7 Google Updates: Custom Search, AdWords API, Maps, Search Appliance and More

October 26, 2009 by admin
Filed under Search Engines

Google had another busy week pushing out updates. That’s really no surprise considering Apple released product refreshes and Microsoft released Windows 7. Google hasn’t let any major update from any competitor go by without their own news and this week was no different.

We’ve already covered Google getting a deal with Twitter (similar to Bing’s deal with Twitter) as well as a new social search experiment set up in Google Labs.

Here are 7 updates that are slightly minor but you’ll still want to know about:

Custom Search is now available for mobile search experiences on smartphone and higher-end devices. Google will even host your mobile-optimized custom search pages for you, or you can host it on your mobile site.

AdWords API has a new version that includes asynchronous calls, keyword and placement ideas, and a location extensions preview.

Google Maps for Mobile has introduced layers for Blackberry users.

Google Search Appliance, an enterprise search server, released an update that includes a Self-Learning Scorer.

Google Friend Connect has a new Wordpress plugin.

Webmaster Central has new instructions for verifying a Blogger blog in Webmaster Tools.

Google Reader added Popular Items and Personalized Ranking features.