Gasta

Francis Higgins Screenplays

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Tue, 10 May 2022 22:57:00 +0000

Francis Higgins is a published poet and screenplay writer from Belfast. His screenplay STOLEN has been optioned by DeuceFilms of London. He has also written short stories, and futurist sci fi novella The Sleep Button.

Francis Higgins was born in Belfast in August 1958. The family then moved to Luton, Bedfordshire where Francis attended Cardinal Newman secondary and Bedford college. In the early 70,S Francis won the Cadbury young writers prize for his essay ‘The shape of things to come’.

Trained as a software developer and Microsoft credited tutor Francis started Ireland’s first internet Search index in 1997. Gasta( faster in Irish) then became one of the first search marketing companies in Ireland. Francis was always written and developing new ideas and produced videos and websites as a multimedia producer for AMI. With an established background in copywriting and marketing Francis began to develop his screenwriting in 2010. He has now written several developed projects and helps other writers with formatting and script polishing.

Francis Higgins Screenplay Optioned

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Sat, 07 May 2022 19:02:00 +0000

When your peeling potatoes with your ma

Always pick the small ones

Sitting on the floor

You don’t know who will come in through the door

Starts as usual ‘anybody seen my potato knife?

yes, Ned had it fixing his bike.

That was last week

Get that bike out of the hall...

Her uniform striped overall and little booted slippers

A yellow basin of water

newspaper spread to catch the skins

A potato as big as your hand

No put that back get a smaller one

Sore little fingers use a blunt knife.

While the coveted potato knife speeds

With ferocious dexterity

one long peel after another.

Get the eyes, the eyes need weeded out.

it’s never going to end

Then at last, pots and pots of potato ready to boil

Remember her amazing fingers with the broken nail

Her telling how the bobbin in the mill caught the child’s hand.

Then the burning

listening to the hissing sizzle and steaming whistle as the skins crackle and spark

piled high in the open fire.

It’s over

But it will be spuds again tomorrow.

Francis Higgins Irish Screenwriter

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Sat, 07 May 2022 18:14:00 +0000

https://www.linkedin.com/in/francishiggins

Francis Higgins is an Irish born writer from Belfast. His Screenplay Stolen is currently in pre production. His other works include The Sleep Button a sci fi short story. Girlx2 a screenplay set in Belfast.Two Sisters a screenplay set in NYC. He has written short stories and published poems.

Noel Alexander Harkness

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Sat, 07 May 2022 18:07:00 +0000

Noel Alexander Harkness was born 6th. December 1930. Noel died 14 January 2000.

He attended Inchmarlow and Brackenber House Prep. School, and on to Campbell College. He was evacuated to The Northern Counties Hotel, Portrush during the second world war. Where he loved to sketch and draw. His father was an architect and Noel had studied his work and began sketching from an early age.

He graduated from Trinity College Dublin where he was the artist in residence. He travelled widely after graduation and joined the Lyons Tea Company where he became a manager in London. He began exhibition of his art work in Soho and Whitehall galleries while in London.

In the late sixties he returned to Belfast and joined a local Estate Agency and moved on to set up his own Estate Agency firm on the Lisburn Road, Belfast.

The influences of Picasso and Paul Gauguin are apparent in his early work and these are enhanced by his own modernist innovations. He left an extensive body of work, a huge amount of which has recently been discovered in the attic of his Wife’s home after her death. The works are currently being catalogued and recorded for future exhibition.

Noel Harkness Belfast Artist 1930-2000. I

Noel Alexander Harkness was born 6th. December 1930. Noel died 14 January 2000.

In the late sixties he returned to Belfast and joined a local Estate Agency and moved on to set up his own Estate Agency firm on the Lisburn Road, Belfast.

Noel Harkness Belfast Artist 1930-2000. I

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:06:00 +0000

Disruption guru Clay Christensen says incumbent media players are making a classic mistake

By Mathew Ingram

1 day ago

Summary: Existing players in an industry almost always fail to appreciate how disruption will affect them or understand how to adapt to it, Harvard professor Clay Christensen says, and media companies are making all of those same mistakes.

Harvard Business School professor Clay Christensen, who has helped shape much of the thinking around technological disruption with his landmark book “The Innovator’s Dilemma,” has been taking a close look at the media industry recently — one of the markets that he believes is undergoing a fundamental disruption. In a panel session at the Nieman Foundation on Wednesday, he warned that many existing media entities are still thinking about what they do in the wrong way, just as other industries such as the telegraph and auto industry have in the past.
A key part of Christensen’s theory is that the incumbent players in a particular industry routinely fail to make the necessary changes to the way they do things, even when they can see the disruption occurring all around them. In almost every case, they see the disruptors as not worthy of their attention because they are operating at the low end of the market, and either don’t see that as important or are too committed to their existing business models.

Low-end competitors open up new markets

Existing players are often good at what the Harvard scholar calls “sustaining” innovation, but they are rarely good at disruptive innovation. The latter is the kind that transforms something that used to be complicated and expensive — and therefore available only to the wealthy or those with special skills — and makes it available to a much broader group of users.
So in telecom, he said, existing companies didn’t see the potential disruption from cheap flip-phones and ubiquitous cellular networks because they were too focused on large corporate customers, not individual users, and their businesses weren’t set up to take advantage of this new market:

“The flip-phone and wireless made it so affordable and accessible that people around the world could now have access to telecommunications, and in almost every part of the world, the people who were the pioneers were not the existing wire-line players because it didn’t fit their business models… I think you see this playing out in journalism too.”

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Value is created in new places

Although Christensen didn’t mention them by name, the obvious low-end competitors in the media business are players like http://www.gasta.com The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed — both of which started at the low end of the value chain but have been moving up steadily, a trend that Christensen’s theory also describes. The Harvard professor also made some positive comments about Forbes magazine, and what it has been able to do online compared with other traditional magazines such as Fortune and Newsweek.

“Compare, for example, Newsweek and Fortune on one side against Forbes on the next — the core business just got killed. McGraw-Hill sold Newsweek to Bloomberg for a dollar… but with Forbes, while the traditional magazine got commoditized, they’ve created different business models above and below that are really kind of interesting.”

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(Note: Professor Christensen appears to be confusing Newsweek and BusinessWeek here — Bloomberg bought BusinessWeek, while Newsweek was sold for a dollar to the financier behind The Daily Beast).
The Forbes example reinforces another key point in Christensen’s description of disruption: as one layer of what technologists call “the stack” of processes that make up a business becomes commoditized, it creates value in other layers that can be captured by new players. So in journalism, Christensen says, the job of accumulating and distributing information about the world — something newspapers like the New York Times used to have a monopoly on — has become commoditized:

“As disruption occurs, it commoditizes a layer in the stack, so what used to be a high value-added activity that was very profitable and others couldn’t replicate, now becomes cheap and easy and anyone can do it. It used to be that news and information was one of those layers in the stack — no one could play that game like the New York Times… but now everyone has access to more information than they could possibly use.”

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Find other jobs that news consumers want done

The key to managing that disruption, Christensen says, is to find those other value-added businesses or markets or functions — “jobs to be done,” as he calls them — that news or journalism consumers are looking for. One example, he suggests, might be taking in all of the information people are deluged by and telling them what is true and what isn’t (something mainstream media outlets often fail to do, as I tried to describe in a recent post):

“Are there jobs for which there have not yet emerged viable competitors? I’m awash in information, but I need someone who will tell me what is true, and it’s not clear that anyone has really done that job yet — the New York Times thinks they’ve nailed that, but it’s not clear to me that they have.”

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Christensen also warned — as he has in the past, including in the report that he co-wrote last fall with Nieman Fellow David Skok, entitled “Breaking News” — that many existing players in the media business are trying to innovate within their traditional corporate structure, and that this almost always fails. In answer to a question about the Boston Globe, he said the approach of having a separate site called Boston.com run by a separate team was smart.
When an audience member said the site was now being run from within the Globe newsroom, however, Christensen changed his mind, saying: “Oh my gosh, really? Then put on your helmet, because it will force Boston.com to conform itself to the newsroom. That’s the way it always works, Sorry about that.” The full audio stream of the interview is available at the Nieman Journalism Lab.

The Survey says Gasta.co.uk popular destination for uk shoppers

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 15:10:00 +0000

Gasta.co.uk has become one of the most popular destination for uk shoppers looking for a really fast shop comparison site with daily deals and offers embedded into the search results.

The survey says

Internet shopping is more popular in the UK than in any other major country, a survey from regulator Ofcom suggests.

Consumers in the UK spend an average of £1,083 a year on internet shopping, compared with Australia which spends the second highest at £842, it said.
The UK's fondness for net shopping is, in part, driven by mobile devices.
UK consumers are also downloading more data from their mobiles than any other nation, according to the survey.
The study also indicated that:

In December 2011 the average UK mobile connection used 424MB (megabytes) of data, higher than Japanese users who averaged 392MBs.
16% of all web traffic in the UK was from mobiles, tablets or other connected devices - more than any other European country.
Four in ten UK adults now access Facebook, Twitter and others social networks via their mobiles.
For 18 to 24-year-olds the figures is even higher, at 62%.
http://www.gasta.co.uk for the best UK shopping deals

Your Christmas deals and bargains all in one place.

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 16:52:00 +0000

Your Christmas deals and bargains all in one place.
Your shopping and naturally your looking for bargains, You want the best deals and voucher savings. You want the latest electronics, the newest gadgets, and you want them listed by price and location for a fast delivery. Also and most importantly you want them from the most trusted and secure sales sites on the web, Amazon, Pixmania, bathshop 321, Lakeland, Ebay, Misco, PC World to name but a few. One fast efficient UK site has been delivering these bargains for over 10 years now consistently bringing together customers and sellers. http://www.gasta.com try it today.

www.searchlive.co A Black Friday & Cyber Monday Shopper’s Guide To Comparison Shopping Search Engines

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 18:41:00 +0000

A Black Friday & Cyber Monday Shopper’s Guide To Comparison Shopping Search Engines

Nov 21, 2012 at 12:37am ET by Chris Sherman

inShare80

The holiday shopping season is almost upon us. Black Friday comes at the end of the week, followed by the increasingly popular Cyber Monday. While there are plenty of deal sites, there also remain traditional shopping search engines that consumers may wish to use.
Shopping search engines, or perhaps more properly, product and price comparison services, were one of the first specialized “vertical” search types to emerge in the early days of the web. The first services, like Andersen Consulting’s BargainFinder, were “intelligent agents” designed to grab product info from specific retailer websites – and they were widely hated and resisted by many online retailers of the day for giving an “unfair advantage” to the lowest cost provider.
Today, the opposite is true: retailers now recognize the value of being found online, and comparison shopping search services often have direct access to real-time product inventory, both online and locally in brick and mortar stores. If you aren’t familiar with these services, you owe it to yourself to check them out to save both time and money, especially during a busy holiday season where competition is fierce and prices and availability change rapidly.
This guide is designed for shoppers, not sellers. If you are a retailer and want to know best practices, options and specific tactics for attracting searchers, take a look at the dozens of articles in Search Engine Land’s Search & Retail library.

Finding The Right Stuff: It’s Not Just About Search Anymore

I’ve been writing about shopping search since the late 90s, covering specialized comparison sites like Shopping.com, Pricegrabber, Nextag and others. These are true shopping search engines, with the familiar interface and results that are similar to web search engines like Google.
This year, however, new trends are in play, including social recommendations and the explosion of buyers accessing retail sites via mobile devices. Sites like Pinterest, while not “pure” shopping search, have become fertile hunting grounds for people looking to find cool products or the ideal gift. And comScore reports that 4 in every 5 smartphone users accessed retail content on their device. Some of that traffic to online retailers is undoubtedly being directed by comparison shopping or deal apps, and of course, many mobile apps have significant social components.
Nonetheless, search is still the predominant way people find their way to ecommerce sites, according to Hitwise, and Google undoubtedly makes up a large chunk of that traffic. This is both from product results appearing in web search results when Google detects “commercial intent,” and also from people using Google Shopping (more on that below). But there are other good options, thus, a look at the most popular “pure” web-based comparison shopping services.

Shopping Search: The Major Players

Shopping search results resemble web search results, but there’s a key difference: The results consist almost entirely of ads paid for by retailers. Payment models vary, but it’s important to keep in mind that what you’re looking at with comparison shopping results isn’t necessarily a summary the “best” or “most relevant” products but rather those that have been put forward by paid inclusion programs. So, while still quite helpful in tracking down what you’re looking for, you’ll need to look at other factors such as reviews, social recommendations, price and so on before making any buying decision. http://www.searchlive.co

Comparison engines also offer goodies like the ability to store lists of products you’re interested in, tailoring results so that your favorite brands appear above others, and many other shopping-specific perks.
Google Product Search. Google has been active in comparison shopping for many years now, both blending product/merchant information into web search results, and operating standalone comparison shopping verticals with names like Google Product Search, Google Products and Froogle. In May the company changed both the name to Google Shopping and its business model, shifting from a formerly free crawl/feed based system to one monetized service where merchants have to pay Google for product listings. Google Shopping is beset with problems, as covered in our The Mess That Is Google Shopping.
Despite growing pains, Google Shopping is a decent starting point for any product related search. In addition to seasonally-driven editorial picks and shortlists, Google Shopping has revived its print-based catalog search, letting you “go green” and ditch the annoying paper-based catalogs that require frequent recycling. You can also get access to Google Offers, its Groupon-like flash sale service.
Merchants interesting in listing on Google Shopping should check out the Information for Merchants page.
Shopzilla. Like Google, Shopzilla is both a longtime veteran and also offers a broad array of choices for searchers. Shopzilla began life as Bizrate in 1997 and morphed into Shopzilla in 2004. Today the company operates a number of comparison services, showcasing over 100 million products from tens of thousands of retailers from sites it operates including Bizrate, Beso, Shopzilla, Retrevo, TaDa, PrixMoinsCher and SparDeinGeld.
Merchants interesting in listing on Shopzilla should check out the Merchant Listings & Advertising page.
Nextag. Another longtime veteran of the comparison shopping space, Nextag goes beyond product search, helping you find deals on event tickets, travel, and Groupon-like flash deals. If you’re curious about what other people are finding interesting, check out Radar which provides an up-to-date snapshot of what others are searching for and buying.
Since Nextag Nextag offers multiple products and services in results check out the Advertise With Us page to learn more about how you can list products, events or travel services.
Pricegrabber likes to brand itself as “the” top-tier comparison service, stating “our site attracts computer literate, informed buyers, in search of the best deal they can find.” True – but as a searcher, be aware that the site is owned and operated by Experian, the credit reporting company that also owns Hitwise, an online traffic analysis group. Bottom-line: You’re likely to get really good search results from Pricegrabber, but you’ll also find a significant degree of targeting due to the sheer amount of data Experian has gathered, both in aggregate and potentially about your web use in general. If you’re concerned about privacy you may want to use the other services described here.
Merchants interesting in listing on Pricegrabber should check out the Experian Site Map page to view all of the varied products and solutions the company offers.
There are many other shopping comparison sites, including eBay’s Shopping.com, Bing shopping and others, but start with these – and happy holiday shopping!

go for gold this Christmas.on topbrandshop.tv

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 14:15:00 +0000

This Christmas make SEO Decisions Based on Trending Data and seasonal adjustments. Every

website is under constant pressure to produce. Even well-established businesses have

monthly/quarterly/annual quotas they are supposed to meet in terms of visitor growth, qualified leads,

sales and so forth. And while I can understand the fear that grips the heart of every site owner and

marketer during a slow month, one of the worst mistakes you could make is to cut your SEO when

business is slow. Making quick SEO decisions based on one month's worth (or even worse, a few

days!) of data is not smart SEO. Remember-SEO is a long term process, there will be months that

aren't as great as others but in the lead up to Christmas it is now more imperative than others that

you get your product keywords on http://www.topbrandshop.tv the fastest growing shopping

destination in the UK. With http://www.topbrandshop.tv you get results from Amazon, eBay, with the

price comparison already done, you can place your product in the number one position and go for

gold this Christmas.

Gasta Loves Replicator maker talks up 3D printing

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Sun, 23 Sep 2012 13:26:00 +0000

Replicator maker talks up 3D printing tech
MakerBot 2 The new 3D printer is intended for industrial designers and artists

The gospel about 3D printing is being taken to the streets of New York.

MakerBot Industries, best known for its small 3D printers, has opened a shop in Manhattan through which it will aim to sell the joys of home fabrication to the general public.

The store opening comes as MakerBot releases the second incarnation of its Replicator 3D printer.

The Replicator 2.0 works to much finer resolutions than earlier versions and can fabricate much bigger objects.

MakerBot said the store, the first of its kind, would act as a showcase for 3D printing and stage demonstrations and workshops for those who were curious about the technology.

3D printing involves building up objects layer by layer out of plastic that is melted and fed via a carefully controlled nozzle to form a shape. The printers were initially used in engineering and design firms to produce and refine prototypes.

Now many home hackers, makers and artists use 3D printers to turn out their own customised creations. Examples include model soldiers, cases for home electronic projects, and furniture for dolls' houses.

Bre Pettis said the Replicator 2.0 was aimed at the "prosumer" - either a design professional or a hardcore hobbyist. The device costs $2,199 (£1,360) and builds objects up in layers only 100 microns thick. In previous versions, each layer was about 270 microns thick.

Mat Fordy, founder and boss of coolcomponents.co.uk that sells 3D printers and other home hacking gear, said the technology was proving popular.

"We've really seen the affordable 3D printer market in the UK explode over the last couple of years," he told the BBC. "Many types of people use them, not just professionals, but people who have an idea that they need to touch and hold."

He said the new MakerBot was a great looking piece of kit but supply problems had made it hard to get hold of.

"They never seem to have enough to go around, and that puts a lot of people off," he said. "Other excellent printers are in ready supply, and many people just give up waiting and get one of those instead."

Please sir ? I want some more.

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Sat, 04 Aug 2012 03:45:00 +0000

The Searchlive search network has been engaged in a trio-directional bandwidth project and we have come to the conclusion that if you run the Google robot txt you will use up to 60% more bandwidth. Fact. now let them dispute.

Google's robots.txt

www.google.com/robots.txt

User-agent: * Disallow: /search Disallow: /sdch Disallow: /groups Disallow: /images Disallow: /catalogs Allow: /catalogs/about Allow: /catalogs/p? Disallow: ..

Gasta likes what Yandex are doing in Search

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 12:30:00 +0000

gasta.com

searchlive.co

searchster.eu

Yandex Q2 Earnings: Revenues $207.2M Up 50%

Yandex Russia’s biggest search company, has posted Q2 earnings, with revenues up 50% over the same quarter in the previous year to $207.2 million, and net income up 76% to $68.4 million.

And as impressive as the numbers sound, the results were just shy of analyst expectations: on average analysts expected revenues of $207.70 million, according to Yahoo Finance, while Bloomberg is reporting differently.

Better news comes in the company’s share of the Russian search market: 60.4% in Q2 2012, says Yandex, citing Live Internet. As we’ve previously noted, search share has been a concern with heavy competition from Google and others. This appears to be up from the previous quarter (59%), although not back to the high 60s it was at last year.

Search queries are also up, growing 30% from Q2 2011, while the company has increased the number of advertisers to more than 193,000, up 34% from Q2 2011 and up 8% from Q1 2012.

Breaking down the numbers further, Yandex says:

Text-based advertising revenues accounted for 89% of total revenues in Q2 2012 i.e. it was the main driver. Specifically, text-based advertising revenues from Yandex’s own websites accounted for 72% of total revenues during Q2 2012, and increased by 43% compared with Q2 2011. Meanwhile, text-based advertising revenues from the company’s ad network increased 93% compared with Q2 2011 and contributed 17% of total revenues during Q2 2012.

Paid clicks on Yandex’s and its partners’ websites, in aggregate, increased 62% in Q2 2012 compared with Q2 2011. Interestingly, average cost per click is 7% lower compared with Q2 2011, but up 18% compared with Q1 2012. Display advertising revenue, on the other hand, accounted for 9% of total revenues during Q2 2012, an increase 43% compared with Q2 2011.

Finally, online payment commissions accounted for 2% of revenues during Q2 2012, and increased 40% compared with Q2 2011.

Progress Everyday the new Gasta online shopping vision

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 16:37:00 +0000

Progress Everyday

The Gasta Searchmatch Network now offers the best shopping comparison sites on the web. Using state of the art tech what was formerly a search engine network now transforms into a mega shopping site offering our users a varied categories on one click. Search by Related Categories,

Matching Categories, price filters, Matching Merchants, Classification and Rebate

Shopping Results for Phone Accessories

- Showing 1 to 10 of about 101357

Related Categories

Mobile Phone Accessories (98582)

MP3 Player Accessories (480)

Console Accessories (417)

Digital Camera Accessories (301)

Car Parts & Accessories (291)

Television Accessories (134)

Headphones (85)

Home Telephone Accessories (78)

Laptop Bags (77)

Memory Cards (69)

Mobile Phone Handsets (68)

Laptop Batteries and Chargers (68)

Bicycle Accessories (61)

Computer Cases and Accessories (56)

Toys & Games (53)

Bicycle Accessories (46)

Miscellaneous (26)

Coats & Jackets (25)

Men's Coats and Jackets (22)

Clothing Accessories (21)

Laser Toners (20)

Pushchair Accessories (19)

Electronic Gadgets (18)

Headsets (14)

Bags & Handbags (12)

Games (9)

Boys' Clothing (9)

Computer Cables (8)

Bathing & Changing (7)

Bicycle Parts (7)

Computer Speakers (6)

Computer Networking (6)

Girls' Clothing (6)

Camcorder Accessories (6)

Books (5)

Keyboards (5)

Portable Radios (5)

MP3 Players (4)

Musical Instruments (4)

Home Telephones (3)

Bathrooms & Accessories (3)

DVDs & Blu-rays (3)

Cables (3)

Printer Accessories (3)

USB Memory Sticks (3)

Kitchen Accessories (2)

Camping & Hiking (2)

Men's Innerwear (2)

Computer Software (1)

HiFi Speakers (1)

Vitamins, Supplements and Medicines (1)

Hair Appliances (1)

Lighting (1)

Pet Supplies (1)

Home Security (1)

Fishing (1)

Combi TVs (1)

IP Phones (1)

Projector Accessories (1)

Baby Carriers (1)

Children & Baby Shoes (1)

ebuyer.biz shopping at its web based best

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 04:50:00 +0000

Gasta search engine network gets down with TED in Edinburgh

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 15:19:00 +0000

Gasta search engine network gets down with TED in Edinburgh

Author Don Tapscott has opened the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh predicting a new era of "networked intelligence".

The theme at this year's conference, dedicated to technology, entertainment and design, is "radical openness".

Mr Tapscott interpreted this as a call-to-arms for corporations to work in more open ways.

Elsewhere Nato Supreme Allied Commander Europe James Stavridis urged a new era of "open-source security".

Starlings

Mr Tapscott is an adviser to governments around the world on the social impact of technology and author of a string of books about the digital economy.

He told the TEDsters, as delegates at the conference are known, that institutions needed to act more like starlings.

"A group of starlings is known as a murmuration. There is leadership but no leader instead huge collaboration and interdependence," he said.

He gave examples of how companies are starting to see the business value in sharing previously closely-guarded data.

So gold mining firm Gold Corp opened up a set of its geological data to the net and offered a half-million dollar prize fund to anyone who could "find gold". The winner, a 3D mapping firm, offered a new way of viewing the landscape.

Pharmaceutical companies, currently hanging off "the patent cliff", could also benefit from sharing the data from clinical trials, he said.

"Socialmedia is becoming social production," said Mr Tapscott.

A new approach to intellectual property is desperately needed, he added.

"The music industry took a technology disruption and sought a legal solution. Now they are suing children and are in danger of collapse." He warned that greater transparency in corporations was happening whether or not they wanted it.

"Institutions are becoming naked as people develop powerful tools to find out what is going on in them. Wikileaks is the tip of the iceberg," he said.

Finally, he said, corporations needed to give more power to their employees.

"The idea that employees can only tweet on pre-defined subjects is absurd," he said.

Tweet for peace

Also revealing himself as a fan of Twitter was Adm James Stavridis, Nato Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

He closed the first session of the TEDGlobal conference with an invitation to everyone to become his friend on Facebook.

Adm Stavridis, who regularly tweets and blogs, spoke of the need for greater dialogue and partnerships between public and private sectors.

He said that 21st century national security could "not be delivered solely from the barrel of a gun".

Offline partnerships, such as US troops teaching Afghan security forces to read or US navy ships offering medical services to the local communities, needed to be complemented with online dialogues on social networks, he said.

Danny Sullivan on Search Engine Disclosure Compliance

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 13:13:00 +0000

Gasta.com adapted paid inclusion since its origins in 1998. below Danny Sullivan once the man who heralded Google now bemoans the fact that Google is adapting paid inclusion and re-writing the rule book as it goes along!

A Letter To The FTC Regarding Search Engine Disclosure Compliance

Jun 10, 2012 at 1:37pm ET by Danny Sullivan

In 2002, the US Federal Trade Commission created guidelines on how search engines should disclose paid placement and paid inclusion listings. It’s become clear to me over the past two weeks that the search engine industry has either largely forgotten these guidelines or is ignoring them. That’s why I’ve written a letter today to the FTC asking that the agency conduct a compliance review, as well as a review to see if its guidelines should be updated. My letter is below.

==========

US Federal Trade Commission

Attn: Chairman Jon Leibowitz; Bureau of Consumer Protection, Division of Advertising Practices; Office of Public Affairs

Dear Chairman Leibowitz, The Bureau of Consumer Protection & The Office of Public Affairs

In 2002, the US Federal Trade Commission created guidelines for search engines regarding disclosure of paid placement and paid inclusion listings. As a journalist who has covered the search engine space since 1996, I’m finding that the agency seems to be failing to properly enforce these guidelines. I’m asking for the FTC to conduct a review of the current state of compliance, so that I might report on your official findings. I’d also like to understand if the agency, after conducting such a review, feels that the guidelines need to be updated, expanded or amended in any way.

I know the history of how the disclosure guidelines were created well. I was cited in the Commercial Alert complaint that was filed in 2001, which triggered the FTC to conduct its initial review. I reported on both your response to Commercial Alert and the guidelines that came out of that response.

While I’ve never forgotten those guidelines, it appears that the search engines that I cover have. Recently, I wrote about the growth of paid inclusion programs at Google, a company which in the past had fiercely opposed such programs. The FTC didn’t oppose paid inclusion; that was Google’s own choice. But now that Google has adopted paid inclusion, apparently to avoid embarrassment, it gave me its own, new definition of paid inclusion:

Paid inclusion has historically been used to describe results that the website owner paid to place, but which were not labelled differently from organic search results. We are making it very clear to users that there is a difference between these results for which Google may be compensated by the providers, and our organic search results.

That is not how I recall Google or the search engine industry in general having historically described paid inclusion. It’s not how the FTC itself described it, within its own guidelines. If I’m going to report on paid inclusion and disclosure compliance, I’d like the FTC to reassert its own definition, rather than the largest search engine in the United States unilaterally declaring definitions of its own.

In another example, last Friday, the CEO of Nextag Jeffrey Katz wrote a widely-cited opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal taking Google to task over his belief of a failure of disclosure. Katz wrote in part:

Most people believe that when they type “convection microwave oven” or “biking shorts” into Google, they will receive a list of the most relevant sites. Not true. That’s how Google used to work. Now, when someone searches for these items, the most prominent results are displayed because companies paid Google for that privilege….

Google needs to be transparent about how its search engine operates. Today Google hides behind forked-tongued gobbledygook that is meant to obfuscate. Google should disclose, clearly and in plain English, when advertisers receive better placement in search results….

In reviewing his opinion piece, I detailed how Nextag itself doesn’t appear to disclose paid inclusion as required by the FTC, guidelines that are applicable to all search engines, as I was told by the FTC as the time they were created

The idea that a CEO could pen a letter about a competitor’s supposed lack of consumer transparency without a concern that his own company doesn’t follow your guidelines suggests that those guidelines either aren’t taken seriously by some in the search engine industry or aren’t considered applicable to them. I’d like the FTC review to address this.

When the guidelines were drafted, the concern was that consumers might not know what was paid for or not within search engines and assume everything was listed without payment being a factor, since that’s how search engines had historically operated. Compliance with paid placement listings generally seems good. But when it comes to paid inclusion, which was always the trickier issue, compliance seems to be poor.

The FTC never addressed the issue of content promotion, what search engines should do when they promote their own content. That might be a new guideline that should be issued and perhaps one essential to the ongoing anti-trust review of Google.

Some Google competitors like to make out that when Google integrates vertical search results that this is somehow unfair favoritism rather than operating as a search engine should operate and despite the fact that competitors may operate the exact same way.

Now that Google is turning former search engines like Google Product Search into paid inclusion/advertising products like Google Shopping, the definitions are even more important — and not just for the handful of competitors claiming an issue with Google but for the millions of consumers that use these search engines sometimes without clear disclosure of why they get certain results.

The commission may also wish to ponder if the guidelines should be extended to hardware and software manufacturers as well as broadband and wireless providers, all of which may cut deals deciding which search engine will be the default on their devices, programs and operating systems. Consumers may not understand that payment was involved in the choice made for them and may find it difficult to impossible to change, such as seems to be the case with the search engines used by default with Google’s Galaxy Nexus phone or Apple’s iPhone 4S.

I understand that the FTC has been mostly involved at late investigating whether consumers are being harmed by possible anti-competitive actions of Google. However, the FTC also has a role in protecting consumers from misleading and confusing advertising across all search engines. A review of your guidelines would be especially helpful given changes in the space now and perhaps necessary for any proper anti-trust review you’re doing.

I would be happy to speak further with anyone from the commission on this matter.

Danny Sullivan, Editor In Chief, Search Engine Land

Appendix

Below is a small appendix designed to better illustrate some of the complexities and the current situation of paid placement and paid inclusion disclosure. It’s based on a light review of some of the major general purpose search engines in the United States, some selected vertical search engines that are member companies of FairSearch, which espouses that consumers benefit when search engines are “displaying results transparently,” and Nextag.

Google: The company generally seems to label its paid placement ads and keeps them distinct from editorial content. Depending on the monitor you use, the color used to highlight and separate ads from editorial content might be hard to discern (as is the case for me with a 2010 MacBook Pro, while on a 2011 MacBook Air, they are very distinct).

Paid inclusion is disclosed through new Sponsored boxes. However, people might go directly to the vertical search engines that power these boxes, where disclosure might be lacking. For more on this, see Once Deemed Evil, Google Now Embraces Paid Inclusion.

The company has deals to distribute its search results by partnering with browser vendors, hardware manufacturers, broadband and wireless providers. These might fail to disclose why Google was made a choice or that they receive money because of this.

Bing: The service generally seems to label its paid placement ads and keeps them distinct from editorial content. Depending on the monitor you use, the color used to highlight and separate ads from editorial content might be hard to discern (as is the case for me with a 2010 MacBook Pro, while on a 2011 MacBook Air, they are very distinct).

Paid inclusion is not disclosed inline with the main search results at times. For example, a search for “dvd players” brings up a shopping box with nothing explaining that some vendors may appear because they’ve paid for inclusion.

Using the Bing Shopping site directly, the results also lack any disclosure. The Help page simply says: “Shopping around online has never been easier! Search for popular products at online stores, and learn instantly who has the lowest price.” But the page designed for merchants (rather than consumers) explains that getting listed through Bing’s partnership with Shopping.com means “Paid offers will be highlighted throughout Bing Shopping, including search result and product pages.”

The service has deals to distribute its search results by partnering with browser vendors, hardware manufacturers, broadband and wireless providers. These might fail to disclose why Bing was made a choice or that they receive money because of this.

Yahoo: The service generally seems to label its paid placement ads and keeps them distinct from editorial content. Depending on the monitor you use, the color used to highlight and separate ads from editorial content might be hard to discern (as is the case for me with a 2010 MacBook Pro, while on a 2011 MacBook Air, they are very distinct).

Using the Yahoo Shopping site directly, the home page simply says “Information about prices, products, services and merchants is provided by third parties and is for informational purposes only. Yahoo! does not represent or warrant the accuracy or reliability of the information, and will not be liable for any errors, omissions, or delays in this information or any losses, injuries, or damages arising from its display or use.”

The main help pages talking about Yahoo Shopping explain nothing about possible paid inclusion, simply saying, for example, “Yahoo! Shopping Search helps you find the right product at the right price by giving them the most relevant product listings for a keyword query. Our search enables you to find millions of items from thousands of merchants, so you can locate, compare, and buy just about anything.”

One help page about “Product Pages” within the service does say, “Product Pages generally include merchants that are affiliated with Yahoo! Shopping or have other financial relationships with Yahoo!. In addition, merchants with their logo displayed or with their name in bold text appears higher in the comparison grid because they’ve paid for enhanced placement.” The page for merchants seems to indicate that Yahoo Shopping operates on a paid inclusion basis.

Yahoo has deals to distribute its search results by partnering with browser vendors, hardware manufacturers, broadband and wireless providers, among others. These might fail to disclose why Yahoo was made a choice or that they receive money because of this.

Ask: The service generally seems to label its paid placement ads and keeps them distinct from editorial content. Depending on the monitor you use, the color used to highlight and separate ads from editorial content might be hard to discern (as is the case for me on both a 2010 MacBook Pro and on a 2011 MacBook Air).

Paid inclusion is not disclosed inline with the main search results at times. For example, a search for “dvd players” brings up a a “Amazon.com results” box that is probably appearing because of a paid inclusion deal with Amazon.

A “Shopping results” box from Ask itself appears at the top of the page, with nothing explaining that some vendors may appear because they’ve paid for inclusion. Using the Ask Shopping site directly, the home page has no disclosure information, nor does the help page immediately reveal any. In fact, nothing I can find even explains to merchants that paid inclusion listing come from Pronto.com, which is owned by Ask’s parent, IAC.

Ask has deals to distribute its search results in a variety of ways. These might fail to disclose why Ask was made a choice or that they receive money because of this.

Nextag: See Given Nextag’s Lack Of Transparency, Its WSJ Opinion Piece Asking For Google Transparency Isn’t Wise for a detailed review about how Nextag seems to fail to provide proper paid inclusion disclosure.

Twenga: The service generally seems to label its paid placement ads and keeps them distinct from editorial content.

The company doesn’t appear to use paid inclusion, and the help page is very clear about this saying:

“The offers from every online shop listed by Twenga are catalogued completely objectively. They are organised by product category, price, brand and by other details specified by you, the user. When you search for a product, the offers that match your keywords are displayed [sic] n order of popularity by default, but you can easily sort your results by relevance and price (high or low). In every instance, the search results are based on the criteria of Twenga users, which is why we call it organic listing.”

It also says:

“Twenga relies on advertising and business partnerships which give interested companies and retailers greater visibility than that provided by organic listing. Advertisements and sponsored links appear in designated areas, clearly separate from other results. Any commercial link Twenga may have with a merchant does not affect its position in the database nor in the natural search results.”

TripAdvisor: ”Sponsored links” seems to be the label used for some paid placement ads, and these are kept distinct from editorial content. However, TripAdvisor has a variety of ad units that might not make clear that these are ads, such as “Special Offers” that are only special to the degree that someone can pay to “appear at the top of your area’s list of accommodations, regardless of your actual TripAdvisor ranking — giving you the edge over local competition.”

Paid inclusion seems likely at TripAdvisor, but it’s hard to discern if it’s happening. The home page has text at the bottom saying merely: “TripAdvisor® features reviews and advice on hotels, resorts, flights, vacation rentals, vacation packages, travel guides, and lots more.” There’s also text to reassure consumers that they aren’t charged for using it but not explaining that TripAdvisor may receive paid inclusion fees: “TripAdvisor LLC is not a booking agent and does not charge any service fees to users of our site. The main help area lacks any disclosure.

Related Reading

The articles below have more information on some of the topics I’ve addressed, which I believe would be especially useful for those at the commission trying to make decisions about both competitive issues and consumer disclosure.

http://www.gasta.com gets praise for its European Vison

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Tue, 15 May 2012 11:24:00 +0000

"the Gasta search Engine network has a fantastic targeted reach with mobile and social marketing tools."

http://www.gasta.com/ads

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Sun, 13 May 2012 17:17:00 +0000

To purchase advertising on Europes most successful independent search network http://www.gasta.com/ads

Google penalises Gasta search engine for displying results from Bing.com search feed.

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Sun, 13 May 2012 12:43:00 +0000

Google penalises Gasta search engine for displaying results from Bing.com search feed.

Here is an Article from Webpronews that follows up on Google linking policy and points out how arbitrary and hypocritical the policy is. Webmasters beware!

As you probably know, Google isn’t a fan of people paying for links that pass PageRank. It’s considered to be a manipulation of search results and a violation of Google’s quality guidelines, which are the focus of Google’s Penguin update. It’s interesting that there seem to be exceptions to the rule, such as a directory like Best Of The Web, which has users pay for their sites to be considered for links.
Update: BOTW has gotten back to us since this article was published. Please see President Greg Hartnett’s comments toward the end of the article.
Perhaps more interesting is that some similar directory sites, which aren’t necessarily in clear violation of Google guidelines seem to be getting penalized, or at the very least drawing the ire of unhappy webmasters looking to get their link profiles cleaned up after receiving messages from Google.
Should a directory in which you have to pay to get a listing be treated like other sites that offer paid links? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Google recently launched a PageRank update, and many directory sites saw their PR plummet. Best Of The Web, meanwhile, has managed to maintain 4s, 5s and 6s. At at a time when flustered webmasters are looking to eliminate lower-end links, the topic of directory links on the web seems more relevant than it’s been for quite some time.

Webmasters Are Angry

Barry Schwartz at Search Engine Roundtable ran a very interesting story about Google being “the cause of lawsuits over links to web sites.”
“Can you imagine writing a story, linking that story to other relevant web sites and then years later being hit with a lawsuit over linking to a web site?” he asks.
The gist is that webmasters who have been receiving those messages from Google about unnatural links are threatening to sue sites that are linking to them. “Some webmasters are taking extreme measures and threatening to sue publishers and webmasters who are linking to them,” he reports.
I don’t know how often this is actually happening, but I can’t say it’s much of a surprise. If any such lawsuit is successful, then we have a problem.
I don’t know about the legal threats, but I do know a lot of directories are getting angry emails from webmasters who have links coming from them.
Google has taken issue with directories in the past – sort of. Here’s what the company told us in 2007:
There’s no “outright penalty” for being a directory, but we do value, as I’m sure you’ve heard, “unique, compelling content.”
Directories can run into the problem of not containing original information.
There do seem to be some directories that have historically received a bit more respect from Google. This includes Best Of The Web, which as I said, charges users for possible inclusion.
Google has talked about this in the past. Here’s a video about it from Matt Cutts from 2009:

The user-submitted questions Cutts was responding to was:
Will Google consider Yahoo! Directory and BOTW as sources of paid links? If no, why is this different from another site that sell[s] links?
He doesn’t entirely answer the question, however. He does say:
“Whenever we look at whether a directory is useful to users, we say, ‘OK, what is the value add of that directory?’ So, you know, do they go out and find their entries on their own, or do they only wait for people to come to them, you know, how much do they charge and what’s the editorial service that’s being charged?”
“If a directory takes $50 USD and every single person who ever applies in the directory automatically gets in for that 50 dollars, there is not as much editorial oversight as something like the Yahoo directory, where people do get rejected. So, you know, if there is no editorial value add there, then that is much closer to paid links.”
So basically, it sounds like if a directory rejects some things, this is OK.

How Best Of The Web Works

So how does Best Of The Web Work, exactly? You go to submit a site, and you’re presented with a page like this:

It’s clear from the get go that the main motivation for submitting to this directory is to help your search engine rankings. It says, “Listing your website in the internet’s most respected directory will help increase your website’s visibility in major search engines.”
The first example of a “link scheme” Google lists on its page about them is: “Links intended to manipulate PageRank.” While I can’t find anything on BOTW that specifically says anything about PageRank, is that not what submitters are after here?
Best Of the Web presents multiple quotes from various marketing-types, like:
“After implementing a plan with listings across several BOTW directories, we were able to see immediate and quantifiable improvement in our rankings. Working with BOTW has been a great success for Marriott.” — Benjamin Burns, Search Specialist
“BOTW provided excellent service for us and our listings. I would hire them over and over again every time we need directory listings.” — Marek Wawrzyniak, SEO Specialist
“Best of the Web has proven to be a successful strategy for Extra Space Storage when coupled with other local SEO techniques. We have seen a consistent ranking improvement in many areas with our local storage facilities by having Best of the Web part of our organic strategy.” — Tim Eyre, Interactive Marketing Manager
It’s obvious that the reason one would want to be listed in this directory is SEO. It’s not because people are going to the directory to search for businesses. It’s an SEO strategy – something BOTW seems pretty up-front about.

Link Schemes

Let us refer to that “Link Schemes” help center page (linked to from its Quality Guidelines page) for a moment. That says:
Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating. The sites that link to you can provide context about the subject matter of your site, and can indicate its quality and popularity. However, some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results. Examples of link schemes can include:

Links intended to manipulate PageRank

Links to web spammers or bad neighborhoods on the web

Excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging (“Link to me and I’ll link to you.”)

Buying or selling links that pass PageRank

Let’s read that last one again. “Buying or selling links that pass PageRank.”

Links That Pass PageRank

As far as I can tell, if you have managed to get listed in Best Of The Web, the link will pass PageRank. The links I looked at do not include the nofollow attribute, which would prevent them from passing PageRank:

The links marked as “ads” at the top of category pages do include the nofollow atribute.

The category page above has a PageRank of 5. Some pages are higher, and some are lower. The home page has a 6.

Back To The Submission Process

If you click to get started, you are prompted to provide your email address (twice), and then to fill out a large form. The last part of that form is for the payment details:

You can choose from two plans: annual fee or one time fee. Once you click submit, your card will be charged. You must check the box that says you’ve read the ToS and privacy policy. It’s only when you click through to the ToS, and through one more link there, that you find out your site may not even appear in the listings. It says, “There is no guarantee that my site will be added to the directory” and that the charge is non-refundable. You agree that you understand that, “BOTW editors, in their sole and final judgement, shall determine the suitability, placement, title and description of all sites listed in the BOTW Directory.”
There’s nothing wrong with BOTW wanting to be selective in the editorial process. That’s what Google has indicated in the past is actually what makes directories like this higher quality in Google’s eyes. That said, Google is always preaching about user experience, and encouraging sites to provide what’s best for the user. User trust has been a major theme, particularly since the Panda update.
BOTW does require submitters to read the TOS, before charging them, but the part about potentially not being included, even with no refund, seems a bit buried.
Is BOTW’s practice OK in Google’s eyes because they’re using enough judgment not to include EVERY link that people are paying for in hopes of a listing?

Is This What Google Wants From A Directory?

I’m not going to advise you sell or pay for links at all, but I feel like Google is sending some very mixed signals here.
Search engine industry vet Tim Mayer, who worked from Yahoo until 2010, tells WebProNews, “It is interesting as they [BOTW] are positioned similarly to the Yahoo directory of old with editors and payment. Other directories’ such as business.com model failed due to Google changing their treatment of them. Not sure if this was due to quality or the lack of editorial oversight.”
“Many other directories are or are considered spam sites/directory link farms as they are just pages of paid links,” he adds. “Seems to me this is may be legacy treatment. But I have not looked at BOTW and analyzed it in some time. Google probably has a better sense of if this is a good authority hub or not. If it is they should use it. I would bet that they are better quality than most directory sites.”
But it’s not really even an issue of quality. It seems like more of a double standard on Google’s part, given that the company clearly lists “Buying or selling links that pass PageRank” as an example of a link scheme.
Editorial judgment is clearly a factor, but is it really the “best” of what the web has to offer or is it some of the best, with some that actually paid for reviews getting in there too, regardless of whether or not they’re really the best. Update: Hartnett says “an almost imperceptible percentage” of the links are from those who paid for the reviews.
Look at this listing for Caagal.com on the Business Classifieds category page, for example. A quick glance at this site (complete with loading errors) doesn’t suggest “best” of what the web has to offer in this niche, though this is certainly subjective. It doesn’t even seem to be largely business-oriented, but more property and boat oriented. For the record, I have no idea if this site paid or not.

Granted, the site is nowhere to be found in Google, for the query “business classifieds” (at least within the first six pages). It’s hard to say how much value that site may have gotten from paying to be listed in Best Of The Web, but I guess they at least got a PageRank 4 link out of it (PR for that category page).

Obsess With Google’s Quality Guidelines or Not?

Webmasters are frantically trying to distance themselves from some directory sites after getting messages from Google about unnatural links. Even directories who have never offered paid links are getting emails from upset webmasters. Jayde, for example (disclosure: owned by WPN parent iEntry), has gotten quite a few. Jayde has never offered paid links, and recently made all links nofollow.
If webmasters are looking to start suing sites that are linking to them because they are under the impression that these links are hurting them, that’s pretty bad.
Interestingly enough, Google used to encourage directory submissions.
“In fact, if you look at our webmaster quality guidelines, we used to have a guideline that says, you know, submit your site to directories, and we gave a few examples of directories,” Cutts explains in that video. “And what we find, or what we found was happening, was people would get obsessed with that line and go out and look for a lot of directories.”
“We ended up taking out that mention in our webmaster guidelines so that people don’t get obsessed with directories and think, “Yes i have to go find a bunch of different directories to submit my site to,’’ says Cutts in the video.
I realize this video is 3 years old, but I have to say, this seems to be an example of mixed signals coming from Google again.This would indicate that you shouldn’t obsess over the things in Google’s quality guidelines, but as you probably know, the Penguin update, which launched a couple weeks ago, was all about targeting sites violating the quality guidelines.

To Sum Up

- Google used to encourage directory submissions from the quality guidelines.
- Google decided people shouldn’t obsess about that.
- Now people are freaking out about links that they have from such directories that they submitted to, and some may even be so angry as to threaten legal action (though I can’t imagine there are any legitimate grounds).
- Best of the Web, who charge money for the chance to have links designed to influence search visibility, which seems like it would violate Google’s guidelines aren’t considered a major problem.
Something seems wrong with that picture.
We’ve reached out to both Google and Best Of The Web for comment, and have not heard back from either.
Update: We have now heard back from Best Of The Web.
On the criteria for sites to be considered the “best,” and gain a listing, President Greg Harnett says, “Our guidelines for listing are pretty straightforward: we list sites that contain quality, unique content in the most relevant category within the directory. If the site does not provide a user with informative content then we don’t list it. We have always been focused on providing the user with quality content from trustworthy sources.”
“When users (humans or spiders) come to BOTW, they know that they can trust that (for instance) all of the listings in a San Francisco real estate category contain relevant information about San Francisco real estate,” he adds. “A human being has been in there and verified it. We’ve got a dedicated team of fantastic editors that ensure that.”
On the percentage of submissions that are rejected, Hartnett says, “I don’t work the submission queue, so I don’t really have a handle on the specific numbers. However, as a percentage of total submissions, I believe that we reject fewer sites now than we did in the past. The overall quality of submissions has increased as the years have gone by. Perhaps in general, people are now building better sites. Perhaps it’s a matter of more people knowing that BOTW doesn’t accept low quality sites, and they don’t even bother submitting. Whatever it is, I know that it makes our editors happier.”
We asked: It seems like Google advises against paid links, but doesn’t Best of the Web charge users to have their links reviewed for possible listting?
“Google certainly advises against paid links,” Hartnett tells us. “We’re not a pay for placement, or link buying platform. Payment for review in no way influences whether or not a site is listed within the directory. The fee is for the review, and is non-refundable. It’s not for a link. We caught a lot of flack about that policy in the early years of the directory, but we did it for a reason. We retain complete editorial control and integrity with each submission and listing. It’s completely up to our editors to decide is the site gets listed, and if listed, the title, description and category placement.”
“It should also most definitely not be overlooked that the review model accounts for a minuscule amount of the listings within the directory,” he adds. “We have millions of listings, of which our editors have added approximately 95% for free. They work daily scouring the web adding quality sites to relevant categories to build a more comprehensive resource. An overwhelming majority of the listings in the directory have had zero interaction with BOTW at all, nonetheless paid for a review.”
“I have no idea why Google does or does not approve of what it is we are doing,” says Hartnett. “I don’t work for or with Google and I don’t have any access to them outside of what Joe Internet does. I’d be surprised if they thought about us at all, but if they did I would like to think that they respect what it is we have been doing for all these years.”
“We feel we have put together (and continue to build) a fantastic resource for users that are interested in finding resources that they can trust,” he says. “We have always focused on providing the user with quality resources, and figured users appreciated, and will continue to appreciate, that effort. We’ve recently added the ability for editors and site owners to add social information for each listing, as we continue to evolve with the landscape and provide users with additional information about listings as well. It’s really been a fantastic project to have been working on for the last decade or so, and we’re excited to continue on our mission.”
Do you think Google is sending mixed signals about paid links? Let us know in the comments.

Gasta Search Engine Network: report authored by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Wed, 09 May 2012 10:51:00 +0000

Gasta Search Engine Network
Just as the New York Times can decide “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” search engines have a free speech right to choose who or what to put in their search rankings.
That’s the conclusion of a prominent First Amendment scholar commissioned by Google to make the case that the government can’t tell search engines how to design their results.
A Free Speech Right?
According to the report authored by UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh: “Google, Microsoft’s Bing, Yahoo! Gasta Search, Yandex, Searchlive, and other search engine companies are rightly seen as media enterprises, much as the New York Times Company or CNN are media enterprises” and deserve the same protections. It adds that search engines have the same freedom to choose a set of links as do news aggregators like the Drudge Report or the Huffington Post.
Search engine results are a form of opinion, says the report, in which companies offer information they think is most relevant to users.
In practice, this would mean Google has the right to punt sites like Yelp, which has complained that Google is a monopolist, to the search equivalent of Siberia if it decided that was best for users (Yelp now comes up second in a search for “restaurant review”).
The US has a long history of companies claiming First Amendment protections. One example is a newspaper that was allowed to exclude certain advertisers even though it had a “substantial monopoly.”
The courts have also made a few exceptions to the free speech rule. One case involved a publisher that was sued for providing inaccurate flight maps. Another involved cable providers which, a court said, did not have a free speech right to exclude certain channels.
Volokh’s report says those free speech exceptions don’t apply to search engines because, unlike cable providers, it’s not just a pipe for information. It also echoes Google position that consumers can easily use a competing search engine.
In an interview, Volokh said Google’s situation is also similar to a 1980′s case in which an author launched a failed suit against the New York Times’ over the accuracy of the newspaper’s weekly best-seller list.
Google’s strategy shift
In response to an email query, a source at Google explained Volokh’s report by saying, “we thought these issues were worth exploring in more depth by a noted First Amendment scholar.”
There is another likely explanation for Google’s decision to release the report — to thwart the government from regulating its search results. Recall that the company is in the middle of an ongoing federal investigation into whether it’s using its dominance to choke competition. If Google refuses to settle the matter, the Justice Department may consider filing an anti-trust suit.
Google may have released the report, then, to try and persuade government lawyers that they would lose an anti-trust case on First Amendment grounds.
The report also marks a strategy shift for Google. In the past, the company has responded to anti-trust allegations by saying that it didn’t have a dominant market position and that, in any case, it didn’t discriminate in its results. Google only claimed free speech as a fallback argument.
Now, Google appears to have given up claiming that its results are always neutral and is instead betting the farm on the First Amendment argument.
Only in America?
Courts so far appear to support Google’s view that search rankings are simply another form of opinion that is protected by the First Amendment.
In 2003 an Oklahoma ad company accused Google of harming its business when it downgraded the company in search listings. A federal judge threw out the case on free speech grounds. At the same time, in 2007, a California court said Google’s rankings were “private property” in response to a company that complained that a low ranking violated its free speech rights.
Overall, in the US, Google may have a strong case that its free speech rights override the federal government’s antitrust concerns about its search results.
This argument, however, is unlikely to fare as well in other countries that lack America’s robust free speech protections. In places like Europe and South Korea where Google is also under investigation, the company’s claim that its results are an “opinion” could put it in deeper trouble.
Eugene Volokh, the author of the new report titled “First Amendment Protection for Search Engine Results” is also the author a popular law blog called the Volokh Conspiracy.

A search engine is a search engine is a search engine

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:05:00 +0000

Gasta.com has 500+ search engines in its network, they are not all the same, they do not use the same source feeds or news content. Gasta.co.uk has the same content as gasta.com same as Google.co.uk has the same content as Google.com so what? Gasta has keyword categories on its home page, Google is minimalist (so 5 minutes ago!) so what again? has Bing interface, or Yandex.com got problems with content?

A search engine is a search engine is a search engine

Gasta search engine network like Yandex.com

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Wed, 02 May 2012 14:00:00 +0000

Gasta search engine network like Yandex.com

Gasta.com about Yandex.

Yandex is an internet technologies company that operates in Russia, CIS and Turkey. It is the largest Russian and fifth-largest world internet search engine. Yandex is an acronym for the phrase Yet Another Indexer.

As of December 2011, Yandex had 60.9% of the Russian search market (source: LiveInternet.ru).

Yandex™s mission is to give the answer to the user anytime and anywhere. Company provides its services for desktop and mobile users and develops embedded solutions as well.

The company specializes on highly-targeted sophisticated web search and information retrieval services based on world-class technologies like a proprietary machine-learning method MatrixNet.

Yandex provides localized services for its users, as well as enables them to search for websites in other languages.

In addition to web search the company offers dozens of free online services, granting access to extensive local, national and international information. The services include maps; traffic jams information; photo hosting; news service; blog search; spam-free email and many others.

In 2011, Yandex’s revenue totaled to $622,2 mln.

Great news as well Contextual ads accounted for 85% of the company’s revenues as of Q4 2011.

Gasta.com adds facebook sign-in

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:07:00 +0000

The Gasta search engine network has now added the Facebook sign-in button to all UK/Ireland search engine landing pages, this will make' the sharing experience' that our social search is pioneering easier for our users.
1. antrimtown.com
2. ebuyer.biz
3. dublin4.net
4. belfastwest.com
5. ballsbridge.net
6. oconnellstreet.net
7. penthouselondon.com
8. penthousedublin.com/
9. derrycity.net
10. doire.com
/11. lisburncity.net
12. isearchoz.com
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www.gasta.com

Great resource for advertisers

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 14:31:00 +0000

Great resource for advertisers

to place an add go to http://www.gasta.com/ads

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The Shore Wins Oscar for Best Short

noreply@blogger.com (Achilles) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 11:56:00 +0000

The Shore cracker little movie based on a true story and filmed in Clough Co Down has won 2012 best short film Oscar . 'The Shore stars' Ciaran Hinds (Caesar in ROME) and tells the story of a 'bromance' that was doomed by the troubles, and after 25 years a piognant reconcilliation takes place on The Shore in clough co down. The Shore was produced by Oorlagh George and written and directed by Terry George.
The Films funders were Lough Shore Investments, the film was produced in association with Northern Ireland Screen and Tourism Ireland. It was shot entirely on location in Coney Island, Co Down.

Catering was by Theresa Higgins of The River Mill,