Twitter deciding to nofollow links 2 years ago really annoyed me.
When they decided to close all loopholes in creating an active link within the bio area, it prevented me linking to my disclosure policy – that annoyed me as well, especially with all the terrible attempts of providing adequate disclosure within paid tweets that are currently being used/proposed.
There was a huge outcry from the SEO community.
I know I can optimize lots of things on my site, and some of the work my server admin does and plans to do in the future have already reduced the time it takes Google to cache my content by 50%+
Read more on Google Friend Connect Adds 8 Seconds To Page Load Time…
It can make quite a striking difference with Feedburner if you have a few followers there.
But even this doesn't really account for the shifting sands in online attention.
The latter half of this post was originally published Mar 21, 2008 @ 20:38
Since then Twitter has for many people emerged as the primary way they read RSS feeds, combined with various forms of lifestreaming.
The first time I see tweets and blog posts often is also on services such as Blogcatalog's dashboard or even Mybloglog (though that can sometimes lag a little on updates these days)
Search is only one way to find things. It's the most easily monetizable, so it gets the lion's share of the attention. But take a look at (and report on) what percentage of techcrunch's traffic comes from search. For the O'Reilly Radar blog, it's about 35%. Significant, sure, but hardly a sign of lack of competition. If Google absorbed both Yahoo! and Microsoft, the share of our visits coming from search would still be below 40%. (That tells you what a small share of our search traffic comes from the other guys today.) And that's just the web traffic. Count in RSS (which is much bigger than web for most blogs, including ours) and the Search share of traffic goes down to a much smaller amount. So there's not much worry about people not being able to find information.
I know the new additions to Gmail are just tweaks, and mainly created in Google "20% time" but these little problems cause me no end of frustration.
I have to read my spam folder daily, because it gets sometimes 200 spam email messages, and within that may be as many as 5% false positives.
These are emails I want to receive, which I have signed up to receive, I have confirmed a subscription with a full "double opt-in" process, and are from senders I previously had no problems receiving email from.
Some examples are occasional emails from list owners
On Google's new favicon
There are a number of fundamental flaws in many of the "calculations" being floated as a business model for Twitter.
I am just going to revert to bullets to make this easier to digest.
“feel free to invite others to this room - as long as they are bloggers and/or are interested in the ProBlogger type topic I'm happy for anyone and everyone to join. I've invited all my contacts on FF. Pity there's no list of public groups for people to join.â€Whilst there isn't a public list, in many ways Google with a site search query these days provides a very real alternative.
I have actually suffered from Chondromalacia Patella or "Runners Knee" for 25 years, and at one time even ran a niche website / blog on knee pain that took me a few hours to put together, and pulled in a few dollars a day.
Google today have launched Google Health that is supposedly for US use, but I was able to log straight in, and add the ailment I suffer from. I am not worried about the privacy aspects.
The information provided is pretty basic as you would probably expect in a country famous for medical lawsuits.
One useful aspect of Google Health
Today's news is that Overstock have decided that they are axing 3400 affiliates in the New York area because of the previously reported "Amazon Tax" - which Amazon are fighting.
I think Janet was the first to break the news of the Overstock changes
This is a story that both Linda at 5 Star Affiliate Programs and Shawn's Affiliate Blog have been covering in depth.
The New York Times also has coverage and been giving out some great links.
Techcrunch has a Scribd copy of the original Overstock posted letter (Shawn posted the email)
The New York Times reports that
Today is RSS Awareness Day, and as a solid 40% of my RSS subscribers use Google Reader, I thought I would take this opportunity to reach out to the Google Reader team.
I am someone who loves using RSS, but at the same time as a business owner I find RSS is not living up to its current billing.
Whilst I haven't mentioned RSS day before on this blog, I have known about Daniel's plans for a month, and I might have been the first one to suggest using a dedicated site to promote RSS Day. This avoids what might be looked on as purely an attempt at linkbait.
Over a year ago I questioned the use of tagging on WordPress.com to spread link equity around as "a rising tide".
If you use similar tags to a high profile blogger, it can help with faster indexing and rankings, at least from what I have observed.
In many ways the effect is similar to linkfarms, using the tagging as a central hub. Many commentators complain when they see Technorati tag pages appearing in the Google SERPs, because Technorati doesn't have a huge amount of editorial control over the content of those pages, they are more like search results.
In that situation however
I would even extend that to buying any form of paid link or sponsored review, and possibly also links from directories, social networks, blog commenting etc.
Last June I provided a very simple guide to avoid being banned from Technorati but the same principle applies to
You can add your FriendFeed account to Technorati, and there are various possible methods.
Go to your account on Technorati, and use the URL for your personal lifestream on FriendFeed to start the claim process.
The restoration of my green pixel's didn't last long (just 1 week), and probably wasn't a full restoration anyway.
I had this feeling that PR5 was "Google Probation" as my link growth has been continuing and my Google Directory listing suggested PR6.
All paid reviews on this blog are blocked with robots.txt and I declare that is the case in my disclosure policy.
Thus we need to look at other potential problems (note these are potential problems, but nothing I can really change)
Some regular readers decided to purchase advertising - advertising links unlike many blogs are nofollow. I mentioned
With all the previous discussion of paid reviews and my unwillingness to raise the white flag or bend over, this post is going to come as a bit of a shock.
I am lowering the red flag
Carry on reading to find out why this isn't the same as raising a white flag, and is far from surrendering to Google on paid reviews.
It has been close to a year since I first starting delving into the intricacies of various forms of blog search, and 10 months since I returned to the subject. My post yesterday on the Microsoft Yahoo deal was the ideal opportunity to see how things might have changed over the last 10 months, as it is a topic being heavily discussed on 100s of blogs.
I try to avoid blogosphere discussions unless I have something substantial to add. I don't have holdings in any of the companies embroiled in the current takeover / acquisition debate, and to be perfectly honest I am not sure if any of the combined entities that eventually emerge will be able to compete with Google on their home turf.
I am however an interested observer, and I have a number of questions buzzing around in my head that remain unanswered.
This is more a collection of "what ifs" than anything else, discussion points that have no real factual basis, from someone with
It crops up occasionally that people want to leave a comment with a reference to a Google webpage or a Google search result.
Unfortunately on a daily basis my server is hit with comment spam with links pointing to Google redirects, or Google subdomains.
Here are some examples:-
Due to all the spam, Google.com ends up on my domain blacklist, and a single URL occurrence will still allow it to be visible within my standard settings for comment moderation, as long there is no other specific penalties imposed by Spam Karma.
Multiple occurrences will end up buried amongst the spam, which is not something
Lets face it, I have social profiles all over the web and I am or have been an active participant in tons of conversations on blogs and forums.
3 years ago Google introduced rel="nofollow", very similar to rel="me" , rel="friend" and other XFN and FOAF standards. Today Google are championing their new API with the slogan "URLs Are People Too"
3 years ago that was true, now URLs on many (most) places where people congregate on the web are no longer "people" because in a supposed attempt to combat comment spam, Google encouraged major sites to use rel="nofollow" making the
Lots of talk today about Google changing the terms of their referral units for Google Adsense. Good coverage by both Darren and Jeremy.
Lets take a little look at why they might have done this.
As I had hoped, ( http://community.izea.com/blog/2007/12/an-invitation-t.html ) Ted Murphy had a chance to chat with Google's Matt Cutts at Pubcon
It seems Google want all links within content that "wouldn't exist without payment" to use nofollow, but seems to be focusing on services like PayPerPost, and not other forms of links which wouldn't exist without compensation.
I have had a chance to deal with the odd email over the last 2 weeks whilst moving house, but I knew I should respond to this paid links post by Matt Cutts as soon as I was able to do so with some level of detail.
So far the best estimate for having a landline for internet access provided by the Polish national carrier is 10 months, so I am using a GSM solution which in my remote part of Poland seems to clock in slightly faster than what I would expect from UMTS so might be giving me
I think this is one possibly for the water cooler on Sphinn, because I find it comical in a sad kind of way.
Ted Murphy rightly questions Google quite openly to explain why PPP bloggers are being punished for not using nofollow on links, yet many prominent bloggers post quite blatant pagerank passing links to their advertisers every chance they get.
Not only do they mention their advertisers in "Thanks To Our Advertisers" posts, but they also name drop them every chance they get as a form of disclosure.
As an example, almost every time PayPerPost was discussed, either Text Link Ads
I have been receiving emails and comments today about yet another PageRank downturn for multiple sites.
Andrew Ooi has compiled a short list of Malaysian sites, many were previously as much as a PR5 previously, and currently show a PageRank of zero (a white bar)
Examples include:-
Colleen's Simple Kind of Life and 5xmom
The numbers seem to be stable across multiple data centers
There doesn't seen to be any change in prominent Search Marketing sites such as Search Engine Round Table and Search Engine Journal, and other popular bloggers such as Emom and Yaro still seem to
Since the first real information came out about Izea's (PayPerPost) new SocialSpark service, that is in testing but will formerly launch in January my excitement has been a little tempered.
As I wrote in my initial preview of SocialSpark, there will be new metrics for gauging the authority and influence of a blog, to help determine advertising spend, not only based upon traffic and demographics, but also on past performance with CPM and CPC data also being made available.
With SocialSpark, any required links will be nofollow, though there is an option for editorial links without a nofollow.
All the negotiation about
Well I thought Google really hated me, but here is some real proof that the Google Toolbar isn't exactly telling the truth.
I personally have never seen sitelinks on a PR5 before, let alone a PR4, but then it isn't something I monitor extensively.
Congratulations to Maki from Doshdosh on also gaining some coveted sitelinks (and also PR6)
An example of a PR6 domain that still doesn't have sitelinks is Sphinn itself
Sphinn based upon MSN Live.com newly reactivated Linkdomain commnd has three times as many links as I do. +linkdomain:sphinn.com compared to +linkdomain:andybeard.eu
Graywolf thinks sitelinks are ephemeral so I
This isn't a typical "how To" article, because currently this feature doesn't exist, but it could with just a little 20% time at Google.
Whilst you can download an OPML file to import into other feed readers, or to upload to the web in another location, you can't currently access it directly.
Whilst many tech sites are lauding the new blogroll for Google Reader users, it isn't really very useful, and is without doubt extremely ugly compared to many widgets that use OPML, such as SpringWidgets, or even a work-around previously available.
Whilst I am upset about what Google says about my blog with their displayed Toolbar PageRank, and am even considering liquidating my site on Google Toolbar Buttons because of their poor technical support and response to feedback, this is totally unrelated.
You might think there is some element of bias, but what I just discovered is highly disturbing, and the thought of a family member seeing the same, maybe a child when they clicked a button on the "do no evil" toolbar, is just too great a risk.
Over the last year I have given a fair amount of coverage to PayPerPost, who now house the service along with other endeavours under the name Izea.
There are multiple reasons why I have supported PayPerPost and similar programs so strongly, and yet at the same time have never reviewed a link buying / selling service.
I have mentioned link buying and selling in passing, and also a couple of Wordpress plugins, but those plugins generally allow you to sell links which have a nofollow.
My emphasis both in editorial about services and in the few reviews I have myself written is to encourage the writing of quality content with editorial links. Compensation in whatever form should be based upon the time involved, expertise, and possibly the size and influence of the audience, and not based upon any SEO benefit to a site or service being reviewed.
Someone a few minutes ago sent me a legitimate enquiry via my contact form, a 100% text based message.
I do try to be responsive to enquiries that I can deal with quickly, so I emailed them straight back, and received the following delivery failure.
Delivered-To: myemailaddressatgoogle@gmail.com Received: by 10.65.176.15 with SMTP id d15cs319332qbp; Sat, 3 Nov 2007 08:39:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.65.230.9 with SMTP id h9mr8975879qbr.1194104362967; Sat, 03 Nov 2007 08:39:22 -0700 (PDT) Return-Path: Received: by 10.65.230.9 with SMTP id h9mr16558173qbr; Sat
I just have to share with you the funny, even hilarious decision process that that guys over at Search Engine Guide are going through, removing links that have been in existence for longer than Google.
I could almost thank Google for destroying so many people's aspirations just for that post.
Almost…
Google just walks into reputation management and trademark problems one after the other, and today is no exception.
Not too long ago it was their attempt to force people to give up domains legally registered using the acronym "g.m.a.i.l" or gmail, which Google uses for their email service.
The Polish Poets are still in business, and apparently Google also lost in other countries.
So today news is breaking about Google's new "Open Social" platform for social media web developers. The big problem is that Google don't own the trademark, or even a lot of the concept behind it, and they certainly don't own their own SERPs (search engine results pages)
Courtney stopped by to let me know about what appears to be a real PageRank update that is in progress, if there can ever be a real update again.
Many of the blogs highlighted in the update just a couple of days ago seem to have reverted to their previous position.
Now for anyone who might be thinking otherwise, there are still some obvious penalties on place for a few sites, but it is less obvious for the more vocal networks.
Some sites and networks still have a penalty, as do some sites.
Some of those penalties seem to be a carry over
Andy Greenberg of Forbes got it totally wrong when he wrote Google Scares The Search Crowd
In many ways Google should be a little worried about the blogosphere reaction.
I was the centre of attention more by chance and timing than anything else, as I am sure it wouldn't have taken my worthy SEO colleagues long to make a list of sites that have been hit by PageRank penalties and spot some patterns.
As almost everyone discussing the subject was linking to me, and I was trying to keep up with the Blogstorm, moderating trackbacks and comments, and even trying to respond
Obviously despite some negative commentary, Google still is the fairest of them all, though not all results necessarily make sense.
Vanessa Fox came across something interesting in her vanity search today, and I thought I would add to the mystery and mystique of… the Google SERPs.
I noticed that within my own not quite so vanity searches ;) call it an ego search, that a recent post by Tinu about the paid links problems was ranking highly (#7).
That isn't overly strange, until you look a little deeper in the SERP, and discover a second listing for exactly the same article
Danny Sullivan has managed to get some feedback from someone at Google confirming there are visible PageRank penalties being applied, as much as a -2 on what is displayed on the Google Toolbar.
This is my follow on from my post yesterday:- Dancing With The Gevil - Defamed By Google?
Fair enough, for those people who have been caught selling links primarily for boosting search engine results.
The funny thing is I have seen so many blogs today that are selling Text Links who have not received a penalty, yet lots of sites that write high quality paid reviews penalized. I am
A number of my readers have noticed that Google have been making some minor adjustments to the displayed PageRank on a few sites, and Josh quite rightly pointed out that the displayed PageRank on this domain has for some reason been reduced.
Whatever change Google have made in the data held about my site, it doesn't seem to have prevented any of my content ranking, and unfortunately it is impossible to say what data they are working on to begin with. They could well be using a dataset from 1 year ago in their experimentation with some new algorithms, or just
Blogcatalog Members today are collectively blogging about abuse.
I thought of blogging about all kinds of abuse that affect real people day in, day out, but decided that ultimately that doesn't fit in with my audience, or really add any authority to the words I would be writing.
As it happens, today part of a 2 hour interview with me was published in the Guardian (Digg Story you know you want to). I honestly didn't expect any more words in print from the article, because it was so wide ranging, and such
The guys from PayPerPost might cause a lot of controversy, but there is one thing that I doubt anyone could deny, even their most harsh critics… they are smart.
They bring out interesting, useful, sometimes controversial or disruptive products, but they are certainly market leaders not the following pack.
In the case of RSSBrief, they are taking on an existing market, RSS Readers, and in many ways it seems they might also step into reputation management and RSS Search.
I have a feeling even Jason Calacanis is going to like RSSBrief because it will help him with reputation management for Mahalo… but
When Blogcatalog was relaunched, the links from the directory were nofollow.
In my initial review I suggested that it would be a popular decision to remove the nofollow from the links, and also use a different method of tracking clicks - Blogcatalog have to track clicks because it is part of their blog rating system, and might also help with advertising sales for premium positioning.
Most blog directories do not provide direct linking.
For better or for worse, Blogcatalog decided to use javascript and "onclick" for their tracking. There is a lot of confusion in the SEO community as to whether "onclick" passes
Blocking adverts could actually cost you money, or damage the web as we know it is today.
I honestly laughed when I saw the new "Open Social Web" Bill of Rights launched yesterday, not because it isn't to some extent a useful idea, but because of one specific term…
Control of whether and how such personal information is shared with others
10 months ago I fired off a heated debate about RSS sharing, and how Google with it's easy to share feeds could be killing the future of RSS. Now I say I fired it off, but honestly it would have been a storm in a teacup without Robert Scoble taking part with one of his most
This could have been a paid review through ReviewMe, it was ordered a few days ago and I just haven't had time to write something that warrants being paid for it, but I decided to write something for free. If any of the Google Spam Team are reading this article, it was not paid for in any way and your bots can't tell the difference because keyword analysis would pick up the specific words suggesting that there is some kind of disclosure for paid links.
My paid reviews are not cheap, but they are often worth it - people are paying me
I have spent the morning watching a number of contrasting videos which in some ways suggest that Google may have jumped the shark, and I don't fully agree with any of them. The Seth Godin Video is interesting, because he was telling Google what to do 18 months ago.
In this video Seth Godin is insightful, and explains to a bunch of Googlers all about Purple Cows and Flipping the Funnel on its side and embracing buzz marketing.
The concepts are sage advice, however there is one major pitfall.
If the perfect way to market a product is to flip
I don't think so but…
We have seen how blog discussions can have both a massive positive and negative influence on large company share value, especially with Apple.
I frequently use Google to search for results on my own site, so you would expect that when using Google Personalized Search, pages on my own domain would rank higher for very obvious specific search results.
You would be wrong…
Read more on Google Personalized Results – Ego Search Conundrum…
When a page on your site totally tanks in Google's search results, normally there is one of several things that have gone wrong to have caused it.
It could also be argued that it can be caused by duplicate content, and enter the supplemental results through lack of pagerank. Honest duplicate content could be on your own site, or due to poor syndication (lack of links back to the original document).
There
Just 2 weeks ago PayPerPost launched their PayPerPost Direct service and I wrote one of my typical in-depth reviews about why I believe that this new offering really changes the paid review landscape.
Read more on PayPerPost Receives $7M Additional Funding & Launches Direct Marketplace…
I like to keep a fairly professional and level head when I am discussing various issues on this blog but unfortunately I have just listened to the pre-recording that Shoemoney did with Rand Fiskin about full disclosure when blogging, and quite honestly whilst I empathise with some of the points both made, I think in many ways both are missing at least a few vital points.
Read more on Blogging Full Disclosure Debacle – Grow Some Brass Ones…
I am a long way behind on memes, in some cases a good 3 or 4 weeks, but I have the ones I am interested in bookmarked, and I will come back to them when I have time.
I thought I would mix things up with a few interesting videos I have been watching
First of all a short video from SMX Seattle on various things regarding duplicate content and paid links. I am not sure if there is anything new, but it certainly emphasises how you should handle syndication of your content with links back to the original.
Read more on Video Roundup | SMX Seattle | Duplicate Content | Jason Calacanis…
Rumours have been surfacing for the last few days that Google might be buying FeedBurner for around $100M.
Listed below you will find 7 reasons Google and Feedburner are a perfect match, and 7 equally compelling reasons we should be concerned.
Read more on 7+7 Reasons Why Google Buying FeedBurner is a Match Made in Heaven & Hell…
It is a rare occurrence when Google create a product, or new feature to an existing product that isn’t very good, but now they have created… Google Crap(s)
I haven’t played around with the new Google Personalized Recommendations on Google Toolbar before today, so I thought the results would be interesting.
Read more on Google Crap(s) vs StumbleUpon – Personalized Recommendations…
Eric Enge Interviews Adam Lasnik about paid links, duplicate content and crufty pages (lots of code, little content)
I am sorry to say not a lot, it reinforces Google’s position not to really say a lot, though apparently there is no real penalty for duplicate content, and not to worry about how pagerank flows in your site.
Read more on Do Google Hate Paid Links, Duplicate Content and Cruft?…
Matt Cutts has again been writing about paid links and has also jumped into the sponsored themes discussion, invoking the power of the Google Webspam team from behind the protection of a carefully worded disclaimer.
As Matt says:-
Read more on Google Paid Links – Google Sliding Down The Slippery Slope of Evildom…
Having previously discussed Performancing Metrics as being a little bit of a “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing”, I decided to sign up directly with Clicky. I also removed any Performancing affiliate links from the article.
Performancing metrics has risen like a phoenix from the ashes, but is it a devil in disguise that it not just looking to steal the shirt off your back, but your undies as well?
How many blogs link to Technorati on every post they publish? Many blogs also use followable links to social bookmarking sites such as Delicious, and social news sites such as Digg on every single page of their site? Google in their recently disclosed patent are saying that it could be a negative indication of quality.
Read more on Destroy Your Blog Rankings Linking To Digg or Technorati?…
For a long time my blogs have performed amazingly well with Google Blog Search. I always appear in the relevant results quickly, and the results I obtain have some reasonable longevity, even when I am not the original source of a story.
Read more on In Depth: Google BlogSearch | Ranking Blog Documents Patent…
Just added a new toolbar button to my toolbar buttons site for Twitter addicts.
There has been so much talk about Freebase.com, but Twitter.com seriously should have some kind of health warning – so many people are becoming addicted.
This plugin retroactively places the rel=”nofollow” tag on all links to Shoemoney.com – you don’t have to modify any links manually, and it is easy to switch off should you feel in the future that the site no longer contains offensive material.
This seems to be a growing trend, and so many bloggers are falling for the linkbait, poorly researched content, and unethical marketing practices.
Reactionary development of computer products and services can prove to be a disaster both for development cycles and the feature set of a product. An extremely careful balance has to be achieved between supporting the wishes of hardcore supporters of a product, and achieving core goals and maintaining a development schedule.
Read more on Wolfpack of Lies – Hack Baiting Web 2.0 Startups For Diggs…
Google might well have goofed again with Gmail domain registrations. I live in Poland so this is quite comical for me, and thus the comical headline. The Polish court system isn't quite as well organised as the US, but decisions are often made faster and a lot cheaper. What that means to Google is that they can't throw a fit and expect a small group of poets to concede defeat, and that their size as a company might not give them any advantage (unless they know someone who can influence decisions).
I am not a lawyer, and the following is for
Google Reader is one of the easiest to use RSS Readers currently available. The code is fairly light, thus allowing you to skim read 100s of RSS articles quickly. One of its many failings however, which I have pointed out previously was the lack of reporting subscriber counts to Feedburner.
Read more on Google Reader News and When Will Google Create a Social Network?…
This is a deadly serious question, and I am not even going to answer this one in my RSS feed, you will have to click through to get the answer.
Has Danny Sullivan committed the cardinal sin?
Yes I know how to use Read more on What Do Google, SearchEngineLand and Technorati WTF Have in Common?…
Lots of controversy over V7N and their new contextual links program.
I use Google for a lot of searching every day, I am sure more than 95% of casual users. I am not talking about checking ranking, as things like that can be automated with Google’s APis and various tools. When I need to find information, I use Google Search.
I have seen Google suggest other related terms to try such as this, which appears at the bottom of a page when I search for “insurance”.
The Google Related terms normally look something like this:-
For all those webmasters (like me) wondering why Toolbar Pagerank doesn’t seem to have propagated correctly, or is universally missing, I thought this screeenshot would offer you some comfort.
Sometimes I feel like Oliver Twist.
Read more on Google PageRank – At Least Problems are Universal…
I watched this video last night… slept on it, and listened to it again today.
This video was originally posted on the Google Adsense blog, and the presenter is Laura from Adsense Support.
Now I should point out that Google have been very clear in their wording with all the recent correspondence relating to Adsense changes, which in some ways makes this even more extraordinary.
The interesting bit in regard to financial declarations starts 1min:30 from the start.
It should be noted that this wasn't recorded live, as you can see from the out-takes at the end, is in response to
You might well have read on Jensense about the changes in the contextual advertising policy that confirmed my understanding of the policy that I wrote about 2 days ago.
As I stated in the comments in that post, I also contacted Google directly but I asked multiple questions. I had to use the email route not having a direct line to decision makers at Google, but Google have been fairly prompt in replying to my questions.
Read more on Adsense Guidelines – Contextual Ads – Adsense Backgrounds…
It is nice to finally see one of the mainstream blogs pointing out that it is hard to track readership numbers from Google Reader. Techcrunch have been looking at a report from Hitwise
Wikiseek seems to be the hottest news of the day but honestly it is just a poor mashup of the Wikipedia database, a poor quality search engine, and some PPC adverts. Whilst Wikiseek has launched in a huge fanfare, and admittedly is still in beta, my personal opinion is that Wikipedia are taking the wrong direction.
I have been visiting lots of Blogger blogs this week, thus I was a little shocked when this popped up while visiting one of my reader’s blogs. (btw Divya’s Blog is a really good read)
Google know who you are, Matt Cutts proves that time after time
Like good webmasters, you might be inclined to register your sites with Google Webmaster Central.
Why do I have to include this (ok that one is fake) junk in my Adsense adverts.
Paul who lives and runs his business in Denmark noticed something strange in the SERPs yesterday on Google.dk.
Apparently Google have been adding some kind of click through data to the search engine results.
You would think that having been nominated by The American Dialect Society as the “word of the year”, official dictionary definitions would be prevalent on the internet.
So I decided to put Google to the test… oops.
Zenrob has been checking his MyBlogLog stats to see how much traffic MyBlogLog is actually bringing him. His conclusion is 6 percent of unique visitors.
Checking my own stats the results are actually very similar.
It looks like Matt Cutts is starting a new meme with his review of the new Google Reader Stats page.
To pre-empt any tags, here are mine.
But it should be noted
The Google Reader Team have announced the availability of readership stats. You mean you can actually see how many readers you have using Google Reader? Nope, don’t be silly – what we get to see is how much time we are spending reading other people’s feeds. I am highly disappointed.
It is five years, almost to the day that Yahoo started charging $299 per year for a listing in their directory as this article on Pandia clearly illustrates.
The main benefit of being in the Yahoo directory isn’t traffic, it is pagerank / trustrank. Who actually uses the Yahoo directory for anything other than listing their own sites?
It is many years since I went to Yahoo to lookup an entry for anything other than a competitor in a niche.
I was honestly so caught up in other things over the last 36 hours, I totally missed this and it is highly relevant to my Disclosure Policy Plugin.
I am not a lawyer, thus any interpretation of the situation I am going to leave in the hands of lawyers who I have a great deal of respect for, and who themselves are involved in the internet marketing field.
I use Google Alerts to track a lot of my article syndication, and sometimes it comes up with some absolute diamonds of ways content can be presented to an international audience.
Blogging is international.
What you write about today might very well appear on a blog that is written in another language, and you shouldn’t be afraid of joining in the conversation even on a blog written in a language you have no hope of understanding normally.
Whilst working on an elevator speech suitable for non-technical potential seed investors, I was chucking loads of word combinations around and came up with two very unique definitions that describe what I am trying to achieve with my startup projects (I am looking for a CTO partner).
Further to the situation with the Wordpress trademark that has caused such a public outcry, I have just read over on Cristian Mezei’s Seopedia that Google is Banning users From Adsense for using their trademark.
An RSS feed which you subscribe to is your personal subscription to a service, just like email.
A private subscription service for text, audio and video content, even involving a paid subscription fee has been possible for more than a year, based upon RSS.
Michael Arrinton has made quite an outburst regarding DisclosurePolicy.org, but I think he might be slightly blinkered in his analysis.
A disclosure policy is a much better option for a site that features affiliate links, or is Michael looking to encourage commission stealing?
Read more on Techcrunch and Disclosure Policy (picking straws)…
Google Real Time Search Too Personal?
I think Google have got their priorities wrong with Real Time search, though I haven’t seen this on other “ego search” terms. I checked with Danny Sullivan and Michael Arrington to start with.
Read more on Google Real Time Search Too Personal?…