Google just added this nifty instant preview feature to their mobile searches.
Libya Internet Cut – Google Report
The Transparency Report from Google shows that queries from Libya have dropped enormously over the last couple of days. See the chart showing a drop off from the afternoon of February 18, 2011. This is what shutting off the Internet to a country looks like.
Link Farms Are Dangerous
Most people who have websites are regularly emailed to join or place links on their site to be part of link farms. These are bogus links (links unrelated to the site’s content) that have the goal of tricking Google into improving the site’s search rank. Horrible SEO (Search Engine Optimization) companies sell this sleazy service. If you take part, you’re risking Google catching you and then demoting or banning your site.
See the NY Times article The Dirty Little Secrets of Search detailing how J.C. Penney rigged their results and then got demoted. It was a very successful strategy over Christmas, but Google just responded.
On Wednesday evening, Google began what it calls a “manual action” against Penney, essentially demotions specifically aimed at the company.
At 7 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, J. C. Penney was still the No. 1 result for “Samsonite carry on luggage.”
Two hours later, it was at No. 71.
At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, Penney was No. 1 in searches for “living room furniture.”
By 9 p.m., it had sunk to No. 68.
In other words, one moment Penney was the most visible online destination for living room furniture in the country.
The next it was essentially buried.
Mapnificent Finds Where You Can Travel
Mapnificent is a new site using Google Maps that finds out where you can get to in a certain amount of time. It accounts for you using public transportation and you can tell it in the settings that you have a bike. It’s great for exploring restaurants near you, but in a direction that you never bothered to look.
Bogus Search Engine Optimization Services
As an owner of websites, I regularly get email like this:
Hi,
I am Maria, Business Development Manager.
I went to your website: “www.techdc.com” and saw that you are an online service provider.
Would you be interested in outsourcing Link Building Services to us? We will be happy to deliver one way thematic links for any theme and numbers. We have delivered over 40,000 links to various retail and agency clients spread over different verticals.
OUR USP:-
* Links from Unique IP’s
* Regular Caching sites
* Less Outbound Links
* Start pricing USD 1.5 only
We have our quality department checking each and every link as per the quality parameters.
We would pick the exact anchor text and will be happy to provide a choice of using as many anchors as you want. Besides all our links pass thorough the quality parameters set for link building ensuring only high quality link building for a website.
Do let me know if you are interested and we would be happy to discuss this further.
For more info you can visit our website URL: – [removed]
I look forward to your Positive response.
Kind Regards,
Name: – Maria
Post: – Business Development Manager
E-mail:- maria@[removed]
NONE of these services are legitimate. There are two possible things these companies do:
1) They could just take your money and do nothing.
2) Or they could do something worse than nothing. Some companies actually try to do what they say, creating “Link Building Services.” One of the elements of the Google PageRank algorithm is how many links there are to your site. By putting your link on a bunch of sites, they attempt to game the Google PageRank algorithm and improve your search ranking. The problem with this is that Google isn’t stupid. Google can easily and automatically identify bogus links from link farms. Google can then penalize you by lowering your search rank or removing you completely from their search results, the mark of death on the Internet.
Even if these little companies could outsmart Google, it’s a sleazy business. To improve your site’s search results, write good content and get legitimate links. For more information on Search Engine Optimization and PageRank, see our post Google SEO and Other Search Engine Results Performance Suggestions.