Google Ads to Appear on Yahoo’s Pages
Fake!
That was what most commenters said after seeing David Naylor’s screenshot of a Yahoo Answer page with a Google Ad in it. In fact, the screenshot now appears to be true after Yahoo announced on June 12 that they would run Google Ads alongside their search results and on some of its pages in US and Canada, as part of their non-exclusive agreement with Google.
The screenshot posted by David (see image above) was probably taken during the two-week long test run by Yahoo, which only involved a limited number of queries. Since the test run had brought great results, Yahoo will start serving ads from Google three months from now.
The agreement, which has a period of up to ten years, is expected to generate about $800 million annual revenue for Yahoo, and $250-$450 million on its first year.
With those big bucks they’re getting, the decision isn’t bad after all.
But just imagine the reactions of Yahoo users, especially those who are sick of Google, when they’ll see their favorite search engine running ads from its biggest competitor. Is Yahoo insane? Or is Google getting more evil?
I believe most Google fans would think Yahoo is finally admitting defeat to Google and this is an act of suicide, while Yahoo users would think that Google is getting more evil by slowly conquering and monetizing too much of the web. If Ask.com is running Google Ads. YouTube, AOL, MySpace… the question now is: how many search engines aren’t running Ads from Google?
Yahoo assured everyone though that they are still in control on which search term queries, and on which pages they may offer Ads from Google. Also, both search engines emphasized that their agreement preserves competition:
Yahoo says their non-exclusive agreement with Google will strengthen their position in online advertising.
Google says they simply think that such agreement would be good for users, advertisers, and publishers, and good for competition.
So, what about the revenues Yahoo will be getting from running Google AdSense? Well, they are going to use it for improving their search engine. A clever move eh, after dumping Microsoft’s acquisition offer?
Google Currency Conversion Unreliable?
I’ve blogged before that we can convert a currency using Google Search. I use this search feature frequently, and have assumed that it is updated daily, until last friday.
I was watching news in my aunt’s place then, and learned that the Philippine Peso had dropped to 44.10 per US Dollar. I was ecstatic after hearing it since I am earning dollars by working online. For the past eight months peso got stronger against dollar, which by the way is a good sign for our economy, yet not a good one for someone like me since it would mean I will be earning less.
Anyways, when I arrived home I immediately checked Google to see how much I can get from the pay I received recently. (Although I can use my calculator eh?) But then the conversion was still in 43. I wasn’t worried though, that Google hadn’t updated yet, not until I have checked it again several days after. The conversion rate in Google was still in 43 when Peso was already hitting 44 per dollar. In fact, there was one time that I used the feature, and it showed a conversion rate near 40!
This time, I read the disclaimer page again. Google says:
“Google cannot guarantee the accuracy of the exchange rates used by the calculator. You should confirm current rates before making any transactions that could be affected by changes in the exchange rates…Rates are for information purposes only and are subject to change without notice…”
As I am writing this post the conversion rate is Php44.430 to 1usd in Philstar.Com, the online version of a Philippine newspaper,
and Yahoo Finance says Php 44.455
but Google Search says:
So now, I am going to use other currency converter online like Yahoo Finance’s. At least the data is being updated everyday or Yahoo! shows how recent their data is. I still have to click a couple of links though before I will be able to get the answer to my query, yet I would prefer it that way so my next transactions would be a few cents near to the exact peso to dollar rate.
How To Delete Your Google Web History
Your online searches is collected by Google Web History when you enable it, and you stay logged in to your account whenever you do your searches.
It collects not just your keywords and the pages you visited, but also the videos you watched in Google Video, the sponsored links you clicked, the photos you viewed on Image Search results. It records all your activities with Maps, Blog Search, and Book Search.
If at one time you just decided that keeping your search history isn’t a good idea anymore, and it is best to delete all tracks of your past searches then here’s how to do it.
1. Log in to your Account.
2. Click the ‘Edit’ link.
3. On the next page click ‘Delete Web History’.
4. Then it will ask you if you are sure you want to permanently remove Web History from your account. Check the box, if you are sure, and provide your password.
5. Click the ‘Remove Web History’ button.
How to Change Gmail Password
Before, this was also a puzzle to me. But after I figured how to do it, I felt like an expert in Gmail. Well, just kidding. Yet I was really happy sharing this to my friend when he was asking how to change his password. Changing the password in Gmail is really just a simple trick. Here are the steps. Ready?
1. Log in to your Gmail Account.
2. Go to Settings, located at the uppermost right corner of the Gmail page.
3. Then go to Accounts tab, which is just after the General tab.
4. At the bottom of the Accounts tab page, you will see the Google Account Settings. Click the link for ‘Google Account Setting’.
5. The Google Account page will be opened in a new window. At the left side, you will see your personal account information. Click the link that says Change Password.
6. Provide your current password or the answer to your security question.
7. Then type your new password.
8. Click Save.
Google Currency Converter
Converting currencies is one of the Google Search tricks I didn’t know before. I just became familiar when I saw Chris using it.
Chris is an American who worked here in the Philippines for a few months. Sometimes though, his mother still sent him money in his bank account, which were of course in US dollars. So, for him to know how much it would be in peso that time he just googled it. So for example, his mom sent him 300 dollars, he would type in the search box the keywords 300 usd in php. When I did the search, here is the result.
Here are other examples:
So, I started converting currency in Google since the time I noticed Chris. I used it though in converting my AdSense earnings to local currency, and if someone sends me payment in US dollars, payment for the articles I have written for their websites.
Change Language Interface in Gmail
Spanish, Bahasa, French, Chinese, Italian, Korean, Japanese, and even my native language Filipino! Amazing. I guess the trend nowadays of major websites is to reach the non-English users.
We recently heard of social networking sites translating their websites to different languages, and now we have Google starting to roll out a new version of Gmail in an entirely new code base. This was really a big surprise since I haven’t checked the feeds in my Google Reader for days, and this new version coming of Gmail, starting with these languages has been sitting inside my Gmail for a week now.
I immediately went to settings by clicking the settings link at the upper right corner of Gmail And in the Settings page I saw there all 37 languages in the language section. (But I counted 43, maybe because of different language versions)
Although I can understand English, I changed my Gmail language display to Filipino and was amused. Maybe I was just proud to read Gmail’s display in my native language.
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