Member Avatar for jewboy

Wow, I just checked out the newly launched "My Google". Google is now offering customized personal pages to display your local weather, news, word of the day, quote of the day, stock quotes, and your Gmail. It's official, Google has made the transition into a portal site. Brings back memories of the day Yahoo did the exact same thing. There's lots more information on searchenginewatch and slashdot.

Here is the URL:

http://www.google.com/ig

Share your thoughts here.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by Antonbomb22

Dani AI

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A short expert note to add context and practical takeaways for this thread.

The shift you were seeing in May 2005 was deliberate: Google launched the Personalized Homepage as part of a “fusion” initiative to surface more user-selected content in one place (the service later adopted the iGoogle name). That rollout and the subsequent rebrand were part product experiment, part developer-seeding to jump‑start third‑party gadgets. (googlepress.blogspot.com)

For site owners and SEOs the key point isn’t the novelty of a Google portal but the distribution model it implies. Treat start‑pages and widget directories as reach channels, not permanent homes. Practical steps that were (and still are) useful:

  • Publish a standards‑compliant RSS/Atom feed and keep item titles, permalinks and pubDates consistent.
  • Validate feeds (use the W3C Feed Validation Service) and monitor server logs for aggregator requests. (validator.w3.org)
  • Provide an embeddable, lightweight widget or gadget (Google offered a Gadgets API for this era) and document an easy URL-based install path so aggregators can reuse your content. (en.wikipedia.org)
  • Instrument traffic from those channels and keep an export/backup plan; don’t depend on third‑party UIs for core functionality or monetization.

A final reality check for , and : iGoogle eventually wound down after Google’s 2012 “spring cleaning” and the product was retired in 2013. That arc illustrates the risk of building user experiences that rely on somebody else’s portal — build portable, open feeds and own the canonical pages and mobile experience instead. (developers.google.com)

Short, practical takeaway: take advantage of portals while they exist, but design so users and search engines always have a canonical, feed‑friendly way back to your site.

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Member Avatar for Antonbomb22

i know, it seems they are taking a page from yahoo on this one. hope this doesnt become main page technology as google wont be the same again!!!

Member Avatar for Dani

Out of only twelve options to select, I'm a bit surprised that one of them is Slashdot. Targeted towards techies (more specifically, OSTG open source techies), it's obviously such a niche audience I'm surprised Google is including it.

Member Avatar for Antonbomb22

in a blog of theirs about this, they said they received several requests from consumers who wanted to see slashdot feed on google.

Member Avatar for Dani

You have to admit it seems a bit odd, though. Of all syndicated sites in the world, only Slashdot? It's an example of why there is , , , , and then a google for scholarly papers (i.e. from Stanford), universities, and the U.S. government (let's get political like Slashdot). A bit biased, are we, google? No question about it that more techies use G while MSN attracts more life 'n' style type searches.

Member Avatar for Antonbomb22

yes google is preffered by techies overall but the common person uses google as well just not the other search features such as scholar search and os search.

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