SEO Information and News Blog

Google just introduces New adsense formats

check this out

As you’ll recall, we recently introduced new formats for AdSense ads. This week, we’ve added a new dimension for publishers in customizing these ad formats. You’ve long been able to customize the size and colors of your ad units; now, you can also customize the shape by selecting between square, slightly rounded, or very rounded corners.

To get started with these new ad shapes, visit the ‘AdSense Setup’ tab in your account. As with all format options like sizes and colors, different corner styles will perform better for different publishers. We recommend that you choose the corner style that best matches the look and feel of your sites. Please keep in mind that if your page background color, ad background color, and ad border color are all the same, these new corners won’t be visible.

This new option is part of our ongoing effort to improve the look and feel of our ads. We’re also working to give you even more choices to customize your ad formats while maximizing revenue and user satisfaction. We hope you enjoy the new corner options, whether you choose to go edgy or bubbly.

Authorities are investigating who changed professional wrestler Chris Benoit’s Wikipedia entry to mention his wife’s death hours before police found the bodies of the couple and their 7-year-old son.

Benoit’s Wikipedia entry had been updated early Monday to say that the wrestler had been absent from a match two days earlier because of the death of his wife.

A Wikipedia official said Thursday that the entry was made by someone using an Internet protocol address registered in Stamford, Connecticut, where the World Wrestling Entertainment has its headquarters.

The bodies were discovered in Benoit’s home in Atlanta and Wikipedia said they do not know the origin of the posting. Benoit’s page on Wikipedia was updated just after midnight Monday, around 14 hours before the bodies were found, according to authorities.

The original posting reads,”Chris Benoit was replaced by Johnny Nitro for the ECW Championship match at Vengeance, as Benoit was not there due to personal issues, stemming from the death of his wife Nancy.”

Reporters alerted the Fayette County district attorney’s office of the Wikipedia posting Thursday, and they communicated the information to sheriff’s investigators who are looking into the matter.

On Benoit’s Wikipedia page there is a note that says editing of the entry by unregistered or newly registered users is disabled until July 8, 2007 due to vandalism.

Here is an update to this story.

Wikipedia Chris Benoit

Original post by Mike Sachoff and software by Elliott Back

Brian Retkin of domain registrar Dotworlds had been criticized for offering .USA domains for sale and spamming people with sales pitches after September 11, 2001. He has claimed Google’s links to this criticism amounts to defamation.

British Man Pushes Google On Defamation

If this case were in the US, where search engines and other websites generally can claim no responsibility over third party content, Retkin’s case probably wouldn’t make it out of a lawyer’s office. British law works a little differently.

A report in The Independent said that in Britain, the same legal protection is conditional. If a company does not have notice of a complaint and time to act upon it, they have some insulation from these claims.

Retkin has complained about online postings accusing him of running a fraudulent business appearing in Google’s search results. Though the report said Google claimed to have removed material and blacklisted links to it, a query for ‘Dotworlds registrar’ at press time turned up a mailing list post with those accusations as the top result.

Google’s response made the usual claim that the company is not responsible for the results of a query. "Google has absolutely no connection, control or ability to direct or influence the content of web pages which may be shown as links within any given set of search results," Google’s legal counsel Harjinder Obhi said in the report.

UPDATE: For commentary from Retkin, see our chat with him here.

Google, Defamation, Brian Retkin

Original post by David A. Utter and software by Elliott Back

Content, they say is king and it has been seen again and again that well written content that is updated continuously is sure to attract attention over a period of time. Initially a person may get attracted to the site by seeing just the design and layout, but it is only quality content that will retain those people on a site for along time.

Original post by Article Dashboard: Internet Business | Seo and software by Elliott Back

It’s sad to think parts of our free market economy have failed, become gummed up by the sludge of its own engine. It’s supposed to work, to drive us, keep us ahead of everyone. Only, it’s not so much anymore, the engine is aging, and though we try to wish it away, reality is setting in, even as vested storytellers perpetuate the myth to keep us wishing.

FTC Drinks The Telco Kool-Aid

Not that the whole car is bad. It just needs some maintenance from time to time. In the 20th Century it was the robber barons, Big Blue and Ma Bell, and in this century it’s, well, the descendants of Ma Bell gumming up the works.

So the FTC, after researching the matter of Net Neutrality, has come out in opposition, coming to the perplexing conclusion that lack of choices for broadband access and tight control over development is driving more competition in the space, not less. The commission is drinking the same Kool-Aid as the FCC lately, it would seem, which has some amnesia-causing agent within.

Commissioner Majoras’ opinion that "the net effects of potential conduct by broadband providers will be on all consumers" are not known has the tinny echo of voices carried over phone lines, clearly stating to Verizon, et alia, "yes, I can hear you now."

The Kool-Aid is strong. And if so, if the administration and its regulators are so enamored with corporate talking points to the extent that AT&T’s signal is heard above the public’s (a data plan they’d like to continue), it may be time to remind the FTC what these incumbent providers have brought to America, how they’ve paid us back for our support, and what they plan to do for us in the future.

What the Free Market (Electronic Communications) Economy Had Gotten Us:

1.    Default on $200 billion taxpayer loan to build out broadband services.

2.    Broadband prices 40 times cost.

3.    Text messaging at over 7000 percent markup.

4.    Median download speed of 1.97 megabits per second. Japan has 61 megabits per second.

5.    A telco/cable duopoly whereby nearly 100 percent of the public has two choices of (slow) broadband providers.

6.    Lies about the nature of broadband competition. All other alternatives (broadband over power lines, satellite, 3G wireless) currently cannot match speed, pricing, and availability.

7.    Enormous cost barriers to entry into the broadband service market.

8.    Reneged promises. Cable was supposed to be commercial free, and consumers were supposed to have a choice in channels, not packages of channels.

9.    The possibility that telecommunications and cable companies will follow their already established cable TV and mobile phone practices – controlled, pre-packaged programs at exorbitant costs.

10.    Efforts to block competition by ensuring the soon-to-be-available 700 MHz wireless spectrum (ideal for true wireless broadband) is bought up and hoarded by incumbents.  

Just to name a few. They want a tiered, discriminatory, small business crushing Internet, and have said so. They say Net Neutrality provides no incentive to invest all the while knowing the future is in fiber, which they will own and control. Yet history, facts, reality and stated intent have done nothing to sway US regulators. Something is very, very wrong.

Google’s Richard Whitt, the company’s Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, has written an excellent two-part blog post about the realities of the US broadband market, type-based differentiation, and Google’s objections to telco/cable talking points with technical details.

Also an excellent read is Bob Frankston’s "Sidewalks: Paying by the Stroll," which analogizes the Net Neutrality issue to "Sidewalk Neutrality" in a very real and down-to-earth way. 

Net Neutrality FTC Telecommunications Regulation Broadband

Original post by Jason Lee Miller and software by Elliott Back

The Federal Trade Commission issued its ‘Broadband Connectivity Competition Policy’ report and suggested caution on enacting net neutrality regulations.

FTC Cool To Net Neutrality

The FTC’s Internet Access Task Force thinks all is well in the world of broadband connectivity in the United States.

"This report recommends that policy makers proceed with caution in the evolving, dynamic industry of broadband Internet access, which generally is moving toward more – not less – competition," Chairman Deborah Platt Majoras said in a statement.

As to the issues of "data prioritization, exclusive deals, and vertical integration into online content and applications," Majoras said these could benefit consumers. "We do not know what the net effects of potential conduct by broadband providers will be on all consumers, including, among other things, the prices that consumers may pay for Internet access," she said.

A concurring statement by Commissioner Jon Leibowitz took issue with the idea that legislation to protect consumers may not be needed:

There is a real reason to fear that, without additional protections, some broadband companies may have strong financial incentives to restrict access to content and applications.

One way this might happen is by now well understood by almost everyone – a broadband provider with monopoly power in a local market might use that power to block or degrade some applications or content that compete with applications or content the broadband company itself provides.

Leibowitz also cited how a broadband market without net neutrality could become an economic two-sided market that benefits only the broadband providers:

Once a consumer chooses a broadband provider, then that provider has monopoly power over access to that consumer for any application or content provider that wants to reach that customer. If a large national broadband provider were to begin charging Internet application and content providers to reach its customers, it would have monopoly power over access to potentially millions of customers nationwide.

This problem, which the Report identifies as a “terminating access monopoly,” is not new. In fact, this issue has bedeviled public policy in the telecommunications industry for years.

A round of criticism of the report came from the Save The Internet group:

But the agency’s conclusions largely ignore broadband reality. Millions of Americans can’t access or afford high-speed Internet services, and the United States continues to slip in every global ranking of broadband progress.

Yet while the FTC twiddles it thumbs, the same phone and cable companies whose anti-competitive policies created this sorry situation are now proposing to become gatekeepers over Internet content and services.

FTC, Net Neutrality

Original post by David A. Utter and software by Elliott Back

There is a lot of information about search engine optimization (seo) going around online and not everything what people tell you is true. There are e-book authors out there who tell their readers not to include any meta tags in their websites. They say that search engines don’t read the meta tags these days. Do not believe these things read this article to get a real picture about seo.

Original post by Article Dashboard: Internet Business | Seo and software by Elliott Back

At this point, you havent met your sales objective, and quite frankly, youre frustrated with poor marketing results. If your web site is failing to deliver results for your business, then heres your chance to do one simple thing that can turn your business around, right now!

Original post by Article Dashboard: Internet Business | Seo and software by Elliott Back

When you think of video-sharing sites, you think of YouTube, DailyMotion, Blinkx . . . the list goes on.  But MySpace probably isn’t on the list, and News Corp wants to change this fact; hence, the introduction of MySpace TV.

MySpace TV Set To Launch

“On Thursday, MySpace plans to rename and refurbish the video-sharing service on its popular social network,” reports Brad Stone for The New York Times.  “The new service . . . will be set up as an independent Web site (www.myspacetv.com) that people can visit to share and watch video, even if they have not signed up for MySpace.  The site will also offer some new ways for members of MySpace, which attracts 110 million users a month, to more easily integrate the videos they create and watch into their personal profiles.”

We saw a clue to this development with the introduction of “minisodes” on MySpace; minisodes, as conceived by MySpace, Sony, and Honda, were shortened versions of classic TV shows.  MySpace TV will also focus on clips that are more professional in nature.  “When you go to MySpace video now, what you see is far less appealing to the eye than what you get from other video sites,” admitted Jeff Berman, a MySpace executive, to Stone.

But it remains to be seen just what sort of content MySpace TV will be able to attract.  Users often don’t respond well to restrictions, and according to the NYT article, “MySpace expects that part of the appeal of MySpace TV to studios and professional videomakers will be its aggressiveness in protecting intellectual property.  The company was among the first major video sites to use filtering software, which checks uploaded videos to determine if they are protected by copyright.”

Liz Gannes of NewTeeVee had another couple things to say about (and/or against) MySpace TV.  “We had pointed out in the past that MySpace Vids seemed to be losing ground to YouTube,” she writes.  “MySpace parent News Corp is one of the founders of a joint-venture video site supposed to launch this fall, the so-called ‘NewCo.’  It’s telling that MySpace TV is not more closely integrated with that project.”

Tags: MySpace TV, Minisodes, YouTube

Original post by Doug Caverly and software by Elliott Back

The updated Google Docs & Spreadsheets offers folders for organizing documents, along with a few new enhancements.

Google Docs Drops In Folders

Google’s love of labels as organization method, especially in Gmail, tends to be a little jarring to people who have become used to folders. Those users will find something of a comfort zone in Google Docs and its newest update.

Folders have been a heavily requested feature for the service. They support drag and drop, just like a desktop interface.

Labels have been converted to folders in Google Docs with this update, as Google seems to have abandoned its attempt to make tagging the default way of organizing documents. This change makes Google Docs more consistent with the way a typical PC works.

Google also enhanced the search feature. It displays relevant docs and spreadsheets as one enters search terms into the form.

Googling Google blogger Garett Rogers complimented the new look and efficiency of the docs list, where these main changes have taken hold. He cited a couple of wish list items for Google Docs, namely a similar interface update for the word processor and spreadsheet, and support for offline functionality.

Google Docs, Web Applications

Original post by David A. Utter and software by Elliott Back