Google+ has begun the process of identity-verification for some of its users’ accounts. To determine whether an account is verified, look to the right of the name. Verified accounts will have a grey checkmark or “badge”. Rolling over the checkmark, explains Wen-Ai Yu of the Google+ team, changes it to “verified name”.

Account verification is nothing new. >Twitter, among other sites, has been doing it for some time. It’s a next logical step for Google+ and adds what has become a somewhat necessary layer to the social networking site. Without it, Google+ runs the risk of myriad impersonators and the subsequent need to track down and close false accounts. Closing accounts is something Google+ is familiar with and the identity verification system should hopefully go a long way to help prevent such measures in the future.

Google’s insistence on real names coupled with the implementation of the new badge system could be what the nascent social networking site needs in order to compete with Facebook and its relative level of trustworthiness due to similar policy.

Currently, the identity-verification badges are “focused on verifying public figures, celebrities, and people who’ve been added to a large number of circles” according to Yu in a video brief of the program. No information on what constitutes a “large number” or whether it’ll eventually be opened to the general public was available as of this posting.

Google Sitelinks Example

Sitelinks have become an integral part of the Google experience.  Starting out as just a single row of four links, they’ve continued to be tweaked and enhanced by Google.  On Monday, Google announced the next iteration of sitelinks.

According to Google’s official blog (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/08/evolution-of-sitelinks-expanded-and.html):  “Sitelinks will now be full-size links with a URL and one line of snippet text–similar to regular results–making it even easier to find the section of the site you want. We’re also increasing the maximum number of sitelinks per query from eight to 12.”  Doing a search of “evoba seo”, for example, will give you an idea of what the upgrade looks like.

Previously, sitelinks were a list of links to specific sections of the site.  Now, it’s more of a SERP within a SERP, albeit a much simpler one.    Each sitelink lists the title, link, and partial description for a given page.  And 12 sitelinks isn’t always a guarantee as it depends on the query entered.

Sitelinks won’t appear for just any search, either.  Branded terms, for instance, will almost invariably generate sitelinks.  And as these sitelinks take up more and more on-screen real estate, people are beginning to speculate about how this can affect businesses, both positively and negatively.

Reputation Management firms are one area that could see their bottom-lines hurt.  Their business model involves pushing negative reviews off the front page with other content.  However, with the new sitelinks already pushing other sites below the fold, reputation management may become less and less necessary.  Add to that an AdWords paid advertisement for a business’s name and you can almost eliminate the need entirely.

While some businesses may see a downward trend due to the improvements, sitelinks can benefit others by providing more guidance for potential clients and customers.  The additional information now integrated into sitelinks can encourage visitors to click on precisely the page they might have been looking for, which can lead to a higher conversion rate in the long run.  This has long been one of the benefits of sitelinks and the recent improvement seems only to add to that element.

Ultimately, it’s too soon to tell how the new sitelink design will (re)shape marketing and/or SEO practices, if at all.  It could have huge implications for some businesses and nominally affect others.  Suffice it to say, it’s something that many industry experts will be keeping an eye on.

Google announced today that it would acquire Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion.  This is a significant move for the search giant, heretofore all but shunning in-house hardware production.  The move, however, isn’t about owning a hardware company, according to Google.  It’s about the patents.

Recently, Microsoft and Apple (among others) have joined forces to acquire old patents from Novell and Nortel.  The acquisitions, claim Google, were intended to prevent Google from purchasing them first.  From there it plays out in scenes reminiscent of myriad patent troll companies:  e.g. seeking licensing fees for every Android device and trying to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android.

The purchase of Motorola – and the resultant expansion of Google’s patent portfolio, according to CEO Larry Page, “will enable us to better protect Android from anti-competitive threats from Microsoft, Apple and other companies” by attempting to level the playing field.

While Google is not actively looking to develop homebrewed hardware, the purchase of Motorola Mobility does leave that door open.  However, it’s highly unlikely that they’ll take a similar route as Apple with their iPhone.  Google is intent on continuing to grow and develop the Android ecosystem so a one-OS-on-only-one-phone approach would seem counterproductive.  The expansion of IP and patents would go a long way toward achieving those goals.

For the past three days, 0.02% of Gmail users have logged into their accounts only to find their entire inbox missing.  Some users have had problems with undelivered messages.  After working on fixing the problems, Google says it may be a bug in storage software that is deleting the messages.

Fortunately, Google says emails have not been lost.  According to the search engine, “service outages such as the one it’s experiencing now are rare — particularly because it saves every file that a user has in Gmail (or any of its other cloud-based services) in multiple data centers.” (LA Times)

Once they figured out it’s a bug, Google stopped software storage updates and went back to an older version.  It looks like they are making progress and Gmail accounts should go back to normal soon.