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When our users add Google Site Search to their website, they expect the same relevance, intuitiveness, and response time that’s delivered with Google.com search. As a website owner, you want to leverage the power of Google search while still staying within the unique look and feel of your site’s design, and Google Site Search Themes allow you to modify the appearance of search results to more closely match the overall styling of your website.

Google Site Search users can easily set up their themes through the admin control panel, which also manages everything from refinement labels to On-Demand Indexing. By clicking on the "Look and Feel" tab, you can choose between three primary layouts and six styles for your Google Site Search. Each style has a unique color scheme, text format, and search box appearance to fit in with the rest of your site.

If you love a style, but need to tweak it, you can customize it further by changing fonts, colors, backgrounds, promotion settings, as well as interactive features such as tabbing and mouse-overs. The preview function instantly shows you the effects of your changes, so you can keep iterating until your search results look just right.

What’s more, Google Site Search allows for further customization through a number of different features and capabilities such as the XML results feed, JSON, or our brand new custom data rendering features – tools that web developers with programming experience can use for more advanced results. With Themes, however, you can make major layout and formatting changes to your search experience right through your control panel, without having HTML, CSS, or JavaScript editing.

Google Site Search is constantly adding new features. We recently added mobile support for Custom and Site Search as well as support for rich snippets and easier synonym management, among many other enhancements made in 2009. Needless to say, we have ongoing new features and enhancements planned for 2010.

See how easy it is to put the power of Google search to work for your website.

Posted by Clay Maffett, Google Site Search team
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Editor's note: This post is the second in a three-part series on the benefits of Google Apps’ cloud-computing architecture. - Ed.

Last week’s post kicked off our series on the advantages of Google’s cloud, and described how our infrastructure gives customers faster access to innovation than on-premises technology, single-tenant hosted applications, and “software plus services”. Here, part two focuses on how Google Apps is designed from the ground up to provide higher reliability and better security.

Improved Reliability and Security
Through synchronous replication, data and user actions in Google Apps are mirrored in nearly real-time across multiple data centers. If one data center becomes unavailable for any reason, the system is designed to instantly fall back to a secondary data center with no user-visible interruption in service. For Google Apps customers, our recovery point objective (RPO) design target is zero, and our recovery time objective (RTO) design target is instant failover. Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, Google Groups, Google Docs and Google Sites have a 99.9% uptime guarantee, and our actual reliability has been significantly higher than this commitment. Attempting to replicate this level of reliability with on-premises or hosted technology is tremendously costly and complex. Even very large enterprises with state-of-the-art disaster recovery systems typically target a recovery time of one hour and accept the loss of one hour’s worth of data.

On the security front, Google’s large investments in physical and process-based security are passed on to customers. First, Google is able to hire many of the worlds leading security experts to protect our systems and conduct cutting-edge security research. Our data centers are hardened with many of the latest measures in security precautions, including biometric access controls and multi-tiered security perimeters. Furthermore, Google has implemented a multi-layered security process protocol designed to help keep customer data safe. Our processes have been independently verified in a successful third-party SAS 70 Type II audit to verify our confidentiality, integrity and availability of customer data. Finally, Google is able to efficiently manage security updates across our nearly homogeneous global cloud computing infrastructure, so customers aren’t exposed to known vulnerabilities until they install security patches themselves.

Browser-based applications also help keep sensitive data more secure. Unlike traditional software, when a user is finished using a web-based application, minimal data is left on the machine that could be compromised. Also, when employees can securely access their data from any browser, they’re less likely to store data locally on unsecured end-points like thumb drives. In a world where one out of ten laptops go missing in the first year1 and 66% of workers report having lost a thumb drive2, making data securely available from the browser and minimizing the amount of sensitive data stored on devices is an effective security strategy.

Next week I’ll conclude this series by sharing how Google’s economies of scale can help companies reduce costs and free up technology resources for higher value initiatives that can make businesses more competitive.

If you’re interested in going a level deeper, we invite you to geek out with us on Thursday, April 22nd, when we’ll be holding a webcast to explore the advantages of Google’s cloud. Hope you can join us!

Geek out on the Cloud-Based Infrastructure of Google Apps
Thursday, April 22, 2010
2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 6:00 PM GMT


1. The Federal Bureau of Investigation & The Computer Security Institute’s annual Computer Crime and Security Survey, 2005.
2. “Thumb Drives? The New Portable and Convenient Way to Lose Data”, 2007.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager
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Editor's note: The spam data cited in this post is drawn from the network of Google email security and archiving services, powered by Postini, which processes more than 3 billion email connections per day in the course of providing email security to more than 50,000 businesses and 18 million business users.

In 2009, the security community started seeing diminishing returns from the takedown of malicious ISPs. After the ISP 3FN was taken down, spam levels rebounded in less than a month, and after Real Host went down, spam volumes recovered after only two days. In response, the anti-spam community turned its attention toward taking botnets offline instead.

Toward the end of 2009, Mega-D, a top-10 botnet – responsible for infecting more than 250,000 computers worldwide – was severely crippled through a carefully orchestrated campaign designed to isolate the command-and-control servers spammers were using to support the botnet. In early 2010, security professionals, along with government agencies, successfully mounted a campaign against several more targets: major botnets such as Waledac, Mariposa, and Zeus were either shut down or had their operations significantly curtailed.

However, this recent spate of botnet takedowns has not had a dramatic impact on spam levels. Although spam and virus levels did fall below Q4’09 highs, reports from Google’s global analytics show that spam levels held relatively steady over the course of Q1’10.

This suggests that there’s no shortage of botnets out there for spammers to use. If one botnet goes offline, spammers simply buy, rent, or deploy another, making it difficult for the anti-spam community to make significant inroads in the fight against spam with individual botnet takedowns.

Spam by the numbers
Overall, spam volume fell 12% from Q4’09 to Q1’10, which follows a trend of quarterly decreases in overall spam levels that started after the surge in Q2’09. This may be attributed to some of the recent takedowns, but spam volume was still 6% higher this quarter than it was during the same period in 2009, and spam volume as a percentage of total email messages is holding steady.


Recently, our data centers showed a 30% increase in the size of individual spam messages (measured in bytes) that occurred toward the end of March, as shown below.


This spike points to a resurgence of image spam, similar to what we reported in Q2’09. This is likely due to the fact that reusing image templates makes it easier and faster for spammers to start new campaigns.

As always, spammers tend to make use of predictable topics – cheap pharmaceuticals, celebrity gossip, breaking news – to encourage user clicks. In January, spammers hastened to exploit the Haiti earthquake crisis, sending pleas for donations that appeared to have been sent by reputable charitable organizations, politicians, and celebrities.

The frequency and variety of post-earthquake spam illustrates an unpleasant reality: spammers will exploit any means – even tragedies – to accomplish their objectives.


Virus levels fall after Q4’09 surge
During 2009, spam with attached viruses increased tenfold, with levels rising from 0.3% of total spam in the first half of the year to 3.7% in the second. Postini filters blocked more than 100 million virus-bearing messages per day during the worst of the attack.

Since then, spam with attached viruses leveled off to around 1.1% in Q1’10, and dropped as low as 0.7% in March. It’s good news that virus levels are currently trending down – but Q1’10 levels are still 12-fold higher than they were in Q1’09.

In fact, this virus surge may be part of the reason that there hasn’t been a significant impact on spam volume after the recent takedown of major botnets. With a host of new machines now infected and part of a botnet, it is unlikely that there would be a dip in spam proliferation.

Benefits of security in the cloud
Although the botnets that distribute spam are mindless drones, the spammers that take advantage of these botnets are a highly active and adaptable group. This is evidenced by the varied techniques and tactics that they employ in an ongoing effort to evade spam filters and deliver messages to their targets.

2010 is likely to see more botnets taken offline, but the question remains – will that have a long-term impact on spam volumes overall? So far in 2010, the effect has been limited, and the security community may begin to turn to other tactics that yield a more substantial impact on global spam volumes.

As long as the threat is there, however, Google is committed to using the power of the cloud to protect your enterprise from spam and viruses. Outsourcing message security to Google enables you to leverage our technical expertise and massive infrastructure to keep spammers from your inbox.

For more information on how Google’s security and archiving services can help your business stay safe and compliant, please visit www.google.com/postini.

Posted by Gopal Shah, Google Postini Services team

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Over the last year, we’ve been hard at work rewriting the infrastructure underlying Google Docs to take advantage of the latest advances in modern browsers. Our updated codebase will help us deliver richer functionality more quickly, and over the next few days, we’ll be rolling out a preview of the new editors.

New document and spreadsheet features
You shouldn’t have to give up any routine features when you switch to web-based applications, and we’re addressing many longstanding requests across Google Docs with this release that were not feasible with older browser technology. Documents support better formatting options like a margin ruler, better numbering and bullets, and more flexible image placement. Spreadsheets now have a familiar formula editing bar, cell auto-complete, drag-and-drop columns and more.





Higher fidelity document import
It should be easy to move files saved on your computer to the cloud, so we made our document upload feature much stronger. Imported documents keep their original structure more accurately, so you can spend less time adjusting files you move to the cloud.

Speed and responsiveness
Browser-based applications shouldn’t force you to compromise on performance either, and our new architecture is much faster than before. Working with very large spreadsheets is even snappy now. Web apps really can feel just as fluid as traditional software.
Faster collaboration
Collaboration has always been Google Docs’ forte, and the new codebase is letting us leap forward here, too. The applications support up to 50 simultaneous editors, and documents let you see other people’s changes character-by-character as they type. Finally, we’ve added multi-user editing to drawings too, so now you can build flow charts, schematics, and other kinds of diagrams collaboratively.



The new Google Docs editors will take advantage of faster rendering engines in modern browsers as well as new web standards like HTML5. As a result, we need to temporarily remove offline support for Docs starting May 3rd, 2010. We know that this is an important feature for some of you, and we are working hard to bring a new and improved HTML5-based offline option back to Google Docs. Please note that this change only concerns Google Docs. We will continue to support offline access for Gmail and Google Calendar. To learn more, please see our Help Center.

Over the next few days, users will be able to start creating collaborative drawings from the Docs list. For Google Apps customers with the control panel option set to “enable new pre-release features,” users will have the option to enable the new document editor in the ‘Document settings’ page, and activate the new spreadsheet editor with the “New version” link at the top of any spreadsheet.

These improvements to Google Docs are designed to help businesses like yours move to the cloud faster and be more productive than ever before. We look forward to hearing what you think.

To learn more about these new features, check out our on-demand webinar.

Posted by Anil Sabharwal, Product Manager, Google Apps

Editor's note: To learn more, check out the Google Docs blog for deep dives on the new editors for Documents, Spreadsheets, and Drawings. Original links to webinar registration removed on 04/23/2010.

Update (05/05/2010): We’ve received a lot of great questions about the new Google Docs editors in our forums, blog comments, and webinars. Check out this post on the Google Docs blog for answers to the most frequent questions.
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Editor's Note: This post is the first in a three-part series on the benefits of Google Apps’ cloud-computing architecture.

“Cloud computing” has become a trendy buzzword, and some traditional technology vendors are even using the term though their solutions are still rooted in legacy architectures. In this three-part series, I’ll share how Google’s multi-tenant, Internet-scale architecture and browser-based applications produce three key advantages: the fastest innovation, improved reliability and security, and maximum economies of scale. Today I’ll focus on how Google’s innovation exceeds what’s possible with on-premises technology, single-tenant hosted applications, and “software plus services”.

Faster access to innovation for higher productivity
The web is the epicenter of innovation, and Google’s multi-tenant infrastructure is designed so we can push improvements to our entire customer base on short iteration cycles. We can deliver new functionality on a weekly basis, or faster, because our systems are able to distribute updates so efficiently. In 2009 alone, we launched over 100 improvements, and customers didn’t need to manage any upgrades or patches. In contrast, businesses tend to update traditional server software every five to seven years due to long release cycles from vendors and the cost and complexity businesses face implementing upgrades, especially when more powerful servers are required, like 64-bit hardware.

Browser-based applications are another key ingredient in our recipe for rapid innovation. When we launch new features to our web applications, users automatically get these improvements just by refreshing their browsers. Our mobile browser applications also get new features without software updates. With traditional technology and “software plus services”, client software is an innovation bottleneck. Even after back-end systems can support new features, users don’t get new functionality in those environments until the software on their computers and mobile phones have been upgraded, which can be an expensive and labor-intensive project.

Feedback and anonymous usage statistics from hundreds of millions of users in the real world also help us bring stress-tested innovation to business customers at an unprecedented pace. From our consumer user base, we quickly learn which new features would be useful in the business context, refine those features, and make them available to Google Apps customers with minimal delay.

Continuous innovation powered by the cloud has another advantage over traditional technology cycles: employees adapt to a continuous stream of manageable improvements better than they tolerate large, disruptive batches of change. Gradual iterations in bite-sized chunks substantially reduce change-management challenges. Conversely, employees are subjected to a painful re-learning cycle each time companies upgrade traditional software.

Dramatically faster innovation helps employees be more productive, but that’s not all Google’s cloud has to offer. In part two of this series, next week I’ll focus on how Google Apps can offer better security and higher reliability than on-premises technology, single-tenant hosted applications and “software plus services”.

If you’re interested in going a level deeper, we invite you to geek out with us on Thursday, April 22nd, when we’ll be holding a webcast to explore the advantages of Google’s cloud. Hope you can join us!

Geek Out on the Cloud-Based Infrastructure of Google Apps
Thursday, April 22, 2010
2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 6:00 PM GMT


Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager
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As more and more people switch to smart phones as their primary entry point for browsing the web, businesses are looking for ways to help mobile visitors find the right information, fast.

That’s why the Google Site Search team has made it easy to enable users to search your website from devices like Android-powered phones, iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, and Palm Pre.

As a Google Site Search customer, you can repurpose your content to mobilize your web site. You can use the Site Search home page that we create for you as the preferred mobile entry point for your website. All the Google Site Search features - themes, result biasing, promotions, refinement labels, rich snippets, synonym enhancements, etc. – are available on the mobile version as well.

Additionally, if you customize Google Site Search on your website, those features will show up on your mobile home page. If you select or change the theme for your search engine, your mobile home page will automatically pick up those changes. Mobile results will also display thumbnails and actions if you have marked up your pages.

Learn more about these and other features at google.com/sitesearch.

Posted by Anna Bishop, Google Site Search team
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Editor's Note: Today's guest blogger is Patti Butcher, Director of Statewide Resource Sharing for the State Library of Kansas in Topeka, Kansas. She received her MLS from Emporia State University in 1993. In addition to her current position she previously worked at the Central KS Library System, Northeast KS Library System, and has served as the State Librarian of South Carolina.

Last week, on April 1, the same day that Google re-named itself "Topeka," the State Library of Kansas (SLK) decided to "go Google" and switch our agency's email to Google Apps. But, unlike Google, we weren't fooling around!

The State Library of Kansas provides on-site and online information services for state government, the Legislature, all Kansas libraries and Kansas residents. We also work closely with seven regional library systems geographically distributed throughout our state. We have a large collection of print and audiobooks, plus state and federal documents. We manage a suite of online resources available 24/7 to all Kansans – from databases and digital books to online tutoring and services for the visually impaired.

Google Apps will provide the library’s staff with Gmail, calendar, video chat, real-time document and video sharing, backups, and additional services such as archiving powered by Postini. It will, for the first time, allow the agency’s multiple locations to have a staff intranet using Google Sites and join together teams that were previously separated by several firewalls.

The State Library relies heavily on technology so this chance to modernize our communications and collaboration systems is a welcome one. We switched to Google Apps for many reasons:
  • Substantial cost savings
  • Hosting by a trusted third party
  • Archiving and backups happening continuously in the cloud
  • 99.9% uptime, guaranteed
  • Strong recommendations from staff at the Northeast Kansas Library System, which made the switch last year
Now SLK’s IT staff will be able to focus on internal staff training needs and upgrading all of our technology systems – rather than on server maintenance. As we deploy Google Apps in the coming weeks, we will first be training our management team who will then work 1-on-1 with all staff to ensure that questions are answered and staff are comfortable with the new products and services. A number of State Library staff already have Gmail accounts and are familiar with its functionality.

Staff members are also interested in Google Apps capabilities beyond Gmail – like Google Groups and Google Docs. Our staff is eager to take advantage of the capabilities of Google Apps!

Staff from SLK will be at the Kansas Library Association conference in Wichita beginning tomorrow, Wednesday, April 7, and encourage anyone interested in Google Apps to seek us out.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, The Google Apps Team

Do you have an informative and fun Google Apps story to share? Please submit it here.
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Editor’s Note: Today's guest author is A.J. Clark, President of Thermopylae Sciences and Technology, which helps developers build new applications with the Google Earth browser plug-in on Google Earth Enterprise through the iSpatial framework. A.J. works on the visualization, analysis, and dissemination of disaster/post-conflict data with a focus on emerging technologies that support participatory, collaborative approaches to spatial content creation and infrastructure development.

In the aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, an urgent need for geospatial data sharing arose. As aid organizations and governments rushed to help, the collection and sharing of large amounts of geographic information among many sources and users presented a daunting challenge.

In response, the United States Southern Command (USSOUTHCOM) made information and tools available through an interactive mapping website which they call a User Defined Operational Picture (UDOP), built on the Google Earth Enterprise platform to make visualizing the map and overlaid data easy and clear. Public sites are now available both for the Haiti earthquake and the Chile earthquake, where thousands of users can view, create, and edit spatial data (please note that you will be prompted to download the Google Earth plugin to view this data through these links.)


The system was rapidly deployed using an enterprise geospatial framework called iSpatial, which provides an open platform for the integration of dynamic data and the development of interactive applications. The data is displayed using the Google Earth browser plug-in and API, which enables the visualization of geographic data layers in the rich, 3D Google Earth environment, on any web page.

The breadth of data sources and content producers contributing to and making use of the UDOP reflected the global community supporting the relief effort. The combination of participatory geospatial content, the collaborative nature of the UDOP and the ability to integrate mobile applications as direct content producers is available for ongoing relief efforts. This is an evolving capability within SOUTHCOM as we break new ground in providing collaborative tools for humanitarian aid and disaster relief efforts.

Note: to see imagery and maps in Google Earth, you can also download the Google Crisis Response KML files for Haiti and Chile.

Posted by Jeff Martin, Google Crisis Response team
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Editor's Note: Today’s guest blogger is Jim McNelis, co-founder of Dito, a Google Apps Authorized Reseller and vendor in the Google Apps Marketplace.

Did you know that a little over 100 years ago, before the electrical grid existed, businesses had their own power plants to generate electricity?

As Nicolas Carr points out in his book, The Big Switch, factories used to produce their own electricity and manage those huge generators themselves, rather than outsource to a power company. So not only did companies need to be an expert at manufacturing thing-a-ma-jigs, they also needed to understand and manage their own power plant.

Well, my friends, the cloud is the electrical grid and your in-house server is your power plant.

The cloud has become a viable alternative to expensive, on-site hardware that needs constant tender love and care to stay current. Stop staffing IT to keep your systems from breaking. Instead, enable your IT staff to work on new and innovative initiatives that will drive your business forward by freeing them from the chains of the on-site server.

I've been excited about Google Apps since the day I discovered the service. I was an early Gmail beta tester, and, like many, have been faithful to the awesome service since 2004. When I saw there was such thing as Gmail for your business, I thought to myself, "This is innovative. This is going to change things." Three years later and Google Apps is changing things. It's a lot of fun to participate in a paradigm shift as a reseller, rather than standing by and watching it happen.

My brother Dan and I started Dito in 2007 in order to help small and medium businesses transition to the cloud. Even back then, before the Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program existed, we were providing services around Google Apps. When we were invited to take part in the reseller pilot program, accepting the offer was a logical progression for our business.

Joining the Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program has been a great experience for Dito all around. We've received extensive training, guidance and support from a variety of highly skilled and knowledgeable Google folks. Today, with a growing team of subject matter and Six Sigma experts, Google Apps trainers, and developers, we're able to perform to the high standard of service that our customers have come to expect. And the team is as passionate about Google Apps as I am. As users ourselves, we "dogfood" all new Google Apps features, growing our knowledge of the product and improving our own business processes.

Almost everyday, Dito helps a new customer move from a legacy system into Google Apps. Why are most of them moving? Businesses are moving to Google Apps Premier Edition for many different reasons, but there are a few that resonate across the board: cost, usability, and innovation. Put simply, businesses want to cut current costs while providing employees with a service that is easy to use and is constantly improving. Google Apps fits that bill.

When people ask where we see Dito in the future, I like to use the analogy that we are strapped to a rocket ship (Google Apps) that is taking off into the stratosphere, and we are screaming "yeeehaa" the whole way. We are just really excited about what we do. Dito is committed to providing the best services and solutions for businesses and organizations using Google Apps for years to come. We will continue to evolve with Google Apps and develop custom solutions, like Dito Directory that is available in the new Google Apps Marketplace, that fit the needs of the Google Apps user base.


Find reseller case studies and learn more about the Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program.

Posted by Jeff Ragusa, Google Apps Channel team
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Editor's note: Today's guest blogger is Jeremy Lawrence, CIO of The Mind Research Network (MRN), an organization dedicated to the discovery and advancement of clinical solutions for the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of mental illness and other brain disorders. By switching from hosted Microsoft® Exchange to Google Apps, Lawrence spared his IT team from the grind of maintenance, upgrades and patches – all while providing users with a more advanced solution.

Beyond mail, Jeremy deployed Google's online documents, video, archiving, and encryption apps to help his 200+ research scientists and staff improve collaboration, boost productivity and enhance security.

Jeremy will be speaking this Thursday, April 8, on a live webcast. Register here.

Several years ago the situation at MRN could not have been more complex. The organization had grown with very little standardization and centralization. For email, we had a blend of email clients – Microsoft Outlook®, Outlook Express®, Apple® Mail, Pine, Elm, Semaphore, Morse – need I go on? There was such a proliferation of email accounts with varying reliability that people kept saying "Send it to my home account, because I never check this one." We also had growing needs in calendaring and document sharing.

We determined that we needed a single mail domain, mailing lists, a company directory, a shared calendar, as well as shared documents and project websites – something our employees weren't really aware of at the time. We thought about running Microsoft Exchange in-house, switching to another on-site platform, or a hosted model. Over a fair period of time, we calculated the costs of several solutions and analyzed all the reliability and collaboration factors.

Google won hands-down in a feature/cost comparison. We opted for a Big Bang conversion and got over the conversion hump in about a week's time. Import of email was flawless across 104 mailboxes – and we've now grown to nearly 300. We also did up-front preparation with weekly FAQ emails and bulk account creation in advance. We set up a hotline and printed instructions for users. We also conducted help sessions in the lobby. Post-migration, we provided "tip of the day" messages for 14 days.

Beyond mail, we deployed Google's online documents and video, as well as additional archiving and encryption features by Google Postini Services to help our 200+ research scientists and staff improve collaboration, boost productivity, and enhance security. Most of all, we learned that Google Apps provides capabilities far beyond our expectations and provides a platform for us to easily add on additional web apps. It's this additional extensibility and flexibility beyond just email that's a big value add for an organization of our size – and we're just scratching the surface.

We learned many tips and tricks for making users happy and we can share five (and more!) simple ways to get more out of Google Apps. Please join me for a live webcast to learn more.

Thursday, April 8, 2010
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT
Posted by Serena Satyasai, Google Apps team

Find customer stories and research product information on our resource sites for current users of Microsoft® Exchange and Lotus Notes®/Domino®.

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