|
TimeForBlogging Blogging, Website Tips, eCommerce, Forums and Web-Entrepreneurship
|
 Subscribe Feed (RSS)
Comments Feed
|
I just learned about a new video from Matt Cutts, thanks to Darren Monroe, that confirms once and for all that Google is NOT using the META KEYWORDS tag in their main search results.
Check it out and keep it in mind as you move forward with your website development and SEO efforts.
Tags: Google, Keywords, matt cutts, meta tags, search results, SEO, website
Well it seems that Google isn’t finished handing out the pain. After another update in the past day or so, we got kicked to the ground and curbed! I had forgotten what the days of PR2 felt like, but after getting knocked from a PR5 to a PR3 in recent days, it seems like Google is out to strip me of my soul.
How about an announcement letting us all know what the hell is going on here?
There is a Buzz in the air, and it isn’t very good . . .
It seems that in the past few days, Google has changed their PR algorithm, affecting major corporations, webmasters and bloggers alike. In this case, size just doesn’t matter . . . everyone from The Washington Post to Problogger to Engadget to me has been affected by this.
What Was this PR Change All About?
Not sure. The word on the street is that sites are being penalized for selling links. Experts contend that Google has been manually reviewing sites and changing PR as a result of what they find. Has the Big G verified this? There might be evidence, but it seems that no one is 100% certain.
Bloggers and others have been theorizing that this is a ploy by Google to further consolidate power and to force people to use them for advertising, but that’s just one of thousands of theories out there. Until Google comes out and tells us what they have done and why, we have no way of knowing anything.
What does it mean?
I don’t think anyone really knows yet. As PR is one of many factors in Google’s results, this drop, in theory, should have major effects around the globe. So far, it seems, the experts contend that this has not affected traffic or AdSense. On the other hand, as many advertisers and ad networks rely on PR for setting prices, this could have a devastating effect on the revenues of websites around the planet.
Sounds all negative. Are there any positives to this PR Change?
I’ve been reading up on this for 2 days now and have yet to hear anything good about this situation. I have heard rumblings from people that they have seen PR upgrades, but haven’t found any proof. I’d love to hear from anyone who has seen an increase. Maybe we can learn from exploring these sites what has really happened.
What Next?
Keep reading! As time goes on, we’ll certainly learn more about this major update. As Google is the 800 pound gorilla in the world of search, every move they make can have major effects on everyone online. This is an event that is going to be talked about until Google’s next major move.
Is there anything you can do to avoid being harmed by moves like these?
Common sense would say to rely less on Google for everything, but that is not an easy thing to do. Sure there are other Search providers out there, but until one of them starts to seriously compete with Google, the smart thing to do would be to diversify, but also focus on what we’re all doing to make the beast angry. With so much power in the hands of one company, we are all forced to comply or suffer, it seems.
Important Reading on the Topic
If you’re interested in the topic, these articles should give some insight on the developments I’ve just written about:
Thoughts????
Hey all. After a much needed vacation, I returned home to be bombarded by various headaches that popped out of nowhere. I have been dealing with these and am now ready to jump back in! I’m back!
I must mention an article that I just came upon, titled Google faces landmark lawsuit over sponsored links. This article talks about a lawsuit facing Google, that could alter the way many of us make money online. If you use Google Adsense / Adwords, I suggest you read it and familiarize yourself with what is going on. Keeping up with news like that presented in this piece is essential for anyone who uses the internet as a tool to make money.
We’ll see you again very soon . . .
On the other hand, in a more ominous story, apparently, Google doesn’t think it has invaded our personal lives enough, and wants to delve deeper. In a story I learned about from Drudge, the Financial Times interviewed the Google guys and they revealed their EXTREMELY FRIGHTENING plan to take over the world:
Asked how Google might look in five years’ time, Mr Schmidt said: “We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation.
“The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’ ”
I’m not sure about the rest of you, but I’m absolutely more afraid of Google then I am the US government under the Bush/Cheney regime. If the government knew as much about everyone as Google did, we’d all be up in arms! I already discussed how they use private data to get better results from Google Blogsearch in the past, and this is just another step towards a complete invasion of all of our privacy. Sadly, people are embracing their efforts instead of fighting them.
Do you really want any one company to know that much about you? It is indeed a Brave New World and we don’t even realize it!
As many of you now know, I’ve been working on getting an ecommerce website up and running. I decided to use OScommerce for my shopping cart, but now I’m beginning to have second thoughts. I’ve been looking for a few days now and have not been able to find any even half-decent free templates.
I’ve worked with many different web-based programs (wordpress, phpbb, etc.) and have never had a difficult time finding great free templates. I’m just amazed that no one out there is offering them for OSCommerce. My guess is that if someone did, they’d do quite well financially from ads served on their site.
The worst part of it all is that when doing a Google or Yahoo search for “Free OSCommerce Templates” all you get are results from companies offering limited trials to their templates, which expire; you then have to pay to get anything. These guys have worked the SERPs to get themselves high priority rankings. I’d have to say that I haven’t seen a worse set of results from the search engines then this.
Does Anyone Know Where to Find Any Free OSCommerce Templates?
If you do, please help me out here! I’d love to create a large master list of these resources, but so far I’ve struck out.
The Master List – As Begun 5/7/07 – Know of Any Others?
http://how2make.blogspot.com/
In a guest assignment for Darren Rowse’s ProBlogger, Alister Cameron writes an incredible post detailing how Google Blogsearch ranks your blog posts. Using the Google Blogsearch patent application, Alister reveals some incredible information about the data Google uses to determine the quality of a blog or blog post.
He mentions how it looks like Big Brother, and it really does. It appears as though Google is taking data from not only their search results, but from blogrolls, from the qualit of a site lnking to you, from feed subscriptions on the Google Feed Reader, from chats on GTalk, from emails on Gmail, etc. They then use their fancy algorithms to determine weight and ranking. I’m not sure about you, but it looks to me like we have to worry less about the government spying on us then we do Google. Orwell was somewhat correct, but in the real future, it is big business, not governments that are truly to be feared (thanks Charles).
That said, there is much to learn from examining the article on Problogger, as the insight it provides is invaluable. If you haven’t done so already, be sure to bookmark the site, as it is one of the top blogs out there about the “sport” of blogging.
Joshua Dorkin
I'm the founder of the website BiggerPockets.com, and have been creating websites for over 15 years. The purpose of this blog is to share some things I've learned about the internet, business and life.
