Paid / Sponsored links receive PageRank punishment

Just like when high-profile people tend to get harsher penalties for crimes, so as to get the message across, so have some high-profile websites been punished for (seemingly) offering paid sponsored linking. I'm sure Google has no problem with a single site sponsoring another, but it is looking like SearchEngineGuide should've known better!

http://www.searchengineguide.com/ - was PR7, now PR4 - and just look at all the paid links at the bottom of their home page...

Sites link Engadget and Problogger have also suffered major PR drops, possibly related to not using the nofollow tag for affiliate links and links to sites in their network.

Other sites have suffered due to having a product (ie StatCounter) that includes a link back to their site. Or receiving hundreds of links (ie newspaper sites) from a site like Digg. This is a major step forward for Google and their PageRank invention.

PREDICTION: The first 3 sites mentioned above sites (more listed here) will change the offending links to have the "nofollow" tag and will then get their old PR restored - and webmasters throughout the universe will start abiding by Google's rules, whether they were in similar jeopardy or not

Google settles American Blind & Wallpaper case for $0

"As long as Google does not change its trademark policy, American Blind & Wallpaper Factory will drop its suit, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by internetnews.com.

"We are very pleased with this outcome and to note that Google has not paid and will not be paying any settlement fee, our trademark policies remain unchanged, and we've made no special exceptions for American Blind," Google managing counsel Michael Kwun told internetnews.com. " More...

Google: How Google News Works

Google have created a "Blue Booklet" that details how Google News works, including:

There are two parts to the ranking process, Cohen said. First, the human-written algorithms compare the number of instances across the web that a particular news subject is appearing over a given period of time. That process, said Cohen, includes "who's publishing it, how often, what original content is being produced on that, and where is it on the website -- is it above the photo next to the big photo on the page?" Thus at this stage, Google news essentially factors in the news judgement of editors who have decided on story placement and headline and photo size on a web page.

"That is the cluster part of it and then there is the ranking in that cluster of an original source," said Cohen. "What we are trying to get is local sources, trusted sources."

As a story's ages across the web, another key factor figures in how much prominence it is given by Google News, Cohen said -- how frequently it gets "clicked" by Google users. A story which might have begin a few lines down in a subject ranking will start to move up if users ignores its ranking and click on it more frequently than the stories above it. Or a particular news source may be interpreted to be more trusted by users who favor it in their clicking, causing it to rise up up in rankings on that basis.

"If a user bypasses that first source and goes down to the third source, that tells you something about the user's trust in a given story," says Cohen. "The ranking is variable on a story by story basis."

Orkut bigger than Facebook!

Strange but true, all because of the 15.6 billion page views monthly in Brazil, where it is quite the phenomenon, despite little promotion activity down that way, it just kinda happened.

Looks like the name was a big help down there, being a Portuguese name. Perhaps the stupid name is what has held it back elsewhere? Why not call it Google Buddies?

In total Orkut receives "38.2 billion page views a month worldwide, 7.8 billion more than Facebook, according to comScore Media Metrix." Consequently it is being relaunched elsewhere, with a facelift and some multimedia enhancements.

More at Forbes

Google CFO retires

And who can blame him!

At 53 he might have many years ahead in which to spend his hard-earned income:

"raised his salary from $250,000 to $450,000 this year and having given him a $1.19 million compensation last year. By the end of 2006 Reyes personally held 51,750 stock options valued at an exercise price of $5 apiece."

It's the stock options that make everything so sweet: if he converts them he gets roughly $25 million

Google Will Remove Street Views Faces / Plates

If your licence plate, or your face, appear on the Street Views section of Google Maps, they will remove it upon request.

Surely the correct action on Google's part would be to remove all of them. If someone/s privacy was compromised in some way due to appearing on Google, it might only be when it is too late that they learn it was there.

Black and White Logo Trick

Visit Google's home page, type in 'make google logo black and white', and click on the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button, to see what magically happens (you can probably guess...)

Google Storage for Sale

Soon they will have all your personal/private data on their servers. Why? Because we will want to access it from different devices and locations, and using Google will be easier (and perhaps cheaper) than syncing your devices.

Example, you are at your friend's place, you want to show them an old photo, you turn on their internet widescreen tv and log into your Google account, enter the appropriate tag and there it is. No portable media player required, and no recharging it either.

Prices are $2-3 per GB/yr. For some products, like Gmail, the free storage is more than adequate for most people... at present. But Google is smart enough to know that with time the storage needs of everyone will grow.

More...

Why Did Google Answers End? An Insider's Answer

Someone asked this question at Uclue, which was a good place to ask, because:

There are currently 43 former Google Answers Researchers registered at Uclue. And realistically, that represents most, if not all, of the Researchers who remained active to the end of Google Answers.

Part of the answer reads:

The GARs who remained until the end, and put up with the failed email notification system (which was supposed to notify customers of activity on their questions, but stopped doing so), and who watched with disbelief when Google took their primary link for Google Answers off of their list of 'More' services, felt that Google Answers might fail simply because it was not only not being promoted and well-maintained, but the opposite seemed to be occurring. Repairs to the system were slower in coming, if they were
made at all. Communication between GARs and Google Answers administrators
dropped off as newsletters decreased in frequency and responses to email
consisted increasingly of only canned replies.

So, in the long run, it seemed clear to the GARs that Google Answers
failed precisely because it was increasingly a non-priority for those who
had developed it, and they were putting their attention elsewhere. It
seemed that it was no longer the shiny, new experiment of two new and
excited software engineers, but a now-familiar distraction from new and
different projects, which simply wasn't worth the time and effort to repair
or maintain.