Farmers Take On SEO

After months of people talking about the declining quality of search results in Google, the latest update (referred to as the Farmer's update by Danny Sullivan) has targeted what are considered low quality search results typically found on content farms.

An update long overdue, and while some sites were slammed by the results, others did fairly well. Read more at Business Insider

Google Related Feature Expands

It seems the Google "related" feature has expanded how much is viewable.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=related:google.ca/&start=20&sa=N

Now seeing 10+ pages instead of just 3. Great news for digging and research!

The Future of Facebook - Will Yahoo or Google Buy

Microsoft is in talks to buy a minority stake in Facebook, a sign of a new urgency by the software giant to jump-start its online business at a time when Google is widening its lead in the fast-growing Internet-advertising business.

As part of its catch-up program, Microsoft also has quietly granted broad powers to an executive recently hired from outside the company, who is expected to help shake up the software giant's online business.

Microsoft Corp. is mulling an investment in Facebook Inc. that would value the rapidly growing online hangout at $10 billion or more. Zuckerberg, owner of Facebook, rejected a $1 billion acquisition offer from Yahoo Inc. last year.

With more than $100 million in annual revenue, Facebook is believed to be a prime candidate for an initial public offering of stock next year or in 2009.

If Facebook's talks with Microsoft heat up, it could draw online search leader Google Inc. to the negotiating table, too.

Yahoo's acquisition rampage continues...

Search and saving the environment

A custom Google search engine named Blackle claims to save energy simply “because the screen is predominantly black.” The site’s only differing function from Google is the fact that its background is black and the results are white - making it a hard-to-read, but allegedly power-saving, adaptation of the world’s favorite search site.

Will iGoogle Change the Way We Search

Personalized search has been a concept floating around, with iGoogle (AKA Mockingbird) making its debut. Well, not really. It's been around for a little over a year, but it's taking on a whole new level of personalization besides a few widgets.

Google wants to compute PageRank for every single person, and thinks of personalization in 3 parts. There's Search Your own stuff (e.g. Google Desktop Search, Web History), Traditional (pull), and Push, like recommendations that might be part of iGoogle.

Google’s personalization efforts and features might allow for a nice homepage, but is it recent advances in search algorithms that have given Google the power to bring personalization to a new level, or would the agenda have anything to do with something else? Like new ways to obtain data on users? My tin foil hat says the latter.

Is Link Building Dying?

All links are not created equal. Someone once referred to them as currency, with coins being worth less that a couple Benjamins. But as the playing field is in a constant state of flux, it becomes increasingly necessary to reinvent new ways to find quality.

Gone are the days when it was a numbers game. Blackhats will disagree, but then isn't that a different game altogether? It seems like directory submissions are dying out. There might be less than 20 good ones, but I'd say there are only 2 or 3 worth the time to submit to. Good ol' dmoz, and of course Yahoo.

Reciprocal has been in the crapper for some time, but seemed transparent and a bad idea from the get go. How long will hosted marketing pages last?

The Google police are on a new warpath, and its about to get ugly.

So, what's an seo to do?

Me thinks its time to build some genuine resources and work on my co-citation.