There is always something happening in Google Maps. The latest is that it unveiled a new directions gadget, which proves helpful for businesses, such as hotels for they can offer customers with customized Google Maps directions to their business locations. The new gadget also gives an end to the need of typing and updating sets of text directions!

Google image search has made it easier for users to toggle the SafeSearch by including settings switch menu on the results page. Earlier, instead of directly linking to the settings page, users were supposed to toggle a radio button option and then hit a save button.

There are reports that Google has made changes to the way it uses to display search results. Since there is no official announcement for the same, it can be said that the search giant is still experimenting with the latest enhancement.

Recently, Google has rolled out some of the most requested features at its Google Blog Search homepage, which was launched last year.

RSS feed and Atom feed are two of the new tools, that locate in the left-hand column of the Blog Search front page. Readers can now click on the links under “Subscribe” to subscribe any topic or story in any feed reader, such as Google Reader.

The latest addition in Google Labs is the City Tours, which will give Google an entry in the tourism business. If you write a city name, Google will not only suggest sites to see but also give a map of the multi-day itinerary and propose you minute-by-minute travel schedule to follow.

You will find Matt Cutts of Google producing videos and answering questions from the SEO community daily. Most of these videos provide useful information for all the levels of SEO. Here's one more recent video of Matt:

This video is on “over optimization” where Matt is answering the question “Is over optimization bad for a website”?

It was mentioned in the Google Grants Blog that they have given a presentation on Search Engine Optimization in their D.C. Office. The main motive of the presentation was educate a group of “issue campaign managers” about the principles of SEO.

Galen Panger from the Google for Non-Profits team has also posted the 31 slides used in the presentation by the group. Here they are:

The web is flooded with reports of a Google PageRank update. What is most interesting about the PageRank update is that it has come in less than a month's time, when the last PageRank update was released.

Google last updated PageRank on May 27th/ 28th, 2009 and this one is released on 23June night.

Normally a toolbar PageRank update happens after every three months but such an early release is interesting.