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It appears that the Chinese government has tried to hack into Gmail accounts. Google already filters results shown on Google.cn in compliance with an agreement with China but apparently this was the last straw.
Official Google Blog: A new approach to China

Even Google will admit that there are more malware, virus and other bad site listed in their search results. It’s becoming more difficult to stop these inventive evil geniuses. Be careful what you click on is still very good advice.
Anyone seeing a huge increase in unflagged malware links?

It’s official, the Google page rank is updated…..for what it’s worth.
Twitter / Matt Cutts: Yes, Google updated our to …

Google is personalizing your search even when you aren’t logged in. Wondering why the person on the computer next to you gets different search results than you do? It’s because Google personalizes your search based on what you have search for before. They are now officially announcing that they are doing it even if you aren’t logged into your Google account. It appears they’ve been doing it randomly for some time. Now it’s official and on all the time…unless you turn it off each time you search.

If you are searching for your own web sites and they are always coming up in the top ten, they may not really be in the top. It may just be because Google has learned you like that type of site. Clear your cookies to see the raw results.

This has changed marketing approaches for some time now and those marketers who are on the ball have been emphasizing other metrics than raw ranking reports. Rankings matter less with this type of a system in place.
Official Google Blog: Personalized Search for everyone

With speed being a part of the new Google in 2010, Google has added a tool to test the speed of your site in the Webmaster Tools.
Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: How fast is your site?

View the Google Caffeine update on their server 209.85.225.103. This one data center will serve up the caffeine update 50% of the time. The final update is not suppose to go live until after the holidays.
Google

News Corp wants Google to pay for indexing their news content and serving it on Google news pages. Google says, tell us not to index it and we won’t. News Corp, says you took it now pay. You get the argument from there. It’s the War of Standstill Hill.
Now Microsoft sees an opportunity and offers to pay News Corp to index their material if they do de-list themselves from Google. Microsoft’s Bing would be the only source of News Corp information?
Do you think that information should only be available if you search multiple sources? Is this the start of a slippery slope?
There’s a discussion of the good and bad of this at Microsoft and News Corp To Consider Web Pact?

Having fun trying to find all the online tools and apps that Google has? Well it’s about time Google had them in one place. The Google Dashboard finally answers that issue, ok, partially. Not all the apps are there, but it’s a start in the right direction. Take a look and see most all your Google information in one place.

Official Google Blog: Transparency, choice and control — now complete with a Dashboard!

Many webmasters are chatting about changes in PageRank values across the world of Google. Other changes have included the missing Time Line Search, a bug fix in GoogleMaps for Israel and a new text fade effect on the home page. It is the season for Google updates.

PR Update – October 2009

Search Google profiles in their experimental labs. The search is now open to the public. Of course it only returns results for people who have created a Google profile and made it public. This is a good time to check your profile and see what you have made public.

Google Experimental Search