YouTube Topics is a new way to explore the worlds of videos on YouTube.

After you opt in, when you search for something ("funny" for example) you will see topics related to your current search displayed at the top of search results and next to individual videos. You can click on these topics to switch to that topic on search.

You can also add a topic to your current search by clicking on the + sign that shows when you hover over it. Each new topic you click will give you new results to explore.

Go to: http://www.youtube.com/testtube , and click on "YouTube Topics on Search" to opt in, give your feedback, and help us build a better product.

Utilizing a search engine can be very powerful but even the most experienced Internet users could learn something new about using Google. By utilizing different search engine techniques, an Internet user utilizing Google could have a better success rate.

By putting a search term into double quotes, a search engine user can get what is called a phrase match. When using a phrase match, the search engine user is looking for matches that contain a specific phrase in it. For example, if someone wanted to search for electronic picture frames, typing in “electronic picture frames” with double quotes will help the search engine find matches for that specific phrase. In other words, the double quotes around “electronic picture frames” will match that specific phrase with content on a web-page.

To exclude unwanted words, a user can simply employ a minus sign or “-“when typing the query into a search engine. The minus sign simply tells the search engine not to look for that word during the search. For example, if a search engine user typed in tennis –shoes, it will not look for keywords or web-site content related to shoes. The minus sign before the word “shoes” in this instance tells the search engine not too look for any keywords with shoes in it and will simply focus in on “tennis” instead.

When typing keywords or a phrase into a search engine, there are times in which Google will add in synonyms to help enhance someone’s search experience. For example, if someone was typing the word “airplane” into the search engine, Google could suggest looking up “jet” as a synonym. For those who do not want that broad of a search, typing in a plus sign before the term tells the search engine to search only for that specific term. Utilizing the previous example, typing in +airplane into a search engine will tell the spider (which searches the web-site content) to look only for that keyword and no other synonyms.

Another way to get an exact match is to type in site:domain into the search engine. This search engine technique can be very handy when trying to match a specific keyword to a web-site. For example, typing in site:www.clevelandcavaliers.com merchandise will direct the user to the specific pages on the Cleveland Cavaliers web site that sells merchandise and Cavs team apparel.

This search engine technique can also be used to find sites with a top level domain. For example, typing in site:gov recycling will list recycling only web-sites that are sponsored by the US government. Specific directories can be searched utilizing this search engine technique by adding in a slash towards the end of the search query. For example, someone can simply type in site:google.com/paintings Monet to search within the paintings directory for a Money piece.

Matt Cutts demonstrates a few features of the "Search Options" panel in Google search. To see Wonder wheel, another feature of the Search Options panel, check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_AvMp...

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These new search options are an interesting way to slice and dice your web searches. If you aren't familiar with these, take a look at this video to learn how you can use these Google Search Options.

Microsoft and Yahoo are partnering to take on the master... Google. This is the beginning of the end for Yahoo. But it's good news for searchers and ultimately might be just what Yahoo and Microsoft need to get into the search engine game.

To see flight status for arriving and departing U.S. flights,
type in the name of the airline and the flight number into the search
box.

"In the past week, we covered Mother's Day logos, Yahoo redirecting users to localized versions of their home page and Yahoo showing the location of an ad to searchers. Google is testing a green user interface on the search results and directory. SEOs are in deep fear of link penalties by competitors. Finally, Yahoo dropped the ambassador program..."

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What: We looked at different ways of searching for information this week. And we looked at ways to find what others are searching. Usings this kind of information together can really help you take advantage of the search engines at a much higher level.

Who: Sage Lewis

Where: This was shot at our office in Akron Ohio.

When: March 23, 2007

Why: Most people are still not using very sophisticated capabilities of search engines. Yet virtually everyone searches on a regular basis. Spending some time learning some new techniques and tools can really make you more efficient and more effective.

How: I shot this with my mini DV Panasonic video camera. I had 1000 watts of light on both my left and my right plus some fill lights. I've added some covers to my lights to try to achieve a softer look.

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What: Using the advanced search capabilities of a search engine is a great way to fine what you are looking for better and faster.

Who: Sage Lewis

Where: This was shot at our office in Akron Ohio.

When: March 22, 2007

Why: Advanced search is still not a widely used tool. However, there is so much information online that not using some simple advanced search techniques can really slow you down and ultimately not give you the best results.

How: I shot this with my mini DV Panasonic video camera. I had 1000 watts of light on both my left and my right plus some fill lights. I've added some covers to my lights to try to achieve a softer look.

What: Today is the first day of the 5th year of the Iraq War: March 19, 2007. On this 4th aniversary I thought we could take this opportunity and look at different results that are given from different engines. We looked at:

Google
Yahoo
MSN
Google Blog Search
Technorati
Bloglines

Who: Sage Lewis

Where: This was shot at our office in Akron Ohio.

When: March 19, 2007

Why: Different search requests often can be benefited using different tools. Current events are great example of how different search results can be from one engine to another.

How: I shot this with my mini DV Panasonic video camera. I had 1000 watts of light on both my left and my right plus some fill lights. I've added some covers to my lights to try to achieve a softer look.