5 For Friday — Links, Stories & Posts For Your Weekend
January 20th, 2012 by
Why SOPA Is Going to Screw us All The Movie – Gizmodo
The biggest thing happening in technology this week is far and away the backlash against SOPA and PIPA. If you somehow missed the issue or need a refresher, check out the 10 minute video below, promoted via the Gizmodo page linked above or this Forbes article. Basically, Congress is trying to protect intellectual property in the United States with a bill that many people think will interfere with the safety and or architecture of the internet, and bring about the possibility of rather arbitrary government demands that sites be shut down or prevent transactions via court order. The blackouts seem to have been very effective. According to Reuters, Congress recently balked at the issue.
Pages With Too Many Ads “Above The Fold” Now Penalized By Google’s “Page Layout” Algorithm – Search Engine Land
Have you ever seen a site with ads all over the place? So much so that you didn’t know where the actual links of interest were (‘fess up, torrent-heads)? Google ain’t feeling it. Search Engline Land recently announced this algorithm change which will unbelievably penalize those good folks over at MegaUpload, FilesTube and others.
Google helps doctors track flu season: How? – CBS News
Google is doing some pretty gnarly information-gathering with regard to public health. The flu trends page is a map of geographic locations which and their flu-related search activity. According to the CBS post, researchers at Johns Hopkins have found useful correlations in tracking the flu. For now on, if you get the flu, it’s your civic duty to Google the word flu 10 times that day.
What to Do When You Need Boring Content to Rank Well in Competitive SERPs – Whiteboard Friday – SEO Moz
The SEOmoz blog published an interesting Whiteboard Friday today about how to make your boring but necessary content rank well. One of my favorite strategies is to combine the good content with the sales-oriented boring content. If your website ranks well for relevant terms that aren’t turning into conversions because the popular page doesn’t have the sales information, try this tactic and see what happens.
Why Google’s Biggest Problem with ‘Search Plus Your World’ Isn’t Antitrust – Time
This is interesting piece in time discusses Google’s new service, Google Search Plus Your World. Many say that the new service violates anti-trust laws by placing it’s own product ahead of others in certain search results. According to this writer, that’s not the case, as “Google is not violating antitrust law, first and foremost, because it does not have a monopoly on search,” and its biggest problem to worry about is user dissatisfaction. While I have recently been skeptical about the former there may be something to be said for the latter.
