Google has announced the completion of the caffeine update on their blog.  According to the blog article, the new index will provide 50 percent fresher results for web searches than their last index.
Content on the web is blossoming. It’s growing not just in size and numbers but with the advent of video, images, news and real-time updates, the average webpage is richer and more complex. In addition, people’s expectations for search are higher than they used to be. Searchers want to find the latest relevant content and publishers expect to …

Yesterday, Google Australia announced an enhancement that allows Aussies to search for properties on Google Maps.
On the surface, the site looks great with a number of listings for various real estate agents and portals, however upon closer inspection there are a couple of noticeable omissions from the listings, namely the two gorillas of online real estate,  realestate.com.au and domain.com.au.
Patrick Stafford from SmartCompany spoke with former chief executive of REA Group, Simon Baker who views Google Maps as a competitor but not a major threat:

A growing number of Australians are going online to compare before they buy as Australia’s leading comparison shopping website, www.getprice.com.au reports its biggest month to date.
Reporting a massive 2.7 million people shopping for the month of June, getprice.com.au has seen an increase of traffic of more than 500% to the site from June 2008.
“As one of Australia’s fastest growing websites, we are seeing a huge increase in consumers coming to us to make their money go further,” said getprice.com.au Chief Executive, Chris Hitchen.
“Knowledge is power when making purchase decisions and …