Tom Doyle :: TALK

I’ve always been a fan of information packed 404 error pages. When a web search sends me to a page that no longer exists, I expect to be given some hints as to where I might find the new page or at least some indication of related content.

I don’t like to see a page with the boring old “404 Not Found” error message. It completely puts me off the website and instantly makes me look elsewhere. From an online marketing point of view, that’s potentially one lost client.

With the launch of the new Google Chrome browser, all default 404 error pages, will instead present a Google branded page with suggestions and a search box. This is such a waste from the website owners point of view as it instantly brings the user away from your website. Why would they bother staying on your site if they can just search for someone else’s?

When all you have to do to avoid this default action from Google Chrome is create a 404 page larger than 512 bytes it’s a simple and easy way to ensure that you are not losing potential visitors.

It must be noted that this feature is not only a default setting in Google Chrome - but it will also be default in the new Google Toolbar 5 which is currently in beta mode.

Related articles

• Privacy Implications of Google’s Chrome?
• Google “Chrome” Will Know Everything About You!
• Google Chrome, Google Browser
• Google OS Arrives, In the Form of a Browser
• Why Mozilla should be afraid of Google Chrome
• Google Chrome: Is Google planning to release a web browser?

The news broke last night unofficially on a blog (yeah right), that Google have or will be launching a new browser today.

Named Google Chrome, it is apparently faster, more secure, more reliable and more feature rich than any browser we are used to.

So where is it? Where can we get our hands on it?
http://www.google.com/chrome is the place apparently, but its giving a 404 not found error. [EDIT: Not anymore - it's live and ready to be downloaded... so what ye waiting for?]

You can find out more about this browser by visiting www.google.com/googlebooks/chrome.

Related articles

• Google Web Browser Aka Google Chrome Sneak Peak
• Get Ready for Google Chrome: New Open-Source Web Browser
• A fresh take on the browser - At Google, we have a saying: “launch early and iterate.” (The Official Google Blog)
• First Images of Google Chrome
• Google Chrome Process Manager
• Google Chrome Screenshots

Some of you may have noticed that Google are using a new Favicon for their website. Like me, I’m sure you were wondering why… well here’s why:

“The reason is that we wanted to develop a set of icons that would scale better to some new platforms like the iPhone and other mobile devices. So the new favicon is one of those, but we’ve also developed a group of logo-based icons that all hang together as a unified set.”

So there ye go… now you know!

If you were new to the web, you wouldn’t be forgiven for thinking the homepage of Google is un-inviting, un-interesting and downright boring. Why have such a large company with all their billions never updated their homepage to make it more exciting?

Well to put it simply, it’s been years of testing it’s users. At the Google I/O Conference a couple of weeks ago, Marissa Mayer explained why:

“When Google was a relatively unknown 80-person start-up, the company tested Stanford students on how well they could use Google to find which country won the most gold medals in the 1994 Olympics. The result: students would sit in front of the Google screen for 15 seconds, 30 seconds, 45 seconds, a minute…”

When Marissa intervened and asked why they were waiting so long to perform a search, most people said “I’m waiting for the rest of it”. The students were clearly waiting for busier more flashy website and it was never coming.

So what did Google do to counteract this issue? No, they didn’t make it flashier, nor did they add a lot of extra content. No, it was something so simple, most people probably wouldn’t have thought about…

They put a copyright notice at the bottom of the page! Yes, that simple!

It’s not there for legal reasons,” Mayer said. “It’s there as punctuation. That’s it. (It tells the searcher) ‘Nothing else is coming; please start searching now.’”

That’s debatably the most innovative idea to come out of Google to date!

• We’re all guinea pigs in Google’s search experiment

TorrentSpy has been ordered to pay $110m the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) for failing to hand over logs on the activity of users of their website.

The landmark ruling will send shockwaves to the thousands of small torrent search websites and maybe even some of the larger ones that offer a similar service to the one TorrentSpy offered before it shutdown in March of this year.

TorrentSpy in effect, was nothing more than a torrent search engine. It never held or stored any copyrighted material on it’s server. However, it did allow users easily find copyrighted material.

So in effect, TorrentSpy has been sued because it “linked” to copyrighted material, something that Google, Yahoo! and MSN do all the time with their search engine.

A simple search on Google will give you “links” to millions of copyrighted material. Here’s a very simple example of this http://www.google.ie/search?q=intitle%3a%22index+of%22+eminem

Why don’t the MPAA doing anything about this? Is the muscle behind the larger corporates a bridge to far for them to fight in their war against copyright infringement??