Feedback: Products/features in 2006?

Is there a new product or feature that you wish Google offered? Is there anything on the web that annoys you because there’s not a useful product that does exactly what you need? Is there an extra feature of Gmail, AdWords, Google Maps, AdSense, Google News, or another product that you wish we offered?

I can think of a lot of new features or products that I’d like to have, but I don’t want to skew the opinions. This thread is completely open-ended: I’m looking for any feature or product that a regular user might want.

118 Responses to Feedback: Products/features in 2006? (Leave a comment)

  1. I would suggest a “translate page into” button on the Google toolbar, where we can select which language we want the page to be translated

    Regards and again congrats for this great idea !!

  2. here’s a great suggestion. Stop making products. Seriously, at least for a few months.

    Spend some time making the current ones integrate and work with each other.

    Where’s the adsense and analytics tied into my personal homepage? Shouldn’t sitemaps and analytics integrate somehow with each other?

    The Homepage API was a great start, but don’t make me scrape webpages to get data when it’s already in your database.

    What about gmail and all the other stuff in my google toolbar.

    Shouldn’t my google toolbar automatically log me in to my personal homepage? I hate having to re-login occasionally.

    there are so many google products now, and none of them seem to even know about the other ones.

    Adwords? If I can write a script that tells me the same person clicked my ads 6 times today, why can’t Google tell that? Especially if I’m running analytics you should be able to know, and not charge me for it.

  3. One kind of strange suggestion I have, is this:

    When I log on to Gmail, some times, when I start typing in the username before the page has finished loading, as soon as the page finishes loading, the script automatically “tabs” me over to the password field so I type the rest of the username into the password field.

    I had a quick peak at the source of the gmail login page, and from what I found, the problem was with the gaia_setFocus() function, which is called by the onLoad() function when the body of the page loads. It would be nice if this could be changed, as it happens every few days for me.

    I know that it has happened on Windows 98 with IE 6, but I’m not sure if it behaves this way on other browsers/os’s or not.

    Thanks,

    Nathan Malone
    Austin, Texas

  4. Hello Matt,

    Now that you ask, there is a feature I would like in Google Maps. I use Google Maps intensively for all my trips and directions. I especially use the From – To feature. However, I am annoyed that only one route is displayed. I once tried finding the route from my place to work and the suggested route was not the most efficient. Not that I want the most efficient to be displayed, but I would really appreciate if Google Maps could suggest more than one way to get to another place.

    Thanks,

    Mauricio

  5. oh yeah 2 more things:

    Adsense code isn’t valid HTML in all cases. causes my pretty little Tidy Check mark to change to an X on some of my pages.

    Also, no google job search beta yet? You’ve already got most of hte popular job search sites indexed…. now compile them all for me in one easy to use application…. or hire me and I’ll do it πŸ™‚ It can just be links to the actual site the job is posted on… but who better to search through them all than google?

  6. A Google calendar service?

  7. Hi Matt, long time no see.

    The feature I’d love to see the most is GPG integration with Gmail, but I’m guessing that I’m probably in the minority about that. Even just a firefox extension (like the GMail S/MIME one at http://richard.jones.name/google-hacks/gmail-smime/gmail-smime.html) would be better than nothing, though.

    Cheers,
    Tanner Lovelace
    Durham, NC

  8. Expand upon the sitemaps search phrase feature and be the first engine to offer a service where users can enter search terms to check their ranks then integrate it into Analytics/Personalized Home/Desktop.

  9. 1. Complex queriers that give back XML or CSV results like:

    query date
    key phrase
    URL
    postition
    description
    links to url within that url or not
    page rank

    2. Reverse look up

    I give the search API a URL and I get back (with an agruement limit)

    date
    url
    search term
    position
    number of competing pages
    number of bids (PPC stuff)
    top bids (PPC stuff)

    3. Query server

    I would rather PAY for my queries on a bank of server that don’t load normal search traffic

  10. Hi Matt,

    I’d like 3 things:

    1. One account for all the google services: Adsense, Adwords, Gmail, Sitemaps… One username, one password and stop.

    2. I page quality checker to validate every single page for Adsense: Is my page using a correct language? Theare are violations on Adsense terms? …

    3. About Adsense code I’d like a version more flexible where if I must change a combination of colors I do not have also to replace the code of 1000.000 pages

    πŸ˜‰

  11. Improving analytics on the adword program. with all the buzz going around about fraudulent clicks running hard earned $$ out of online campaigns from overture,ah-ha.com,insite lycos, adwords. I would like to see more control put in the adword program for 2006, i personaly would spend more money in the company that provided more statistics on each click coming through. examples: click counts per IP on a daily, weekly, monthly basis (running totals per IP), providing referer URL where did the click come from? what site? was it googles search? or an affiliate customer? and lastly adding blocking features block by IP address! or a way to see a list of where most of my traffic comes from via adword. by way of google search? or affiliate. Have a way to view total traffic then sort it down to what sites send the most traffic through my adword campaign, is it google search or affiliate then let me see these affiliate sites URLs, and break down the keyword traffic from the affiliate sites. maybe have the ability to sort and block adv. from some affiliate sites would be nice as well.

  12. How about either an API or some other way to create dynamic channels when publishing ads? Then I could write a plugin for WordPress to create a new channel as a post gets created so I can easily track adsense performance by post.

    It would also be cool to be able to tag an ad to accomplish the same thing, but with more flexibility.

  13. RedSheriff –

    That’s not really a Google/AdSense problem as much as it is the web publishing software you are using.

    My site, although I don’t use AdSense, conatins all my ad settings and code in one function/page and I call that function/perform an include to perform mass changes across my site (I wrote my own CMS). You really should look into publishing software that lets you modularize pieces of code so you can perform changes across your entire site easily.

  14. cobarde anonimo

    i suggested this to one of the adwords people at the pubcon in NOLA, but I’ll repeat it, since it hasn’t been implemented.

    I think it would be great addition to adwords that if someone selects a language (Spanish especially) that there would be an option to have “language groups” or at least that the country list would automatically reorder to list all Spanish-speaking countries together.

    Using the drop down menu to cherry pick the Spanish speaking countries is a PITA – about 20% of the time I end up accidentally deselecting them all halfway through and have to start again, not to mention I usually omit one or two accidentally. I actually have a post-it note next to my computer that lists all the countries that use Spanish as an official language to doublecheck my selections.

  15. API access to Google News for commercial use. I along with many other developers I know have some awesome innovative ideas, but can’t implement them until it’s easy, affordable and legal for us to do so.

  16. Free website screenshots. I don’t want to pay thumbshots.com and trying to make a script generate them has been driving me nuts. Ok so this might not be a big priority thing..

  17. Matt,
    Great idea asking for feedback! First, my company is both an Adsense partner and Adwords advertiser. As you may be aware, Adsense spammers are enemy number 1 with me. They are notorious scrapers of other site contents, usually use various black hat techniques to gain search position, are the most likely candidates to commit click fraud, and as such are diluting the pool of potential Adwords advertisers for other Adsense accounts.

    Add some form of quality control when accepting new Adsense accounts or adding new websites into the program. Expand Adsense QC department to handle complaints and give better response. Certify certain Adsense accounts (based on longevity or independent quality review) and let that carry over to Adwords. Right now Adwords accounts have the option to either advertise or not on content (Adsense) related sites on a per campaign basis. Allowing us to advertise on just certified Adsense accounts would be a great option. More and more Adwords accounts may opt out of advertising on these sites without better quality control on program admission. A “certification” might provide a better comfort level with advertising on these third party sites. In turn, certified accounts would benefit by getting a broader base and higher paying set of advertisers and that should affect their bottom line as well. It would also motivate non-complying Adsense accounts to clean up their sites and discourage these fly-by-night websites that are made-for-Adsense.

  18. This is a no-brainer: An option for increasing the font size on Adsense ads. Us Boomers don’t see so well anymore.

    Google has already increased the font size of the ads on the search engine, so you obviously recognize the value of larger type.

  19. Ok ive got my eyes firmly on the keybord while typing this so if its already metioned then blame Matt:-)

    In Gmail i would like to be able to “add sender to my contacts” without having to open the email and click on the more options tab.

    I use one of my gmail as a “catch all” program and i just want to be able to check the box next to the mail and go to the “more options” menu and wham…instant contacts list. Or better still allow me to export it straight from the “more options” menu without putting it in the cotacts list first.

    Also give me more fields of info in the export instead of just name and email. I want who it was from, the date, the subject and the body of text.

    Oh and just in case i duplicate…sort that as well πŸ™‚

    I would love to see Google do a newsletter template inside Gmail too. You know nothing too fancy to start with, but let me send nice template email instead of boring text. Now that would be cooooool!

  20. Take some ideas from the greasemonkey scripts for gmail.
    Especialy those from http://persistent.info, who actually works for google.
    Make it easy to add new keyboard commands, combining more then 1 function into one key command, like pressing D could select all the unread mail in a folder, mark it as read, and archive it(Just an example). It would be cool to be able to let filters add mail to more then one label, instead of creating basically the same filter to add the mail to another label too.
    Expand the use of the conversation view. I love it but it only works for those with the same subject and the same people. I wish I could view all the mail in a folder as a conversation, or from one person, as a conversation, or for the ones I select. I could read my mail so much easier and faster.

  21. Easy – let us transfer funds from AdSense directly to Adwords.

    Makes a whole lotta sense, doesn’t it?

  22. I would like something like delicious a homepage that holds all my favorites in groups by subject and tells me when the page changes so that I can go and read it…(I’m a forum and news holic) It would also be nice if the tables could be moved from column-to-column and position to position.

    It would be nice if Gmail could retrieve my pop email.
    I run several websites that I own and I have to log into each site’s
    webmail to read the mail online so i can keep it all in the same place.

  23. here’s another useful one that will stop scraper sites…

    Type in a URL and a term.. show me where I rank in google for that term. maybe something like. rank:www.mysite.com widgets

  24. Well, besides having the new language translation stuff released, I think Google Finance or whatever would be an interesting feature. Yahoo! Finance is great, but I’d love to see what Google could do in this area (and competition is always good).

    More content on the mass transit finder. Along those lines, give more options in Maps/Local. Allow me to save locations, put in intermediate stops, etc. Also, it would be nice to have an option to exclude freeways so I can find bike routes between two places.

    Make it easier to use the result of a previous calculation (in the search Calculator thing) in a new calculation. Maybe just let us type [ans] and that would automatically insert the last answer into the next calculation.

    That’s all I can think of now.
    Andrew

  25. Don’t forget that Mac users are a very influential minority… While it may never threaten Windows’ supremacy, Mac OS X is on the rise. Please release your products for the Mac platform too – you certainly have the resources to do so. πŸ™‚

  26. Like Dan, I think Google Calendar it’s a good idea.

    You can develop a first version where you can put events tagged by some words, and you decide if they are public or private. Later, Google Calendar could display all public events tagged with a searched word.

    Also if you integrate Google Calendar with Gmail, and Gmails Contacts, you can make a very interesting tool.

    Also, I think a online office suite like Writely it’s a good idea, creating private and public documents.

  27. Oh, another thing I remembered. I’m not sure I would use it, but allow people to use Gmail on their own domain. If you sign up for a Google account, allow someone to use perhaps their own address and show them how to set the MX entries for their domain to Google’s servers. Then they would be given 2.6xx+ GB of space at their own domain, and wouldn’t have to use @gmail.com. I know you can do this now with forwarding, but then you still need another server to forward, right?

    Along those same lines, a free Google DNS service would always be appreciated.

  28. First some background, then the feature ; )

    We are in the process of re-branding our company and have purchase a new domain bringing our total to 2 domains registered. One that has been live for 4 + years with solid SE ranking the other is fresh with no history at all.

    A feature that will allow us to easily transfer our site from one domain to the next without fear of our rankings collapsing. It could have some form of verification file placed on the same server (like you have with sitemaps) that would allow you to confirm both domains are owned by the same company and that there is no funny stuff going on.

    Great site Matt, thanks for listening,

    Ian.

  29. Agreed with the integration thing.

    A password-holder. Oh my god do I need a password holder. (Better still, a Google Wallet type thing which keeps my passwords: a bit like Microsoft Passport but not rubbish).

    Make Google Talk work with telephones. Like Skype-Out, and Skype-In.

    Gmail: IMAP support.

    And, seconded on the MX records thing too.

  30. I just wrote rubbish about passwords there. It makes no sense.

    I mean: Allow an API for Google Accounts, to allow me to not have to write all that stuff for my website – just ask them to log into their Google Account.

    They only need remember one password, I only need moderately easy code.

    It’s a real winner.

  31. I’ve noticed most “real-space” addresses on the internet are written over two and even three lines. For example:

    123 Fake St.
    Springfield, MP
    99723

    It’d be really convenient to be able to cut and paste the above address into Google Local (i.e. I’d love a multiline search term input box.)

    Thanks for reading Matt!

  32. It would be great if you could easily transfer your earned adsense money to adwords

  33. Autolink – keep your links off my pages, if I wanted them there I would have put them there myself thank you very much.

  34. Gmail:
    – Another vote for the MX record thing (even if it was a pay service).
    – More filtering options – the ability to filter based on the raw/original message would be nice (could filter on things like mime type then).

    Web APIs:
    – Throw some more resources at them (server errors are too common and speed sucks compared to Yahoo’s APIs).
    – Give spelling suggestions within a normal search query result (rather than a 2nd query)
    – More than 10 results per query (recursively making 5 queries for 50 results ultimately just puts more strain on Google’s end)
    – Ability to get PageRank (if you made it available through the API, then you can put limitations on the queries and ultimately have more control)

    Analytics:
    – Plot “Data Over Time” data for multiple items (see this).

    Maps:
    – Live traffic data (it’s terribly easy – see this)

    New Products:
    – Tie together everything you already offer and create a Google Car Stereo. πŸ™‚

    General:
    – Don’t forget about Mac OS X users

  35. The Google “HTML cache” shows the date the page was last crawled by Google. That is useful.

    This does not happen when you show the HTML version of a cached PDF document.

    Please add the date when you show the “HTML version” of indexed PDF files too.

  36. I’ll second, third, etc. the Adsense –> Adwords money transfer. What’s the big deal?

    Then we need a new web currency with a solid, stable, evil-proof backing + with bank-status.

    Then — I REALLY WANT THIS: let us query outbound links of a site/domain through Google’s search. I want to know WHO a site is linking to before I link to them. You mentioned the 3 levels down bad-neighborhood links, we need a way of finding them IF Google is going to use them for anything.

    I’d love to have a graphic linking circle of all sites linking in / out of a specific site, but I guess that’s something you’ll want to keep on your laptop to scare us all. πŸ™‚

    Then, please Mr. belated Santa Claus, I’d like to manage the indexing of my sites/domains. If I see that I am running ito a www/non-www issue, I’d like to be able to open up a webmaster panel, see the issue and select the “correct one” myself. Ditto for bad incoming links, bad in-site links, unintended duplicate content, removing session-ids, removing unnecessary URL parameters, moving / renaming pages or whole sub-sites, etc. You must have control over this, it would be great if we could take some of that work off of your hands and do it the way WE really want to (perhaps take the advanced google webmaster test first, to make sure we don’t kill our site and cause even more trouble for the engineers, ha ha). For that we would need a good, foolproof way of authenticating the website owner.

    Since you’re asking: I’d also like a standard for auto-discovering Google sitemap files (similar to rss feeds in the head section).

    More? πŸ™‚

  37. Oh yeah, and chunk Google Base. What a waste of time. What a load of spam.

    And I want dork fiber to my home.

  38. I would like to see a ‘real’ Google directory, and have Google put a lot less weight on DMOZ. Good quality websites sometimes wait years to get added, some never do. DMOZ is understaffed and is not as relevant as it used to be. A paid Google directory could ensure quality sites get added in a timely manner and would be more relevant.

  39. Something like Coral CDN?

  40. >> I’d like to manage the indexing of my sites/domains. If I see that I am running ito a www/non-www issue, I’d like to be able to open up a webmaster panel, see the issue and select the β€œcorrect one” myself. Ditto for bad incoming links, bad in-site links, unintended duplicate content, removing session-ids, removing unnecessary URL parameters,…..

    With all due respect, all of these issues can be fixed by configuring your own site correctly… and then the fixes will work for all search engines, not just for Google. The 301 redirect and “base” tag fixes the non-www/www issue. In-site links with errors you can and should fix yourself, and for scripted sites it is easy to make “non-valid” URLs serve a “404”, and “unintended duplicates” get redirected. Removing unecessary parameters should also be done on the site too.

    I can see where you are coming from with the suggestion, but it sounds like you want to take the easy way out by clicking some boxes in some software (that couldn’t possibly ever cover all scenarios) rather than actually doing the job correctly on the site itself in the first place.

  41. Hi Matt,

    I’d like:

    1. More support for OSX plattform
    2. Google Directory but without Dmoz results
    3. Hi quality Hosting service
    4. transfer earned adsense money to adwords

    πŸ˜‰

  42. Google Calendar!!!

    Drag and drop function for GMail messages (to delete and label messages)

    Google Maps for the rest of the World!!!

  43. I have a few on my list that would be nice!

    1. Google Calendar: I believe this service is way overdue and Yahoo Mail Beta provides one of the nicest new calendars using AJAX that I have seen yet. If Google doesnt want to offer calendar, I will just drop it and use the new Yahoo Mail. The website is ready to go at calendar.google.com so whats the hang up?

    2. GMAIL: I have a few suggestions and fixes for common problems.
    – PLEASE GIVE ME AN OPTION TO NOT AUTO ADD EVERYONE I EMAIL TO CONTACTS! Why does Google believe that every single individual needs to be remembered? I have a few co workers that use GMAIL as their all mighty inbox for all forwarded email and they need to clean out their contact lists maybe at least 3 times a week because 75% of the people they email are non important for the long term! I have this issue, but not as much so. I hate going into contacts and cleaning out the unwanteds every week too. It’s getting annoying google….

    – Please give us an option to show either the full contacts list, most emailed contacts list, or just the groups listing within the main contacts link. For me, Id rather not look at my most emailed contacts first because I usually go into my contacts list to look up those that are emailed only a few times a year! I would love to also have the option of just seeing my groupings first, and then digging into the various groups for the contact I want. Sort of like grouping folders for contacts.

    – One button deletion for messages? Why is a pop down menu needed still?

    – GMAIL color scheme choices are needed. There are a few hacks, but why not allow us to change the color scheme through an official method? Sounds like one of the easiest things to implement.

    – Blocklists and whitelists? Yahoo mail has had this for years. I have people that I dont want to receive email from, and some that I find are getting thrown into spam too often. This would be nice.

    – The ability to add/remove messages from conversations as well as attachments from messages. I work for a small local conservative newspaper that shares a GMAIL inbox as our main hub for article submissions, edits, and final postings. If this were an option, we could make single conversations for a given article and let it grow by attaching messages to include the original submission, the edit, and final form. Not a need for everyone but this is just our example of how we could use this.

    – Multiple signatures. What if someone like me has multiple accounts being forwarded to my main gmail inbox and would like to have a sig for each account? This is not currently possible.

    – The ability to set a default “SEND FROM” address that is pinned to accounts that you specify. Such as, when I receive a forwarded email into my inbox, I would like to reply to that message with whatever account it was sent to initially, not my main default email. This defeats the whole purpose of forwarding mail.

    – Also, a whitelist of addresses that are allowed to have images displayed by default would be nice. I have several newsletters that are approved by me that should be able to display images by default.

    – Lastly, the ability to embedd limited HTML within email like tables and images. I love the formatting ability as it is right now, but image embedding is what Yahoo and Outlook have offered for years. Certain things dont deserve to be attachments!

  44. A free download manager would be great. There are many download managers but most are shareware and not very userfriendly.

    Additionally, I would like to log into Gmail without a cookie. I disabled cookies in firefox and so a have to change browser to log into Gmail.

  45. A small point:

    Users outside U.S. still need an invite for Gmail, even if they already have a Google Account. Even though I had a G account, someone still had to send me a Gmail invite, and I couldn’t use my G account identity to set it up.

    Could G develop a ‘combine accounts’ utility?

  46. 1. The ability to transfer money from Adsense to Adwords.
    2. Better reports / stats on both Adsense and Adwords without having to install some third party Adsense tracker. Note: I would be very open to Google creating and releasing some software for users to install on their own servers to track stats, if they didn’t want to have it on their servers.

    Nathan Malone
    Austin, Texas

  47. Hi Matt!

    Mine are directed more towards Gmail, my second most-used Google services after the search πŸ˜€

    1. Google Calendar, or some way where we can integrate Gmail and a calendar feature together. I find myself using Gmail for so many things now. When I am at work, I send myself an email to my gmail account so that when I get home, I won’t forget about it. Also, there are a lot of times where I need reminders for events and appointments, and I forget them. Having a Gmail checker on checking every 5 minutes will allow me to remember everything!

    2. This has been biting me since the beginning. We need a way to thread our own conversations! A lot of times things are threaded wrong, or are supposed to be together but are separated. Definitely at the top of the list I am sure.

    3. The ability to set our own sender address is great! Since I have 6 email accounts sending a second copy to my Gmail, thing start to get messy. One gripe I have is that say the email was addressed to someone@mydomain.com. If I click reply on the email, it automatically defaults to myemail@gmail.com. Sometimes I forget to change this and the receiver will not get the same email back (sometimes I’d like to keep it a secret).

    Thanks for asking for our feedbacks Matt! Love reading it everyday πŸ™‚ If I think of more I’ll definitely bring it up πŸ˜‰

  48. Spike said:

    “I can see where you are coming from with the suggestion, but it sounds like you want to take the easy way out by clicking some boxes in some software (that couldn’t possibly ever cover all scenarios) rather than actually doing the job correctly on the site itself in the first place.”

    I couldn’t have said it better Spike – kudos to you. Many of the suggestions here can be solved already by the user with some technical expertise and a little work. What’s veen better is that after asking for a way to control indexing, he then shoots down Google base which is one of the two ways for users to manually control what does get indexed (Sitemaps being the other). I’m sitting here shaking my head at some of these suggestions …

  49. I’d like to see Gmail evolve into a full CRM tool.

  50. I would really love to see some additional sizes for adsense. Especially a 160 wide x 300 high.

  51. Quicklinks for #1 result

    At times the #1 result has a few added quicklinks displayed under it.

    Quality Issue: The anchor text seems to be taken from out of date information. For example a page title that had 2005 mentioned in it but was changed to 2006 for over a month still shows 2005 in the quicklink.

    Feature Request: Allow webmasters to specify which quicklinks they would like listed and the anchor text. e.g. New Releases – Support Forums – Contact Us. Perhaps this could be achieved through Google Sitemaps, a feature that would increase the take up rate for Google Sitemaps.

  52. Google Search is Sluggish

    It’s a real disappointment how sluggish Google Search is… and other search engines for that matter.

    * The time it takes for a new site to be indexed and incorporated into the Google index is extremely sluggish.
    * The time it takes for a new page to be indexed and included is sluggish.
    * The time it takes for changes in existing pages to be updated and factored in for Google Search is sluggish.
    * The time it takes for linkage data to be factored in and reflected in Google Search is sluggish.

    Google in reality is more like a library run by public servants than an agile high tech search engine.

    The standard offered at present is obviously viewed as acceptable for current customer expectations but the future of the net is about speed.

    It’s not enough to be the first to market with fresh information, the Google product group needs to much more agile and instantaneous.

  53. I would love to see valid, strict HTML or XHTML for all AdSense products. That is especially important for AdSense for Search since it requires publishers to paste the invalid markup into their web pages. Please make sure to validate the markup against a Strict doctype. Letting publishers choose between HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0 would also be an improvement.

  54. DMOZ is a weak link

    If you are going to continue utilising DMOZ at any level, for goodness sake – resource them.

    It’s an archaic directory that is so slow moving it’s ridiculous.

    The very least you can do is update their data daily in the Google directory.

    Over and above that please get more staff involved as volunteers or resource them in some way so the time it takes for sites to be accepted or rejected is at the very most one week.

    If not – completely ignore them and treat dmoz as any other directory (and a crappy one at that).

    For the record I have several listings in DMOZ.

  55. “..but it sounds like you want to take the easy way out … ”
    No, not for me πŸ™‚ — for all the weekend-webmasters out there. If you take a look in the Google Groups and in the hobby-webmaster forums out there, you’ll see that these people don’t know a thing about this whole thing. They haven’t got a clue as to what 301 means, they probably don’t even know if their hoster has www/non-www set up or not. These are the people that are running into these penalties (undeservingly, imho) – they offer some good content (and some junk) but not allowing them on the index because they aren’t technically up-to-date or because they don’t have professional help is imho not the “way of the web”.

    If these people had a chance to look at their site, with an official Google logo on the checking page and an official statement from Google regarding their website, then they would **believe** the other people who say www/non-www is an issue. By letting them sit in their technical ignorance and excluding them from “taking part” because of something they don’t know about is not going to make it any better.

  56. AdSense:
    Allow all publishers to choose the font family and font size for the ads. It is a proven fact that if the font of the ads matches exactly the font of the page, the CTR is much higher.

    Google Pack:
    I don’t know how you can claim that Google Pack is free. Norton Antivirus 2005 is basically “trial-ware” because it has only 6-month free subscription. Moreover, Norton Antivirus is known to bloat the system incredibly. There are many free anti-virus tools, no need to use commercial.

  57. Hi Matt,

    What I would really love to have is the ability to search not only for text but also for code. For example, in my website I would like to check if all (indexed) pages use the correct style sheet. I would want to search for that part of the code in the page.

    Or I would be checking my backlinks and add an operator to see which links are using the rel=”nofollow” operator.

    Searching code would be a great help for webmasters.

    Thanks,

    Peter

  58. I’d love Gmail IMAP support!

  59. This is what I’d like to see happen in 2006: http://froogle.google.it/ πŸ™‚

  60. I’d like to see all Google accounts under My Account. Having a Google Sitemaps requires going to totally different sections of the site each time to view that information.

    Then, if Sitemaps worked with Analytics it would be great.

  61. I have suggested all of these for years and I still want them:

    1) Let me chose the type of files searched (exclude pdfs, word, power point..). Then if I can’t find what I want I can expand to include them. At the very least give me some way of making the type much more visible (I realise it is there now but I often click before my mind notices…).

    2) Let me remove web sites from my default searches. I would imagine this could even be used to help Google’s normal search results by getting a sense of sites huge numbers of people “block” The same spam sites show up for searches and I would rather block them if Google can’t figure out how to do so.

    3) Let me create site search lists, where I create lists of sties I want searched – then I can target my searches how I want. Actually now that rollo does this I don’t care that much but since they use Yahoo to do so, I would figure maybe Google will finally make this available. It would be nice if you suggested sites others with similar site lists included.

    New requests:

    1) It would be cool if I could rate sites and that was factored into my returned results. This could obviously use the Google toolbar for user input pretty effectively I imagine. A simple 1-5 or 1-10 scale. It would probably be a good idea to let users have some simple way of say having all their bookmarked files automatically give the web site the highest rating so they don’t have to manually enter every one. Then they could edit the results. Same with the search lists in item 3 above. It should also be setup so I can accept other users settings. So if I trust John Battelle I can have his ratings (obviously only for ratings people make “public”) reflected in my results. That would involve complications when one person I chose to include says a site is a 1 and another says a site is a 5 but I figure Google is very capable of figuring out a good way to make that work.

    2) I don’t have too much trouble with this on Google now (but Google News does), let me block non-available content (behind paid or unpaid walls) in the default search (then let me “whitelist” certain sites so they show up – for sites I either just want to see anyway of sites I have registered for…).

    I still think Google is excellent but honestly the value of Google’s results compared to Yahoo and MSN is much less than it was 2 years ago, in my opinion as a search engine user. To me the others are closing the gap with Google and Google needs to make some improvements more than ever before (assuming Google wants to stay ahead of the others which I think is a fair assumption). It isn’t a feature but improving the results is also important – too many spam sites are returned now.

  62. β€œ..but it sounds like you want to take the easy way out … ”

    Combining all of the previous user’s comments, I would create a new product, say “Google SEO” or “Google Check”, or whatever.

    Then this new product/service would revise your site and tell you what you need fixing (NOT fix it by itself). Kind of a Google x-ray for webpages.

    If it existed, I could use “google check” to see site:www.arandomsite.com

    It would display:
    Analysis of: http://www.arandomsite.com

    Canonical Issues: Displays both www/non-www urls. Might result in duplicate content and be grounds for banning in SERPS. (Link to explanation and solution)
    W3C-Valid HTML: Doesn’t validate code correctly (Link to explanation and solution)
    W3C-Valid CSS: Doesn’t validate CSS correctly (Link to explanation and solution)
    Valid RSS: Doesn’t validate RSS feed correctly (Link to explanation and solution)
    Hidden Text Flag: Site is apparently using hidden text. Might be grounds for banning in SERPS (Link to explanation and solution)
    Duplicate Content: Site is apparently repeating some of it’s contents on several different pages. Might be grounds for banning in SERPS (Link to explanation and solution)
    302’s redirects: Site is using 302 redirects. Consider using 301 redirects for permanent solutions. (Link to explanation and solution)
    Javascript redirects: Site is using Javascript redirects. Consider using 301 redirects for permanent solutions. (Link to explanation and solution)

    Etc, etc.

    Now that I think of it, it would be like kind of what google has implemented on Sitemaps, but far more detailed and on demand. Plus, you don’t need to be the webmaster or owner to use and take advantage of it. It could be open to anyone to use on any site. Can become very usefull also for research purposes, and in the end, it would accomplish that sites in general would increase their quality as they become aware of this (and many other) problems plagging their sites.

  63. Hi Matt,

    It would be nice to improve the interface and add more interesting funcionalities to the Google Reader as nowadays it is not a real option for dissapointed users of Bloglines.

    And you should also think improving the Volunteer translation system as it becomes sometimes confusing and collaborative translations with several users are impossible to do.

  64. It would be nice to see better fraud detection for Google Adsense. There should be an IP ignore list which webmasters could add IP addresses to their account ignore list and any IP address on the ignore list will be ignored and bypassed whereas no click/impression is generated. This will help webmasters like myself, who work on their site religiously the guaranteed assurance they will not mistakenly click on one of their ads.

    Google should also auto-check for inconsistent and fraudlent activity on each Adsense account and then automatically deny payment just on the day or days that fraudlent activity was generated, opposed to disabling the account for a lifetime or indefinite amount of ftime. As well Google should provide more information to the webmaster when suspected for fraudlent activity, the date(s), the time(s), the IP addresse, etc. I understand if it violates any privacy law, but I think the webmaster has the right to know and investigate any issue which jeopardizes his business and sabotages his name.

    I provided this issue as feedback because approximately 2 weeks my Adsense account was found to have fraudlent activity and therefore was disabled by Google, but since then I have appealed the claim and my account has been reinstated, but these were the main issues which disturbed me about the situation.

  65. ADSENSE Suggestion:

    Allow Time Of Day parameter (per channel) that lets us configure on a daily basis when we want the ads to appear on our web pages. As a commercial website, I don’t want Google ads to appear during business hours on some of our web pages (like HOME or product pages).

    ADWORDS Suggestion:

    Same parameter by campaign. Let me configure a campaign setting that tells Google to only display my ads during a certain window of time on a daily configuration. Kanoodle has this feature and its very useful. Limiting the countries and language helps, but this would be even more beneficial.

  66. When clicking on an empty google keywords box, I want to be able to right click and have a suggested list of categories suggested, that are quite general.

    When I click on one of these categories in my right click menu, I want the page to reload with search results for that category and a new dynamically suggested list of keywords in my right click menu that is based on my last selection. The list should be based on the best known keywords based on what my last choices should be.

    At the bottom of each list should be a β€œreset to default”, which takes you back to the main page. Furthermore, the main search page should always have the same list basic starting list of categories suggested.

    Right Click Menu Items Listed

    1. When Mousing Over An Empty Keywords Search Box.

    1. Web
    2. News
    3. Images
    4. Groups
    5. Froogle
    6. Local
    7. More

    2. After having selected News and page has reloaded. Right Clicking in an empty keyowords box should give these menu items.

    1. World
    2. US
    3. Buisness
    4. Sci/Tech
    5. Sports
    6. Entertainment
    7. Health
    8. Back

    3. After having selected World and page has reloaded. Right Clicking in an empty keyowords box should give these menu items.

    1. A dynamic keyword list that lists the stories of the day in this category.
    2. back

    An so on…..

  67. New products are good for PR and daily news, but I guess it would be wise if current products which are limited to US or GB like Google maps or google-safebrowsing.xpi β€œInstall Now (US Only)” improve worldwide.

  68. Adsense – Be nice to have really detailed statistics like “top 10” pages that get best CTR, eCPM, etc. So we can see which pages do well and not. Be nice to see poor performing pages as well so we can improve those. Websites with many hundreds or even thousands of pages makes it hard to know whats working well and whats not unless your uber anal and channel each page :-p

  69. Said it before, I’ll say it again. Google Directory. No, not DMOZ either, but a real one maintained in-house.

    Google Press Conference. This is where you guys can announce algorithm updates, new DCs, things like that and anyone can ask questions (in a moderated sort of way so it doesn’t get out of hand).

    Google Store. Where we can get all our favourite Google merchandise (although that one’s probably too commercial.) Personally, I think the Google kegger would be great in a college frat house…might be good for recruiting too.

    Techoogle. A Google sub-search engine devoted to technical resources and results. The regular Google is great in this regard, but a little more filtration for error codes and things like that would be nice. Not a big deal though.

  70. This is a cool product idea I would like to see from Google.

    In Google Talk when two people are chatting Google Talk would translate everything each party types to the language of the recipient.

    Take this example. Two people are chatting, one speaks/types/reads English, the other speaks/types/reads Spanish. Google Talk could translate everything each party types (English to Spanish; Spanish to English).

  71. GMail
    Watch the videos on your messages directly from the message, without need to download it. Some like Google Video!!!

  72. Penalize sites that mouse trap in anyway shape or form (so sick of that).

  73. Add support in Google Maps for WGS84 datum system.

  74. Not a new feature, but I would like Google to get local search working better and not only listing the sites registered at yell and the like.
    Surely they could move on to using something similar to geourl.org and let webmaster put a snippet of code on their sites to let Google know where they are located.

  75. Here’s an oddball one, but anyone who has ever had to configure a comp and not been able to find a driver would love this:

    Driver Search!

  76. A cookie that blocks AdSense ads for the publishers websites. Its horrific to inflate once’s pageviews when testing things out.

    This of course applies to those with less sofisticated IT abilities.

    Also please stop AdSense displaying travel ads on music websites (for example) just because travel people pay more. Looks like SPAM for the user and leaves the publisher with no income.

    Thanks

  77. Mac mac mac mac mac mac. Mac mac Macintosh mac mac. OS X mac mac mac. Mac?

  78. In my Google account, I would like links for everything that you offer. For instance, when I am reading my emails, there should be a link to Google Base. You get the point.

  79. I think a Google “certified website” product where a site would undergo evaluation of a number of criteria by the Google quality team (for a fee of course) might be a good idea. It would generate significant additional revenue for Google and it would give webmasters a direct communications link with Google quality team reps.

    This would resolve one of the biggest problems I witness on the web everyday.. the spreading of disinformation causing webmasters to speculate what elements help to produce a quality website. I know you all publish alot of this information already in your webmaster quality guidelines but for example, many webmasters do not realize that a “thin affiliate” website does not better the Internet unless it offers significant original useful content.

  80. How about a product or service that will automatically crawl your site and let you know if it sees anything black hat or shady goin on? It may help the small businesses that unknowingly hire a disreputable seo consultant.

  81. Sorry… here is another one. A month or two ago Search History started require a password to login nearly every 30 minutes, even if could easily access all the other services (Reader, Gmail, etc.). It is really frustrating having to type this in all the time, especially since I view Search History all the time.

  82. Mr Cutts,

    How about an script that analyses the optimisation errors for a given site. I type in my URI and the script tells me things like why JavaScript causes problems, why Alt text and keywords in the anchor text helps Google index the content. This might be handy for dispelling some of the myths of meta data.

    Steve
    PS
    One way links are fickle, corrupt and prone to spammer exploitation. A reciprocal link has reliable meaning that equates with trust and honesty. It is harder to cheat a person than a computer both ethically and literally. I would like to see Google assign more value for long established link exchanges between competitors.

    Stephen Malakos
    Walsh brothers jewellery shop

    118 Beckenham High Street Beckenham Kent BR3 1EB

  83. Google Calendar !

  84. I think a better facility for blocking competetors ad’s on Ad Sense and a facility to search and target adwords sites wich offer products which your product or service would complement. e.g. In our case offering our limo service on a travel websites adwords content and chosing a bid level which then obtains a definate listing.

  85. How about ading a Favorite link to results. With a IP block so the links popularity cannot become inflated.

    This will also bring links that people find beneficial closer to the top of the rankings and help the search process become more consumer led rather than algorithmic.

  86. Uhmmm…how about search.. -) Why not take a breather from the cool gadgets, and focus on search.

  87. I’ve always felt that all SE’s (and especially Google) would be improved if they returned more than 10 results per page as a default. Not only would it be easier for the searcher (most “ordinary” users don’t even know about resetting the default) to scan the top 50 or so results but it may even ease some of the SEO competition.

    If the default was say, 25 results – this would mean that 100 webmasters could have their page within the top 4 pages instead of just 40 as it is now.

    I know several people who, like me, have their defaults set to 100 results per page. It’s much easier to scan one long list for the info that you are looking for rather than continually clicking to the next page.

    Apart from making it easier for the searchers – it may make SEO’s concentrate more on getting quality listings rather than just high positions. A longer list makes it easier to compare listings and skip the obviously spammy ones (Wiget, widgets, wigeting, widget, widget etc etc)

    Rankings just for the sake of rankings will become fewer and fewer as webmasters with spammy sites realise they are getting no traffic and the well constructed, relevant results are getting all the clicks.

    I know this is sorta the case at the moment, but more results per page will acentuate this.

  88. Hi Matt,

    As many others upstream, I’m also missing Google Calendar (=Galendar) nicely integrated into GMail. GMail notifier and GTalk could show alarms of events set in Galendar and share calendar events with your GMail/GTalk contacts.

    Also, a natural step would be to merge Hello with GTalk to let users share files, not only photos, as a real p2p file transfer tool.

    A combination of the two above could result in something like Google Park in which users use part of their GMail storage quota to store files. Files could be uploaded by means of GMail/GTalk and parked in a private or public area. The private area would allow users to store files that may need available from anywhere. The public area would let users to share their files with other GMail/GTalk contacts.

    What are you guys waiting for…?

  89. Hi Matt!!

    I think it would be very usefull to add Bookmarks administration to the Google Toolbar, actually I use the Google Toolbar in many computers and inside each computer in many browsers, and it’s a mess, I have bookmarks all around.

    This should be a plus to the bookmarks on Google Personalized Page, despite it’s a great feature to have our bookmarks on it, it’s not very practical to manage bookmarks on it, in my opinion adding Bookmark administration to the Google Toolbar would be a valuable feature for the common user.

    That’s all for now… congratulations for Google, it’s an amazing company, keep the good work πŸ˜‰

    Best Regards
    Fabio Cavassini

  90. I try to manipulate the “Matt-Cutts-Ranking-System” by repeating this one, because it is SOOO importent:

    Google Maps for the rest of the World!!!

  91. A way to paste photos directly into gmail instead of having to save pictures on your computer or browse for them. Also maybe a way to drag and drop photos directly from your computer and have them automatically be resized for easy viewing in the email but also available to click to view in full size.

  92. Another feature for Google Toolbar…

    It would be nice that Google Toolbar includes the option to search inside our Search History

    Best Regards
    Fabio Cavassini

  93. General suggestions
    – Improve integration between your products / services.
    – Add a suggestion form in several languages. This would permit to users that almost don’t know english, me for instance, a better explanation of their suggestions πŸ™‚

    New services
    – Google Calendar

    GMail
    – Add “read receipts”

    Thanks

  94. I have a nice suggestion for Gmail. Since you can now create different email accounts, I forward all my email from work, personal email, and my various websites to Gmail and answer all of my email from there as well.

    The problem is that Gmail only allows for 1 signature. It would be great if we could assign a signature to each email account we set up.

    The other problem is the where the signature appears. When I reply to a message, the signature appears below my reply AND the previous message(s) in the email because I am assuming Gmail sets it up to appear below anything else in your message. In practical use however, people would prefer their signature to appear directly below their own reply.

    My suggestion is to use an ‘insert signature” button that you can click on that is connected to whichever email address you have selected in the “from” field that inserts your stored signatures where you cursor is. That way you can use whatever signature applies to the email account you selected and you can insert it in the appropriate place.

    Expounding on that idea you could provide a drop down with standard replies that small business people or webiste owners could even set up and use for standard replies to frequently asked questions in much the same way I am proposing the stored signatures be handled.

    Now there’s a highly useful feature that is relatively easy to implement and no one else is doing. πŸ™‚

  95. Two products:

    1. Free stat counters (hidden of course)
    2. jobs.google.com (monster would be scared)

  96. Thanks Matt for asking the suggestions and here is mine

    1) GMAIL Calendar
    2) I want to use my GMail account as the mail client to read my mails from other POP3 accounts.
    3) Google Local/ Maps/Earth for India

  97. This is regarding gmail.

    I would like to have typical ‘folder’ like behaviour in gmail [and not only apply labels. Because otherwise a lot of things keep piling up in the Inbox view. Other features are very good.

  98. Please add read receipts and delivery receipts to GMail.

    Thanks

  99. I think Gmail should be added with “Return Receipt” capability…;)

  100. I would REALLY like it if Froogle were returned to its previous (useful) format. The “beta” currently appearing adds a second layer of complexity to the search — first I search on the term and then instead of direct links, I get a list of “compare everyone selling that item in this price range” links. Absolutely useless. With the previous display, each “hit” displayed individually WITH THE SELLER URL SHOWING — from that list, I can quickly determine which are sellers that I trust and then click to their page.

  101. Well, when’s the Google OS Comin out ?:P

    And, yes, you really need to extend Google Earth/Local/Maps to areas outside the U.S. And, with more people in India getting Broadband, think Google should get India covered under Maps sooner than later……

  102. I would like somw way of doing random search. E.g – at the main page if I do a search for ‘New Cars’ I can either do an ordinary Google search or I can press a button and I’ll get a page of random results – sometimes you just want to dive into the deep web and go beyond the first few pages. – and do it fast.

    I’d love a calander on Gmail. I’d also love a hosted office suite and powerpoint type apps as well – but I guess it’s not going to happen.

    Any chance of being able to use two seperate email addresses from the same Gmail account – E.G. I could have myname@gmail and myname1@gmail – with the ability to access and sort them with one login. Then I could use one for spam and signups from the same account.

    Convert emails to PDF directly from Gmail?

    Your blog is great πŸ™‚

  103. I’d like to see more personalization of applications. Creating personalized dashboards in Analytics and Adwords would be particularly useful.

  104. Just read – Microsoft is planning to release an assault on the search advertising industry this coming June, according to the Associated Press. Pulling from the Chinese research leg of the company, the Beast of Redmond aims to add highly targeted and contextual next-generation search marketing technology to its weapons cache to continue its bout against the new nemesis found in Google.

    Any thoughts Matt?

  105. Adsense:
    I would like to see which pages generates the click (or even which ad)
    More control over the adsense layout (like fonts, more sizes etc.)

    Google:
    Add some sort of GoogleDocumentation where one can type in some function name (be it PHP, Javascript, HTM, C++, whatever) and display the results of whatever Documentation source you might have.

    Google Tips & Tricks
    Make some webpage (a blog?) about tips & tricks from your google developers, like the best way to do a db query, how to optimise this etc. (Give something back…)

  106. How about a Google virtual office:
    1st level, perhaps free: access to basic applications: generic wordprocessor, spreadsheet, database, presentation applications.
    2nd level: for a nominal fee/subscription–access to more advanced applications: Google-photoshop, Google-illustrator, Google-draw applications.
    3rd level (more expensive)– Top of the line/name titles–pay for the specific ones used/or flat rate premium annual subscription.
    Perhaps this is available for out there already, however, I have not seen it for the regular/average web user.

    Would save the user from having to purchase/keep up with the latest office software. Also would not be necessary to carry these applications since these would be readily available (hot spot) where a computer hook up can be arranged/set up any time, anywhere.
    Thanks.

  107. Hello Matt
    My name is Brian Glassman and I am a student in Duke’s Master of Engineering Management Program. A friend and I both wrote a detailed article on a new marketing strategy for Gmail and we would like you to look at it. We would be pleased if you choose to post a blog about it on your website.
    Thank you

    http://www.techrd.com/?p=104

    http://www.webarticles.com/Computers/Software/Google-Attack-Spam%2C-Please%21%21-

  108. Hello Matt

    I would like to check Gmail from work. Since Gmail is secured (https) it’s not possible to log in. My organisation blocks https pages (and flash, and java and….)

    It would be very nice for me and my collegues (many thousands) if we can enter Gmail from work.

  109. Feature in adwords:
    – bulk ads upload (using csv format etc).

    Adsense
    – not to show ads for certain IPs
    – more tracking info like “http referrer” (would be great to see even how much every click earn)

  110. What would be real cool to add to GoogleBase would be the ability to leave comments and ratings like you can do in ebay.

    Then you could see to a reasonable to degree whether or not people are trustworthy. It would probably eliminate a lot of spam problems also because people would be less inclined to take notice of fake accounts with no reputation.

  111. Integration between products definitely a big thing. Why are web clips and feed reader (and possibly personalised front page) not using the same feeds?

    Or with the personalised front page, you at least ought to have a ‘my feeds’ section on the left with the ones from the feed reader.

    And perhaps an option, when logged in when on blogsearch, a tick box/something else to limit you to your own feeds.

    And not being able to apply lables to draft messages drives me mad! πŸ™‚

    How about translation built into GMail? Or blogger? etc etc…

    I think you should get together, write a map of all your different products, list their key features (e.g. ‘feeds’), then see from there what connecting lines can be drawn between them that don’t already exist.

  112. A kick-butt Calendar / Task manager / Project Manager / PIM that is customizable, expandable and syncs with everything under the sun, especially Palm, Windows Mobile, Outlook, other web-based calendars, etc. Not just import/export, but actually sync… with multiple products/devices. Be the hub. I sync my Outlook on my desktop with Google, I then sync Google with my iPAQ. I then sync Google with Outlook and my Project Manager software on my laptop.

  113. I would like to see google improve their adwords api and repair what i see as a serious problem. At present you have to get adverts reviewed manually be requesting an exception when you add any trademarked terms or model numbers of products like “DMRES20D” for example. You can do this manually in the adwords site interface but it takes more time but using the API, absolutely nothing, nada, zilch. Which means that google are losing out BIG TIME. I wanted to upload more than 250,000 search terms, i am guessing i will still be here in two years trying to add them all manually. It would be nice if it could be fixed so i can request them to be manually looked at using the API.

  114. AdWords: I wish I could change the URL for the landing page without resetting conversion history for the ad. I realize this might be problematic for other reasons but it seems to me changing the URL has nothing to do with click / conversion / performance tracking, the URL is about what happens *after* the click.

    Example: I want to track “when” the initial click happened, as in a week ago, a month ago, etc. I can do this with campaign codes in the landing page URL, but if I reset those codes weekly, I end up continually dumping my history and the ad is “punished” versus competitor ads – even though the copy and landing page never changed.

    When tracking visitor history over time at the unique visitor level, you want to be able to embed “source” data in the tracking and this includes a “time stamp” for the original click source.

    Running conversion reports without knowing if the campaign was clicked yesterday or 2 weeks ago is a very sub-optimal way to approach tracking visitor behavior; capturing “Recency” is critical.

    But it’s tough to do much testing on this if I have to take a performance / sales hit every time I change the tracking codes. Perhaps this “new ad” approach to changes in URL string was envisioned as a “feature” to help people keep track of their ad versions but can’t you do that with reporting? It’s a feature I wish I could turn off.

  115. Matt – when do you think Google will update Search Results to include
    modern features like a visual semantic map/tag cloud, multi-resolution
    urls, related services, etc.?

    (These feature requests for results display are detailed in my blog post).

  116. Two features :

    Gmail : Order emails by subject, from, ….

    Calendar : Config your location by default, and use it on your events automatically

  117. iskandar m i basal

    I don’t know if this page is still valid. I found it searching google. The last post dated the 2006. I’m not sure my message will reach you. i also would like to have a google virtual office , a great page that collect together all the important services I use in Google and theses are many today.
    Many Thanks

  118. > Nathan Malone Said,

    > January 6, 2006 @ 11:17 am

    >One kind of strange suggestion I have, is this:

    >When I log on to Gmail, some times, when I start typing in the username before >the page has finished loading, as soon as the page finishes loading, the script >automatically β€œtabs” me over to the password field so I type the rest of the >username into the password field.

    >I had a quick peak at the source of the gmail login page, and from what I found, >the problem was with the gaia_setFocus() function, which is called by the >onLoad() function when the body of the page loads. It would be nice if this could >be changed, as it happens every few days for me.

    I totally agree with you Nathan. The same thing happens to me and it is VERY annoying. Come on Google guys, this really is a PITA.

    If I put my cursor in the Username field, it’s because I want to type my username, not my password. I’m not stupid you know.

    Can’t you at least put that javascript in a separate file so i can Adblock it if I want to?

    Thanks

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