If you have enough time to keep up with the constant new additions to the search giants, you will see each have near identical new features. Both have satellite mapping, image, video & audio searching, pay per click advertising surrounding natural search results, desktop searching and the list goes on and on.

Both have their own toolbars and each have their own nice features. I use both toolbars because each have tools that I use on a daily basis. Google is now offering their beta test of version 4 of their toolbar, which I installed and started reviewing the new features. Granted the beta version is for IE only, I’m sure a Firefox version will soon follow, the new features are so nice, I’ve been using IE more often since I installed it.

The new Google toolbar now includes many features that Yahoo’s toolbar offers and then some. One of the new inclusions in the crazy algorithms is ranking that includes bookmarking of websites. Guess what the new toolbar has? ? ? Yep, you guessed it, bookmarks. When you go to manage your bookmarks with Google, it presents a layout very similar to Google search results. Be sure to add that “BOOKMARK US” mention on your site!

Back to the new features, one of the coolest addition to V.4 is the ability to add your own customized buttons. You can manually add your own through the options tab or you can right click on any form field and select “generate customized search”. It will present you with a question or two and it appears in your toolbar. The icon will be the websites favicon, if it exists. Once the button is installed, you can edit the button and customize the button further.

If a particular website offers a SEO tool where you are to enter a website url, you can customize a button for that tool and while on any website, click your custom button and it will run the tool for whichever website you are sitting on. There is a better explanation with visual aid to help understand it.

So in summary, the new toolbar v.4 Google’s set to release, is a must have.