Google Mail – General Release

Google Mail (Or Gmail as it was called before Google lost the name!) is now available for anyone to sign up to. Previously, it was an invitation only beta test, with each tester having 50 or 100 invites to send out.

If you need web based email, I would recommend it, I find it easier to use than Hotmail, although the main selling point would be that it works with your existing Google account. This is a big plus if, like me you are a bit of a Google fan, so always signed into Google for some reason or another!

Google Analytics – What is ‘Search [Organic]‘

Over the last 3-4 months I’ve started using Google Analytics to track visits to my latest website project – http://www.visitorworld.co.uk (End of shameless plug!).

Ive been really pleased with Google analytics so far, the stats it provides are really very useful, although I feel I’m only making use of 50% or less of the reports – Simply due to lack of time on my part!

I’ve been puzzled lately about a referrer in the reports – ‘Search [Organic]. I noticed it in ‘marketing optimization > overall keyword conversion’, but I suspect its available in other reports. The other referrers made sense, such as ‘Google [Organic]‘

I thought perhaps ‘Search [Organic]‘ was some search engine that Google didn’t recognise, so used the generic sounding term ‘Search [Organic]‘. I emailed Google support, heres their reply:

“Thank you for your email. I understand you would like to know why you see search[organic] in your reports. [organic] indicates visitors referred by an unpaid search engine listing. search[organic] means these visits came from the search engine ‘www.search.com.’”

Make sense now of course, although it would be nice to see the referrers linked to the sites, which would solve all such future queries. I have emailed this suggestion to Google, perhaps we’ll see it in the future version.

Incidentally, Google support replied just 18 hours after my email – Pretty good I’d say, especially for a free service!

Google Maps for Mobile

Googles excellent mapping system is now available for Mobiles, just go to www.google.com/gmm and download the application, which works on over 300 different types of phone. I was quite impressed with the speed of it, even over GPRS (I dont get very good 3G coverage!).

Google: World Cup Results

If you want to quickly check the results of a World Cup match, go to Google and enter the team names.

e.g. Entering England Trinidad Tobago gives search results for them words, but at the top of the list you’ll see the results for the match, highlighted with a Football icon.

Google Goodies

Google have just released what they are describing as ‘A free collection of essential software’. ‘Google Pack’ includes no less than 13 applications, 9 of which are standard, 4 optional extras, although you can install just the ones you want.

Included in the pack is…

• Google Earth – 3D Earth browser
• Google Desktop – Desktop companion
• Picasa – Photo organizer
• Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer – Search toolbar
• Google Pack Screensaver – Photo screensaver
• Mozilla Firefox with Google Toolbar – Web browserMozilla Corporation
• Ad-Aware SE Personal – Antispyware utilityLavasoft
• Norton Antivirus 2005 Special Edition – Antivirus utility Symantec
• Adobe Reader 7 – PDF readerAdobe Systems
• Google Talk – Voice and IM application
• RealPlayer – Media playerRealNetworks
• GalleryPlayer HD Images – ImagesGalleryPlayer
• Trillian – Instant messengerCerulean Studios

At the price Google are asking, who can complain, especially when you consider that there rreally are some ‘essentials’ in there such as the Anti Virus and Spyware offerings, along with must-have document viewer Adobe Reader.

For more info, and to install the pack, click here

Google Gets Personal

Google has released yet another new feature, which allows users to sign in and view a personalised Google home page. You can drag in various elements to the page, such as a local whether report, word of the day and news stories. Naturally, the home page reports on your G-Mail account.

Check it out here: http://www.google.com/ig

Search results…before you search!

The latest offering from Google suggests possible searches as you type into the search box, and displays how many search results each option will yield. So if you type for example asp.net, a number of searches starting with ‘asp.net’ will be displayed. Simply cursor down to the dsired option and press enter. Go try it. By the way, its called ‘Google Suggest‘