading and processing!”

Urchin, a software-based version, which was acquired by Google. The free Google Analytics was developed from it only. However, Urchin is not free, like the latest one. It costs $2995, runs on your own servers (all the data is kept in-house) and reports up to 1,000 domains.

According to Jennifer Slegg of jensense.com, Google AdSense has added 300 more channels for AdSense publishers. With this addition, the number of channels totaled to 500.
Google says, “Channels enable you to view detailed reporting about the performance of specific pages and ad units. By assigning a channel to a combination of pages or ad units, you could track the performance of a leaderboard versus a banner, or compare your motorcycle pages to your automobile pages.”

However, many people at the Webmaster World are saying that they have only 200 channels. But, at the same time others are saying that have already been enjoying 500 channels for a quite long time.

Gmail users had been facing a lot of problems in regard of viewing multiple panes in different browser windows to read their messages. But, recently Google has added a new feature to Gmail Labs, which allows all Gmail users label their messages and have saved searches at the same time! The feature is called “Multiple Inboxes.”

Octavian “Vivi” Costache, Google software engineer explained why he used his “20 percent time” for the development of this new feature:

A few days ago, it was reported that Google made the new “Did You Mean” feature a standard.

According to Google’s director of product management, Johanna Wright, “This approach gets users to the results they wanted faster. Showing the results of the original query accounts for cases when query correction was undesired.”

But, many people have different views regarding this feature, and they have been complaining as well. According to them, they are facing major problems because of the feature, instead of getting help! With some e-commerce sites, the “Did you mean” feature is resulting in Google dropping their rankings.