Your Tech Story

Google

Google Makes Changes to its Searches; Only Two Listings From One Site

Google, News, Tech News / By

It is quite common that when you search for a particular keyword, Google may show multiple links of web pages from a single site in the results. This has been a big issue for every site owner, as this makes all their SEO practices failed. But now, Google has decided to work on the issue and provide diverse search results for its users.

Google search
Image Source: komando.com

The company has said that the step has been taken “to provide more site diversity” in the search results, the users’ constant feedbacks on the issue being one of the main reasons behind the tweak. According to Google, now there will be no more than two listings from one website in the searches unless it is too relevant and even, depending upon the expertise of the website on that particular keyword. “We may still show more than two in cases where our systems determine it’s especially relevant to do so for a particular search,” said Google.

The appearance of links of multiple web pages from one website creates confusion on which web page is the most relevant to the searched keywords, and moreover, it annoys the users too. With the new tweak, the other sources will get to make their place on the first page of Google searches, and maybe, at the top of it. Due to the dominance of the single website on the first page, those websites get disappeared even from the users’ consideration.

This way, the users will get to see more options for their keyword search and will be able to evaluate the quality of information by looking upon all the other sources as well.

Google has said that the new changes won’t change the way the websites rank, but it will only change the number of links form a single website that will be displayed in the results. The change in the search result is domain based, so the subdomains and their root domains will be treated as part of a single website.

Though according to Google, the changes are already out, many of the Google users have reported that they can still see more links from a single website in the results. Upon which Google has given a statement, that it is still working to improve that.

G20 to Double their Efforts in Wrapping Up the Digital Tax by 2020

Facebook, Google, News, Tech News / By

Facebook, Google, Amazon, Uber, these are some of the top tech giants that are working globally, and in the past few years, questions have been raised on the tax these companies have been cutting off by shifting to low tax countries. The financial authorities of the developed countries have always seen this as an unfair move, as they earn complete profits but pay lesser tax.

G20
Image Source: middleeastmonitor.com

To resolve this problem, the finance ministers of the G20 countries have finally agreed on imposing new rules on those tech companies, such that they will now pay taxes based on their profits and in which countries they are serving, instead of where they are based.

G20 is an international organisation, comprising of world’s 19 biggest economies and the Europian Union, making a total of 47 countries, that works towards economic stability.

Reuters reported the news first, through a draft communique obtained by the former, according to which, the G20 companies will compile common rules to close the loopholes for the tech companies. Though the low tax had been beneficial for small countries to attract international tech giants.

The new rules will include a two-pillar approach. According to the first pillar, the tax will be based on two things, what are the services or goods that the companies will be providing and where these companies are operating. The second pillar will impose a minimum tax rate on every company, such that even the services are moved to another country, the basic tax will be the same.

“We welcome the recent progress on addressing the tax challenges arising from digitization and endorse the ambitious program that consists of a two-pillar approach. We will redouble our efforts for a consensus-based solution with a final report by 2020.” stated the draft communique.

For the support of the agreement, countries like France and Britain have been quite supportive as the tech giants strategically pay lesser tax in those countries. But upon this, the U.S. based companies have also raised the concern of being most targeted by the European countries.

The finalisation of the rules for the taxes to be imposed on the global tech companies is still under process. But according to the reports, G20 will release the final report on the new rules in 2020.

Google Maps Releases New Public Transport Features for its Indian Users

Google, News, Tech News / By

Google Maps has been one of its kind and the best tracking app to look for the distance between two locations, get directions, and track the traffic in between the travel. But now Google is moving forward and is bringing features like tracking any delay in the train timings to Google Maps for its Indian users. Along with tracking the live train status, the company has also introduced two new features, i.e. mixed-mode directions and live traffic tracking.

google maps
Image Source: dailypioneer.com

To track the live status of the trains, the company will be working with Indian Railways, through the startup, Where is My Train, that it had acquired last year. The startup app had tied up with Indian Railways and provided the live status of trains to its users, i.e. the delays in the train timing, that too, on the offline mode.

Now, as Google has integrated this feature to Google Maps, the users will be able to track which trains they can choose to travel between two specific locations, where the train is, and the timing of leaving from or reaching a particular platform, etc.

Also, the Mixed-mode direction feature of the app will now provide users with better options for travelling in local places. The commute suggestions will now combine auto-rickshaw and public transport, along with option like travel through car, two-wheelers, bus or taxi. In fact, it has not been much time, since the company had included the two-wheelers to its travel option in the app.

The app has already been used for finding the right path to travel. So like before, it will show the total time to reach a destination highlighting the traffic. And this time, while tracking the transit, the users when running on time will see time in green, and when delayed, they will see the time in red in the app.

India will be the first country to host these new features of Google Maps, and the company intends to expand the same in the other countries of South Asia, America and some of the African countries, soon. Google considers India as one of its biggest consumers, and for now, it will roll out the features for the cities, such as Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Lucknow, Chennai, Mysore, Coimbatore, and Surat.

A Forgotten Tool in Gmail Tracks Your Purchase History Through the Receipts

Google, News, Tech News / By
google
Image Source: searchengineland.com

According to a piece of recent news from CNBC, “Google has been quietly keeping track of nearly every single online purchase you’ve ever made, thanks to purchase receipts sent to your personal Gmail account.”

CNBC broke the news on Friday afternoon, according to which Google has been saving the purchase history of the people who have used their Gmail account during their purchase on the various e-commerce websites through the receipt they receive on Gmail. Though the company has included privacy settings that can enable the users to stop the tracking, most of the people have got to know about the purchase history tracking only after the revelation from CNBC.

The way CNBC has said about the mentioned matter, it seems like Google had been hiding the fact that it was saving users’ private information and might be using it somewhere else without letting the users know, but Google has come in front to defend itself.

“To help you easily view and keep track of your purchases, bookings and subscriptions in one place, we’ve created a private destination that can only be seen by you. You can delete this information at any time. We don’t use any information from your Gmail messages to serve you ads, and that includes the email receipts and confirmations shown on the Purchase page.” Google told The Verge in a statement.

In the past years, the company used such information to personalise ads for its users, but in 2017, Google had decided that it won’t collect and use any of the users’ information from Gmail for displaying personalised ads.

Google did not mention how long this tool has been there to track the purchase history of its users, but many Gmail users have found their purchase history even older than a decade. According to Google, this history is hard to find, and the users can delete the history or disable the tracking. Also, no one else except the users can see their purchase history on the tool.

Play Store will Now Prefer the Recent Reviews to Rate the Apps

Google, News, Tech News / By

Till now, Google has revealed many new launches and numerous changes to its services at its annual I/O conference going on in California, U.S., including new features added to the Google Assistant, the launch of new Assistant-powered home hub under the Nest brand, the launch of Pixel 3a and 3a XL, etc. And along with bringing new APIs and a refreshed Google Play Console data to the Play Store, the company has now introduced how the Play Store ratings will work.

play store
Image Source: theleaker.com

About two years ago, Apple made a change to the App Store on how the ratings would work for the apps. The company allowed the app developers to decide whether or not their ratings will reset to with every new update. In a similar way, Google has also revealed that from now, the apps won’t get rated on the basis of their previous performances, but after updates, those will be rated on their latest reviews and other factors.

Reviews and ratings have been crucial to the promotion of a product, and in fact, to the promotion of apps on the app stores, as people read the reviews before they install one on to their devices. In recent years, due to the old bad app reviews, the average rating of certain apps was degrading them. Despite new updates, the old reviews were also part of the average rating. But now the new average rating calculations will consider the latest reviews and updates to rate the app, as to give more preference to the latest reviews.

“You told us you wanted a rating based on what your app is today, not what it was years ago, and we agree,” said Milena Nikolic, the engineering director leading Google Play Console.

Google is also working on a new reply feature, that will be in response to the user reviews. The developer will get to choose among three options to reply to a review. These options will include an auto-generated response, which the user can directly select and send, customise it and send or write a response and send. For now, those responses will be in English, but Google will soon add some other languages to the system.

The company has revealed that the average rating calculations will be updated for all the android apps. The developers can preview the new ratings on their Play Store Console from today onwards, while the end users will be able to see it only after August this year.

Third-party Developers can Now Develop Apps for Google’s Android Automotive OS

Google, News, Tech News / By

Google is all prepping up for its upcoming I/O 2019, it is going to host on 7 May in California, U.S., and it has already started on giving hints on few of its new launches it is going to announce at the event. According to one of its early pushed out news, it is going to open its Automotive OS for the third-party developers, so that they would be able to develop functionalities and entertainment apps for the vehicle infotainment systems.

Google Android Automotive
Image Source: venturebeat.com

Google introduced the Android Automotive OS, an OS specially designed to work with vehicle infotainment systems, in 2017. Do not confuse Android Automotive with Google’s other product having a similar name, i.e. Android Auto, which is a mobile app. Whereas, Android Automotive is a full-fledged operating system developed for vehicles. Both the platforms are using the same underlying framework, and having the same framework, Android Automotive also supports compatibility with different screen sizes, OEM customizations, and regional driver safety guidelines.

Android Automotive OS is based on Google’s Linux supported, open-source mobile operating system. But it runs on the vehicles, instead of smartphones and tablets.

The company has hinted that it is already working with Volvo’s all-electric Polestar 2, powering its infotainment system with the Android Automotive. The Polestar 2’s infotainment system will have all the major services from Google including Google Assistant, Google Maps and the Google Play Store.

Google is also working with companies like Spotify and others, through which it will be able to bring entertainment apps to the Android Automotive OS. With the help of third-party developers, the Android Automotive will also be able to add support for the features like navigation, communication, and beyond to the OS.

Google will be discussing on how to develop the apps for its Android Automotive OS for cars, in the event, and if the developers won’t be attending the event, they can find more information on the same through the Google Groups community. The developers can also ask questions regarding the development using the tag android-automotive tag on StackOverflow.