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

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

Microsoft Reveals its Xbox Scarlett Project at the Briefing Prior to E3 2019

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One day to go for the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2019, and Microsoft has already given some hints on the products, it is going to showcase at the event, especially, its latest Xbox console. This time one of its biggest rivals, Sony, is not even appearing at the event, which has made the company even more excited. But Sony is not the only rival for the company this time, and Google‘s Stadia is also here to give Microsoft a great competition.

Microsoft Xbox
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This year’s E3 event is quite special for the company as it will be introducing a next-generation Xbox video game console by the codename, Project Scarlett, at the event. The game is forty times better at performance than its previous versions and has been developed by the same team which developed Xbox One.

This new Xbox machine possesses newly developed custom Zen 2-based processor CPU and will have real-time ray tracing for more genuine graphics. The machine will render the variable refresh rates as high as 120 frames per second. It is also incorporated with GDDR6 memory as well as GPU (Navi graphics processing unit) from Advanced Micro Devices. There will also be an SSD in the machine that will reduce the screen loading time.

Since the company has brought the cloud to the gaming, Scarlett will provide the support for multiplayer gaming through streaming and will also support the other gaming platforms. Also, it will continue to support thousands of Xbox games from previous generations through the cloud.

During the briefing prior to E3 event, Phil Spencer, head of Microsoft’s Xbox, said, “Project Scarlett is the foundation of our future in consoles and the formation of our future in the cloud. Consoles should be designed, built and optimised for one thing and one thing only: gaming.”

According to Microsoft, the company will be launching the new Scarlett Xbox during the holidays of 2020.

Along with Scarlett, Microsoft’s streaming service has also been much awaited. The company has revealed that it will release the streaming service in coming October. The streaming service will allow the players to connect their consoles to the Xbox Cloud and explore thousands of games through it. The console can be connected to the Xbox Cloud from any place and through any internet connection.

At its two hours conference, Microsoft also announced 60 new games, among which 14 are from its own Xbox Studio team.

Facebook Cuts Off Huawei From Pre-Installing its Apps On Phones

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The U.S. has been trying hard to pull out most of the Chinese firms operating in the country, giving the reason of national security threat due to the data breaches, Huawei being the primary target. Recently, the U.S. authority has released a blacklisting of the Chinese tech firms, responding to which, Facebook has announced that it will stop pre-installation of its popular social networking apps on Huawei smartphones and other devices.

This way, Facebook will become the first U.S. company to cut-off Huawei from using its app. Last month, Google had also announced that it would cut ties to Huawei, to make it harder for the company to get access to the U.S. apps. As soon as Google bans Huawei from using its app, firstly Huawei will be isolated from using Google Play Store, which is the single place where all the Android apps can be obtained. So for the company, it can be quite difficult to sustain in other countries as well.

Facebook’s decision has come right after the release of Washington blacklisting, and as a response of President Donald Trump’s orders of barring Huawei from US technology exports.

“We are reviewing the Commerce Department’s final rule and the more recently issued temporary general license and taking steps to ensure compliance.” said a spokesperson from Facebook.

Since Facebook is already banned in China, the barring of Facebook app for Huawei won’t affect much the Facebook’s user base.

On the matter, Huawei has come out with the decision to build its own operating system to run on its smartphone and other cellular devices. And if Google also pulls its support for Huawei, it will also need to build a Play Store kind of marketplace for its users to access the various apps at a single place.

Washington has imposed the U.S. sanction starting from May 15 and has provided the U.S. companies with a stretch of 90 days to follow the same. Since all the U.S. technology companies need to end their partnership with Huawei, the latter would also need to look for reliable hardware suppliers. As it has been dependent on the U.S. companies, like Intel, Qualcomm and Broadcom, for chips and the other hardware supplies.

FedEx to End It’s Express Shipping Service Contract with Amazon

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One of the largest delivery service providers, FedEx, has announced that it is going to end its contract with its longtime partner, and the biggest retail company, Amazon. FedEx has been providing its services to the biggest companies in the world, and with Amazon, it has been working for the past many years. But now it wants to end the relationship with the latter.

For now, the company will be ending its operations for its air shipment services of packages for Amazon within the United States effective from July 1st, as the current contract between the two will be ending on June 30, and it does not have any plans for the renewal of the contract.

“FedEx has made the strategic decision to not renew the FedEx Express US domestic contract with Amazon.com, Inc., as we focus on serving the broader e-commerce market. This decision does not impact any existing contracts between Amazon.com and other FedEx business units or relating to international services,” said the delivery company in a statement released on Twitter.

Recently, Amazon announced its own in-house delivery service, which seems the strongest reason for FedEx pulling out its operations with Amazon. In fact, Amazon has steadily got its hands on all required things to be a delivery service provider, like warehouses, delivery planes, cargo trucks, etc., to fulfil its free shipping promise to its customers.

Reacting to the decision, Amazon said, “We respect FedEx’s decision and thank them for their role serving Amazon customers over the years.”

Though Amazon is partnered with UPS for its two-day delivery service, FedEx took care of the other services and for the ground level deliveries, it will continue to serve Amazon as before. The big client base of FedEx, other than Amazon also includes Target, Walgreens and Walmart, etc., Walmart being particularly the biggest business provider for the former. FedEx has said that with this decision, it will be able to serve them better.

Twitter Will Get a Minority Stake in ShareChat After Investing $50 Million in the Company

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The India-based social networking app ShareChat is becoming more popular and is about to raise over $100 million from different investors, including from the microblogging website Twitter. According to the sources, Twitter is leading a financing round for ShareChat and will be investing $50 million from itself in the company.

It will be the first international investment round for ShareChat, after which the company may value at $600-650 million. Along with Twitter, ShareChat’s existing investors will also be participating in the investment round. Those existing backers include Xiaomi, Shunwei Capital, Morningside Ventures, etc. Another Hongkong based firm named Hillhouse Capital will also be joining the investors for the round. According to sources, Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey will be directly involved in the process.

The investment round will help ShareChat grow as a leading social network against its rival company, and the parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, which has got a firm hold on most of the Indian audience through its various subsidiaries, including TikTok and Helo. AMong which Helo is the biggest rival of ShareChat.

Before Twitter, ShareChat was in talks with the Chinese tech giant Tencent for the investment, which proved to be a failure, that too, twice in the period of one year. After Twitter will be leading the investments for ShareChat, it will get a minority stake in the latter’s shares. In fact, we can expect to see an integration of ShareChat into Twitter soon.

“Twitter never makes a minority investment of this kind, it is usually an acquisition. This is very significant for ShareChat looking at how the Chinese players especially ByteDance have been able to wean away users onto their platform,” said an investor tracking the segment.

The round of investment and partnership with Twitter can bring a lot of opportunities for ShareChat. In fact, the usual number of monthly users for ShareChat may rise above 30-35 million. Also, the company may monetise its platform to earn some profits and to improve the app after receiving the investments.