Archive for the ‘Law!’ Category

12

Google Adwords Rules

Jun
01
2011

It has slipped the attention of many Google Adwords users that Google have updated their guidelines on landing pages that capture visitor information. Typically this would include registering for downloads, extra content or seminars, webinars or site access.

For most users trading in an honest and upfront way this change should have zero direct impact, however it’s worth being aware of the change and making sure your pages are clearly following the guidelines.

One of the driving forces behind this is to ensure transparency, as Google puts it, “In order to build trust with users, your site should be explicit in three primary areas: the nature of your business; how your site interacts with a visitor’s computer; and how you intend to use a visitor’s personal information, if you request it.”

In order to ensure your website page provides transparency, Google offers advice including

• Openly share info about your business and clearly define what your business is or does.
• Honour the deals and offers that you promote in your ad.
• Deliver products and services as promised.
• Only charge users for the products and services that they order and successfully receive.
• Distinguish sponsored links from the rest of your site content.
• Ensure prices or billing methods are easily located on the website and are obvious to users.*
• In cases of recurrent billing or subscription situation, the price and billing interval must be present in a clear and obvious location on the page where the user provides their information, and a mandatory opt-in box must be present.*

*Providing prices and billing information in very small print on the webpage is not considered “obvious” to the user.

Most of us would consider these guidelines as pretty fundamental to running a legitimate business but the fact Google feels required to provide them is a sign that may be not all websites follow those basic principles.

They also are tightening up on abuses of personal information and insisting websites give greater control to users on how their information is gathered and used. Again most of this is common sense and largely already covered by existing legislation, certainly this side of the Atlantic.

Guidelines include:

• Unless necessary for the product or service that you’re offering, don’t request personal information.
• If you do request personal information, provide a privacy policy that discloses how the information will be used.
• Give options to limit the use of a user’s personal information, such as the ability to opt out of receiving newsletters.
• Allow users to access your site’s content without requiring them to register. Or, provide a preview of what users will get by registering.

To read the guidelines in full visit http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46675

About The Author: Nigel Wilkinson is the Managing Director of WNW Design Ltd. In addition to his business interests, Nigel is married to Movement teacher Michelle, the father of teenage twins, an avid Networker, a Social Media commentator, a keen golfer and football supporter. He is also an active member of Exmouth Chamber of Commerce, being Chairman from 2009 – 2011.You can follow him on Twitter @nigelwnw, email at nigel@wnwdesign.co.uk or telephone on 08456 588310. You can also find WNW Design on Facebook here.

Posted in Blogs By Nigel W., Google, Internet Marketing, Law!, Pay Per Click, WNW Staff Blogs | Comments Off

Are Your Promotions or Competitions Breaking Facebook Guidelines?

Mar
02
2010

A lot of businesses are just starting out on Facebook, experimenting with the best ways to use this platform to generate more fans and turn them into customers. But because Facebook started out as a free communication tool for individual users, many businesses might not realise that they have some fairly strict regulations when it comes to ways in which you can capitalise on their site.

Facebook setup and Facebook management

For example, once you have a good number of fans on Facebook an excellent way to get those fans interested is to run a competition on Facebook – offering a prize for the winners. Many companies on Facebook have just gone ahead with this, and inadvertantly broken Facebook rules. Their salvation is the fact that currently Facebook has nowhere near the amount of resources required to police these issues.

The good news is that promoting competitions and other similar things on Facebook is entirely allowed, as long as the actual competition is offsite. There are also allowances for running competitions that require people to sign up as fans first, and then providing a tab that points people to a third-party application for competition entry.

If you wish to run a competition through Facebook (which can be a great way to encourage a thriving community and discussion on your Facebook wall) you will need to contact Facebook and request an account representative to approve your request. Due to a lack of resources, responses to these requests are not terribly reliable, so after an initial attempt you may be better off running the competition off-site and merely using Facebook to publicise. Brookwells, a successful client of WNW Design, is currently using this method and using their Facebook Page to publicise a competition to name their new mascot Defender vehicle, offering the prize of a £50 voucher for their online shop and directing people to this page on their site to enter.

So, by all means use Facebook to get your community interested and involved in your promotions, but find ways to conduct the actual competition itself away from Facebook or in a tab using a third-party application.

You can read the full guidelines for promotions on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php

Camilla Todd manages Search Engine Optimisation, social media campaigns and brand awareness for WNW Design SEO clients. You can follow her on Twitter @camilla_wnw, email her at camilla@wnwdesign.co.uk or phone on 08456 588310.

Posted in Blogs By Camilla T., Facebook, Internet Marketing, Law!, WNW Staff Blogs | Comments Off

The Most Common Reason for Dropped Rankings: Duplication

Jan
31
2007

By Ross Dunn, CEO, StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.

Repeatedly my salës and consulting staff find themselves explaining that using duplicate content can and will negatively affect search engine rankings and it is heartbreaking to see clients having to rebuild rankings due to such a simple mistake. As a result, I felt it was time to write this article and hopefully dispel many misled website owners.
Why write an entire article on something as simple as duplicate content? Well probably because it is not as simple as it sounds and many website owners find themselves in the grey area of duplication; where they don’t know for sure whether they are risking rankings or not.

The following is a sectional breakdown of the most common duplicate content issues we see defined from the standpoint of a question – hopefully making this article a little easier to read. After all, I have no illusions that reading up on duplicate content rules is exciting.

Duplicate Websites

Definition: a duplicate website is a website that has many if not all of the same pages as another live website.

Note: the following questíons are based on a person who owns two websites that are duplicates.

Q: “Why is a duplicate website such a bad idea?”

A: The major search engines are constantly trying to improve the quality of their search engine results in an effort to provide the best quality content for users. When duplicate content is indexed by search engine spiders, valuable time and processing power is wasted. As a result, search engines have blocked sites that used duplicate content from their database, ultimately favouring the site that either had the content first, or I believe, the one site that has the greater online history. In addition, the major search engines have a bad taste after dealing with so much duplicate content created by spammers over the past several years. As a result, posting a duplicate website is an offense that can quite literally blacklist a domain; there are few things the search engine properties dislike more than being gamed by spammers.

Q: “What should I do with my duplicate website then? Just delete it?”

A: Deleting the site is the only option unless you want to create an entirely new website with unique content and a unique purpose. That said, by deleting the website you can still ensure the effort you put into promoting the old site does not go to waste by pointing the domain to your new website’s domain using a 301 redirect. A 301 is a term used to describe a server protocol which Google and other search engines will ‘see’ when they visit the old site. The protocol essentially says that your content from the old site can be found on the new site and that this is a permanent forwarding of all traffíc. 301 redirects are by far the best way to minimize your losses from shutting down a website that just might have traffíc or inbound links.

Q: “Which website should I shut down? Is there anything I should consider first?”

A: Yes, it is very important that you choose the website that has the most backlinks and has been online the longest. The reason I say this is that Google tends to favour entrenched websites; they have been around a while, are well backlinked and overall appear to have a positive history.

Whatever your decision is, it is vital you understand switching a website to a new domain is a dangerous step. This is because of Google’s famed ‘sandbox’. The ‘sandbox’ is really only an overused turn of phrase that represents a portion of the Google algorithm which considers the age of the domain as a signifier of trust. Generally, new websites will require 6 months to a year before substantial rankings are evident; this is kind of a right of passage that Google appears to be enforcing on the average website. Sites that are obviously popular and quickly gain a load of legitímate link popularity will easily avoid the sandbox (because Google can not afford to miss a ‘great’ website) but this is not the common scenario.

Q: “Will using a 301 redirect pass on the benefit of the deleted site’s link popularity?”

A: Link popularity is passed onto the other website when a 301 is used but how much this pass-over will benefit the website seems to fluctuate on a case-by-case basis. Usually the fluctuation is only present when popularity from one domain is passed to another with differing content/topic. In this case, since the link popularity is being redirected to an identical website I expect the benefit to be virtually lossless.

Duplicate Content

Definition: content appearing within a website that is duplicated elsewhere on the same website or elsewhere on the Internet.

Q: “I need content for my website; can I just copy content from industry journals and benefit from that quality content?”

A: No, aside from the copyright concerns of using content that is not yours, your rankings (if they exist) would suffer because it is highly likely the major search engines would detect the duplicate content. As a result, the page that you create may get flagged as duplicated and it would be ignored at the very least. The page could even devalue your site’s overall credibility. Credibility is a critical component of Google’s algorithm so sites with less credibility tend to have a harder time staying (‘sticking’ if you will) in a particular ranking.

Q: “I use a content management system to manage my site and it uses a particular set of templates. These templates have some duplicate content within them and they are spread all throughout my website. Should I be worried?”

A: No, in most cases the amount of duplicate content used within a template in a content management system (CMS) is negligible. If, however, you have a large number of pages created using a page where 90% of the text is duplicated and only 10% is unique you do have a reason to make some changes. In my opinion it is crucial that every page within a website be composed mostly of unique content with the exception of catalogues and shopping carts where text simply has to be reused over and over.

Whatever your situation make certain that your site contains a large number of pages composed of unique content that has been well optimized by yourself or your search engine optimizer (SEO).

Q: “How much of my page should be unique? Is there a standard ratio or percentage you can share?”

A: There is no industry standard formula but, if I had to state a percentage, I would say a minimum of 70% of the page should be completely unique to thwart any concerns of duplication. You may be able to get away with less than 70% unique content, but I would suggest this is playing with fire. Either way, this statistic is moot since every page you create needs to be created with the intention to provide a powerful resource; after all search engines are only a small part of the plan – you do need visitors to like what they see and büy your product or service!

Q: “My blog currently has many different ways to find content and depending on the route a visitor may find the page is actually shown on a different URL (i.e. archives, search by label, etc.). In this scenario am I not in danger of a duplicate content penalty?”

A: Yes and no. Yes that this is duplicated content but no you are not likely to be penalized by this simply because a majority of blogs offër these additional methods of finding content so it would be detrimental if search engines penalized this application right now. That said, search engines do have to have some way to handle this duplicate content. I expect when Google (picking the most advanced search engine) finds duplicate blog postings on a website its algorithm chooses the most popular posting as the primary page to provide in its ranking results. In other words, the posting URL that has the most number of inbound links or was spidered first will be the page that attains rankings.

For those unfamiliar with blogs, the following is an example how a blog can easily have 3 duplications of a single article. In this scenario, I recently posted an article on our SEO Blog called “SEO Answers #12″. Upon posting this article was immediately posted in 3 places: once on the home page (because it is the latest article), second on its own page for permanent linking purposes, and third within the label “Local Search a topic related to this posting.

1) SEO blog home URL: http://news.stepforth.com
2) Permalink URL: http://news.stepforth.com/blog/2007/01/seo-answers-12-my-couk-domain-lost.php
3) “Local Search” label URL: http://news.stepforth.com/blog/labels/Local%20Search.php

In the future I expect blog systems will offër an option to specifically add a NO INDEX tag to the top of posts located within the labelled search section. After all, every additional label I added to this article created a duplicate version which is something that I expect search engines will soon either ignore or require a NO INDEX tag.

Conclusion

I am sure I didn’t cover every question regarding duplicate content, but I am fairly certain I touched on the most common questíons we see at StepForth. If you would like to submit a duplicate content question or any other SEO question please go to our submission page and I will endeavour to respond as soon as possible; likely in an article format or SEO blog posting.

About The Author
Ross Dunn is the founder and CEO of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. Based in Victoria, BC, Canada, StepForth has provided professional search engine placement and management services since 1997. Ross is a search engine optimization and placement expert with over 9 years of marketing experience and is a Certified Internet Marketing and Business Strategist (CIMBS). Blending his experience in the art of web design and search engine optimization, Ross offers a unique and informed perspective on obtaining top search engine placements. Ross can be reached at ross@stepforth.com.

Posted in Law!, SEO | Comments Off

Dangerous Marketing Campaigns

Aug
22
2006

Targeting your key demographic online is getting harder and harder. While new portals that offer information to niche markets spring up like summer weeds, it is hard to decipher the legitimacy of not only their readership, but the depth and significance of their content, the source of their traffic, and the accuracy of their traffic reporting. The reasons for this lie in not only the increasing popularity of the internet for all ages, but the costs and low expected results now associated with “targeted” marketing campaigns.

Initially, the online marketing boom mainly changed the daily habits of adolescents, college kids, and young entrepreneurs. Now, Grandparents look forward to e-mails with fresh picture attachments, and more people meet their significant others on the web than they do at speed-dating convention. If there is an interest, someone has created a way to profit from it online. While the readiness of information is a convenience, it has led to a whole new set of concerns for small business owners.

Who can you trust to get your message across to the professionals who need your services? I am sure that there are many websites that consider themselves home to the community that can jump start your business. Claiming to be fueled by expert credentials, with an “opt-in” readership of people waiting to be sold on your breakthrough methods or product, these websites seem to be the answer to marketing prayers. For the small fee of $30,000+, you too can speak to these managers and share your wisdom.

How is this possible for the small business owner to justify? How can you trust that the website is representing their credentials appropriately, and that investing with them will be safe and, most importantly, productive? It is an excellent possibility their compiled “subscriber” lists come from others’ saleable data. There’s also the chance that many of those e-mail addresses will prove to be invalid.

Unless the World Wide Web takes measures to institute standards and credential guidelines for information portals, here are a few tips to help evaluate a site before you invest in their sales and marketing packages:

• How did they compile their subscriber list? How do they maintain that list to minimize the number of invalid e-mail accounts that it contains?

• Where do they get their content? From other site’s feeds, or do they create it in house? How often do they update this information (weekly, monthly, never)? Always ask this question, and then complete due diligence to confirm that the information portal does post in this time frame, and that articles are not reposted or recycled articles from another online portal.

• How often do they send out mass e-mails to their subscriber list? If the website sends out new information more than two times a week, there is a lower chance that their messages will be highly regarded or even noticed.

• Who are their key authors and senior management? What are their credentials? Make sure that those writers and managers have a thorough understanding of the topic they sell, as well as commensurate credentials.

• How long has the information portal been operating under that domain name and in that in capacity? My “rule of thumb” is to beware of any site that has more then 8k subscribers per year in operation.

• Survey your clients and prospective clients. See where they actually call home on the web. If a significant percentage (40%-50%) of these clients are at least somewhat familiar with the information portal you are considering investing with, it is probably a safe investment.

• Spend some time looking at the ads that are currently on the site you are interested in. Are you impressed with the amount of visibility they receive? Are the posted ads from quality companies that you feel are in keeping with the message of the site?

• Are their a lot of ads for one of your larger competitors the may dwarf your message? What ideas do the sales and marketing team at the information portal have to keep that from happening?

• Call some of the other companies that are advertising on the site. A call may come out of the blue to them, but this element of surprise may create more honest answers, as pre-qualified references are often a waste of time. Find the decision maker at the establishment that is currently advertising on the site and ask them questions like: “What kind of return are you seeing?” “How quickly do they respond to your issues or questions?” “Do they seek your approval before issuing statements on your behalf?” Try to ask these types of questions as many times as you can without completely agitating the person on the other end of the phone. It may seem annoying to the person on the other end, but it ends up being an effective tool for seeking information.

By performing this kind of due diligence, you will be able to more easily identify and evaluate information portals that will help you maximize your marketing investment. Many marketing firms have already performed comprehensive evaluations of information portals, so they may be able to relay this kind of information to you more quickly than performing investigative work on you own.

Also, if you do not have the staff to accomplish this, many online marketing firms would be happy to perform this service for you. Hiring an experienced firm to help your company evaluate your options for allocation of marketing funds may prove to be a wise investment. This is especially true when you consider what can be gained through an effective and targeted online marketing campaign, as well as what can be lost by choosing an ill equipped, poorly managed, or over-hyped portal.

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About the Author: Lila Buchalski is Managing Partner of BankCheck Inc. (http://www.TheBankCheck.com), an online marketing and web development firm. A graduate of Rutgers University, Lila has significant experience in both the online Editorial, and Marketing Director function.

Posted in Internet Marketing, Law!, SEO | 1 Comment »

Google Says Googling Is Inapproriate

Aug
15
2006

Recently, the Washington Post received a letter, on paper, hand-addressed, and in the mail, from Google attorneys asking the newspaper to avoid using Google as a verb. Perhaps paper makes a demand seem more serious than email. The Post responded, only slightly mocking in tone, snickering at the legal use of the word “hottie.”

From the article:

Appropriate: He ego-surfs on the Google search engine to see if he’s listed in the results.

Inappropriate: He googles himself.

But this one’s our favorite:

Appropriate: I ran a Google search to check out that guy from the party.

Inappropriate: I googled that hottie.

Not only is “googled” inappropriate, but apparenly the word “hottie” is frowed upon as well.

Google was sensitive about the use of its trademark before Merriam-Webster officially added “to google” to the English language. Last October, I received a particularly snippy email (which means it wasn’t nearly as serious as WaPo’s paper letter) asking that I make it clear that a person could not google something on Yahoo! (I’m paraphrasing).

Funny, the company didn’t seem to mind when Pontiac made use of the phrase, instructing consumers to google Pontiac on national television. In fact, the company consented ahead of time.

And, as The Independent points out, the company takes a much different stance on intellectual property when it comes to Google News and Google Print. Well, that’s convenient.

It’s understandable Google’s trademark managers don’t want to risk the Xerox and Kleenex branding death march, even if its unclear that genericide will apply to an Internet company in the same way it does to consumer tangibles. In the dotcom world, it seems very clear to everyone what is meant by “googling” something.

But then again, it took “escalator” 50 years to become generic. Too bad for Otis Elevator, who trademarked the phrase. The genericization of the word crippled the company, right?

Oh. Guess not.

Google needs to realize the meme that is Google.com has juggernauted far beyond the point of no return. It’s too late, without taking down your site altogether, to perform a lexicographical Googlectomy. It’s part of the language. Good luck in changing it back.

About the Author:
Jason is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Posted in Google, Law! | 1 Comment »

Do Search Engines Care About Valid HTML?

Jul
04
2006

Like most web developers, I’ve heard a lot about the importance of valid html recently. I’ve read about how it makes it easier for people with disabilities to access your site, how it’s more stable for browsers, and how it will make your site easier to be indexed by the search engines.

So when I set out to design my most recent site, I made sure that I validated each and every page of the site. But then I got to thinking – while it may make my site easier to index, does that mean that it will improve my search engine rankings? How many of the top sites have valid html?

To get a feel for how much value the search engines place on being html validated, I decided to do a little experiment. I started by downloading the handy Firefox HTML Validator Extension (http://users.skynet.be/mgueury/mozilla/) that shows in the corner of the browser whether or not the current page you are on is valid html. It shows a green check when the page is valid, an exclamation point when there are warnings, and a red x when there are serious errors.

I decided to use Yahoo! Buzz Index to determine the top 5 most searched terms for the day, which happened to be “World Cup 2006″, “WWE”, “FIFA”, “Shakira”, and “Paris Hilton”. I then searched each term in the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo!, and MSN) and checked the top 10 results for each with the validator. That gave me 150 of the most important data points on the web for that day.

The results were particularly shocking to me – only 7 of the 150 resulting pages had valid html (4.7%). 97 of the 150 had warnings (64.7%) while 46 of the 150 received the red x (30.7%). The results were pretty much independent of search engine or term. Google had only 4 out of 50 results validate (8%), MSN had 3 of 50 (6%), and Yahoo! had none. The term with the most valid results was “Paris Hilton” which turned up 3 of the 7 valid pages. Now I realize that this isn’t a completely exhaustive study, but it at least shows that valid html doesn’t seem to be much of a factor for the top searches on the top search engines.

Even more surprising was that none of the three search engines home pages validated! How important is valid html if Google, Yahoo!, and MSN don’t even practice it themselves? It should be noted, however, that MSN’s results page was valid html. Yahoo’s homepage had 154 warnings, MSN’s had 65, and Google’s had 22. Google’s search results page not only didn’t validate, it had 6 errors!

In perusing the web I also noticed that immensely popular sites like ESPN.com, IMDB, and MySpace don’t validate. So what is one to conclude from all of this?

It’s reasonable to conclude that at this time valid html isn’t going to help you improve your search position. If it has any impact on results, it is minimal compared to other factors. The other reasons to use valid html are strong and I would still recommend all developers begin validating their sites; just don’t expect that doing it will catapult you up the search rankings right now.

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About the Author: Adam McFarland owns iPrioritize – to-do lists that can be edited at any time from any place in the world. Email, print, check from your mobile phone, subscribe via RSS, and share with others.

Posted in Law!, Structure | 3 Comments »

Tech Firms Fear Privacy Lawsuits

Jun
23
2006

Written by David Utter for WebProNews.com

A dozen high-powered companies inside and outside of the technology industry jointly requested Congress pass a law to protect the privacy of consumers, while insulating them from being “brought to their knees” by class-action lawsuits.

Efforts by Google and other technology companies to drum up support for federal privacy legislation appear to be motivated by a desire for protection from civil actions in the event of a privacy breach as much as ensuring Internet users keep using the Web for commerce.

The Consumer Privacy Legislation Forum has been formed by twelve companies that believe the perception of the Internet as an unsafe place for personal information has been increasing. Google, eBay, Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, Symantec, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, and Intel joined other companies in signing off on a letter to Congress requesting a federal consumer privacy law.

“The time has come for a serious process to consider comprehensive harmonized federal privacy legislation to create a simplified, uniform but flexible legal framework,” the statement said.

The group cited a survey conducted by the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, where 94 percent of respondents nationwide considered identity theft a serious problem. Only 24 percent believe businesses have sufficiently emphasized protecting information.

A Wall Street Journal report noted the testimony by eBay CEO Meg Whitman and H-P chief privacy officer Scott Taylor on Tuesday about the issue before the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Both called for a federal law to supercede state laws that require companies to comply with multiple legal requirements.

Whitman also called for Federal Trade Commission enforcement of such legislation, as well as taking a position against the right for consumers to pursue lawsuits against companies for security breaches. Those potential class-actions could be crippling to a company found to have inadequately protected personal data; Whitman said companies could be “brought to their knees” by such suits.

The House Committee seemed receptive to the idea of federal privacy legislation, the report said. Joe Barton (R-TX) said, “It is time now for a broader more comprehensive approach. Individual stop-gap measures are not longer enough.”

About the Author:
David is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Posted in Google, Law! | Comments Off

Google Bowling: How Competitors Can Sabotage You

Oct
31
2005

Written by Michael Pedone for WebProNews

Have you heard about the latest “sport” in dirty online business?
It’s called Google Bowling and it represents a gaping flaw in
Google’s system that allows your competitors to sabotage your
site to the point of getting it banned or penalized.

This can’t happen, right? I mean, Google would have us believe
their algorithms are not easily manipulated and that your rankings
are safely under your (and their) control. But in fact there’s a
chink in Google’s armor that can have massive consequences for
any web business unfortunate enough to have aggressive and
unethical competitors.

Here’s the loophole, explained

It all began with Google’s aggressive attempts to curb link
popularity manipulation by penalizing sites that purchase
site- wide text link ads to get lots of incoming links in a
hurry. (eg: If the ad selling site had 1,000 pages, the
advertiser’s link would instantly be on 1,000 pages.)

Google began filtering sites that indulged in this kind of
linkage and either penalized or flat-out removed the site from
its database. Bad news for that business. Excellent news for
their competition. Can you guess what’s coming next?

Certain scoundrels began thinking: “If buying site-wide text link
ads en masse will get my site into hot water with Google, why
not buy them for my competitor’s site instead? Then just sit back
and wait for Google to solve my number one business headache…
the competition.” (Cue evil laughter sound track.)

This, ladies and gentlemen, is Google Bowling. Simple. Devious.
Devastating. And not just in theory; it’s really happening out
there.

Here at eTrafficJams.com, we are hearing from a lot of businesses
whose sites once enjoyed great rankings (ours included) and now
don’t even show up in Google for their own company name.

A small loophole has turned into a devastating black hole,
sucking in and wiping out countless quality websites in the
process. And it just may be their competitors sending them into
the abyss.

Is your head spinning yet? I mean, it was bad enough knowing that
with every Google update, your business may go up or down in the
rankings depending on the whims of the Google geeks. But now add
into the mix the fact that your competitors also have a hand in
your search engine health and wellness… well, Houston, we have
a problem.

Although this would be a fortuitous time for me to suggest that
the solution to this problem is hiring a reputable SEO firm
(like www.eTrafficJams.com) to watch over your rankings, I shall
resist the temptation. Instead, I’d like to offer Google – as if
they’re listening – a simple solution to this nasty problem.

Right now, Google hands out either rewards or harsh penalties for
linking strategies – good rankings to reward good linking
techniques, and penalties, such as the now-infamous sandbox, to
punish un-cool, manipulative linking practices. But there isn’t
any middle ground.

I say why not create a neutral response… a filter that simply
ignores questionable links, neither rewarding nor punishing
them?

1) Innocent victims of Google Bowling don’t get hurt.

2) If the dubious links actually were perpetrated by the business
at the receiving end of them, Google would exclude those links
and the site would gain nothing. It would simply be throwing ad
money out the window (unless, of course, it was buying site-wide
ads in vehicles that generated relevant traffic). And

3) Google’s reputation for delivering accurate and fair search
results would be restored.

Google needs to do something soon to plug this loophole, not just
for the immediate relief of its users but for its own credibility

Although being “Google Bowled” by a competitor and having your
site removed from the database could ruin a small business, the
consequences for Google could be just as dire. If chatter picks
up that Google’s results are easy to manipulate and consequently
inaccurate, users may be scared away to other search engines.

Fewer users = fewer clicks on ads = lower revenues. Well, I don’t
have to spell that out for the financial wizards at Google.

But just think: a few stories on the big TV networks, say on
MSNBC (*cough* think Bill Gates’ MSN Search, a major Google
competitor), revealing how the new sport of Google Bowling is
sweeping the nation… well, the average user at home may start
to have doubts about Google and maybe decide to try out Yahoo! or
MSN Search.

Is it really that far-fetched to speculate that someone like oh,
I don’t know, Mr. Gates, might take advantage of this situation to
solve his number one business headache… the competition?

So I suggest a simple solution to Google’s link bowling problem:
neutralize suspicious links so they are neither helpful nor
harmful. Problem solved. Sorry, Mr. Gates.

Posted in Google, Law!, Organic Optimisation | 1 Comment »

Is Google Building An Alternative Internet?

Sep
23
2005

Written by Jim Hedger for SiteProNews

Google is working on its most ambitious project to date, the creation of a global data transfer network that could effectively serve as a private Internet. Since the introduction of AdWords three years ago, Google has become the world’s largest media company and advertising vehicle. It has grown to rival Microsoft in scope and scale. The process has made it a fully globalized corporation.

Google has an estimated $7billion in the bank and employs many of the brightest brains in IT. It also has a reputation for being one of the best tech firms in the world to work for and has been known to use that reputation to headhunt intellect from its rivals. It is focused on the burgeoning Chinese market and appears to be performing better there than its chief rival Microsoft is. Google has the obvious capital and intellectual resources to do just about anything it wants to.

There are a number of reasons backing speculation that Google is building its own global digital communications network. Google has formally entered the telecom business with the release of a VOIP client known as Google Talk. VOIP is an acronym for Voice Over IP, which is a synonym for Internet telephone. In order to provide this service Google has had to acquire technical and physical resources that, along with other assets held by the company, point to the construction of an alternative Internet.

As Microsoft has so ably demonstrated over the past twenty-five years, there are a number of profitable ventures found in a space monopolized by a single mega-corporation. If that is the path Google is taking, building the infrastructure to capitalize on it would be considered the crucial but difficult first step. Over the past ten months, Google has been purchasing a large quantity of redundant fiber-optic lines, (commonly referred to as dark-fiber), in cities around the world. This fiber was laid during the boom years of the late 1990′s but left surplus after the dot-com crash in 2000. Speculation about Google building an alternative Internet has been circulating since early January 2005 when Google started buying and accumulating lots of dark-fiber.

Telecommunications industry news-source Light Reading today reported on some of Google’s recent real estate acquisitions. Google is leasing large amounts of floor space in or near major telecom interconnection facilities such as the recent leasing of about 1/10th of the rentable space at 111 8th Ave in New York, one the world’s largest telecommunications interconnection hubs. It is also said to be in negotiations for large amounts of space at enormous co-location centers (known as carrier hotels) on the west coast, with the goal of linking Google’s North American and Asian networks.

In early 2005, Google began issuing RFP notices to relevant tech firms for the development of a DWDM fiber optics network. The RFP process ended earlier this month and Google is currently reviewing bids from multiple tech vendors. Google is said to be planning to first establish a network in North America and then connect it with similar networks established in Europe and Asia. The construction of such a network could give Google the ability to deliver multiple branded media such as music, video, online telephone and other Internet services to every home in the United States.

DWDM (Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing) is a technology that exponentially increases the carrying capacity of fiber optic cables. According to an article in yesterday’s IPMedia Monitor (sub req.), only a handful of the largest telecommunications providers operate commercial DWDM networks. A small number of private DWDM networks exist but few are large enough to need such capacity.

Google’s need for bandwidth capacity is increasing rapidly. It currently pays the traditional telecom firms like AT&T who own the long-haul fiber lines a premium for bandwidth. Building its own data transfer network could be seen as a cost savings solution, especially as it could cost as little as $100millïon (in new spending) to construct one. Google already owns fiber throughout North America and around the world. It just needs to connect it all together.

Once connected, what could Google possibly do with a homebrewed state-of-the-art fiber-optics system? It could develop the kind of exclusive branded environment AOL originally dreamed of. It could capitalize on its recent innovations to provide life-service technologies such as Google Talk (VOIP) and interactive information resources such as local search alerts and the delivery of news, video and music files.

According to the IPMedia Monitor article, “… those who have reviewed the RFP say that Google’s plans extend far beyond cost-saving motivation, with an architecture that puts a Google-controlled hub deep within all major metro areas.”

Google’s stated goal is to organize the world’s information. A big part of that goal is to turn a profït while doing so. Google turns a very tidy profït each quarter but has long been seen as too reliant on one kind of income, paid search advertising. Google draws between 90 – 95% of its revenues from paid ads. The development of a Google operated data transfer network would give Google any number of ways to expand the number of productive revenue streams from 1 to 1+ more.

Then again, Google has always prided itself on its ability to organize the world’s information and provide it frëe of charge to its users. The cost of Google’s services is borne by the advertisers. Google might simply be exponentially increasing its online real estate inventory by enticing hundreds of millïons of new registered users to take a look at whatever it is they are creating. Assuming it is the coolest thing on the block when released and is faster and cheaper than its competitors (as most of Google’s new products tend to be), many of those new users will choose to stick around to use the services offered by a Google branded network.

Google appears to be preparing to become the world’s greatest data delivery vehicle. Perhaps this phase of Internet history will be summarized with the neo-business aphorism, “If you can’t beat them and you can’t join them, you can just make your own reality and make lots of monëy over there.” Google has $7big in the bank, much of it being investor monëy. From all accounts, it is preparing to light up and connect millïons of miles of dark fiber, starting in North America possibly as early as the first quarter of 2006. Today we wire America. Tomorrow we wire the world. On Saturday, we’ll do brunch.

About The Author
Jim Hedger is a writer, speaker and search engine marketing expert based in Victoria BC. Jim writes and edits full-time for StepForth and is also an editor for the Internet Search Engine Database. He has worked as an SEO for over 5 years and welcomes the opportunïty to share his experience through interviews, articles and speaking engagements. He can be reached at: jimhedger@stepforth.com.

Posted in General SEO, Google, Law!, SEO | 1 Comment »

Google Print Has Legal Support

Sep
22
2005

Written by Jason Lee Miller for WebProNews

Though copyright law predates the Internet, case law has been established regarding the indexing of copyrighted material, and it has come out in favor of the indexer. Publishers who have issues with Google’s Print for Libraries project may end up with little more than hurt feelings.

Late in 2004, Google made a surprise announcement about an incredibly ambitious project to digitize and index millions of published works, with the aid of Stanford University, the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Oxford University, and the New York Public Library. The project was/is expected to cost upwards of $200 million over at least 10 years.

The entire text of books considered to be public domain and out of copyright will be scanned and made available online. For copyrighted material, the books will be scanned, and snippets will be made available structured around search terms with links to where the book can be checked out or purchased.

The publishing community, who had already signed up for Google Print for Publishers where snippets of copyrighted material were indexed for preview purposes, felt somewhat betrayed by Google as the Library project appeared to be sneaked in along side the Publisher program.

Two major publishers, the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) and the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (ALPSP), sent letters to Google asking them to stop the project as digitizing entire works of literature was a fundamental violation of copyright and would, in their opinion, hurt publishers and writers financially.

“…News of Google Print for Libraries came as a complete surprise. It had not been mentioned by Google representatives during any of the discussions they were having with our members, and Google’s subsequent explanations of Google Print for Libraries have only increased that confusion and transformed it into mounting alarm and concern at a plan that appears to involve systematic infringement of copyright on a massive scale,” read a letter written by Peter Givler on behalf of AAUP.

Technically that’s correct, Google has not received explicit permission or paid to reproduce the material. Instead, the search engine has gone through the 5 selected libraries which have given permission to digitize all or some of their collections. Though Google paused the project in August to negotiate with publishers, scanning is slated to continue this autumn with publishers having the option to de-list themselves from the project.

Google, as well as critics of the publisher groups, has argued that the Library project will only help to increase exposure and book sales. Publishers say that is yet to be seen, that no one has the right to copy entire texts without permission, that the implications of allowing Google to do so would pave the way for others to do the same, that they’re not convinced the system is secure, and that privacy issues (involving cookies and the Patriot Act) remain unresolved.

But all of these objections from publishers may yield little in court because of case law and Fair Use guidelines.

As this copyright analysis from Jonathan Band goes to great lengths to explain, ArribaSoft v. Kelly is one precedent ruling Google’s legal team could use in its favor. In this case, image search engine ArribaSoft was cleared of accusations brought about in a lawsuit by a photographer who claimed indexing his copyrighted images was a violation of copyright law. The ruling that ArribaSoft was protected under four separate provisions of Fair Use was upheld in two separate courts.

Here are some of the key rulings in that case:

Read The Full Article

About the Author:
Jason L. Miller is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Posted in Google, Law! | 1 Comment »

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