Would you ever confuse breast milk with pork? The National Pork Board apparently thinks people will and has threatened to sue my friend, Jennifer Laycock, over a shirt that is being sold to help raise money for the non-profit milk banks. The shirt reads “The Other White Milk. “The National Pork Board feels it violates their trademark “the other white meat.” Give me a break! How does pork have anything to do with milk or breastfeeding for that matter?
Have you noticed any changes in the way Google search engine results pages look when searching for local businesses? They just announced today the closer integration of maps, address and contact info and even reviews of local business when they detect a local search query. In fact, Google states that we will see this kind of information every time we search for a place, business, or other local information. In addition to providing the basic contact information and map locations for several choices at the top of the page, they will also show ratings and provide one-click access to reviews.
Jeff Behrendt of Aviva Directory has conducted an in-depth interview with Greg Hartnett, president of best of the Web, one of the oldest and most trusted directories on the Internet. In the interview, Greg talks about Best of the Web’s past, present and future.
Michael Gray (Graywolf) writes an excellent post highlighting two areas of hypocrisy currently practiced by Google – the nofollow tag and paid reviews by bloggers. He points out that Google is using fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) to corral web publishers to their way of thinking. No doubt that when Google is responsible for 50% or more of your web traffic they can easily bully webmasters into submission.
At least that is what Dave Pasternack of Did-it.com is saying. Yes he has stuck his foot in his mouth once again. Are you tired yet of hearing from this guy? I know I am. In this latest DM News article, he answers a series of questions, one of which he compares SEO to baking a cake. Sound foolish? Wait, there’s more.
Google has made some changes to its AdSense policy, some minor but another that may have a major impact on many publishers. Jennifer Slegg provides a detailed run-down of the changes at JenSense. The minor changes deal with their referral program, using images next to ad units, AdSense for search, and copyright material. The bigger change that will impact publishers deals with their Competitive Ads and Services Policy.
Fred Vogelstein from Wired News has put together a lengthy article on how Yahoo! has blown it over the years in trying to position itself as the leader in search. The article looks at the many mistakes Yahoo!’s CEO, Terry Semel, has made along the way which to this day still has them playing catch up to their biggest rival, Google. It all began with their failure to buy the search giant back in 2002 and the cycle has continued up to today.
After speculation as to the future of DMOZ (Open Directory Project), it seems that they are accepting submissions once again. However will we see any change in the degree of difficulty many have experienced over the last few years of actually getting a site listed? Its quite possible, at least for the time being. Search Engine Journal reports that old submissions in the queue were lost during the recent crash in October. That means there are no longer thousands of old submissions sitting in a queue waiting to be reviewed. Therefore if you have been trying to get a site listed with no success, now may be the ideal time to re-submit not only because your prior submission is gone, but to also get in before DMOZ gets backlogged once again.
First there was PayPerPost which was followed by ReviewMe, both of which are relatively new services that pay bloggers to write about web sites, products, services, and even companies. Now Text Link Brokers will soon launch SponsoredReviews.com to compete with the other two. How will this new service differentiate themselves from the other two? For starters they claim to offer lower transaction fees and a bidding system. Following are a few key points the service will offer.
The BBBOnLine Reliability Program has bugged me for some time now. This is a program the Better Business Bureau (BBB) offers its members in which they can place a seal (as shown to the left) on their web site indicating they are a BBB member which then links to the company’s online profile. It requires its own fees in addition to what a company pays to be a BBB member. The program discriminates against businesses who solely conduct business online. This bothers me to no end. Let me tell you why.
