What makes you happy ?

“Google has officially proclaimed that it doesn’t like webmasters trying to hawk their lofty PageRank status to other sites.”

Cutts also says that if webmasters want to continue selling links, Google’s not stopping them: “Webmasters are welcome to make their sites however they like, but Google in turn reserves the right to protect the quality and relevance of our index.”

Okay, so as those links are still in the sidebar (though fewer) and as you rank my site as being less important (and I never claimed it to be important anyway) and as you will be returning this domain is less search results (which you can) then how about you stop sucking the bandwidth? Every month Googlebot sucks in massive amounts of bandwidth compared to the size of the site. It leeches. Even though MY benefit drops, it still wants to suck that data. I know I can change the crawl rate in htaccess, but it should be a deal that they want less of me, I want less of them. I don’t give a damn that I have the bandwidth, it’s the f*cking principle. Less important? Visit less then.

The site I mentioned in the post below. A friend’s dad wanted a site for his business. I talked to his dad and in the end he got the domain and I set up WordPress for what he wanted. It’s not a blogging site at all - it’s a business site. It took me all of 30 mins inc the photos he wanted. It was a favour done one evening and the ‘reward’ is that one day I will call the favour in from the son - as in “I need a hand with…. I need you to help”. The dad asked how he got his site found by people so I explained how - and said I would link to him for a while which I did.
It was a business site and that link would have looked like a paid link. But it was not. So if I installed a few blogs and had in the sidebar “And here is one I made earlier” then Google are going to nail me even though they aren’t paid? That’s nice. Still, Google knows best…..

Google just nailed the PR of this site down to 4 because - and ONLY because - I have text link ads. I’ve said my bit before so I’ll not go on again. I knew it was coming.
Google do not like this because the space I sell on MY blog affects their results. They consider it irrelevant, not targeted. Okay.

One of the first anti-spam tools for WordPress was by Kitty. Essentially it said that if the spammer paid, their spam could stay. I doubt anyone paid, but hey, nice idea. I still have that code.

So - what would Google do if we allowed “text-spam-comment-ads” instead? It’s not like they can penalise for spam content in comments is it ? (Bye Bye Blogger!)

The sole consolation I have is that as a Firefox user with Adblock Plus, G-filter and CustomizeGoogle running I don’t see most ads. So much so that theirs stick out. I’m 6c off the $100 in adsense here so when that hits they will go too.

So Google, what next? You obviously think this is cracked (remember the craptacular nofollow which came about because of pagerank?) so who is the next victim?

Google is an advertising business first, last and everything in between.

At WordCamp, Matt Cutts said that all Text Link Ads were bad. I blogged about his utter hypocrisy. Yesterday the pagerank for this site was a 7. Today it is a 6. Google have decided that TLA are bad so sites with TLA will be penalised so they stop using TLA.
I’ll say that another way - Google hates competition. They will ruin competition.
Maybe another - Matt Cutts lies about the real reason because Google is greedy. Very greedy.

Other sites are apparently dropping in PR. Google have some new ads rolling soon - ads they can put their own text link ads into. So they are eliminating the competition. It’s as simple as that.
The monolith - slogan “You create, we steal” - has never been clearer. An industry was created and now they are stealing it.

An advertising company is shutting down another advertising company. No matter which way you spin it, that is what is happening.

I hope I meet Matt Cutts again. I really dislike hypocrites.

Edit: Go read that first entry I link to. There are screenshots there. Those screenshots are STILL happening. So they are almost accepting advertising from TLA to get more people to use TLA so more people and companies get angry at TLA and stop using TLA. Way to f*ing go.

Today’s search engines draw the most relevant information to our attention…

No they don’t. They present what they think is relevant not what is the most relevant. That is a significant difference.

and as more data become available online, the importance of search engines will only increase.

Possibly. People may well start to shun them in favour of more local sources and ‘word of mouth’. Bigger is not always better.

In the future, people around the world will likely look for new ways to identify the authenticity of online information sources.

But above you just said search engines will be more more important? Isn’t the job of a search engine to identify authentic sources?

The man who said the above? Vint Cerf. He works for Google. So his answers can’t really be seen as independent can they?

Top quote: That includes the ads that Google are not putting on Youtube? Relevant?

Bottom quote: Google already vets results, already exclude sites and already instantly promote sites. So they would already say their results are as good as they can currently get. Maybe we’ll have http://auth.google.com where we can check a site owner’s web browsing history (so that’s what they do with images from Perfect10), his Checkout record, his newsgroup posting behaviour. Because when he says people will be looking, what he means is Google is working on it right now.. and we all trust Google don’t we? I’m sure people in China trust their results.

That guy may well be important in the history of the internet, but right now he’s Google to the core. Given he’s an employee of the evil-free company should he be? Sure he should chant the mantra but the above is just a bit too far.

And this is amusing:

As an example: it is already a challenge to watch videos posted on the BBC website in 1997.

Imagine trying to watch the same video in 100 years. Or in one thousand years.

Google will be fixing global warming and the widely agreed time that oil will become scarce in 2050 then?

The latest measurements confirm that the world’s oil and natural gas supplies are running out too fast. At some time between 2010 and 2020 the world’s supply of oil and gas will fall below the level required to meet international demand.

The US government is aware that we are about to endure a disastrous international energy shortage. According to Dr James McKenzie, a senior member of the climate change programme at the World Resources Institute in Washington, USA: “That’s why we went to war in Iraq.” The Insider

A thousand years? I don’t think so.

Search engine propaganda.

Yesterday at WordCamp Matt Mullenweg asked Matt Cutts about Text Link Ads on blogs. I have Text Link Ads and have done for some time. I never thought that they wanted me to link because my content matched theirs - to think that is stupid. It’s Page Rank all the way and to be honest I didn’t care (still don’t) because they are paying me to occupy that small space. But because these people pay me money and those people have PR in mind Google doesn’t like it. Google’s ball park, Google’s rules and the rules are going to apparently hit sites who have these links.

So Google knock me down to a 6 or a 5. The link buyers don’t want me and go - I lose money. I decide to not renew ads to keep my PR and I lose money. It’s not a huge deal as it was never counted into any budget but I lose either way. Google does not want me to get money to promote something that would not get that exposure without the money being behind it.

So a site that does figure in their results is not allowed to try and get higher by paying a blogger for advertising space. But what about a site that does not figure at all in their results paying someone else to get not just some exposure but the most visible exposure?
Their game, their rules.

Right now it’s really easy to see the TLA but would they know if I slotted them into my blogroll? Yes, of course they would. Google has the technology to come to my site and figure out that my link to Podrunner is a genuine link but the one to some directory is not. It could penalise that directory in some way that allowed the blogger to make cash but which did not harm the PR. It has that power. But it does not want to share that pie. It wants it all and it will take it. Their games, their rules.
It’s telling of course that the very people who work for TLA will not have their sites using their own product but that is not the issue. The issue is that Google are saying that they want the ad cash and bloggers shall not be allowed it.

Do I care about PR? Yes because the cash is nice because I’m a 7. No because when I search for it I have to wade through a heap of junk to find the results I do want. And it’s not sponsored links that are causing the junk (what is does not matter right now) so if sponsored links are not impeding my experience of using Google then why hit me with that stick just because it’s an incredibly easy stick to use? How many bloggers actually use TLA? Is blogging really hurting Google (because by definition PR is Google) to the point that they do this? Is blogging - or rather a few links on well-structured sites - so powerful that Google cannot do anything else? Are they backed into a corner? No - they just cannot be bothered / don’t care / want to be greedy.

Better people than me will have dissected and argued this and this post is not going to change a damn thing but I’ve always hated hypocrisy despite Matt Cutts being a nice guy and a very entertaining speaker what came out of those last few minutes of presentation seems wrong.

(The two ’sponsored links’ above I cannot find in a Google search with 100 results for ‘text link ads’ if I block ads.)

and there’s a string of numbers there too ..

Update: That blog has been deleted by it’s owner. Slashdot has more.

I’ve been using MoinX on the Mac and it’s okay for a desktop wiki. Likeable even. But I need something that will work across two machines and is portable. I could set up some sync affair (rsync + Transmit looks cool) but that’s too complex for now. So looking around I see Google Notebook.
Did they design this in the Ugly lab and bounce it off all the Ugly desks before letting it free?
If it’s minimised it it’s like a thick slab of javascript in the bottom of the browser window.
You have to open it before using it or you might hit the Login screen (which only happened because hosted mail was checked and so broke their cookie. Why can’t Google release a checker for a personal and a hosted email account?)
The Notebook itself is … sparse. I suppose most are but this approaches the desolate/tumbleweed end of ‘less’.
Blue. It’s a watery insipid blue.

If you turned off javascript, would anything by Google work?

I wanted it to work like Evernote. Highlight, right-click, Send to. That is all. As invisible as it could get. THE best note-taking app for Windows. I’ve said it before and it’s still true - nothing else comes close, even on the mac.

I’ve installed PmWiki on here instead.

Two weeks ago the GMail Manager extension worked well - it checked my personal mail and also the freshlypressed mail. The latter is through GMail for domains. And at some point in the last week it has stopped working. It’s driven me nuts trying to find out what I was doing wrong but the old laptop had this untouched - and it does not work either. So right now it looks like I can’t remotely check an email account. Which seems a strange thing to stop. Unless it really is me.

One of the reasons I hate GMail is the loading. I have a good connection and a quick machine but from when I click to get there to being able to see the email not only takes many seconds but there is a 1-2 second patch where Firefox is unusable. It locks my browser. It’s as if all this js that must be pouring in creates a load too great for FF to cope with so all scrolling and typing must cease. Because I don’t have a window open to GMail all the time this means I actually have to take time out to use it. I have to wait to use a service that is meant to help. Google Reader is just as bad. Even with the power of Google it is slow slow slow. Maybe if they lost the cute logos between events and just had “LOADING . . . ” people would get more annoyed.