Google has launched a global market place by the name “Google Trader”. Google Trader is intended to serve as a country specific business directory, bridging the gap between the vendor and the buyer. Google Trader has now been successfully implemented in African countries like Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Uganda and Thailand (Southeast Asian country).
Google initiates its Market Place Services in economically striving nations of Africa to make them reach out with vendors and customers globally as well as locally.

Google Trader is now a potential market place in these countries serves various categories like Agriculture, Appliances, Books, Cars & Vehicles, Clothes & fashion, Computer, electronics, jobs etc. 

Like the rest of B2B market place or classified list sites Google trader facilitates users to post a listing with product description, Images and contact details. Still Google trader missed out the option for responding back to the vendor with buy offer via an enquiry form, which is generally preferred.

 Link: http://www.google.com.gh/local/trader

Google Maps now renders high resolution Ariel and satellite imagery worldwide. Google maps have covered the globe with providing satellite imagery since 2005. Since then Google continued adding various features like destination finder, driving directions, public transit, crisis – disaster recovery service, Hotel Finder and so on.

Currently Google Maps High Definition is expected to cover 108 countries and 164 major cities. Google imagery now helps you view some famous landmarks in Higher Resolution.

Spectacular view of fabulous landmarks like Thune Castle of Swiss and Seattle’s Space Needle are now in Satellite and Ariel imagery. Google is rolling out this update all over the Asian and Pacific sights.

Google maps have gained more reach by adding new features like indoor maps for mobile and map application to iPhone.

Google, the internet giant adds more applications and useful tools to the web-sphere. Google Hotel finder is launched with the sole purpose of hassle free hotel booking.
Google hotel booking application is now integrated with the search engine results pages, and displayed for various search terms like ‘hotels Texas’, ‘hotels California’ etc. Google Hotel Finder was initially available for US and now added all major Asian Pacific cities to their index.

Features of Google Hotel Finder:

1. Map & Area Selection:
Hotel Finder is based on stock Google maps, with various features like region selection. This feature lets the users to search the hotels within the selected localities of a city.
2. Sort Metrics:
Sort out the hotels based on various search metrics like price, room availability, Parking Space, Amenities and hotel categories like 2 Star, 3 Star or 5 Star etc.
3. Short List the best deals:
Display the latest deals and offers in the selected cities. Helps you shortlist the hotel for future updates and sell offers.
4. Reviews:
Select the hotels based on the reviews of Google users and past experience.

How to add a Hotel to Hotel Finder:
Users cannot directly add their hotels to the Google map finder service of their own. This list is generated by Google based on the relevant results by Google knowledge gathering process. But based on the study on listed hotels we can formulate the process of getting into it.

• 1. Add the hotel/resort to Google maps with accurate position and details.
• 2. Create a Google+ page for your hotel and be an active user of it.
• 3. List your hotel in various hotel booking sites like Expedia.Com, hotels.com etc with details of your hotel, price, amenities etc.

Google Algorithm Update Panda 22

As never before Google has been constantly updating their search algorithms in past months. Few major updates like Exact Match Domain, Panda 20, Penguin 3, Top Layout Update and Panda 21 has created a great impact on the search results. There was a huge shuffle in the search results. Lots of webmasters screamed about being slapped or Penalized by Penguin or Panda.

And now, though is it not officially announced, an Google’s Web-spam team member have confirmed the update of Panda 22 by the end of November, 2012. Panda 22 is scheduled to roll out all-over the world in next 7 to 10 days, if everything goes fine.  Google Panda 22 is expected to create an impact of nearly 2 – 3 % for English and Non-English queries.

Sources states that this update is expected to clear out the irrelevant results which appear  on the Search Results due to the previous algorithm update.

Google initially updated their search results page layout for the US version Google.com. Past week Google started rolling out their new search page layout to most of the Asian-Pacific countries.

The new layout adds the replica of the top layout to appear below the search box.  This re-design is mainly intended to bring out an raise in shopping using Google stores and the Apps in the Google Play Store.

This layout displays variable features for the desktop and mobile users. The Mobile users are more likely to click on the tabs like App Store, Shopping and News, whereas the desktop users  rarely visit the App Store. This feature enhances the user experience.
i.e if an mobile user types “Temple Run” or  “Need for Speed” the tab Applications ( Google Play Store) appears. And if an users searches for “Galaxy S3″ the tab Shopping is more likely to appear.

On the other part, experts believes that the new layout undoubtedly increase the Ad click through rate and the new update is also is aimed at increase in Google’s Ad revenue.

Besides, the webmasters who rely solely on Organic traffic may also experience an decrease in click through rates by this search layout update and latest 7 Search Results update.