Category Archives: Latest News

Apr 08

YouTube Announces Streaming; Competes with Netflix

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If this post comes across as slightly political, I apologize; the eminent shut down of the federal government of the United States has been on my mind (and little else) all day.

YouTube (which, remember, is owned by Google) announced today that the video website will begin offering live streaming. This means it will be easier for people to watch live television and other programs from their computers (which they’re already doing) and from their televisions (which, more and more of, are directly connected to the Internet). Right now, YouTube.com/Live isn’t offering much; but it has the potential to eventually broadcast sporting events, TV shows, news, movies, and other programs (past and present).

Currently, Netflix pretty much owns the video streaming industry. Hulu is another player, with a greater focus on television shows (compared to Netflix whose focus is centered on movies). There has been some debate in these past years about what the future will bring with these two (Netflix and Hulu) video streamers and what format will win out.

Viewing via Hulu, for instance, is most often done through a browser (although, since it utilizes Flash, can only be viewed on Apple products by downloading the app, which requires a membership), while Netflix is usually done through some other software (which has to be downloaded to a device before being able to watch). YouTube, however, is already accessible by practically any mobile device or browser-enabled television or console (like the Playstation 3).

Despite my aversion to Google taking over one more industry (they’re everywhere) I think this is a great idea. At the crux of what many people hope for in a free-market society (this is where I get political; apologies) is the idea of competition. By adding another player to the battle between Netflix and Hulu (and I think Blockbuster has been trying to get in on the action) this will hopefully increase competition and innovation, all while lowering prices and cost to the consumer (as they compete for customers).

We’ll have to wait and see how this all plays out, but I am excited to finally be living in the future. I mean, you can watch movies and TV from practically anywhere in the world.

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Apr 05

GoDaddy CEO Kills an Elephant; Reaffirms Public’s Short Attention Span

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The CEO of GoDaddy, Bob Parsons, goes to Zimbabwe every year to kill an elephant. While he may be motivated by the chest-thumping, testosterone-building, inadequacy-overcompensating thrill that comes from big game hunting, he (allegedly) is also motivated by a desire to help the local people.

Apparently, elephants will occasionally trample through a village’s crops at night, destroying them and affecting the food supply. Not only does killing the elephant stop the crop destruction, but it also provides additional resources to the village – who use every part of the elephant.

There was a bit of an uproar after Parsons posted a video of his latest elephant-killing adventure online. He responded, saying he respected the feelings of those who were angry with him, but that he certainly didn’t regret what he had done. In addition to the token PETA protest, many other individuals were demanding all GoDaddy customers – anyone who has a domain registered through GoDaddy – move their websites elsewhere. Some domain registrars capitalized on this by offering discounts – bringing in additional clientele and generating revenue for charity.

The fervor surrounding this incident peaked around April 2nd and now, a few days later, has almost completely disappeared. The public has moved on to more important things – like Dancing With The Stars and March Madness. I doubt the exposure had much, if any, negative effect on GoDaddy’s business or bottom line.

But regardless of whether you’re on Team Parsons or Team Elephant, you should think twice about moving your domain from GoDaddy. If you don’t do it right, you may actually damage your search rankings by switching hosts, IP addresses, servers, or DNS. Google has provided details on how you would make the switch, but do so at your own risk.

However, if you are a principled, animal-loving person and want to take a stand, go ahead a switch over. But a year from now when you’re wondering why you’re not registered with GoDaddy anymore, try to remember how horrible it was that Bob Parsons killed an elephant.

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Mar 30

Five reasons Lindsay Lohan should be reading PMIinternet.com

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The following is a guest post by Susan Jennings, who blogs about all things celebrity, health, skin care, and medications for AccessRX.com.

There are plenty of people out there who would benefit from checking in with PMIinternet.com regularly. But one in particular could clearly use their services. Here’s five reasons why Lindsay Lohan should bookmark this site:

  1. To get an online makeover. Lohan has some serious image problems right now. Between being accused of stealing a $2,500 necklace, multiple DUI’s and plenty of family drama, a search of Lindsay Lohan online nets juicy (but pretty embarrassing) results. By checking in on PMI regularly, Lohan would find useful articles on how she can highlight the positives (like how funny she was in “Mean Girls”) and downplay the negatives (like how she painted obscenities on her fingernails during a recent court date. Who does that?!). She’d also learn that her plan to legally drop “Lohan” from her name is a bad one from an online search perspective. Contrary to what she might believe, she’s not the only Lindsay on the planet.
  2. To look into a new career. Lohan’s career prospects are not looking too hot right now. She was just dropped from the movie “Inferno,” in which she was supposed to play porn star Linda Lovelace. And, given her uncertain availability in the near future – not to mention her erratic behavior – it’s not clear that anyone in Hollywood will be rushing to cast her. Long story short, she needs to start looking at other options for what to do with her life. Since she’s grown accustomed to a pretty posh lifestyle, whatever route she chooses will need to be lucrative, which is where PMI’s Real Estate Consulting comes in. According to PMI, more millionaires have been made through real estate than any other business venture in the world. Lohan already has the advantage of being familiar with high-end homes in Los Angeles, the tools and professional resources PMI offers would just give her that extra boost. She could change her motto from “drink, drink, drink!” to “sell, sell, sell!”
  3. To get a convenient education. If Lohan does end up in jail or on house arrest, she’ll have plenty of time to re-evaluate her career and possibly take a few courses. Since we’re guessing whatever ankle monitor she’ll probably have to wear won’t let her drive to the nearest community college, she’ll need to find instruction from the convenience of her living room (or prison library). Lucky for her, PMI offers Internet Business Consulting lead by working professionals. If she chooses to launch her own jewelry or nail polish line, or just wants to work on LindsayLohan.com she’ll have the help of Internet experts right at her (hopefully) obscenity-free fingertips. PMI’s Education Program would cater to Lohan’s schedule and her classroom would come to her.
  4. To be coached. PMI not only wants to help clients achieve their financial goals, they also want to improve their client’s outlook on life. And who needs a more positive outlook than young Lohan, who keeps trying to find happiness at the bottom of a bottle. If Lohan were to decide to spruce up her website, start an online business, or try her hand at real estate, PMI offers expert coaches who can guide her through the whole process and help her avoid costly mistakes. With her coach’s help, Lohan would be able to afford all the fancy jewelry and resort-style rehab she could ever ask for.
  5. To be entertained. Watching movies and TV all day might be depressing for someone who’s movie career is in limbo and aimlessly surfing the web is probably pretty horrifying for someone who is fodder for so much negative gossip. To be safe, she should stick with positive or useful sites, like PMIinternet.com where she’ll find money-saving tips (like how to borrow and loan e-Books) or spiritual guidance (like how she can friend the pope on Facebook). She’ll even be able to read about how other troubled celebrities are making the most of their recent meltdowns (looking at you, Charlie Sheen).
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Mar 29

Teens who see on Facebook all the fun their friends are having while they sit alone in their parent’s dark basement may be depressed.

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It turns out that sitting in front of the computer for hours on social networking sites – like Facebook, Twitter, and others – watching the exciting lives of your friends and family unfold before you while you sit at home, alone and eat reheated pizza may lead to depression (especially if your’e a teenager, apparently).

Not only does Facebook allow users to access the various details of their friends’ lives, but teens who spend inordinate amounts of time on the site often do so at the cost of enough sleep, adequate exercise, and offline interaction.

The fact of the matter is, being a teenager is depressing. It’s an extremely competitive and self-conscious time all of us must pass through so we can one day look back on our teen years with disgust – which is the only motivation still keeping us from devolving back into that teen lifestyle.

And this “new” finding – relating depression to social media use – even resulted in real doctors (an adolescent psychiatrist is quoted in the previously linked article) giving earth-shattering advice as to how to help teens who may be affected by this depression, like:

  • Parents should be involved in their children’s lives.
  • Parents should limit the amount of time their children are spending on the Internet.
  • Parents should help their children understand the important of balance in one’s life and not spending too much time devoted to one thing.
  • Parents should encourage their children to participate in activities (whether in school or outside of school) like music, sports, or charity groups.
  • Parents should strive to communicate with their children so they feel comfortable discussing any problems they may have.

If a parent isn’t already doing these things – regardless of how much time their child is spending on the Internet – that might be enough right there to make a kid depressed.

But to bring it all together – social media sites can be a great resource to build relationships and build businesses, but we all need to be careful of how it’s affecting other aspects of our lives.

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Mar 22

You Can Be Facebook Friends with The Vatican

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Sort of.

The Catholic Church has established a Facebook page for the beatification of John Paul II, which will officially take place May 11, 2011. Although perhaps the page is just to honor the late Pope. It’s really unclear.

First of all, from a technical perspective, the URL ends with /vatican.johnpaul2. This is fine if the page will always be about John Paul II, but if the Vatican decides to make another page for another Pope, or event, or cause, they’ll have to start from scratch.

Secondly, from a message perspective, all of the information on the page discusses the event of the actual beatification – dates, times, links to watch, etc. There’s even a tab labeled “The Event,” even though – at least in Facebook lingo – it’s not actually an event. So is it a page or is it an event?

Lastly, from an overall perspective, I’m not really sure what the point is. Is the Vatican just trying to get people to watch the online stream of the Pope’s beatification? Are they trying to build an homage to a former leader? Are they trying to build an online reputation and presence which they can then utilize in the future?

The answer may actually be none of the above. Perhaps they just heard about social media and how everyone should have a Facebook page and just signed up. It’s possible they don’t really care about capitalizing on what social networking has to offer and just thought they’d put it out there and see what happens.

Now, if you have the sort of loyalty and following the Vatican already has, you can do that. You can try a lot of different stuff out and see what sticks, knowing there will likely be several thousands of people who will support it no matter what.

However, if you’re a small business, or even a large business without a prominent brand, you can’t take those kinds of risks. It’s better to take a more calculated approach to your social media strategy in order to capitalize on what’s out there.

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Mar 02

The Possible Death of Content Farms

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Content farms have taken a hit after Google changed the algorithms recently.

Image by Jon Flawed

The era of content farms ranking well in search results may be coming to an end. Google announced last week they had made some changes to their algorithms, with the goal of reducing:

rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful.

While they didn’t name names, I’m sure we’re all aware of the sites that seem to have an article or two listed in search results, regardless of the search terms. Two website that have seemed to pop up a lot for me are eHow.com and wisegeek.com – although you may have others you’ve encountered.

These content farms generate huge amounts of articles, based on various search terms and keywords, hoping to bring in web traffic which is then converted into ad revenue. I’ve actually written for some of these sites before, and if your content submission doesn’t fit their specific guidelines (guidelines based solely on keywords, search algorithms, and other SEO strategies – not quality content) your submission gets denied and you have to try again.

These guidelines, therefore, creates content that is not especially helpful or unique. Many articles are copied from other content (also called “scraping”) or are simply low-quality articles generated quickly to fit very narrow criteria.

So what does this all mean?

Well, these algorithm changes have affected 12 percent of queries, according to Google. And when you’re talking about millions of searches, 12 percent is quite a bit – with more likely to be affected in the future. So, more often than before, your search results won’t list mindless drivel, pounded into keyboards by drooling monkeys.

Instead, you’ll find more quality content, written by people who actually know what they’re talking about. Google will reward those websites that put time and effort into their content and provide users with the experience they’re actually looking for.

And as for all those sites that have been negatively affected by what Google has done, this is what they have to say.

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Feb 23

Santorum – Some SEO Team’s Hopeless Endeavor

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Rick Santorum is facing some SEO difficulties after Dan Savage played a little prank on him 8 years ago.

Image by John Goode

Warning: This blog post tangentially references – although doesn’t directly link to or explicitly discuss – something some may find offensive. If you have delicate sensibilities coupled with an insatiable curiosity, please abandon this post and go back to Facebook.

Back in 2003, then-Senator Rick Santorum made some comments regarding homosexuality to which some people took offense. Dan Savage – an openly gay sex columnist and humorist – took issue with these statements and decided to hold a contest where users could submit ideas to (re)define the term “santorum” with the purpose of associating the Senator’s name with something unsettling. A winner was chosen and a Google Bomb was used to forever associate the term and the surname.

(Again, if you have delicate sensibilities, do not search for “santorum” or “Rick Santorum.” You have been warned.)

With the former Senator considering a 2012 Presidential run, some have wondered if this association could potentially harm his chances. Searching for his last name alone returns several results about the sexual neologism, while searching for his first and last name returns a much cleaner – although not perfect – result.

The fact of the matter is, Rick Santorum will likely never escape this reference. First of all, the current top two results are Wikipedia pages – the first being for the individual (which has a sub-entry for the very issue being discussed) and the second being about the term. So what does an SEO team do? Try to push down both Wikipedia pages?

But add to the permanence of the Internet the fact that there are people who are actively working against him, and the task of removing this blemish from the search results becomes pretty much impossible. (Not to mention the whole Streisand effect of it all.) I don’t know if there is an SEO team skilled enough – short of maybe a Google insider who can ban certain sites – to get Rick Santorum a clean SERP.

So what lesson is there to be learned from all of this, especially for those who may one day find themselves in the same situation as Rick Santorum? I’m not sure, other than to remember that powerful people are powerful, the Internet is permanent, and one comment can have lasting results. Dan Savage has a huge following and as this whole issue resurfaces, other prominent people have been discussing it (including one Stephen Colbert) so it’s likely not going anywhere.

As for those of us who study SEO for a living or who have websites we want to promote, maybe the best strategy is to just let a famous person know about it – and hopefully they’ll have nice things to say.

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Feb 17

J.C. Penney Gets Caught Breaking Google’s Rules

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Google, if you’re reading this, know that I love you and need you and I want to remain friends.

Google dings J.C. Penney because they were trying to stick it to the man.

Image by pputz2001

J.C. Penney, if you’re also reading this, know that’s I’m on your side and am a very big fan of cuff links.

That being said, J.C. Penney was recently busted by Google for gaming the system in order to get better organic search results. Let’s be clear; J.C. Penney’s did nothing illegal or immoral or unethical. They simply displeased the gods at Google by not following Google’s rules.

One factor which contributes to a websites ranking is how many incoming links it has – that is, how many other sites are linking to your site. While one link from a big website – like the New York Times or the White House – will help your results, so will hundreds of links from smaller websites. Allegedly, J.C. Penney (through the SEO firm they hired) either paid hundreds of these websites to link to their site or created websites for the express purpose of linking to J.C. Penney (or both).

Google says these tactics skew what would otherwise be more accurate and helpful search results, and therefore have punished J.C. Penney. The retail company claims they had no idea these “black hat” (as they are called) tactics were being used and are in the process of remedying the situation.

So what does it all mean? As I mentioned, there’s nothing wrong with what J.C. Penney allegedly did other than it’s against Google’s rules. And while I support Google’s vision to create perfect search results and while J.C. Penney was (knowingly or not) gaming the system , I say good for J.C. Penney.

J.C. Penney is by no means a small business, but I always like seeing someone stirring things up. Google is a giant, and because of their grandeur they feel like they can set whatever rules they want and everyone just has to sit back and follow them. Well, we may depend on you for our financial well being, Google, but that doesn’t mean we have to be happy about it.

The moral of the story isn’t to break the rules and try to beat the system (as good as that may feel when its successful). The moral is to keep trying new things and pushing the envelope, seeing what works and what can improve your search results. And if you have to wear a few black hats along the way, so be it.

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Feb 15

Telling Google Which Sites to Block

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Google is going to let users tell it which sites need to be blocked.

Image by thecrazyfilmgirl

The geniuses at Google have come up with a cutting-edge algorithm, taking user-specific inputs and generating better search results.

That algorithm? They’ve started asking people what sites they don’t want to see.

A new chrome extension will allow users to add sites they don’t want listed in their search results. This is in direct response to Google’s initiative to target content farms in their results. The idea is that if enough people begin listing similar sites – especially the kinds that generate thousands of SEO-rich articles every day – Google may consider dinging them a bit in the search results. After all, real people are the ones using these search engines, so you might as well give them what they want.

While this a great feature and I’m excited for it’s potential results, I don’t think I’ll be using it to block content farms. Oddly enough, I don’t really remember encountering them all that often. I think content farms are more of a nuisance for people who are trying to rank better for certain terms – online businesses, e-commerce, niche websites, etc. The average user is just trying to find good content, regardless of where it’s from.

I think a more useful purpose for this extension is to block all those sites I know have nothing worth reading. I, for instance, could not care less about celebrity news. I don’t care about who’s in rehab or who wore it best or the latest gossip. So my blocked list will consist of TMZ.com and People.com and other journalistic atrocities.

And maybe this will be the beginning of a revolution. Maybe enough people will block those websites that add no real value to society that they’ll go out of business. Their deceptive headlines and tricks will be a thing of the past.

So get the extension and start blocking! Let’s make the Internet void of dreck!

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Feb 09

AOL Buys Huffington Post – Content Remains King

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With AOL buying The Huffington Post, it seems they may be switching their focus to generating more content.

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On February 7, AOL announced it had acquired the Huffington Post for $315 million. After the initial shock of realizing AOL was still around, and then after the subsequent shock that AOL had $315 million to throw around, people started wondering what all of this meant.

Perhaps the biggest tell of why this was just an important purchase for AOL was their announcement that Huffington Post co-founder Arianna Huffington would be the editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which will contain several of AOL’s content properties. AOL already owns several blogs – Engadget, TechCrunch, and others – but, in my mind, what they’re really paying for is to have that Greek mind at their helm.

And although it’s come under some scrutiny lately, in the online world content is king. The Huffington Post has thousands of articles and continues to produce more on a wide variety of topics. They have more than 30 RSS feeds covering various topics – news, politics, sports, comedy, fashion, art, travel, local cities, etc. They have also been at the forefront of implementing new technologies, social networking, and other tools to promote their website. They’re able to generate tons of content while focusing both on niche markets and general interests.

In other words, they’re content farm disguised as a news site, reaping all the benefits of being a content farm. They’re able to bring in huge amounts of online traffic in part because of their quality content (and yes, some of it is quality) but also because whether it’s text, video, photos, or other media, they’re able to utilize keywords, meta tags, site authority, and much more to improve their search results – capitalizing on certain keywords and topics.

Perhaps calling The Huffington Post a content farm is unfair, especially because that term still has yet to land a standard definition. But for what wikipedia defines as a “news site,” The Huffington Post sure is able to generate a lot of non-news-related traffic. If there’s one thing that AOL needs, it’s a lot more traffic heading their way. And if anyone knows how to do that, it’s Ms. Huffington.

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