To build its index of mobile web sites, Google uses a different bot than the traditional GoogleBot. The bot, named Googlebot-Mobile, actually crawls any website it finds and if it is considered as mobile friendly, it will then be included in Google mobile web index.

So if your mobile site is linked from other sites (be it mobile sites or regular web sites), Googlebot-Mobile has probably already found it and it is included in its mobile web index.

If that’s not the case, you can create a Mobile Sitemap of your site and submit it via Google Webmaster Tools.

Now, regarding the crawl frequency of Google Mobile Bot, it is of course less frequent than the regular one. While Googlebot usually comes to a website everyday, you can sometimes see Googlebot-Mobile not coming to back to your site before a period of 2 weeks.

The chart below is an example of the crawl rate made by Googlebot-Mobile on of the mobile sites that I manage over the last 4 months. As you can see, Googlebot-Mobile came more often in the recent months, but I don’t know if it’s a natural increase on their side or due to the site having more links (that’s the only factor that changed).

Click to enlarge:

Mobile site owners should be aware of Googlebot-Mobile’s user agent. In fact, it behaves as a mobile phone, because sometimes only accesses made via a mobile phone are allowed to a site (for example, you sometimes can’t log on to a mobile web site from your PC) Google has chosen to identify its mobile bot as a cell phone.

Googlebot-Mobile’s full user agent is currently this one:

Nokia6820/2.0 (4.83) Profile/MIDP-1.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.0 (compatible; Googlebot-Mobile/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)

As you can see, it behaves as a Nokia 6820, so you will need to remove this user agent in your mobile visits report to make sure you only count those made by real mobile phone users.

Check out the search results for the query “soulja boy” for example. (or view a screenshot here)

See that? Does Google think that people only want to see videos from their mobile?

I think that it’s a good thing that Google decided to include links to videos in its mobile search results, but having that many links to videos is not relevant at all. If people are looking for mobile web pages, they’ll have to do several clicks to find them, which is not helping the mobile user experience at all.

I hope that Google is aware of this situation and is trying to improve the quality of its mobile search results.

Indeed, as opposed to the desktop Web, where cookies or IP addresses (sometimes combined with user agents for better accuracy) are used to identify unique visitors, it’s another story with the mobile Web. Cookies aren’t supported by all phones and IP addresses aren’t unique to each end user, but it’s the one belonging to the WAP gateway used when you surf from your cell phone.

Today, Bango, a leading provider of mobile billing solutions and also of a mobile analytics suite announced today that it is the first company to provide an accurate unique visitor count.

This may sound surprising, but here’s how Bango explains how it works:

For each individual that clicks on an ad or browses a site, a privacy protected Bango User ID is created, compiled through sophisticated WAP gateway profiling, data from browser analysis, session information and network interactions. This unique user ID enables Bango to distinguish between new and repeat users and therefore quantify precisely the number of unique visitors.

Bango is close to many mobile phone carriers so it managed to work something out with them to profile users. But one thing that I’m not sure of is if this feature works with any carrier…I’ll ask this to Bango when I get a chance.

You can try Bango Analytics here.

But besides finding a name and a location for the type of restaurant you’re looking for, these services won’t give you more information about the place.

To avoid possible disappointments, it’d be good to have reviews and ratings of the businesses you’ve found via a mobile search engine.

Google has recently enabled users to write reviews of businesses from their mobile phone.

If you go to Google from your cell and search for a business, then click on it, you’ll see a link to write a review about it and also to rate it (1-5 stars).

This is a really nice feature, it allows people to easily and quickly get reviews about a business and then decide if they want to go there or not.

Via Google Mobile Blog.

Google seems to have chosen this area of China because the cost of Internet data is the lowest there, so people are more likely to surf from their mobile phones.

Via China Web 2.0

Considering that over 3.3 billion people in the world own a mobile phone (in 2007), that means that Yahoo! has the immediate potential to reach almost 20% of the world’s mobile users.

Firefox Mobile Concept Video from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.

abphone may have a low profile but it’s currently a very popular off-portal mobile content search engine, users can easily find and images or videos, and download them for free on their mobile phone.

In April 2008, abphone said that is reached half billion searches.

Today, abphone adds a new vertical: mobile games. For this beta launch, the mobile search company has partnered with Gameloft to index its entire catalog of premium games (about 200) and make it accessible via a search box.

This is the first mobile search engine that allows people to find cell phone games.

abphone has also indexed free mobile games from Greystripe.

The service is only available in France so far, but more countries will be added in the near future as well as more mobile game providers’ catalogs (paid and free ones).

Like other mobile content search engines, the indexing of games is made via XML feeds. Rankings are based on relevance, but also on some factors such as ratings or popularity.

Below is a demonstration of the user interface.

Premium games are displayed on top of the search result pages.

A link to the free games (”jeux gratuits” in french) search results page is displayed at the bottom.

A content page, with information such as user ratings, comments and number of downloads.

abphone is available at this address from a mobile device: http://m.abphone.com

It’s already possible to search for off-portal mobile content such as wallpapers, ringtones or MP3s from a mobile phone, but mobile games search was an untapped service until now.

More information will be posted on Wednesday on this blog so make sure to come back if you’re interested in this area.

Advertisers from France, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S. can now buy banner ads that will be displayed acorss Windows Live Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail.

“This builds upon Microsoft’s initial launch of mobile advertising for MSN Mobile in, France, , Spain, the U.K. and the U.S. where mobile ads are available alongside premium MSN Mobile content. Advertising on Windows Live for mobile is already available in Spain, and later this month will be available in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands, further extending its availability for advertisers. All ads placed on these two popular services will adhere to Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) guidelines.”

Image credit: Phil Holden.

Microsoft also announced that it plans to expand its mobile sponsored links offers on Live Search Mobile in the second half of 2008. A beta is currently available in the U.S.

The press release is available here.