Archive for July, 2006
Urinals That Talk?
I ran across an unusual story at CNet news today entitled “Chatty urinal coming to a men’s room near you.” What? Urinals that talk? You betcha!
There are already many public restrooms that sport advertising on the walls, many times right in front of your face. So it was only a matter of time before someone would come up with the idea of a talking urinal. Dr. Richard Deutsch has done just that with the Wizmark Urinal Communicator.
Will Social Networking Bill Have an Impact on Marketers?
A bill amending the Communications Act of 1934 was passed by the House yesterday as reported by ClickZ. The Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), H. R. 5319, was introduced in an attempt to protect school kids from online sexual predators as well as obscene and pornographic imagery. According to the bill, sponsored by Pennsylvania Republican Michael Fitzpatrick, schools and libraries receiving federal funding would be required to bar minors from visiting commercial social networking sites and chat rooms, unless they were under adult supervision. Adults would be able to access such sites in those settings, however.
Happy Birthday to The Daily SearchCast
That’s right – it has been one year already since Danny Sullivan and WebmasterRadio.FM started doing The Daily SearchCast, a 30 minute radio broadcast with Danny Sullivan as he recaps current events in the world of search as well as throwing in a rant here or there. Daron Babin, founder of WebmasterRadio.FM, usually hosts the show but occasionally Dave Naylor, Todd (Oilman) Friesen, Detlev Johnson and Barry Schwartz fill in as hosts.
Business.com Makes Things Right
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Business.com’s practice of using “nofollow” attributes on editorial listings within their directory but did not use them on the paid listings, a backwards procedure for what the attribute was originally intended for. Today they have decided to stop using the attribute altogether.
Yahoo!’s New Ad Platform “Panama” Delayed
From ClickZ, Yahoo is delaying the launch of its revamped ad system after previously stating that it would be launched sometime during the third quarter. Now they are shooting for the fourth quarter. Yahoo blames the delay on previously unforeseen complications in the quality control and testing process.
Current State of Who Powers Who in Search
Before I write anything, let me preface this post by saying that this information will probably change not too long after it is written. I am referring to who powers who in the realm of search engines. There are currently four major search engines – Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask (formerly Ask Jeeves). While many other search engines and meta crawlers exist, most of them are powered by one of these “major” engines. Here is a quick rundown of who powers who.
KinderStart Becomes KinderStopped In Lawsuit Against Google
I love this title – “KinderStart Becomes KinderStopped…” coined by Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Watch Blog where he reports that Kinderstart.com has lost their case against Google over rankings. They do have the opportunity to amend defamation claims relating to its PageRank zero score by September 29th but it is unlikely that a move like that will be successful.
Opt Out of DMOZ Descriptions at Google
Are you tired of seeing your Open Directory descriptions show up in the Google SERPs? Well now you have a choice. Google has finally added support for the NOODP tag. MSN was the first to recognize this tag as I wrote about in May. Now Google follows suit.
Google AdWords Adjusts Landing Page Quality Scores
Google has updated their landing page quality scoring system for AdWords in order to provide a better user experience for those who actually click the ads. This change will target advertisers whose ads lead to a poor user experience. The result is that their minimum bids will increase. What constitutes a poor user experience? Mostly landing pages that consist of nothing but ads or have very little content along with a bunch of ads.
Business.com Bass Ackwards Use of “nofollow” Attribute
Via Threadwatch, it appears that Business.com has attached the rel=”nofollow” attribute to its editorial listings. At the same time, paid listings (the ones that have four additional links underneath them) do not have the rel=”nofollow” attribute. A bit of a controversial move on Business.com’s part seeing that this attribute was originally intended for paid links and not editorial type of links.
Is W3C Selling PageRank Or Just Thanking Supporters?
Via Barry Swartz at Search Engine Watch Blog comes the news that you can get a PR9 link at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) web site in which they will also list you on an additional page that has a PR7. How much? If you make a contribution of $1,000 or more, you can be listed on this page which boasts a Google Pagerank of 9. The link is not permanent but renewable annually. Additionally they will add you to this page which boasts a Google PageRank of 7.
Aaron Wall Develops Market Research Extension for Firefox
A new extension is available for the Firefox browser called SEO For Firefox. It has been developed by Aaron Wall, famous for his SEOBook e-book publication and also his half ownerership of Threadwatch, a popular blog style forum. According to Jason Lee Miller of Web Pro News, The tool pulls data from a number of sources to offer search engine marketers “a more holistic view of the competitive landscape.”
