GOOGLE

Google Search Quality: Hacking the Most Problematic Spam

Published

2 years ago

July 7, 2021

Google Search Quality: Hacking the Most Problematic Spam

A member of Google’s Search Quality team, Duy Nguyen, was interviewed on Google’s Search Off the Record podcast where he described the most problematic kind of spam facing the Internet today.

[00:13:05] John Mueller:

“Yeah. So what kind of things do you still find problematic on the web? Like where does our impact come to its limits or… I don’t know how to frame it.

[00:13:16] Duy Nguyen:

“I would say hack spam is still a problem for the ecosystem. Many sites still run on older versions of CMS or they use outdated plug-ins or templates.

If you think about it… Well, personally, I don’t know anyone that still runs Windows Vista.

And if you have friends that still run Windows Vista, you’d probably judge them, right? So can we do that as the web ecosystem if people still run really outdated CMS? Can we help them to get on a version that is extremely more secure?

A lot of the hack spam that took place today is barely any hacking. A lot of the tools and scripts that people discover like five, six years ago sometimes is still being used today to exploit websites, especially like older websites.

I think at the very least, we should make it a lot more difficult for these spammers to hack into sites and spread spammy or malware content.

Because when users visit your website, like if they visit Martin’s tech blog, they don’t expect to walk away with ransomware or malware.

I think we have enough resources and cooperation in the ecosystem to make that happen. I really look forward to that.”

[00:14:31] John Mueller:

“…there are a lot of small companies that just have their site running like that where it’s like, “Oh, people can’t find my phone number and that’s good enough.”

And they don’t realize that they’re potentially causing a problem for the bigger web just by keeping things running on something that is essentially outdated.”

[00:15:22] Duy Nguyen:

“I would also say that the very least they can do in those situations is to sign up for Search Console. Because then they would have more data where they would realize that, oh, yeah, running this very old version of CMS really hinders the site’s potential.”

Maybe it’s just a whole lot slower if you have a bunch of improvements that Search Console say you should do, it’s just extremely difficult. So now, suddenly they realize there’s a
lot more incentive to keep the sites up to date.

And obviously, if you’re signed up with Search Console, we find hack or any problems, we would notify you immediately. Now we’re pretty fast and we’re pretty effective at
detecting hacks, so, yeah, that’s the least you can do.

And hopefully by signing up for Search Console, you’ll find more incentives to keep your sites up to date, do all these improvements that, in the end, would benefit users a lot.”

John Mueller Suggests Not Using a CMS

Google’s John Mueller suggested that for some sites where content isn’t updated it might be better to have a static HTML site and not use a CMS (like WordPress).

He then asked if a hosted solution outside of a CMS might be a good way to have an up to date site that is resistant to hackers.

Duy Nguyen answered:

[00:18:38] Duy Nguyen:

“Yeah, I think that would be a good solution.

Actually, we just published a number that in 2020, we sent over 140 million messages to site owners in the Search Console. That’s a lot more messages than previous years, right. And the bulk of that was from sites that were coming onto Search Console for the first time.

So a lot of businesses, because of the pandemic or whatnot, realized that they need better online presence.

So suddenly they invest a lot more into building the website. Even simple things like menus were suddenly updated a lot more frequently or now you can order online to pick up or get delivered.

And I notice they also work with a lot more hosted platforms.

So I think that’s a good solution if you don’t have your dedicated team to manage your websites or social media presence. You can go with the hosted platform and that’d probably take care a lot of the overhead.”

Spam that is Problematic for the Web

Duy Nguyen’s answer about hack spam being problematic for the web is a good answer. The damage to site visitors, to other websites and to the rankings of the hacked site cannot be overstated.

Hacking events seem to be becoming more aggressive and widespread and as Duy said it doesn’t have to be that way. Keeping a website fully updated can go a long way to preventing a site from getting hacked.

Citation

Tackling Web Spam, Search Quality, and More!

Searchenginejournal.com

GOOGLE

Google’s Next-Gen AI Chatbot, Gemini, Faces Delays: What to Expect When It Finally Launches

Published

3 days ago

December 4, 2023

Max

In an unexpected turn of events, Google has chosen to postpone the much-anticipated debut of its revolutionary generative AI model, Gemini. Initially poised to make waves this week, the unveiling has now been rescheduled for early next year, specifically in January.

Gemini is set to redefine the landscape of conversational AI, representing Google’s most potent endeavor in this domain to date. Positioned as a multimodal AI chatbot, Gemini boasts the capability to process diverse data types. This includes a unique proficiency in comprehending and generating text, images, and various content formats, even going so far as to create an entire website based on a combination of sketches and written descriptions.

Originally, Google had planned an elaborate series of launch events spanning California, New York, and Washington. Regrettably, these events have been canceled due to concerns about Gemini’s responsiveness to non-English prompts. According to anonymous sources cited by The Information, Google’s Chief Executive, Sundar Pichai, personally decided to postpone the launch, acknowledging the importance of global support as a key feature of Gemini’s capabilities.

Gemini is expected to surpass the renowned ChatGPT, powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 model, and preliminary private tests have shown promising results. Fueled by significantly enhanced computing power, Gemini has outperformed GPT-4, particularly in FLOPS (Floating Point Operations Per Second), owing to its access to a multitude of high-end AI accelerators through the Google Cloud platform.

SemiAnalysis, a research firm affiliated with Substack Inc., expressed in an August blog post that Gemini appears poised to “blow OpenAI’s model out of the water.” The extensive compute power at Google’s disposal has evidently contributed to Gemini’s superior performance.

Google’s Vice President and Manager of Bard and Google Assistant, Sissie Hsiao, offered insights into Gemini’s capabilities, citing examples like generating novel images in response to specific requests, such as illustrating the steps to ice a three-layer cake.

While Google’s current generative AI offering, Bard, has showcased noteworthy accomplishments, it has struggled to achieve the same level of consumer awareness as ChatGPT. Gemini, with its unparalleled capabilities, is expected to be a game-changer, demonstrating impressive multimodal functionalities never seen before.

During the initial announcement at Google’s I/O developer conference in May, the company emphasized Gemini’s multimodal prowess and its developer-friendly nature. An application programming interface (API) is under development, allowing developers to seamlessly integrate Gemini into third-party applications.

As the world awaits the delayed unveiling of Gemini, the stakes are high, with Google aiming to revolutionize the AI landscape and solidify its position as a leader in generative artificial intelligence. The postponed launch only adds to the anticipation surrounding Gemini’s eventual debut in the coming year.

GOOGLE

Google Brings Bard Students Math and Coding Education in the Summer

Published

6 months ago

June 8, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

$Google Brings Bard Students Math and Coding Education in the Summer$

Google is stepping up its AI efforts this summer by sending Bard, its high-profile chatbot, to summer school. The aim? To boost the bot’s math and coding smarts. These developments are excellent news— when Bard first debuted, it was admittedly not a finished product. But Google is steadily plugging away at it, and have now implemented implicit code execution for logical prompts, and handy Google Sheets’ integration to take it to the next level.

Thanks to implicit code execution, Bard can respond to inquiries requiring calculation or computation with Python code snippets running in the background. What’s even more amazing is that coders can take this generated code and modify it for their projects. Though Google is still apprehensive about guaranteeing the accuracy of Bard’s answers, this feature is said to improve the accuracy of math and word problems by an impressive 30%.

In addition to this, Bard can now export directly to Sheets when asked about tables. So, you don’t need to worry about copying and pasting, which comes with the risk of losing formatting or data.

From the company’s I/O keynote address, it is clear that they are focused on making the most of what Bard can offer. As they continue to speak highly of the chatbot, we’re sure to expect more features and capabilities when the summer comes around.

GOOGLE

Google Bard vs. ChatGPT: which is the better AI chatbot?

Published

10 months ago

February 20, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Google Bard vs. ChatGPT: which is the better AI chatbot?

Google Bard and ChatGPT are two of the most prominent artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots available in 2023. But which is better? Both offer natural language responses to natural language inputs, using machine learning and millions of data points to craft useful, informative responses. Most of the time. These AI tools aren’t perfect yet, but they point to an exciting future of AI assistant search and learning tools that will make information all the more readily available.

As similar as these chatbots are, they also have some distinct differences. Here’s how ChatGPT and Google Bard measure up against one another.

Which is better, Google Bard or ChatGPT?

This is a tricky question to answer, as at the time of writing, you can only use Google Bard if you’re part of a select group of early beta testers. As for its competition, you can use ChatGPT right now, completely for free. You may have to contend with a waitlist, but if you want to skip that, there’s a paid-for Plus version offering those interested in a more complete tool the option of paying for the privilege.

Still, when Google Bard becomes more widely available, it should offer credible competition for ChatGPT. Both use natural language models — Google Bard uses Google’s internal LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), whereas ChatGPT uses an older GPT-3 language model. Google Bard bases its responses to questions on more recent data, with ChatGPT mainly trained on data that was available prior to 2021. This is similar to how Microsoft’s Bing Chat works.

We’ll have to reserve judgment on which is the more capable AI chatbot until we get time to play with Google Bard ourselves, but it looks set to be a close contest when it is more readily available.

Are Google Bard and ChatGPT available yet?

As mentioned, ChatGPT is available in free and paid-for tiers. You might have to sit in a queue for the free version for a while, but anyone can play around with its capabilities.

Google Bard is currently only available to limited beta testers and is not available to the wider public.

Banner of Google Bard intro from February 6.

What’s the difference between Google Bard and ChatGPT?

ChatGPT and Google Bard are very similar natural language AI chatbots, but they have some differences, and are designed to be used in slightly different ways — at least for now. ChatGPT has been used for answering direct questions with direct answers, mostly correctly, but it’s caused a lot of consternation among white collar workers, like writers, SEO advisors, and copy editors, since it has also demonstrated an impressive ability to write creatively — even if it has faced a few problems with accuracy and plagiarism.

Still, Microsoft has integrated ChatGPT into its Bing search engine to give users the ability to ask direct questions of the search engine, rather than searching for terms of keywords to find the best results. It has also built it into its Teams communications tool, and it’s coming to the Edge browser in a limited form. The Opera browser has also pledged to integrate ChatGPT in the future.

ChatGPT	Google Bard
Accessible through ChatGPT site. Only text responses are returned via queries.	Integrated with Google Search. You only need to change a Google setting to get your regular search results when using Google Bard AI, and vice versa.
ChatGPT produces answers from its trained database from 2021 and before.	Google Apprentice Bard AI will be able to answer real-time questions.
Based on GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer).	Based on LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications).
Service has a free and paid plan option (called ChatGPT Plus).	Service is free.
Has built-in plagiarism tool called GPT-2 Output Detector.	No built-in plagiarism detection tool.
Available now	Still in beta test phase

Google Bard was mainly designed around augmenting Google’s own search tool, however it is also destined to become an automated support tool for businesses without the funds to pay for human support teams. It will be offered to customers through a trained AI responder. It is likely to be integrated into the Chrome browser and its Chromium derivatives before long. Google is also expected to open up Google Bard to third-party developers in the future.

Under the hood, Google Bard uses Google’s LaMDA language model, while ChatGPT uses its own GPT3 model. ChatGPT is based on slightly older data, restricted in its current GPT3 model to data collected prior to 2022, while Google Bard is built on data provided on recent years too. However, that doesn’t necessarily make it more accurate, as Google Bard has faced problems with incorrect answers to questions, even in its initial unveiling.

ChatGPT also has a built-in plagiarism checker, while Google Bard does not, but Google Bard doesn’t have the creative applications of ChatGPT just yet.