If your company runs a website, you already know the importance of search engine marketing and optimization. But are you confident that your website is providing the very best user experience possible? If you haven't added or improved your search function yet, you could be missing out on conversions, sales, and repeat visits. Next week, we're hitting the road to help spread the message about Google Commerce Search and Google Site Search .

The Google Developer team will be live streaming an important announcement about Google Apps this evening. Tune in on the Google Developers YouTube channel tonight at 6:00 p.m. PST to watch. Enjoy the show! Posted by Chris Kelly,

Today, we're introducing a new feature for Google Postini Services: Message Log Search. This feature delivers the search and analysis capabilities normally available with on-premise solutions, but without the associated complexity or maintenance. When messages pass through the Postini service, header and transaction data about these messages is stored in a log. Previously, admins only had access to this data through customer support. With the Message Log Search feature,

​The web has evolved in the last ten years, from simple text pages to rich, interactive applications including video and voice. Unfortunately, very old browsers cannot run many of these new features effectively. So to help ensure your business can use the latest, most advanced web apps, we encourage you to update your browsers as soon as possible. There are many choices: Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0+ Mozilla Firefox 3.0+ Google Chrome 4.0+ Safari 3.

As you may have heard from our announcement yesterday , registration for Google I/O is now open! This year's Google I/O will focus on building the next generation of applications in the cloud, using Google products like App Engine, Google Web Toolkit, and Google APIs, with particular emphasis on Android, Chrome, and Enterprise. Here are just a couple of Enterprise sessions that are already listed on the I/O website )many more are in the works!

Many corporations and consumers regularly come under cyber attack, and Google is no exception. We recently detected a cyber attack targeting our infrastructure and that of at least 20 other publicly listed companies. This incident was particularly notable for its high degree of sophistication. We believe Google Apps and related customer data were not affected by this incident. Please read more about our public response on the Official Google Blog .

Editor's Note: Ming Yong is co-founder of Socialwok, a a feed-based group collaboration application for enterprises that integrates with Google Apps. With Socialwok, Google Apps users can create their own private social network to share Google Docs, Calendars and Spreadsheets in feeds for their domains. Ming and his team built Socialwok on Google App Engine for Java , Google Web Toolkit and Google GData APIs . James Hollow is President of Alien-Eye,

In July we announced that the Google OpenID Federated Login API has been extended to Google Apps accounts used by businesses, schools, and other organizations. The service is important not only to individuals, who can now use their single Google Apps Account to sign in to a variety of websites without sharing credentials, but also to the organizations themselves, who increasingly rely on multiple Software as a Service )SaaS( solutions from different vendors.

Editor's Note: In October, the City of Los Angeles â€" the second largest city in the United States â€" decided to switch its email to Google, a decision supported in a unanimous vote by the Los Angeles City Council. We've invited Randi Levin, Chief Technology Officer for the City of Los Angeles and general manager of the city's Information Technology Agency, to provide more insight into the reasons behind this decision. Los Angeles is going Google.

Thousands of administrators visit the Google Apps Help Forum every day in need of advice and technical knowledge. The heart and soul of this community are known as the Google Apps Power Posters: LMckin51 , Jim McNelis , jlee , ScienceMan , Benjamin , FrankM , Ingraye , Anurag Bhatia , DLW, and Amit . These superstars volunteer their valuable time freely to provide their expertise and share their knowledge of Google Apps with users on the Help Forum.

Editor's Note: We're pleased to welcome guest blogger Peter Herrmann , solution architect, Information Technology Department, at Mortgage Choice Limited. Peter led the development of the business case to switch Mortgage Choice to Google, and is project manager and tech lead for the organization-wide deployment of Google Apps. Peter has been working with Mortgage Choice for eight years and has been involved with IT strategy, consulting to internal business units,

In August, we asked you share your your stories about why you or your company decided to "go Google" â€" in another words, switch to Google Apps or any of our other enterprise services. We were excited to see your tweets about going Google, feedback about our products, and even a few photos of our billboards. Over 2 million companies and 20 million users have now gone Google with Apps, and today, we're expanding our messages to train stations, business publications,

Today we announced significant changes to Google Maps base map data in the US. Read the details on what's new on the LatLong blog, here . If you're a Google Maps API Premier customer, the Geo Developer blog has all the info you nee d regarding this change and the Maps API for your business. The new base map will have expanded features, and a shorter feedback cycle for Maps updates â€" all leading to better, more accurate maps for employees and customers.

Do you know how much your email system is costing you? More than just the necessary hardware and software systems, email also requires substantial time and money for maintenance and upkeep. In-house email calls for patches, precautions to maintain high availability and disaster recovery, and the never-ending work it takes to secure and protect email from spam, phishing, and malware. In a September 2009 study ,

Last week, I attended the Mid-sized Enterprise Summit West in Los Angeles. I enjoyed the opportunity to hear from industry leaders and thinkers and connect with CIOs and senior IT leaders from a wide variety of companies and industries. The hot topic of the conference? Cloud computing and how it can drive innovation. Several speakers touched upon using the latest Internet technologies to accelerate business results.

We recently shared an update on the Google Apps Blog about new features in Google Sites , the web creation and publishing application included in Google Apps . The new features let you copy your site, use more options to search, and more easily announce updates. Since these features are useful for anyone who uses Google Sites as part of the Google Apps Premier or Education editions, we wanted to make it easy for you to read about the features . Posted by Ellen Leanse,

Editor's note: John Matthews is Senior Vice President of Corporate Affairs and Director, Office of the President, for JohnsonDiversey . The company is a global provider of commercial cleaning, sanitation and hygiene solutions and serves customers in the lodging, food service, retail, health care, and food and beverage sectors. One of four companies founded by the Johnson Family, JohnsonDiversey is located in Located in Racine,

Editor's note: Brent Hoag is Senior Director, IT for JohnsonDiversey , formed when Johnson Wax Professional acquired DiverseyLever. Its focus is on providing products to commercial businesses for food safety, housekeeping, and industrial cleaning. Throughout its history, the company has been dedicated to leadership in environmental issues, health, and safety. Please join Brent and members of the Google Enterprise team for a live webcast this Thursday, September 17,

Editor's note: We're pleased to welcome guest blogger Carole Jett, Deputy Chief of Staff for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The Department of Agriculture has taken the lead on making detailed state-by-state information about stimulus spending available to the public via an interactive Google Map. The map makes it easy for people to find information about stimulus projects in their part of the country by department, program, or dollar amount. In May 2009,

Editor's Note: We're pleased to welcome guest blogger Bill Kelly, Chief Information Officer for Duralee, a fast-growing decorative fabrics company. With more than 25,000 SKUs, the company caters to interior designers throughout the world. Headquartered in Bay Shore, New York, Duralee has more than 400 employees and dozens of corporate and designer showrooms. Duralee recently chose Google Apps as their email platform,