The  California-based search giant made the announcement at its I/O developers conference in San Francisco.

The latest version will provide users with personalised maps, highlighting the information, areas, and routes likely to matter to them most.

In a post published on its Lat Long blog, Google has stated that Maps will become better and better with increased use.

Bernhard Seefeld, Google Maps product management director, and Yatin Chawathe, Google Maps engineering director, wrote in the post: “When you set your Home and Work locations, start favorite places, write reviews and share with friends, Google Maps will build even more useful maps with recommendations for places you might enjoy.”

The service will prioritise the locations users have searched for regularly in the past in any Google search, highlight businesses a user’s Google+ friends have reviewed positively, and pick out similar landmarks related to the one being searched.

Interestingly for digital marketing professionals, the redesigned Maps will include the names of businesses over the top of their locations – in addition to the standard pins – with a couple of words from their PPC ads – if they’re running a pay per click marketing campaign with Google.

Although there was previously an icon system in place, it wasn’t always clear to users what each business represented.

Additionally a blue shopping tag icon will appear next to the businesses’ name if it happens to be, for example, running a special offer.

A spokeswoman for Google has revealed that advertisers won’t pay for the clicks on these ads, as the product is still in the testing phase.

She said: “We’ll keep users posted in the AdWords blog and help-centre once this changes.”

This addition may encourage advertisers to divert their attentions towards utilising the service more in the future.

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Last year Google, which offers a variety of advertising products, such as display advertising, paid £7.3 million in corporation tax on over £3 billion it earnt from UK sales.

The company’s vice president of operations in northern Europe, Matt Brittin, met with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) today, and stood by evidence he provided last year (2012), insisting that all its UK sales were made through its Irish offices.

Chair of the committee, Margaret Hodge, however, said that MPs had seen documentation describing the steps involved in Google’s selling process involving staff based in the UK.

She told Brittin: “It was quite clear from all that documentation that the entire trading process and sales process took place in the UK.”

Brittin responded by stating that the evidence related to a period before he joined Google, back in 2007.

He later stated: “It’s true that the people dealing with customers in the UK – the one per cent of customers, who see Google staff – are incentivised to encourage people to spend with Google and that’s appropriate.”

However, he added that any eventual transactions took place in Ireland, stating: “But any customer that spends with us has to buy from Ireland because that’s where the intellectual property sits.”

Hodge said: “We all accept the billing is in Ireland. If sales activity is taking place in the UK, you are misleading both Parliament and the taxpayers in suggesting that is not happening.”

She later warned Mr Brittin that it was a “very serious offence” to mislead a parliamentary select committee.

MPs are set to hear from the head of the HMRC later on today, who will give evidence from their own Google tax investigation.

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The Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe told the search engine firm in the future it must ensure terms generated by the word completion feature are not offensive or defamatory.

A German business man first brought the issue to light in a case started in 2010: The complainant pointed out the fact that when searching his full name on Google.de, the autocomplete function offered suggestions such as “Scientology” and the German word for fraud alongside his name in the search.

The plaintiff argued making such connections violated his personal rights and also his business reputation, connecting him with Scientology and fraud despite the lack of any real link. He demanded the two terms were no longer used as part of Google’s auto-complete function.

Despite his complaints however, in 2012 the Higher Regional Court in Cologne actually ruled in favour of Google – something the Federal Court of Justice has now overturned.

While Google does not have to alter its algorithms in any way, it has had to remove the search terms and in the future will have to remove any offensive or defamatory results brought to its attention.

The statement added: “The operator is, as a basic principle, only responsible when it gets notice of the unlawful violation of personal rights.”

While Google is able to target sites using illicit SEO methods to rank higher or to copy material from elsewhere with its algorithms such as Penguin and Panda, the autocomplete function is a somewhat different entity.

Discussing the verdict and the auto-complete function in more detail, a Google spokesman said: “We are disappointed with the decision from the German Supreme Court.

“We believe that Google should not be held liable for terms that appear in autocomplete as these are predicted by computer algorithms based on searches from previous users, not by Google itself. We are waiting for the written grounds to review the decision in detail.”

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The Wall Street Journal claims sources close to the matter informed it the search engine giant was quietly trying to get out of its partnership with Microsoft, but its attempts so far had failed.

The renewed one year deal, which extended the current one which expired on March 31, took effect on April 1. It marks the first agreement between the two firms since Marissa Mayer took over as Yahoo!’s chief executive back in July last year, although the first deal was actually struck between the pair in 2009, before being renewed again in 2011.

For Yahoo! a break off from Microsoft seems sensible for the firm, as under the deal its Revenue Per Search has actually been worse than when it used its own systems:  Since making the arrangements, Yahoo! has agreed to use Microsoft’s technology instead.

The pair initially made the deal to try to generate more income in the face of Google’s mammoth share of the search market.

With a vast bulk of people using Google as their main search engine, figures constantly show it averages around the 66-67% mark in the US alone, the Internet giant has been able to draw in a number of firms willing to use it for PPC marketing and SEO purposes over its rivals.

By joining together, the pair hoped to present a more appealing, unified alternative to Google’s platforms rather than taking it on individually.

Under the initial deal between the pair, Yahoo! looked to receive more money from ads through a guaranteed Revenue Per Search agreement with Microsoft, however Microsoft has so far fell short on this promise.

If by April 1, 2014, Microsoft is still unable to deliver on its promises, Yahoo! will be able to walk out on the deal according to Searchengineland’s Danny Sullivan.

Despite the somewhat shaky relationship however, Yahoo!’s search revenue rose six per cent to $408m in the first quarter of 2013.

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The firm’s lawyers are in dispute with representatives of three writers – Jim Bouton, Betty Miles and Joseph Goulden – in a case involving its alleged violation of their copyright.

The two parties argued their case in front of a three-judge panel of the U.S Court of Appeals.

The dispute centres around what is fair use and at a potential cost of $750 a book, Google is eager to avoid being forced to hand out over $3bn in settlements should it fail in its appeal.

Speaking of the projects merits, one of the three judges hearing the Internet giants appeal even went as far as to say it could benefit a number of authors.

Circuit Judge Pierre Leval pointed out the project could help authors of more obscure works gain more of a readership.

He said: “A lot of authors would say, ‘Hey, that’s great for me.”

Similarly, Circuit Judge Barrington Parker said the project could have “enormous value for our culture”.

He added: “This is something that has never happened in the history of mankind.”

Google, which makes the vast bulk of its revenue through firms using it for search engine marketing involving things such as paid ads,  argues the project, which started in 2004 with an agreement by the firm to digitise a number of books for research libraries and has now seen more than 20 million books scanned as well as four million ‘snippets’ loaded online, should receive a ‘fair use’ exception from copyright laws:  Something the Plaintiffs dispute.

The Authors Guild, representing authors and writers, initially sued Google in 2005, claiming it was digitising books without first seeking permission from the copyright owners.

In a long running legal wrangle, Judge Denny Chin then rejected a negotiated settlement by the parties involved in 2011, before then granting class certification to any author in the US who had at least one book involved in the project last year.

However, Judge Pierre Leval has now suggested that it is the issue of fair use that maybe needs adjudicating first.

He said: “The big question is: Is Google going to succeed with its fair-use defense?

“The class-action question raises interesting and challenging points, but I wonder if you’re out of sequence.”

The case continues.

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The investigation was sparked by a number of complaints from Google’s rivals that it was unfairly promoting its own services.

A separate investigation was also carried out by authorities from the US.

However, the US Federal Trade Commission cleared Google of any search bias back in January (2013).

In the set of proposed changes it put forward to the European Commission, to address concerns of favourable treatment towards its own products and services, the search engine giant has offered to clearly mark the links to its specialist search services.

This will enable searchers to differentiate more easily between the links to the likes of Google Maps, and those displayed amongst organic search results.

It’s also pledged to show links to three rival services – similar to those it offers – in clearly visible positions.

Should the European Commission accept the proposals, Google will be legally obliged to adhere to them for five years.

In addition, Google has proposed that it will allow all sites to opt-out from allowing it to use their content in its specialist search services – i.e. restaurant reviews.

Under this particular point of the proposal it has been stressed that those sites that decide to opt-out won’t see their organic rankings ‘unduly’ affected as a result.

Google has also:

Offered specialised search sites – focussing on product search or local search – the option to mark categories of information not to be indexed or used; offered to no longer include written or unwritten obligations in agreements with publishers, that would require them to source search advertisements exclusively from the search giant; and has also offered to no longer restrict advertisers from managing search advertising campaigns across rival platforms.

Commenting on its reasons for taking a different view to the US Federal Trade Commission, the European Commission stated: “Bing and Yahoo! represent a substantial alternative to Google in web searches in the USA; their combined market share is around 30 per cent. In contrast, Google has been holding market shares well above 90 per cent in most European countries.

It continued: “The way Google present is web search results therefore has a much more significant impact on users and on the competitive process in Europe than it does the USA.”

The European Commission has in return proposed that the concessions offered by Google be tested for a month.

If implemented the proposals could benefit the search engine marketing efforts of Google’s rivals.

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Instant Preview let searchers see a cached version of a webpage, in the form of a large screenshot to the right of search results.

It also allowed users to share pages on the Google+ social network, and search for similar pages.

Now, it’s gone. And in its place is a tiny, green arrow next to the website URL in Google’s search results.

All the functionality is still there, in what is arguably a tidier format. Clicking the arrow brings up options to view the cached version of a page, perform a search for similar pages, or share the page on Google+.

Interestingly, not all results show the ‘Similar’ option.

At the moment, this is assumed to be a test. There is no indication that Google won’t switch things back in the next few days, or months. Google did make a statement to TechCrunch, but it doesn’t tell us an awful lot: “We’re constantly making changes to the layout and features of the search results page.”

It’s difficult to make any predictions on what this could mean for SEO – perhaps the tidier, sleeker look will result in more people using the ‘Similar’ search feature?

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An unnamed source said the search engine giant had snapped up the startup for around USD 30 million.

The Wavii app lets users follow celebrities, politicians and news stories, “the same way you follow your friends on Facebook”, according to the Wavii website.

It does this by summarising stories into a feed, and adding related photos and events.

Several weeks ago, Yahoo! purchased similar app Summly – for a similar amount.

Prior to the reported acquisition, Apple was apparently expressing interest in the Wavii app, and was engaged in a “bidding war” with Google. According to TechCrunch, Apple may have wanted to incorporate Wavii’s summarisation algorithms into its Siri software – which lets users ask their iPhones or iPads questions, and get relevant results in return.

It appears that Google may be looking to incorporate Wavii’s technology directly into its products too. TechCrunch reports that Wavii’s team will join Google’s Knowledge Graph division.

Knowledge Graph provides searchers with enhanced search results, based on technology that attempts to determines the searcher’s intent. These enhanced results include information from Wikipedia, and the CIA World Factbook.

Some have suggested that Google is placing increasing importance on these ‘semantic search’ results, which could change the way the SEO industry works.

As yet, neither Google nor Wavii has commented on the reports.

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It has revealed that Yahoo! SMS Alerts, Yahoo! Kids, and Yahoo! Deals will be amongst the products to go this time around. In addition to these names the older versions of Yahoo! Mail, as well as its phone app version, and the Yahoo! Messenger phone app will also cease to be offered from 31 May.

The announcement was made on The Yahoo! Yodel – Yahoo!’s official blog.

In a post, Jay Rossiter, executive vice president of platforms at Yahoo!, wrote: “Like we announced last month, we want to bring you experiences that inspire and entertain you every day. That means taking a hard look at all of our products to make sure they are still central to your daily habits.

“As part of that ongoing efforts, we are today shutting down a few more products.

“We realize that change is hard, but by making tough decisions like these we can focus our energy on building beautiful products for you like the two we introduced this week – Yahoo! Mail for iPad and Android tablets and Yahoo! Weather for iPhone,” Rossiter finished.

Once an Internet pioneer, Yahoo! has fallen by the wayside in recent years, lagging behind Google – the focus of many search engine marketing efforts – in the battle for search engine supremacy.

This latest move is seen as an attempt by Yahoo! to hone its focus.

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Prices are still decreasing, but only by four per cent – in the final quarter of last year, prices fell by 12 per cent.

The figures show PPC marketing professionals are beginning to pay more for mobile ads – which have generally made less money than ads designed for desktop computers or laptops.

After the results were released yesterday, Google’s stock jumped to $770 in extended trading – an increase of $4.09.

Google is one of the world’s biggest companies, with a market value of more than $250bn. In terms of technology companies, only Apple Inc has a higher value.

Google’s revenue increased from last year to $14 billion – a 31 per cent rise. After advertising commissions have been subtracted, Google can still boast $11 billion in revenue.

As well as offering the Internet’s biggest advertising network, Google dominates the mobile and desktop search market.

Its Android operating system is the world’s most widely used platform for smartphones – and Google also produces its own mobile devices, starting with the Nexus One smartphone in January 2010. The latest products are the Nexus 10 tablet and Nexus 4 smartphone, both of which were released in November 2012

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