Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with internet and google

Help me logon to my email!!

dmbfan93 — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 05:37:19 -0800

Please help me fix an internet/computer problem....I keep getting the message "Invalid Security Certificate" when I try to logon to my email accounts. I'm trying to logon to both my gmail account and my msn account and this morning I get the message "google.com uses an invalid security certificate"? This is just occuring, I was able to login last night. Does this have anything to do with a windows update that installed on my computer last night?

I try to logon to my MSN account and the exact same thing is occuring. The following message I get:

# This could be a problem with the server's configuration, or it could be someone trying to impersonate the server.

# If you have connected to this server successfully in the past, the error may be temporary, and you can try again later.

Please help me fix this!

Should I worry that my great-aunt shows up when one Googles my unusual name?

rzperllian — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 20:03:22 -0800

Should I worry that my great-aunt shows up when one Googles my unusual name? I have a very unusual name, which is great. I'm just starting a career as a writer and I'm anticipating my web presence will be pretty important at some point.

Problem? I had a great aunt with the same (extremely unusual) name as me, who in 1985 published a book that still comes up all the time in Google and Amazon searches. There are also a few news articles about her from the 1960s.

Is there anything I can do about this? Is it cause enough to start using my middle initial? I wouldn't worry about it if I were called Jennifer Smith; I'm just so not used to the possibility for confusion.

"Chill out and let it go" is an acceptable answer :)

Tracking number of Real Time Searches of different subjects

tusharj — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 06:23:21 -0800

I need real-time data of the number of people searching different sets of keywords on the internet in a particular location. Some examples: The number of people searching for jobs and jobs related information at that given time(preferably also a particular place as in country or city) The number of people searching for marriage and dating related information. What is the best and cheapest way to get this data? The more real time, the better. Searches on Google would probably be the best given their dominance in the search market, but even other sources would be alright, like Twitter.

Chrome clone that isn't made of Chrome?

doublehappy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 06:35:55 -0800

Are there any browsers that are essentially Chrome clones in function and appearance, but aren't Chrome and don't share any common code? I really like it and find it easy to use, but it kills my computer when I use it (we're talking forcing hard reboots, etc.). So does firefox, incidentally (but less often for some reason).

I tried Iron, but it is the same code, just with the 'send data to google' removed.

What are the repercussions of bad SEO?

jim.christian — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 06:35:40 -0800

What are the repercussions (if any) of bad Search Engine Optimization (SEO) techniques? One of my clients has recently been advised by a friend in her particular field of business to go with an SEO "expert". The friend has stated that since hiring the guy (who charges £2000 and guarantees first page results in 21 days - not to be confused with front page results in 21 days), he hasn't had to spend any money on Google AdWords, etc. The friend has the added benefit of having his address as part of his URL, so that's bound to help, anyway.

The client has come back to me asking for advice. She has a new rival opening up around the corner from her in a short matter of weeks and if what the SEO guy suggests works, then great. However, my spidey-sense is tingling. I know my way well around code, webmastery, servers, etc, but having read through Google's own SEO guide and comparing it with what said SEO expert has used on client's friend's site...well, it looks like he's using SEO the 'wrong' way.

And by wrong, I mean using keyword banks in title descriptors of every DIV tag, a name descriptors, etc. It looks like he's just saturating the webpages with keywords in every available invisible element. Surely such practices are frowned upon, but is what he's doing getting results? And if so, what are the repercussions of 'wrong' SEO? I'd rather have it done correctly, inline with providing sitemap files, proper meta tags, and proper use of keywords, changing relevant content for visitors, etc. But should I be playing dirty too?

I'm reluctant to provide real-life URLs, but if needed, please MeFiMail me.

Thanks

Help me track down the creator of my (gr)avatar.

mds35 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:22:07 -0800

Help me ID this image. I've been using this image on my MySpace page and other sites (including my MeFi profile) for ages. I don't remember where I found it. All I remember is that sometime in early 2005, I googled "weird" or "bizarre" and then clicked images, and it was one of the first several results. I remember also that the page I found this image on had a number of similar ones, like a sequence of photos. Some think it looks like Dennis Hopper.

Anyway, I've grown accustomed to using it but I want to find out who created it and who it belongs to in case I want to start using it, or a modified version of it, for for-profit purposes.

Cliff Notes for Pay-Per-Click?

diode — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 22:21:22 -0800

I'm interviewing for an online support position. A prerequisite is knowing pay-per-click. I've got lightweight knowledge and need to ramp up my skill set. The company I'm applying with needs a good support professional, which I'm qualified to do. The support arena is for users of pay-per-click services of which this company has a niche product. I've done some reading about affiliate marketing, and pay per click campaigns but never gone to the mat with this. I could use some sources for getting up to speed on this in a big picture way for the short term (meaning interview), and then I will expand my knowledge set after that for the work. I'm hoping my support experience will make up for gaps in my PPC knowledge for the interview and then I can go on to gain expertise through experience and study.

Goo Goo Ka Google

spicynuts — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:40:06 -0800

Need recommendations for the best two or three books on Google Analytics from both a programming perspective and a biz/marketing person's analysis perspective. I need to some recommendations on books that can help in both of the following areas:

1) how to implement necessary code throughout an ecomm site to leverage full capabilities of google analytics to track and understand usage

2) how to interpret, analyze and understand the results/data that comes back from google analytics

Want to knowif certain things about igoogle be changed?

antisocialiting — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 17:12:54 -0800

Igoogle questions? Can you and how do you remove the iGoogle Developer sandbox? Also can you Remove some and add some links to the top of igoogle ? Can you and how do you remove the iGoogle Developer sandbox? I signed up for the iGoogle Developer sandbox and now don't like it so much. Is it possible to remove it and how?

Also can you Remove some and add some links to the top of igoogle ? I would like to remove the shopping and images link at the top of igoogle is this possible and how? Also is it possible to add or replace links. Such as either switch the shopping link to the calendar link thats under the more section because I use calendar so often, or can I just add the link calendar all together. thanks

Help me use GMail Better

arniec — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 12:25:14 -0800

My company recently switched from a standard POP mail server to having GMail as our MX server and hosting all our business accounts. Overall the benefits are quite positive, but I'm having some usage issues that bug me. Can you help me use gmail better? Specific questions inside. Part 1: I love the benefit of the IMAP mail system, allowing my inbox to be anywhere I am, rather than centralized around a specific computer. Previously I had my POP work account for 3 years and amassed thousands of emails coming in at about 4GB, all of which I must keep for reference of correspondence, e-mail addresses, etc. I had my mail sorted into folders, about 30-40 different folders depending on correspondence type. All of that mail was in Outlook until I recently became a Mac convert. Now it's all in Thunderbird.

So I can have ALL my mail available where I can get to it from anywhere, I'd like to migrate it all to GMail. I read that using IMAP I can just drag these old e-mails into my Inbox folder in Thunderbird, but given that I have about 40 folders, I'm not sure how to get them to GMail without just having a very large Inbox with a conglomeration of e-mails in it. I am guessing I could drag one folder to the Inbox, then organize that on Gmail, drag another folder, etc. but that leads me to problem #2:

Part 2: I know GMail uses labels...are there no folders? Would I need to drag in the e-mails, then label them all to use GMail's label system instead of my current folder-based system? And is that the most efficient way to do this?

Part 3: I am really NOT a fam of the "message threading" that GMail does. Often I will send solicitations to business partners and each subject line will be identical, the messages nearly so. However because the subject lines are the same, GMail takes e-mails from different business partners and puts them all in one thread, filling me with paranoia of sending the wrong e-mail to the wrong person or, worse, sending an entire e-mail chain from one business partner to another business partner which may contain confidential data. Is there any way to alter the functionality or, perhaps ideally, turn OFF this "feature" in GMail?

Part 4: As I'm still new to GMail, any "Power User" tips for me?

Final Notes: I still plan on using Thunderbird as my client of choice when at my work PC. I just want the ability to have ALL my mail accessible from ANY location as I feel it will enable me to work more efficiently, rather than having to hold some e-mails until I get back to my primary PC.

Thanks for any suggestions!

Where does autofill come from?

M Edward — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:38:34 -0800

Firefox Filter: Is there any way to view the autofill lists outside of Firefox? Where does Firefox store the autofill information? Like previous google searches? Is there a way to view them with a text editor?

I am looking for something I googled a long time ago but going through the entire history of my searches line-by-line with only 4 at a time showing is driving me batty.

Importing Bookmarks to Google Bookmarks?!?

snap_dragon — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:23:41 -0800

I am trying to import bookmarks to Google Bookmarks from 4 browsers -- Opera, Safari, Explorer, and Firefox. I cannot figure out how to do this. I have an IMac running OS 10.3 --- Thanks in advance for any guidance!

How do I make Google search only the UK?

Solomon — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 14:34:11 -0800

Is there a way of making google.co.uk default to searching for "pages from the UK" instead of "the web" in Internet Explorer? At work, I'm locked into using IE. I sometimes use google.com for general web searching, and sometimes google.co.uk for looking specifically UK only pages, with the added option available on the Google UK page. Is there a way of making the default search on Google UK to be looking for UK based pages, instead of having to click the radio button every time (which I tend to forget)?

Downloading Videos Off Google: High Quality Off Limits?

StrikeTheViol — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 19:16:33 -0800

I can't download high quality .avi files from Google Video with Keepvid. Any other way to grab them? I found a documentary on Google Video that looked interesting, after I hadn't been on for a while. I can't view Flash on this computer, so I find them and transfer to a USB stick for later with Keepvid. Last time I did so, I could get a high quality .avi just by clicking on the link. Now Keepvid just connects to vp.video.google.com, and I have to settle for the low quality version. Any other options for high quality downloads off Google Video?

Generating Hyperlinks Automatically?

0bvious — Fri, 04 May 2007 07:09:08 -0800

I would like to automatically generate hypertext links from a list of text. Ideally this would mean pasting a series of comma separated words into some online tool and having the system turn each word into a relevant google/wikipedia link... Does anyone know any sites/tools that will do this? Just for anyone who is interested, here's the text I want to auto-link:

Zeus, Zam, Zababa, Yu-Huang-Shang-Ti, Yeng-Wang-Yeh, Yara Ma Yha Who, Yahweh, Ya Mughnee, Ya `Aallah, Xochiquetzal, Xipe Totec, Xbalanque, Winabozho, Warohunugamwanehaora, Waramurungundi, Wakahiru-Me, Wadjet, Voltumna, Vishnu, Venus, Uttu, Urcaguary, Ulaulekeahi, Uke-Mochi-No-Kami, Ukapirmas, Turiacus, Tsukuyomi, Torngasoak, Tonatiuh, Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli, Thoth, Thor, Tharapita, Tekkeitserktock, Tāwhiri-matea, Take-Mikazuchi, Swāikstiks, Spandarmet, Sobek, Skadi, Shiva, Shina-Tsu-Hiko, Shamash, Shai'-ha-Qawm, Seaxnéat, Saraswati, Saosyant, Runesocesius, Roonikka, Rimmon, rDo-rje-rnal-hbyor-ma, Raluvhimba, Quirinus, Qaynan, Ptah, Prajnaparamita, Potrimpos, Poshaiyankayo, Persephone, Pellon Pekko, P'an-Chin-Lien, Osiris, Odin, Occupirn, Nzambi, Ninhursag, Nevinbimbaau, Nephthys, Nanghaithya, Nana Buluku, Nai-No-Kami, Mudungkala, Morrigan, Morpheus, Morgan, LeFay, Moaalii, Mar'rallang, Marduk, Mao, Mantis, Manisilat, Mama Pacha, Maahes, Lonomakua, Leviathan, Lemminkainen, Lakshmi, Laima, Kunapipi, Kukalikimoku, Ku, Krishna, Koko, Kiskil-lilla, Kishar, Khnum, Khahdoma, Kapohoikahiola, Kaluannuunohonionio, Joukahainen, Jengu, Jehovah, Jahwe, Izanami, Isis, Inanna, Igaluk, Huruing Wuhti, Huitzilopochtli, Horus, Hine Raumati, Hiiakawawahilani, Hendursanga, Heimdall, Hecate, Hastshehogan, Hanuman, Hades, Gudratrigakwitl, Gebeleizis, Garuda, Ganesha, Gandarewa, Frigga, Estasanatlehi, Ereshkigal, Epona, Dolichenus, Dionysos, Dhakhan, Demeter, Dēiwas, Dattatreya, Coyolxauhqui, Chimata-No-Kami, Ch'eng-Huang, Cernunnos, Carmenta, Caillech, Bunbulama, Branwyn, Birrahgnooloo, Bikeh Hozho, Berekyndai, Balac, Bahá'u'lláh, Baal-Qarnain, Athena, Asha Vahishta, Arnarquagsag, Archons, Aramurungundju, Apollo, Apocatequil, Aphrodite, Antero Vipunen, Anitun Tabu, Angwusnasomtaka, Amaunet, Amaterasu, Amaethon, Aji-Suki-Taka-Hi-Kone, Ahmeto Lela Okya, Agadjimbiri, Adnoartina

Great googleymoogley

ZackTM — Fri, 08 Sep 2006 12:57:30 -0800

Do free online services really make lots of money? Do sites like facebook, youtube, google, and myspace make their creators lots of money through their operations? I'm not referring to the sale of these businesses, but instead their operations. Can anyone give me documented proof that these people are making good money running these sites? Also I'll take any references to website owners who are making good money by providing a free service to users.

I'm trying to prove a friend wrong, and i want as much ammunition as i can get.

Viva la web revolucion!

Smarson — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 07:23:44 -0800

What is this web revolution I see before me? Over the course of the past year I have had a lot of time to surf the web and have come to the conclusion that a new era of web based communication is unfolding before my very eyes. It started when I stumbled across Lifehacker.com, which showed me a whole new side of the internet that I had never conceived of. From that point I began to discover websites that re-oriented the way I've come view information creation, distribution, and storage (Ask Metafilter being one of those discoveries). Some examples of websites I lump into this category are:

*Del.icio.us
*Metafilter
*Ask Metafilter
*Lifehacker
*Wikipedia
*Firefox
*Google (and it's all it's applications including Gmail and Gcal)
*Flickr
*Blogger/Wordpress/etc.
*Bloglines

The list goes on and on and is constantly growing (thanks largely to Lifehacker discoveries). Obviously Google and Wikipedia were known to me prior to my new found web exploration, but only as straight forward tools. It's only in the last 8 months that I've come to understand the potential of their design (e.g. Google Map Mash-ups and wiki-technology as a whole).

Among the above listed websites and others I identify in my "web revolution," I see common themes. The use of tagging is widely present as well as the concept of the blog (In reality Lifehacker and Metafilter/Ask Metafilter are just widely popular blogs with no single author and Flickr is essentially a collection of thousands of photo blogs). I guess even deeper than that is the theme of individual empowerment through the web. Most of these sites were not generated by large corporations (although they may later have been aquired by them), but rather created by a single individual or small group of individuals in order to address an existing need they percieved.

So my questions. Does anyone else see the watershed that I speak of, or is this normal web progression and my "revolution" is simply a personal one? If this is an actual distinct movement within the internet, does it have a name or other identifying characteristics similar or different to the ones I listed above?

A Case of Mistaken Locality

voidcontext — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 11:46:33 -0800

Google thinks that I am in the UK. I am in the US. Any way to convince it of the truth? When I open Google, it defaults to google.co.uk. Even manually switching over to google.com, I still get UK local results and ads. Sometimes when searching Google for goods and services the ads are more useful than the search results. This is true from all computers on our network, all behind the same IP address.

I have looked up my IP address information figuring that was how Google determines which version of itself that you see. I am listed correctly as in the United States.

My IP address is in the netblock in the link above, if I need to be more specific let me know. This is a T1 line at my work, but I am not sure if that makes a difference. Other sites consistently route me to their US versions. The problem appears google-specific.

What to do, what to do?

What's your favorite Google feature, trick, or hack?

cosmicbandito — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 22:00:21 -0800

Stupid Google tricks: I'm teaching a class on internet searching. Help me impress and inform by sharing your favorite Google or other search tool feature, trick, or hack. Class will be adults with varying levels of internet savvy and varied interests. I'm set for basic course content, but I want to have plenty of "wow, that's cool" tricks up my sleeve.

Do I support Google ads?

aliksd — Wed, 21 Dec 2005 19:25:58 -0800

When using google to get a link to a commerce site, what are the ramifications for clicking on the "sponsored links" versus clicking on the commerce site as it appears in the non-sponsored links, below the googe ads on the google results page? For example, I know that I want to check out video cards from x store but I do not know the exact URL to type in, so I use google. The URL and description to x store show up in google ads on the search results page, and directly underneath that, are the page-ranked results, also including that site. I always wonder if I should click on the google ad URL or the search results URL. Since I'm using google as a search engine, perhaps I should click on the search results and only utilize the sponsored ads if I were searching for a general "video cards". I think that the answer to this question is going to be "it depends". I've tried to research it myself but get lost in the noise of google ads. Do I contribute to a price increase if I click on the google sponsored ads at the top of the search page? This question bugs me every time I do a search for a commerce site. Thanks.

free internet?

purplefiber — Mon, 05 Dec 2005 02:01:21 -0800

Any word on the SF free wireless offer? The SF Gate ran a story a couple months ago announcing Google's offer of free wireless internet for the San Francisco area. Since then I've heard nothing of it. Does anyone know if and when this (excellent) idea might come to fruition?

This is the article (I don't know how to link!):
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/01/MNGG9F16KG1.DTL

Why does my Google PageRank = 0?

jruckman — Tue, 08 Nov 2005 22:14:12 -0800

Why does my website have a zero PageRank when its traffic and search placement would suggest otherwise -- at least an actual number? This has been the case for as long as it's been up. It's not too horribly popular, but its gotten a number of links from external sites, including digg.com and screenhead.com (Gawker). Last month my overall traffic was over 11,000 unique visitors, which again, isn't a lot, but surely gets me more than a zero. Even my portfolio site has a 1, and hardly anything links to it anywhere, plus there's almost no text to generate any search results. Could I have been banned? Are blogs banned in general? I've searched a couple that I regularly read and they return a result, so maybe they know something I don't ... something someone here does?

Tool to manage multiple Gmail accounts?

agropyron — Fri, 15 Jul 2005 19:25:31 -0800

Has anyone written a tool that lets you manage multiple Gmail accounts? I'm envisioning something similar to the Gmail notifier, that lets you log on to 3+ accounts at once and easily check them.

Blogspot harassment experiences?

dhartung — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:26:00 -0800

Blogspot harassment. Anyone have any experience? Google's support response was less than helpful. [mi] Summary: I'm an admin on a board with some people who came over from another board, and there's some friction. The individual in question is a 16-year-old girl who's being made fun of by some old-enough-to-know-better "adults", to the point where they created a Blogspot site just to repost her posts mainly from our board, and make cruel comments.

My reading of the Terms of Service is that point 6b. of the Blogger TOS gives them Cubby v. Compuserve safe harbor, as it should, even though uner 12. the users agree "not to transmit ... any unlawful, harassing, libelous, abusive, threatening, or harmful material of any kind or nature." I'm more concerned with the Blogspot hosting TOS {scroll down}, though, which is stricter; under 4i. stalking and harassment are prohibited, and under 4a. "Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable" is prohibited, and under 4b, postings that "harm minors in any way" are prohibited. I didn't want to go there, but under 4e. a post "that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party" is also prohibited.

The site owner contacted Google through Blogger's help form and received this boilerplate disclaimer:

Hello,

Thank you for your note. Blogger is a provider of content creation tools, not a mediator of that content. We allow our users to create blogs, but we don't make any claims about the content of these pages. In cases where a contact email address is listed on the page, we recommend working directly with the author to have this information removed or changed.

Sincerely,
Blogger Support Team

Now, they seem to have missed the reference to Blogspot, or I'm missing something. I don't believe or expect that they would nuke the blog whole, though I wouldn't have been surprised if that happened (when Pyra Labs remained independent, anyway); I just expected a pertinent and informed response as to whether the TOS was deemed violated by someone at Google -- and Lord knows they've been very touchy regarding Google search terms and Google textads (the whole "anti" thing). I'd just be happy if the offending posts were removed, but now I'm wondering if we have to assert copyright to do that, and if so, how one goes about doing that for a community (in spirit, we have an identical policy to MetaFilter's -- the posters own their copyright). As I see things now, though, Google's TOS enforcement is looking rather arbitrary.

How many pages are archived in the google directory?

joelf — Mon, 22 Nov 2004 18:29:23 -0800

Catalogue Filter: How many pages are archived in the google directory? Not the pages indexed for the keyword search, but the ones actually cataloged in the google directory. A friend of mine is doing a talk on classification schemes and information retrieval on the internet. This figure would help him out.