Google for Non-Profits Newsletter - November, 2008

[Galen Panger]

Google for Non-Profits Newsletter - November, 2008

It's getting colder out here in the northern hemisphere, and we've got some great tips and updates this month to help you feel warm and fuzzy. Why not try out a new Holiday Template from Google Docs?

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Geo Challenge Grants
Flu Trends
More great tips and training for webmasters
Google Docs Templates
AdWords keyword tools
Facts about Google Apps reliability
Understanding Google: Experiments in the Field
Google's Technology Agenda for 2009

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Geo Challenge Grants

Maps are a powerful tool for non-profits of all kinds to share their stories with the world, and Google.org invites you to apply for funding to create a compelling map that helps you share your story. Non-profits with public charity status working in areas related to Google.org's core initiatives are encouraged to submit proposals for grants ranging in size from $5,000 to $100,000. The deadline for submissions is December 22, 2008.

If you've got a great idea for a map, we want to help you make it happen. Learn more or click here to apply.

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Flu Trends

Analyzing patterns in Google search trends can be fascinating, and our Hot Trends list will tell you what the fastest-rising search terms are at any given point in time.

We've talked in the past about how analyzing search patterns helps improve search results. But recently we discovered that we could also use Google search trends to improve public health.

It turns out that there is a correlation between flu-related searches and the actual flu. Our engineers built a model for real-time estimates about flu outbreaks, and Google Flu Trends was born.

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More great tips and training for webmasters

There's a wealth of information on the web about how to improve your site's performance on the web -- so much that it can be intimidating for non-profits or anyone who just wants to know some of the best practices for designing pages that perform well in Google search results.

We heard your cries for a simple guide to Google-friendly website design, so our Webmaster team created a starter guide with all of the basics, pitfalls and other useful resources for good web design. At a recent event, we discussed some other common pitfalls, including myths about how Google works what to do about site errors reported by our Webmaster Tools.

For the most ambitious webmasters among us, we're also offering new in-person "Seminars for Success" for Website Optimizer. If you're interested, have a look at the Optimizer Blog for more details on dates and locations.

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Google Docs Templates

We're always looking for ways to help non-profits save time creating professional-looking documents, and our new Google Docs Template Gallery is full of great ideas. From cards to presentations to address labels, there's a good chance there's a template or two that can help you save time and effort.

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AdWords keyword tools

The AdWords account that comes with every Google Grant has some basic tools to help you select the right keywords for your ad campaign on Google.com search results, but keyword targeting can still sometimes feel like a guessing game.

A new Search-based Keyword Tool (beta) helps address this by analyzing search patterns to suggest the most popular keywords people use to search for information related to your site. Because it excludes keywords you're already using in your campaign, the new tool can help you fill in any gaps and take advantage of missed opportunities.

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Facts about Google Apps reliability

With millions of users, non-profits and businesses moving their email to our Google Apps platform, reliability has been a topic of heated discussion. Because Google's services are so public, outages hardly ever go unnoticed. But Google logs every delay in our system (down to the last millisecond), and over the last year, Gmail averaged only 10-15 minutes of downtime per month.

According to the research firm Radicati Group, companies with on-premise email solutions averaged 30-60 minutes of unscheduled downtime, with an additional 36-90 minutes of planned downtime per month, totaling 66-150 minutes.

It's hard to find another email service as reliable as Gmail, especially one that is free for non-profits.

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Understanding Google: Experiments in the Field

One of the goals of this newsletter is to help you better understand how Google works. A tremendous amount of care and energy goes into creating the Google experience, and we want to share some of our processes with you so you understand how we arrive at some of our designs and feature implementations.

Before we ever release a new feature or product to the public, we conduct all kinds of experiments to determine how to make it intuitive and useful. From eye-tracking to actually going into people's homes (with their permission, of course), we have a lot of methods at our disposal.

A great example of how we used experiments to totally redesign one important feature, Advanced Search, was recently posted to our Official Google Blog. There's even an eye-tracking video. Check it out.

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Google's Technology Agenda for 2009

This week, Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt took the stage at the New America Foundation to lay out Google's top policy proposals for 2009. In his talk, Eric said that the government has a critical role to play in supporting economic growth, innovation and creativity.

With Google's recent success in the White Spaces debate here in the United States, consumers will soon have access to wireless broadband Internet in the mold of current WiFi technologies, but with longer ranges and higher data rates. This will result in better coverage across the country, at a significantly lower cost.

For more on Eric's talk and Google's policy priorities, please visit our Public Policy Blog.

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That's it for this month's newsletter. As always, please send any suggestions for the newsletter or Google for Non-Profits site our way.

Have a great weekend.

Galen from the Google for Non-Profits Team