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Google Fights Child Abuse By Blocking Unique Search Terms

Category: Summary

Google Fights Child Abuse By Blocking Unique Search Terms

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Google fights child abuseMore than 100,000 unique search terms that could cause child abuse images to pop up on any given search has been blocked by Google, according to a report by SearchEngineWatch.

The move comes on the heels of calls by the government of the United Kingdom on search engines and internet service providers or ISPs for more intensified measures to combat the proliferation of illegal material online.

Aside from blocking those 100,000 unique search terms, Google, according to its executive chairman Eric Schmidt, has also added 200 personnel to its team that is exclusively tasked to hunt these child abuse images down and remove them. On top of this, Google will also send engineers to the UK’s Internet Watch Foundation and the U.S. National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Click here to read the article in full.

No More Anonymity In Search on Facebook

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no more anonymity in search on FacebookThe feature that has allowed users to remain anonymous in search on Facebook is gone. In a report for SearchEngineWatch, Carly Page says Facebook has removed its “Who can look up your Timeline by name?” security feature, and that means all Facebook users will show up in search results, regardless of who makes the search.

To explain its latest move, Facebook says the feature made Facebook “feel broken” at times, particularly when users complain about not being able to find the Facebook pages of people they know personally.

In any case, Facebook says users can still visit the privacy settings page and limit the audience they want to share posts with or choose what they want to share with others.

Click here to read the full article.

TNMOC Rescues Last Operating ICT 1301 Mainframe Computer

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early mainframe computersThe National Museum of Computing in the United Kingdom has just gotten its hands on the last operating ICT 1301 mainframe computer (not the one pictured), which endured decades of being treated as scrap before its last private owner and a group of enthusiasts restored it to working condition. David Szondy has more on the story for GizMag.

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Facebook Hashtags Not Really Working For Brands

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Facebook hashtagsBrands started using hashtags on Facebook since June in the hopes of gaining additional exposure. That, however, isn’t happening according to an article written by Jessica Lee for SearchEngineWatch.

Citing surveys conducted by Simply Measured and EdgeRank Checker, Lee says the results aren’t looking good. She showed graphs from EdgeRank Checker indicating that of the 500+ pages it studied, viral reach and engagement were down on posts with hashtags compared to posts without them.

When they compared the Facebook hashtags with those on Twitter using 50 Twitter accounts from Fortune 500 brands, about 70% of the brands saw their retweets rise when using Twitter hashtags versus not using them.

Click here to read the full article.

Improve Google Places Visibility in 12 Weeks

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improve google places visibilityA solid listing on Google Places can certainly go a long way in establishing your business as a leader in its niche in a particular location.

Getting that solid listing, however, isn’t as easy as one might think. An article posted on LocalVisibilitySystem, however, has outlined a 12-week action plan to improve Google Places visibility of any business that could prove to be very useful. Let me summarise the steps for you.

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How To Improve Bounce Rate on Your Website

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improve bounce rateIn the past, not too many website owners have paid much attention to their website bounce rate, which Google defines as the percentage of visitors who only briefly view one page of any site they visit and exit without checking its other pages.

However, now that Google has given this statistic more weight and credibility, website owners now have to work to improve bounce rate on their sites, or lose money in the process. An article by Travis Harper on DrivingTraffic shows us how to improve bounce rate.

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Google+ is the Matrix

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The Matrix - a social network

Google+ and The Matrix have a lot in common

A blog article by Charles Arthur at the Guardian talks about some interesting similarities between Google+ and the Matrix.

The Matrix has you…This is one of the iconic phrases from the movie “The Matrix”. This phrase may also be used by Google+ as it talks to you. Google+ is more than a social network.
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Beware the Penguin 2.0 – Changes to Google SEO in the coming months

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1287369_seoMatt Cutts, a member of the Search Quality team for Google, recently talked about how SEO (search engine optimisation) for Google should unfold in the coming months. What he suggested is captured below in a nutshell.

  • Addressing webspam much more comprehensively via Penguin 2.0 (rolled out on May 22).
  • Punishing advertorials violating Google’s ethical guidelines. Web owners must provide user disclosures to suggest that their links are paid and not organic.
  • Dealing sternly with traditionally spammy areas (example- pornographic queries).
  • Denying spam links more forcefully, automatically making them less effective.
  • Implementing complex techniques of link analysis.
  • Rolling out hack site detection tools to help against hack sites and those that serve malware. Hacked sites are to be expected to communicate better with webmaster tools thus discovering what method of troubleshooting to employ.
  • Punishing users working over black hat forums and spamming packages.
  • Rewarding those websites which use powerful organic content.
  • Rewarding authority sites over a particular niche (hospitality, travel, medicine). Google’s algorithms will rate sites with regularly updated, quality content higher thus helping users gather quality information more easily.
  • Helping sites that fall in the ‘grey zone’ but have been nonetheless affected by Panda (this is subject to finding a few positive signals from them).
  • Providing example URLs to webmasters in order to help them diagnose their problem better.
  • Preparing better grounds for small and medium firms to compete (who were at the receiving end of Penguin 1.0)
  • Working on result clusters for the same domain. If you see the same domain appearing in a cluster on the search results, you can expect to see that domain a lot less in the following pages. Moreover, Google will also look to relegate clusters as far from the top pages as possible.

You can watch the whole video here:

What do you think will be the single most effective change for SEO in coming months?

What you ought to figure out for a successful link building campaign

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1287370_seo_1Short term link building campaigns don’t work. Period. Erin Everhart for the Search Engine Land talks about this guy (we will keep his name John for the purpose of familiarity) who did everything great for a long while; organic content, regular posts, tweets and retweets, and natural links.

Suddenly something crazy hit John and he stopped updating his blog, stopped offering website link to Facebook posts, stopped email marketing and video management. It’s anybody’s guess- John’s website traffic momentum went for a toss. Both the unique visitor count and organic traffic suffered.

The lesson here is clear – even when you reach your traffic targets, you cannot stop your SEO campaign.  To stay on page 1, to retain your traffic volume, you have to keep doing what you’re doing.

Successful link building is a tough act to perform- a very satisfying act too when done right. You must know your target audience and the kind of resources you can pull (in terms of time, money and worker count).

Everhart says that you also need to prefigure where you want the campaign to reach finally. Also, if the conversions are happening at an ideal time- You can’t fool buyers by taking them to the ‘buy’ page when they don’t even know if you are selling goose or gander. You can read the full article here.

Are you concentrating on natural link structure, especially since the latest Penguin update?