Matt Cutts: Text links and PageRank... a warning....

Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO Text links and PageRank "let me talk about why we consider it outside our guidelines to get PageRank via buying links.

Google (and pretty much every other major search engine) uses hyperlinks to help determine reputation. Links are usually editorial votes given by choice, and link-based analysis has greatly improved the quality of web search. Selling links muddies the quality of link-based reputation and makes it harder for many search engines (not just Google) to return relevant results. When the Berkeley college newspaper has six online gambling links (three casinos, two for poker, and one bingo) on its front page, it’s harder for search engines to know which links can be trusted...

what is Google’s current approach to link buying? Of course our link-weighting algorithms are the first line of defense, but it’s difficult to catch every problem case in adversarial information retrieval, so we also look for problems and leaks in different semi-automatic ways. Reputable sites that sell links won’t have their search engine rankings or PageRank penalized–a search for [daily cal] would still return dailycal.org. However, link-selling sites can lose their ability to give reputation (e.g. PageRank and anchortext).

What if a site wants to buy links purely for visitor click traffic, to build buzz, or to support another site? In that situation, I would use the rel=”nofollow” attribute. The nofollow tag allows a site to add a link that abstains from being an editorial vote. Using nofollow is a safe way to buy links, because it’s a machine-readable way to specify that a link doesn’t have to be counted as a vote by a search engine."

So, not OK to sell to pass reputation, OK to sell for traffic....

Google launches cinema tool -

Google launches cinema tool - Web User News Give users what they want then monetise school of thought as opposed to all we get is bloody poor traffic searching for cinemas...

: "Google users can find UK cinema showtimes using a new feature available on the web and mobile phones.

By adding the words 'showtime' or 'films' to a search query, the new Google Films facility will display cinema times at the top of the results. Eg Madagascar showtimes SE1 9LS, displays show times at cinemas near SE1 9LS.

An SMS version is also available, which will text you the showtimes at local cinemas of a film you're interested in. Text the film title and postcode to 64664 and Google will text back the reply. Normal network text rates apply.

Google Films is the latest feature that extends the search engine to the mobile phone, with similar text query services available from Google for driving directions, product prices and more.

Searchers will also get links to film reviews and an overall star rating generated from the concensus of critics around the web. You can also search for films by actor, director and even plot, eg film: tom hanks talks to volleyball, produces results for Castaway. "

View topic - Webmasters Behaving Badly :: WebProWorld

View topic - Webmasters Behaving Badly :: WebProWorld: "From what i have seen adsense and adwords tend to bring out the worst in webmasters.

E.g. clicking on adwords ads paid for by competitors, clicking on your own adsense ads and as recently discussed, using the company names of your competitors in your adwords ads, using their good name to lure people to your site.

Why does adsense in particular have this effect on people? Is it all to do with the money? Or do people like the challenge of cheating google?
What further measures can be taken to combat webmasters behaving badly"

Search Guys Really Don't Talk to the Ad Guys, Do They?

Traffick - Internet Search Enlightenment: "Geez, the Search Guys Really Don't Talk to the Ad Guys, Do They?

Anyone in the SEO game is by now reading Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO blog, and well they should. The 'real insider Googleplex scoop' is so often what emanates from Matt - and for those of us who don't get to 'that part' of the conferences, it's really illuminating reading.

I did scratch my head at Matt's helpful post about how to write queries. 'At Google,' he writes, 'we use [ and ] to mark the beginning and end of queries.'

Those of us over here in paid search world, of course, think [ and ] refer to an exact match in the AdWords interface."

Google Techs, Entrepreneurs Match Wits

E-Commerce News: Portals & Search: "Efforts to outsmart Google gall some webmasters such as Shari Thurow, who believes the best way to increase a site's search engine ranking is to offer valuable content and products. She describes the Black Hats as 'pathetic algoholics' because they are so obsessed with trying to figure out Google's algorithms.

Google knows it can't entirely avoid Black Hats.

"There are people who make their entire living off of Google, which is fine, as long as they don't push things too far," said Peter Norvig, Google's director of search quality.

But he said webmasters searching for secrets are better off looking elsewhere.

"Everything you ever wanted to know about Google is right there on the [online] forums that the webmasters run," Norvig said. "There is a lot of truth in there, but there's also a lot of crazy stuff. We just don't tell them which is which." "

Google Loosing Ground in China

Google Loosing Ground in China - Forbes.com: "A survey by a Chinese Internet research group has found that Google is losing market share to its biggest Chinese rival, Web search engine Baidu.com. "

Google Seeks to Develop Parallel Internet?

Slashdot | Google Seeks to Develop Parallel Internet?: "Google appears to be purchasing dark (unused) fiber optic cable across the United States with the intention of building its own alternative parallel internet that would presumably be called GoogleNet. Possessing such a thing could allow Google to offer internet access in the form of free wifi or other means and create a powerful captive marketing audience which Google could monopolize. Outside of these marketing opportunities, such a development in infrastructure could help reduce Google's long-term content delivery costs were it to take on more bandwidth-intensive activities in the future.' "

Google Groups : SEM 2.0

Google Groups : SEM 2.0: "RE sadness over Google messing with organic search: I'm reminded of the comment by a dot-com exec to a journalist, circa 1999, when asked if he was going to 'sell out' to a megacompany: ''Sell out?' This is a business, not a rock band! Of course I'm going to sell out!'

Google's IPO was their way of saying that it's a business, not a rock band. Nothing in business is sacrosanct, and I expect the public will catch on before too long. "

New Google Search Engine Results to Include Additional Site Links?

New Google Search Engine Results to Include Additional Site Links?: "The Google search engine results pages have remained relatively constant from a 'look and feel' perspective for some time. That is: title tag of the resultant site is listed first - hyperlinked to the entry - then a portion of the page or body text with the search term(s) bolded in the text - then the proper URL of the entry - followed by the file size and date.
.....

I searched under the phrase 'Top 10 Web Hosting'. It was then that I saw something that I had never before seen in a Google search engine result. In addition to the 'standard' search engine result as described above, there were 2 additonal lines of hyperlinked text...the first additional line contained four additional anchor text links (Partner5 - Web Designers - ASP Web Hosting - Partner2). Each link was directing to a separate page. Now instead of the 'standard' single URL/single link listing, I was looking at a single listing that was linking out to 5 separate pages. The last line of the search result (More results) linked to to the following Google search: 'site:www.top10webhosting.com top 10 web hosting'. This search shows the entirety of Google indexed pages for the site....

According to my search engine expert sources, this is typical of a 'test' that Google conducts from time to time. It may or may not indicate that the changes will become permanent. However, it is often the case that proposed changes will appear in this 'test' mode prior to a system-wide rollout.

It appears that the links in the first additional line are being scraped/spidered from the original listing page. I surmise this as the title tags of the linked pages are slightly different in syntax than the anchor text of the SERP links. However, the anchor text and links from the original result page (standard listing page) are identical to the anchor text and links in the additional line.

Will Google be creating multiple links per result across all listings soon? What would the listing for a site that has dozens of subcategories and sub pages (like eBay) look like under this paradigm? Will webmasters scramble to groom their internal links from their homepages - adding new anchor text and links? No one knows for sure, but it is interesting to see this type of test appearing at this time"