A little background: In November 2009, Google began testing a new look for the search engine results pages (serp). The largest change in this first test was adding the “Options” to the left side of the page from it’s relatively hidden location in a link at the top labeled “Show Options…”

» Read more: Google’s New SERP UI Fail

The Google Caffeine Update was first introduced subtlely to us back in August 2009 via this post on the Google Webmaster Central Blog where testing of some new search infrastructure was underway and being code named Caffeine.

» Read more: Caffeine Update on the Horizon?

As Google continues to diversify their business portfolio with another venture into the mobile phone market, have they spread themselves too thin to remain the US market leader in search?

» Read more: Google Spread too Thin to Remain US Search Market Leader

Bring Your A-Game to Dominate Google Universal Personlized Search Results

Some of the doomsday types have been trying to spread panic throughout the SEO industry by saying that Google’s new “Universal Personalized Search” will kill off and put an end to SEO. The same thing was said when Google launched Personalized Search in 2004 and revamped it in 2005 for logged in users.

» Read more: Personalized Search Strengthens Need for SEO

Google Continues Site Speed Agenda

Google continues to push the site speed agenda agressively at the end of 2009, as this will be “an important trend in 2010″ (via Matt Cutts during PubCon 2009 Panel). In the first two days of December Google has made two announcements involving new ways to analyze and improve site speed.

» Read more: Two Google Tools to Analyze and Improve Site Speed

I know Google has been playing around with the way they display their search snippet text with a lot of reports about Google increasing the length (Confirmation That This Is True ). Snippet text is an interesting topic because Google will either use a snippet from your META Description Tag for this text or will use a snippet of the page’s actual content (which ever fits the search best).

In the scenario that Google is pulling your content for the snippet, Google will also take a look at the page structure to add an additional usability element to the search snippet text – a link! Here is what it looks like:

» Read more: Google Losing Money With Search Snippet Jump Links

News coming out of Google was in abundance today. First, they re-released GrandCentral as Google Voice; Followed by, the announcement of a new Google Friend Connect API; Lastly, they let us know they are going to be tracking the living crap out of us so they can better target us for marketing purposes – wait, what?

Did you just see that…. Good News followed by Good News followed by Bad News especially for Google product users and non-users … okay so that means everyone!

» Read more: Google Diversionary Tactics Cause Micheal Gray (GrayWolf) To Call Us All Out

I couldn’t help but notice the latest Google Analytics ad in my gmail account:

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Whoa! Hold the Phone! Google is now making claims that Analytics is an optimization tool that can gain you traffic and optimize your website! I find this to be a very misleading ad to those who are not familiar with website analytics tools. 

» Read more: Google’s New Misleading Ad Campaign