Google offers a plethora of great tools for Webmasters. But why?
Data
Many of us webmasters love Google's "help", while others see their tools as an unwelcome intrusion. More specifically, an unwelcome look into your website's inner workings and your users behavior. Some skeptics even go so far as to call these tools "spyware".
Continue reading "Is Google Really Helping You With Free Tools?" »
Page RankWell there has been a flurry of blog activity complaining of Google's draconian "slap" of prominent sites such as the SFGate, CopyBlogger, Washington Post, Forbes & many many more. As Page Rank levels have dropped 1 or in some cases 2 levels.
Now Page Rank is the relative importance of a Page and was really what launched Google. Link popularity was nothing new as it was a prime part of the Inktomi Technology that Yahoo owned, but Larry Page took it a step further.
Portfolio.com has a nice interactive time line on the evolution of Google from Search to Adwords to YouTube.
But they also have a terrific schematic of how Google works once you make a query.
From the query to the results page. To the un-initiated you will find this quite illuminating as you will learn how a search results page is made up and that it comes from a plethora of sources.
The Makers of IBP have listed in their recent newsletter a new way to see if your web pages are listed in the dreaded Google Supplemental Results.
Simply query into Google the following:
site:http://www.yoururl.com/&
I thought I saw actual results this AM. However, now when querying, I do not see the typical supplemental ID next to the link.
It had been rumored that Google was considering removing that ability to find your supplemental results. Maybe it has happened. Hmmm, I wonder why they would do such a thing? <insert sarcasm here>
I recently went to the web and was flabergasted to find my content on another website.
The nerve. Hell, its not an insult, its a damned crime. That's what it is. But what can I do about it?
Yep, there is Houseblogger totally housed on this other website.
Okay, I mention this only tongue in cheek to contrast a recent post about what is an ethical issue, perhaps a legal issue, and a marketing issue.
Now, we all know that Google and the other engines crawl/scrape our pages and sites to list them in the search engine index. That makes us happy, and is a large source of my clients and my income.
However, a recent post by the Phoenix Real Estate Guy about a splog (spam blog) post made me pause and reflect. The gist of his post was that a site scraped several posts off the Phoenix site and listed it on their site as a post. This is very common. However, other than the name itself, their was no link back to the Phoenix site.
Now, I started off bashing Google as doing the same thing to create a contrast. This is the inherant challenge with the web. Just like drug addicts,we are cool that the engines copy and do what they will with our sites.
Webmasters trade not just their copyright, but even personal information and datamining for possible leads. We are willing participants in what would amount to copyright infringement in the old world. However, we accept their intrusions for that sweet elixir called traffic. While the splog in affect does the same thing, and we call that criminal.
It is a complicated issue that a small post cannot answer, but I at least wanted to contrast from the "Phoenix' posting.
Just a couple days after my last post on how nothing is for free, a British human rights advocacy group says Google has the most abysmal privacy policies and is leading a "race to the bottom" by the world's most renowned Internet firms. London-based Privacy International, which has monitored rights protections on the Internet since its fledgling days, ranked Google "hostile to privacy" in a fresh report that it staunchly defended on Sunday.
If you are tired of paying your local cariier for DSL, or your local Cable Company for Broadband then Google to the rescue. Google always the innovator, has made a very generous offer of Free, thats right Free Broadband Internet Access.
From the Tisp Web Page: Google TiSP (BETA) is a fully functional, end-to-end system that provides in-home wireless access by connecting your commode-based TiSP wireless router to one of thousands of TiSP Access Nodes via fiber-optic cable strung through your local municipal sewage lines.
The Free TISP Kit:
Vista-
Definition: view or prospect, especially. one seen through a long, narrow avenue or passage.
Microsoft made its move for world domination yesterday. All kidding aside Vista has gotten great reviews for its interface, and bad reviews from geeks.
CNET is calling Vista just an expensive upgrade to XP.
So what does that have to do with online marketing?
Page Rank is updating, so your green bar might shake and rattle a bit over the next few days.
Recent Comments