One Policy, One Google Experience

We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience across Google.

Notice of change

March 1, 2012 is when the new Privacy Policy and Google Terms of Service will come into effect. If you choose to keep using Google once the change occurs, you will be doing so under the new Privacy Policy and Terms of Service.

• Easy to work across Google
• Tailored for you
• Easy to share and collaborate
• Protecting your privacy hasn’t changed
• Understand how Google uses your data
• Got questions? We’ve got answers

Many countries approach privacy issues differently and there is no consistent global standard on which all countries agree. Google’s privacy policy is designed to be a single, clear, global statement of our approach to privacy, and our privacy practices under it are designed to meet applicable law around the world.

New Google Privacy policy

• 2,229 words
• 11,949 characters (not counting spaces)
• 14,435 characters (including spaces)
• 91 paragraphs
• 281 lines

Summary:

Googles Privacy Policy explains:

• What information we collect and why we collect it.
• How we use that information.
• The choices we offer, including how to access and update information.

Information we collect

We collect information in two ways:

• Information you give us.
• Information we get from your use of our services.

This information includes:

• Device information
• We may collect device-specific information (such as your hardware model, operating system version, unique device identifiers, and mobile network information including phone number).
• Google may associate your device identifiers or phone number with your Google Account.
• Log information
• When you use our services or view content provided by Google, we may automatically collect and store certain information in server logs.
• Location information
• When you use a location-enabled Google service, we may collect and process information about your actual location, like GPS signals sent by a mobile device. Certain services include a unique application number. We may collect and store information (including personal information) locally on your device using mechanisms such as browser web storage (including HTML 5) and application data caches.
• Cookies and anonymous identifiers

How we use information we collect

• If other users already have your email, or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Google Profile information, such as your name and photo.
• We may combine personal information from one service with information, including personal information, from other Google services – for example to make it easier to share things with people you know. We will not combine DoubleClick cookie information with personally identifiable information unless we have your opt-in consent.
• Google processes personal information on our servers in many countries around the world.
• Review and control certain types of information tied to your Google Account by using Google Dashboard.
• You can also opt out of certain Google advertising services.
• Take information out of many of our services.

Information you share
Many of our services let you share information with others. Remember that when you share information publicly, it may be indexable by search engines, including Google.

Accessing and updating your personal information
Whenever you use our services, we aim to provide you with access to your personal information. We aim to maintain our services in a manner that protects information from accidental or malicious destruction.

Information we share
We do not share personal information with companies, organizations and individuals outside of Google unless one of the following circumstances apply:

We require opt-in consent for the sharing of any sensitive personal information.

• access or retain information stored as part of your account.
• restrict your ability to delete or edit information or privacy settings.
• Please refer to your domain administrator’s privacy policy for more information.

We will share personal information with companies, organizations or individuals outside of Google if we have a good-faith belief that access, use, preservation or disclosure of the information is reasonably necessary to…

For example, we may share information publicly to show trends about the general use of our services.

Information security
Our Privacy Policy applies to all of the services offered by Google Inc. and its affiliates, including services offered on other sites (such as our advertising services), but excludes services that have separate privacy policies that do not incorporate this Privacy Policy.

Changes
Our Privacy Policy may change from time to time.

New Google Privacy Policy Link

New Google Terms of Service

• 1,671 words
• 8,475 characters (not counting spaces)
• 10,100 characters (including spaces)
• 46 paragraphs
• 187 lines

We’ve rewritten them to make them more readable and to reduce the repetition and legalese. The terms explain more simply the legal terms associated with the use of our services, including how we treat content that users submit. We’ve also consolidated many of our terms, with most products now using the Google Terms of Service and dozens fewer products than before using additional or separate terms.

Summary:

Thanks for using our products and services (“Services”). The Services are provided by Google Inc. By using our Services, you are agreeing to these terms. Additional terms will be available with the relevant Services, and those additional terms become part of your agreement with us if you use those Services.

Using our Services

Don’t misuse our Services. Using our Services does not give you ownership of any intellectual property rights in our Services or the content you access. Our Services display some content that is not Google’s. In connection with your use of the Services, we may send you service announcements, administrative messages, and other information. Your Google Account

You may need a Google Account in order to use some of our Services. Google’s privacy policies explain how we treat your personal data and protect your privacy when you use our Services. Your Content in our Services

Some of our Services allow you to submit content. Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. You can find more information about how Google uses and stores content in the privacy policy or additional terms for particular Services. About Software in our Services

Some Services may let you adjust your automatic update settings.

Modifying and Terminating our Services

We are constantly changing and improving our Services. Google may also stop providing Services to you, or add or create new limits to our Services at any time.

OTHER THAN AS EXPRESSLY SET OUT IN THESE TERMS OR ADDITIONAL TERMS, NEITHER GOOGLE NOR ITS SUPPLIERS OR DISTRIBUTORS MAKE ANY SPECIFIC PROMISES ABOUT THE SERVICES. WE PROVIDE THE SERVICES “AS IS”.

Liability for our Services

Business uses of our Services

New Google Terms of Service Link

The Data Liberation Front

The Data Liberation Front is an engineering team at Google whose singular goal is to make it easier for users to move their data in and out of Google products. We do this because we believe that you should be able to export any data that you create in (or import into) a product. We help and consult other engineering teams within Google on how to “liberate” their products.
data liberation mission statement:

Users should be able to control the data they store in any of Google’s products. Our team’s goal is to make it easier to move data in and out.

More info on Google and your data.
Good to Know

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Google News – The Short Story is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Baidu and bing Partnership

The Chinese search mogul Baidu and Microsoft announced yesterday they have struck a deal to offer bing web services in English. It’s expected to take place by the end of the year.

Baidu

Baidu dominates the native language search in China with a whopping 83% of the market. With the English language searches increasing to as many as 10 million a day they were looking for a powerful partner. Google moved last year to Hong Kong to escape Beijing’s censorship.

A year and a half after Google pulled its popular search engine out of mainland China, partly over concerns about censorship, its rival Microsoft has struck a deal with the biggest Chinese search engine, Baidu.com, to offer Web search services in English.

Microsoft – bing

This partnership will allow Baidu to offer better English search experiences and results through Microsoft’s bing search engine.

Microsoft appears to be accepting the Chinese censorship with out missing a stroke. It looks like they are keeping their eyes on China’s 470 million internet user prize.

Google declined to comment on the partnership between Baidu and Microsoft. But Google says that search is not its biggest business opportunity in China. Instead, it is betting on selling ads to Chinese companies to show users outside China and selling display ads to run on non-Google Web sites, neither of which is dependent on search. Chinese advertisers spent $1.7 billion on display ads last year, one of the highest such spends in the world, according to Google. The company continues to employ 500 people in China and says revenue there is growing year over year.

If you are planning on entering the 470 million internet user Chinese market you might want to re-work your bing strategy.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

bing and Baidu Partner is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

MetaCrawler Broken for Day Number 2

Both yesterday and today when I tried using metacrawler the “metasearch engine”, the results came up fine. The problem arose when I clicked on any of the results.

When I clicked on the result I wished to visit I received a “Runtime Error” message.

An application error occurred on the server. The current custom error settings for this application prevent the details of the application error from being viewed remotely (for security reasons). It could, however, be viewed by browsers running on the local server machine.

To enable the details of this specific error message to be viewable on remote machines, please create a <customErrors> tag within a “web.config” configuration file located in the root directory of the current web application. This <customErrors> tag should then have its “mode” attribute set to “Off”.

I noticed at around 7AM Pacific Daylight Time today metacrawler resolved this problem for a few minutes.

At first I thought this might have been their tribute to Memorial Day.
At this time metacrawler is still rendering a Runtime Error.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

MetaCrawler Breaks is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

How Does the Google Panda Algorithm Update Effect SEO?

Just one day after Cinco de Mayo Google released a blog post “More guidance on building high-quality sites”. With this post Google has dealt with a number of questions that they have been trying to resolve with their algorithm update.

Of course, we aren’t disclosing the actual ranking signals used in our algorithms because we don’t want folks to game our search results; but if you want to step into Google’s mindset, the questions below provide some guidance on how we’ve been looking at the issue…

Here is the fresh list of the questions Google is trying to answer with Panda:

• Would you trust the information presented in this article?
• Is this article written by an expert or enthusiast who knows the topic well, or is it more shallow in nature?
• Does the site have duplicate, overlapping, or redundant articles on the same or similar topics with slightly different keyword variations?
• Would you be comfortable giving your credit card information to this site?
• Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?
• Are the topics driven by genuine interests of readers of the site, or does the site generate content by attempting to guess what might rank well in search engines?
• Does the article provide original content or information, original reporting, original research, or original analysis?
• Does the page provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?
• How much quality control is done on content?
• Does the article describe both sides of a story?
• Is the site a recognized authority on its topic?
• Is the content mass-produced by or outsourced to a large number of creators, or spread across a large network of sites, so that individual pages or sites don’t get as much attention or care?
• Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?
• For a health related query, would you trust information from this site?
• Would you recognize this site as an authoritative source when mentioned by name?
• Does this article provide a complete or comprehensive description of the topic?
• Does this article contain insightful analysis or interesting information that is beyond obvious?
• Is this the sort of page you’d want to bookmark, share with a friend, or recommend?
• Does this article have an excessive amount of ads that distract from or interfere with the main content?
• Would you expect to see this article in a printed magazine, encyclopedia or book?
• Are the articles short, unsubstantial, or otherwise lacking in helpful specifics?
• Are the pages produced with great care and attention to detail vs. less attention to detail?
• Would users complain when they see pages from this site?

Writing an algorithm to assess page or site quality is a much harder task, but we hope the questions above give some insight into how we try to write algorithms that distinguish higher-quality sites from lower-quality sites.

So what does this mean to us SEOs?

If we are wearing the SEO white hat nothing.
It is our job to help create great content that deals with all the questions above. What good is it to get visitors to your site to just have them turn around and walk out the door (metaphorically that is). We need to engage our visitors and give them value.

If you haven’t been keeping in mind most or even all of the list above why not?

If you had a brick and mortar store would you only have a door? Your customers would walk through your door and not be able to find anything they were looking for. How long would you be in business with this store?

While I believe the list above are some very lofty goals shouldn’t they be what we are striving for?

If you shoot for the moon and fall short you will be no where. If you shoot for the stars and fall short you will be able to reach the moon with ease.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Google Panda Update – Update is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Are your Tweets Ranking on Google? What is Your Twitter Marketing Strategy

The best bet is to combine your Twitter Marketing Strategy with your Twitter and SEO efforts. There are even some who believe that Twitter and any social media as a group are useless for search engine marketing.

Are they right or are they just sticking their head in the sand?

Twitter doesn’t have direct link juice. (The search engines are getting better at using the shortened URLs.) Because of Twitter’s high page rank, not only your tweets but even your Twitter profile page can get on the first page of Google. With just with a little backlink strategy this can be accomplished.

Being a SEO Consultant I can’t pigeon hole a process to cover just one single task with a process so…

Twitter (and more) Backlinking Strategy:

• Use a keyword research tool to to locate the keyword phrase/s you wish to rank on. I use Nichebot as my keyword research tool (a real time saver).
• It would be best if you create a blog post on your own site that goes into the subject in even more detail using your chosen keyword phrase/s (never pass up a chance to increase your own SERPs).
• Compose your Tweet using the keyword phrase you have chosen. It would be best if it would link to your blog post or some article of a similar topic.
• Write a 226+ word article on EzineArtlcles and use your keyword phrase as an anchor text to your Tweet.
• Write a second (and even a third) 226+ word article for posting HubPages and/or Squidoo with an anchor text backlink to your Tweet.
• Use a social bookmarking software like OnlyWire to bookmark all your articles (Your Blog, EzineArtlcle, HubPages and Squidoo).
• Make sure to ping everything, including the all the RSS feeds. (Pinging tools – Pingler, Ping-o-Matic!, PingSites…)

Wait for a few days and not only your Tweet but all of your articles including your blog post will rank for your keyword phrase on Google.

Even though this post is geared towards Twitter SEO and marketing in general is synergistic. This can not only be applied to other social media it should be applied with a wide brush. Everything feeds off of everything else.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Do You have a Twitter Marketing Strategy? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

WebVisions May 25-27, 2011 at the Oregon Convention Center

Portland’s premiere web design event.
WebVisions:

• New Format
• Heavyweight Speakers
• More Parties. More Fun
• May 25-27, Portland, Oregon

WebVisions is changing! Shorter, punchier sessions and half-day workshops that explore the future of web design, technology, UX and business strategy.
Great discount for SEO Blog readers on the event packages.

The Popular Workshops
Our knock-out, half-day workshops offer in depth, quality time with leading web visionaries and experts. Workshops are held on the morning and afternoon of Wed., May 25th.
The lineup of workshops include:

• “Designing for Touch” – Josh Clark
• “Building a Practice as a UX Team of One” – Leah Buley
• “The Future of Web Design Isn’t Just the Web: Design for Cross-Channel Experiences” – Samatha Starmer
• “The NEW Web Typography: Where the Sexy Is” – Jason Cranford Teague
• “HTML5 & CSS3 in Practice” – Daniel Davis
• “User Interface Design with jQuery” – Dave McFarland
• “Crafting Stories for User Experience” – Whitney Quesenbery & Kevin Brooks
• “Encoding H.264 and WebM Video for HTML5 and Flash” – Robert Reinhardt
• “Beyond Usable: Research with Results” – Kelly Goto
• “Mobile UX Essentials” – Rachel Hinman

Sign up for WebVisions today!

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

WebVisions 2011 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

SEMpdx’s SearchFest 2011

When I opened the door to get the paper this morning I was a little disappointed it wasn’t snowing. I wanted to be the only one there wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. Wait a minute I will probably be the only one there wearing shorts and a Hawaiian shirt anyway. Only time will tell.

If you haven’t heard about SearchFest it is the premiere search marketing event in Oregon. They have a great line up of speakers including:

• Adam Audette
• Allison Hartsoe
• Ben Lloyd
• Bryan Rhoads
• Chris Boggs
• Chris Sherman
• Conrad Saam
• David Mihm
• Dustin Woodard
• Greg Sterling
• Hallie Janssen
• Ian Lurie
• Joanna Lord
• John Andrews
• John Shehata
• Jordan Kasteler
• Kegan Sims
• Kent Schnepp
• Lisa Williams
• Lulu Gephart
• Mark Knowles
• Marshall Simmonds
• Mary O’Brien
• Matt McGee
• Matthew Brown
• Michael Cottam
• Mike Blumenthal
• Mike Rosenberg
• Rand Fishkin
• Reid Spice
• Scott Hendison
• Scott Orth
• Susan Delz
• Todd Friesen
• Todd Malicoat
• Todd Mintz
• Todd Nemet
• Will Scott

It’s still not too late to attend. To quote from “Out To Sea” “It’s never too late, that’s why they invented death”

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

SearchFest 2011 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Not Allowed to Dial Error Message on a SciPhone i68 4G

I recently purchased a SciPhone 4G with a dual sim card phone. I was very happy with this phone. I had no problems until one day I couldn’t call out. I kept getting a not allowed to dial message every time I tried to call anyone.

I could still receive calls and send and receive texts but I couldn’t call out. After quite a bit of research on the internet I came up with a solution. None of the solutions available had all the information I needed I just kept trying different combinations until it worked.

Here is the step by step solution I used to remove the “not allowed to dial” message and allow me to dial out again.

1. turn off the phone
2. place 2 sims on the phone
3. restart the phone
4. keep the WLAN disabled
5. enter the engineering mode * # 82043036 #
6. select the option RF Test Tool (on my phone it’s option 13)
7. Select GSM, to accept him
8. go to Power scan
9. go to Band Select and select OK DCS1800
10. another screen will appear (model F003) look at each of the options until you find one that will have your phone appear unresponsive (this locked)
11. pressing the main button (the box) will take you to the home screen
12. go to the setup menu
13. go to network settings menu SIM1
14. this is a preferred mode
15. select one of the preferred modes GSM or WILAN
16. restart the phone and you should be ready to make calls

You just enter the code/s into the phone number area in the dial section and the phone will recognize it and enter into the proper mode.

I still love this phone. It has built in WIFI so I can surf the internet with out having to have a data plan from my service provider. I use T-Mobile.

Here are the particulars on my SciPhone:
Mode: i68 Quad Band Phone
Specifications:

• Dual SIM
• Dual Standby
• WiFi
• Bluetooth

SciPhone i68 4G Technology Specifications

Weight: 110g
Dimensions: 114.6 x 62.0 x 11.0
Battery: NOKIA Universal 4C battery
Standby time: 210 – 300 minutes
Display Type: TFT, QVGA, 3.2 inch
Network: GSM 850/900/1800/1900 MHz

Here is some important information I found that actually works on my phone.

• default password is 1122
• special key code to display the firmware version * # 8375 #
• the special key code to enter “engineering mode” * # 82043036 #
• obtained IMEI code * # 06 #
• factory model code * # # # 66 it is NOT recommended that you use it

I must admit I was the one who caused the problem. I am the kind of person who wants to know just what settings are available on any piece of technology I have. So if you are like me and have changed a setting on your SciPhone i68 4G Quad band Phone with WIFI and get the not allowed to dial message, these instructions should help you back to making calls again.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

SciPhone i68 4G – not allowed to dial is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

The Oregon Ducks Vie for the National Championship

In Oregon today’s talk is all about the Ducks and the National Championship game with the Tigers. It seems like everyone here is attending some sort of a Oregon Duck party. I personally am going to a Duck party in Oregon City at my daughters house.

Today will be filled with talk about everything and anything related to Oregon Ducks football.

oregon ducks football recruits

2009 Oregon Ducks Football Recruits

• How strong was the recruiting class of 2009 for the Oregon Ducks football team?
• Are these recruits helping this year?
• How much will they help next year?

2010 Oregon Ducks Football Recruits

• Will we continue to get stronger with our 2010 Oregon Ducks football recruits?
• Who should we go after?
• Who will we go after?
• Being in the National Championship game will help recruiting.

oregon ducks cheerleaders

I’m even sure the topic of the Oregon Ducks Cheerleaders will be a topic of discussion today.

oregon ducks wallpaper

Here are some of the available “Oregon Ducks wallpaper” for you to install and show your Duck Pride.
Just click on the image to go the desktop size version.

BTW here’s a Oregon Ducks Roster.

GO DUCKS!
Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Oregon Ducks Wallpaper and the Game is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Google Local What is Ahead in 2011?

Here we are one week into 2011 and I am finally getting around to putting up my first blog post this year.
Google Local has been very erratic the past few months.
I figured I’d toss around some of my Google Local observations, predictions, and conclusions.

Google Local Observations

• Google renames the Google Local Business Center Google Places
   
• New display for business listings appearing when users submit search queries related to local businesses

 

• Local results moves around from the top of the organic results to the 3rd position

 

• Google’s local Results change from the top 3 inserted into the organic results to multiple results

 

• Google no longer lists a page organically and in the local results

 

• Today Google places the local results in the number 2 position

 

• Google places 7 local results on the first page

 

• Google now only places 6 organic results on the first page

 

• Google places 13 results for a search term like “portland window cleaning” on page one

Google Local Predictions

• Local businesses will be scrambling to recoup their SERPs

 

• Local businesses will be forced to become more familiar with the various factors which may influence local search rankings

 

• Local search and organic results will become more subservient accomplices in your first page results on Google

 

• You will see more deep linking in the top listed websites

 

• You will see more mini sites being used

 

• You will see a lot more changes to the Google first page results display in 2011

Google Local Conclusions

• Google isn’t really trying to be more relevant with their new displayed results

 

• Google is trying to create more value to their Google Places model

 

• Google is trying to create more revenue with Google Places

 

• Google is trying to create more of a need for AdWords

 

• Google is not my friend they just want access to my pockets!

 
Don’t even get me started with Google instant! That’s fodder for another post.
 

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Google Local New Year Predictions is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Digital Marketing Conference at Portland State University

PSU Digital Marketing Conference – Dec 13, 2010
This particular year’s Digital Marketing Conference will astonish attendees in Portland State’s Lincoln Hall presentation center.

If you attended last years conference I know you will be there. If you didn’t attend last year this would be a great event to begin attending annually!

The full-day conference will include chances to discover in 3 separate paths involving 40 speakers, including 2 keynotes, Boston C.C. Chapman, author of Content Rules and Intel’s futurist, Brian David Johnson, author of Screen Future. The paths will incorporate an expert series, a digital marketing bootcamp, and an Ignite DMC. Network along with creatives, marketing professionals, faculty, and students, associations, and agencies throughout the day, at the backstage lunch, or evening anniversary event.

Hear presentations on hyper-local to international business in Path 1, running from the local grocers’ employment of social media to music, the arts and interactive media. Come in contact with our Digital Marketing Strategies certification instructors for Path 2′s boot camp. Submit your tale for Path 3′s Ignite DMC, and we’ll select the most compelling to engage audiences in a theatre-in-the-round. Add the Back Stage VIP luncheon to your conference packet to network with industry associations and leaders. Take a group picture in Powell’s Books digital photo booth. For the evening, help us celebrate our 15th anniversary at the 1408 SW 6th Ave Nel Centro wrap party.

Visit www.pdxdmc.com to check the schedule and get the latest on the speakers and sessions. The conference this year will provide you with case studies, tips, and techniques using the latest digital marketing practices like digital brand, SEO, engagement, and transmedia marketing. This conference has a great deal to offer. Don’t miss it.

Register immediately while tickets are still available.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Digital Marketing Conference 2010 PSU is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Dogpile and MetaCrawler have both been Broken for nearly a Week Now

When I first noticed that both MetaCrawler and Dogpile were getting a “timed out message” I chalked it up to a network glitch. As time went by and they still weren’t loading I figured it was a problem with Comcast or the dns server I was using.

I did my due diligence and searched the internet for someone reporting problems with these sites. The only thing I could find was…

InfoSpace Appoints William J. Ruckelshaus as President and Acting Chief Executive Officer

InfoSpace (News – Alert), Inc. (NASDAQ:INSP), today announced that the Company has named InfoSpace Board member and former chief financial officer of AudienceScience, William (Bill) J. Ruckelshaus, as president and acting chief executive officer…

InfoSpace, Inc., a leading developer of metasearch products, is focused on bringing the best of the Web to Internet users. InfoSpace’s proprietary metasearch technology combines the top results from several of the largest online search engines, providing fast and comprehensive search results. InfoSpace sites include Dogpile® (www.dogpile.com), InfoSpace.com® (www.infospace.com), MetaCrawler® (www.metacrawler.com), WebCrawler® (www.webcrawler.com), and WebFetch® (www.webfetch.com).

Could this be the reason for MetaCrqwler and Dogpile being down?

After checking all the metasearch products that Bill took over it appears that they are all broken. He must be having a great first couple of weeks.

Will the InfoSpace metasearch products be resurrected?

MetaCrawler

Dogpile

The importance of MetaCrawler and Dogpile for us SEO folks is that Wordtracker uses a database of over 330 million search terms which is updated on a weekly basis. All search terms are collected from the major metacrawlers – Dogpile and Metacrawler.

I use NicheBot to access the Wordtracker database for part of my keyword research as well as many other cool things. How will this affect our info-space?

Any insights?

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

MetaCrawler and Dogpile have been Down for 6 Days is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

PSU’s Digital Marketing Conference Was Great Last Year This Year Looks To Be Even Better

Enrollment is presently open for Portland State’s year 2010 Digital Marketing Conference being held Monday, Dec 13.

This year’s digital marketing conference has been extended to the refurbished Lincoln Hall. It sports four hundred and fifty + auditorium and suites at the same time will have 3 tracks, twenty five + speakers including keynote futurist Brian David Johnson of Intel, a digital marketing bootcamp, and an Ignite DMC.

• Track 1
  Hear presentations on hyper-local to international business in running from the localized grocers’ employment of social media to music, the arts and interactive media

 

• Track 2
  Have interaction with our Digital Marketing Strategies certificate instructors bootcamp

 

• Track 3
  Submit your story for Ignite DMC and we’ll chose the most compelling to engage people in a theatre-in-the-round. Interact with content, speakers, and industry pros at the backstage luncheon, Powell’s Books photo-lab, and evening wrap party

 

 
As always this conference is a real bargain.

I will be in San Diego during this years PSU Digital Marketing Conference so I expect you hear about how great it was from you.

You can register here.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Portland State University Digital Marketing Conference 2010 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

NO TRUTH TO RUMOR THAT CELL PHONE NUMBERS WILL BE MADE AVAILABLE TO TELEMARKETERS

Without redaction there must be a retraction or at least a clarification.

My last post wasn’t completely true. Cell phone numbers won’t be given to telemarketers. Although the phone number I gave you is correct for the National Do Not Call Registry.
Some of the other information I gave you about the National Do Not Call Registry is also wrong.

Your registration will not expire. Telephone numbers placed on the National Do Not Call Registry will remain on it permanently due to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of 2007, which became law in February 2008. [more]

Washington, DC — For several years there has been a rumor circulating, mostly by e-mail, that a nationwide directory of cell phone numbers will be made available to telemarketers, and that consumers will start receiving telemarketing calls on their cell phones.
There is no truth to this rumor.

• Cell phone numbers are not being released to telemarketers
• FCC rules prohibit the use of autodialers and prerecorded messages to call cell phones without the consumer’s consent
• Most telemarketers are barred from contacting consumers on their cell phones
• Consumers may register their cell phone numbers as an extra protection against unwanted telemarketing calls
• Most telemarketing calls to cell phones would be illegal regardless of whether the number is listed on the National Do Not Call Registry

More information on the National Do-Not-Call Registry.
Learn more about the rumor.

WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE NATIONAL DO NOT CALL REGISTRY

The National Do Not Call Registry gives you a choice about whether to receive telemarketing calls at home. Most telemarketers should not call your number once it has been on the registry for 31 days. If they do, you can file a complaint at this Website. You can register your home or mobile phone for free.

Before I released the last post I checked out the phone number and it was the National Do Not Call Registry. I figured it was better to be safe than sorry. :-$

My apologies for spreading a rumor but at least now I have my cell number listed on the National Do Not Call Registry. :-}

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

National Do Not Call Registry Cell Phone Telemarketers Rumors is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Cell Phone Numbers will be Released to Telemarketing Companies this Month

All cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies this month and you will start to receive sales calls.

YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS!

To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222.
(Public service post from SEO Blog.)
It is the National DO NOT CALL list It will only take a minute of your time.. It blocks your number thirty-one (31) days later for five (5) years. You will need to make the call from the cell phone number you want blocked. It is not permitted to call from a different phone number.

PLEASE HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON… It only takes about 20 seconds.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Cell Phone Numbers Go Public this Month is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Your Fedreal Tax Payment ID: 0103635405 has been rejected

On first preview this email looks like an actual email from the United States Government. They had done their homework, it was sent 3 days after the final tax deadline.

They even had a link that looked like it went to the actual ETPS website.
http://eftps.gov/R21 was the URL that was showing but…

They had even made a reasonable looking fake website at the end of the fake link.

http://s1091037.crystone.net/j5e3qu/red2.html sent you to a fake website that even falsified the URL in the address window.

On closer examination the person who put this email together has a dyslexia problem.

EFTPS ONLINE
THE EASEIST WAY TO PAY YOUR FDEERAL TAXES
Your Federal Tax Payment ID: 01037596568 has been not accepted.

Pelase, make sure that all informaiton you have sumbitted is correct and refer to Code R21 to find out the inforamtion about comapny pyament. Plaese conatct this page if you have any questions:

http://eftps.gov/R21

Reutrn Reason Code R21 – The identificaiton nubmer you enetred in the Cmopany Idenitfication Feild is not functional. Try senidng informtaion to your acconutant advsier using other opitons.

EFTPS: The Electronic Federal Tax Payment System

WARNING!
You are uisng an Official United States Government System, which may be used only for atuhorized purposes. Unauthorized modification of any information stored on this ssytem may result in criminal prosecution. The Gvoernment may monitor and audit the usage of system, and all perosns are hereby notified that the use of this system contsitutes cnosent to such monitoring and auditing. Unauthorized attempts to upload infromation and/or change information on this web site are stirctly prohibited and are subject to prsoecution under theComptuer Farud and Abuse Act of 1986 and Title 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001 and 1030.

Now the clincher…
We can examine the long header and see the real route that the email made.

From: “EFTPS Tax Payment”
Date: October 18, 2010 3:07:05 AM PDT
To:
Subject: Your Fedreal Tax Payment ID: 0103635405 has been rejected.
Reply-To: customers9453@eftps.gov
Return-Path:
X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.2.5 (2008-06-10) on ssl9.glhserver.com
X-Spam-Level: **
X-Spam-Status: No, score=2.5 required=5.0 tests=FORGED_MUA_THEBAT_CS, HTML_FONT_SIZE_LARGE,HTML_MESSAGE,MIME_HTML_ONLY,UNPARSEABLE_RELAY autolearn=no version=3.2.5
Received: from ssl9.glhserver.com (root@localhost) by whiteroseproductions.com (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id o9IA7DNi003440 for ; Mon, 18 Oct 2010 06:07:13 -0400
Received: from advert-tech.biysk.ru (advert-tech.biysk.ru [194.150.140.202]) by ssl9.glhserver.com (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id o9IA76ps009079 for ; Mon, 18 Oct 2010 06:07:08 -0400
Received: from 194.150.140.202 by ; Mon, 18 Oct 2010 16:07:05 +0600
X-Clientaddr: 194.150.140.202
X-Mailer: The Bat! (v2.00.18) Educational
X-Priority: 3 (Normal)
Message-Id: <845140707.57647196820816@advert-tech.biysk.ru>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/html; charset=”us-ascii”
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
X-Null-Tag: d1e120e89880762d3ac820bef26cba8b
X-Scanned-By: milter-spamc/1.13.385 (ssl9.glhserver.com [209.210.238.116]); Mon, 18 Oct 2010 06:07:10 -0400
X-Ssl9-Mailscanner-Information: Please contact the ISP for more information
X-Mailscanner-Id: o9IA76ps009079
X-Ssl9-Mailscanner: Found to be clean
X-Mailscanner-From: customers9453@eftps.gov

The Received: from IP address 194.150.140.202 is a file server from RinoSoft.com

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
One last clue… This email was sent through advert-tech.biysk.ru (advert-tech.biysk.ru) if that doesn’t set off your alarms nothing will.

The US Government won’t send email through a domain for the Russian Federation.

I post the entire text in these emails from time to time so anyone who searches for some of this type information is able to find it with a search.

The actual destination URL http://s1091037.crystone.net/j5e3qu/red2.html has been removed as of this posting.

The sad part of this is that 1 in 600,000,000 recipients of this email have most likely fallen victim of this scam. That’s what the numbers are 1 in 600,000,000 people who receive a scam or phishing email will actually follow through and become victims.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

IRS Email Scam EFTPS is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Conduit Hijacks Firefox on a Windows Computer and Convinces User it is Google

I recently had a client ask me a question about some Google results I couldn’t answer. When I finally figured out the answer it was a case of Conduit taking control of the computers Firefox settings.

He was totally convinced he was using Google so I had the client send me some screen shots of the search results he was getting and the results were very interesting.

The search term was “windows” and…

The above screen shot is a compilation of 3 screens the single screen showed only one organic search result. While Conduit does identify the top results as ads it is not easily apparent to the viewer that there is any difference between the ads and the organic results.

Here is what the searcher saw in his results.

Only the bottom result was organic. All the results above that one were paid Google ads.
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
This hijacking even removed the Conduit logo and replaced it with a magnifying glass.

But when I loaded the Conduit search on my Mac using Firefox the logo magically appears.

As you can see from the above Mac screen shot Conduit does place the text “sponsored links” on the page but the uninitiated could easily miss it.

When I went to the Conduit home page on my Mac this is what I saw.

The Conduit logo is the text “Conduit”, so why isn’t it showing on the PC?

A pretty slick job of hijacking the Firefox browser preferences on a Windows computer ‘eh?

Do you have any similar stories of some sort of control over your computer by some outside source I would love to here about them.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Search Engines and Fraud is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Twitter Spends Time and Resources on a Face Lift

It looks like twitter is trying to compete with the cool slick twitter clients that are available today.

If I owned twitter I would spend more time trying to make the program more stable and try to eliminate the famous twitter down time.

This new design is interesting. They made everything smaller so they could get more information on the page and above the fold. They have taken real estate away from you personalization. They have even added a background to my profile photo that makes me look like I am wearing a cowboy hat. At least this doesn’t show up in my icon.

Here is what twitter is touting, some screenshots, a few comments, and even a video.
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)

 
The New design

You will now find @mentions, retweets, searches, and lists just above your timeline – creating a single, streamlined view on the left of the screen. On the right, you can see the features you’re familiar with, including whom you recently followed and who recently followed you, favorites, and Trending Topics.

Now you need a wide screen to see the background image you have so carefully chosen.

 
View photos, videos, and other media content

Now, it’s easy to see embedded photos and videos directly on Twitter, thanks to partnerships with DailyBooth, DeviantART, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, TwitVid, USTREAM, Vimeo, yfrog, and YouTube.

 
Discover related content

When you click a Tweet, the details pane shows additional information related to the author or subject. Depending on the Tweet’s content, you may see: @replies, other Tweets by that same user, a map of where a geotagged Tweet was sent from, and more.

Everyone is using the geolocation function in twitter aren’t they?

 
Mini profiles

You can click a @username to see a mini profile without navigating from the page, which provides quick access to account information, including bio and recent Tweets.

Does this remind you of the LinkedIn rollover to view a mini profile function? The difference – you have to click on the icon to view it and you have to close it too.

 
Rollout timing

These changes will roll out as a preview over the next several weeks. During the preview, you’ll be able to switch back and forth so you have time to grow accustomed to the way things work. Eventually, everyone will have the updated version of Twitter.com.

Old Twitter

New Twitter

They are also promising that their infrastructure and operations engineers are responding to the incident.

One more thing… I can’t find where you log out… ;-(
It’s in a dropdown under your name in the upper right hand corner.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

#NewTwitter – The NEW Twitter is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

It is Time to give Cuil a Cool Farewell

Cuil is pronounced “cool”, the venture-backed search engine company has disappeared. My broken links WordPress plugin shows Cuil to be unreachable for 3 days now. It appears Cuil has gone down for the count.

Touted as the “Google Killer”, Cuil never really caught on. They had a lot of edgy ideas about how search terms should be delivered and it was actually interesting but not all that useful.

Cuil had raised about $33 million in funding from private equity firm Madrone Capital Partners, Greylock Partners and Tugboat Ventures.

According to the SearchEngineWatch online forum, employees at the Menlo Park-based Cuil were told at 11 a.m. on Sept, 17 that the company would be shutting down. To everyone’s surprise the company’s servers were shut down only five hours later.

Cuil launched in 2008. They were led by Andrea Patterson, the architect of Google Inc.’s large index search and Tom Costello, Patterson’s husband and a computer scientist who had developed search engines at Stanford University and IBM Corp.

Cuil Didn’t turn out to be so Cool after all. Goodbye Cuil I can’t say we will miss you.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Cuil The Search Engine That Never Really Was is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

What effect does the Yahoo! – bing marriage have on traffic?

I ran the traffic stats from Google analytics for the 12 days prior to the change and the 12 days after the change. I compared the visitor stats from both Yahoo! and bing during this period.

I used 3 websites that have no similarities other than they are all established sites that have been around for quite some time and get organic traffic.

Age of the sites:

• 8 years
• 7 years
• 4 years

Server Location:

• Henderson, Nevada
• Eugene, Oregon
• San Antonio, Texas

Alexa Traffic Rank:

• 162,947
• 694,179
• 1,661,606

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)

The rank is calculated using a combination of average daily visitors and pageviews over the past 3 months. The site with the highest combination of visitors and pageviews is ranked #1.

Daily pageviews per user:

• 9.80000
• 6.00000
• 4.30000

With all of that said let’s take a look at the stats.
 
There was a 17% increase in traffic from bing and a 42% increase in traffic from Yahoo!
 
There was a 9% drop in traffic from bing but a 29% increase in traffic from Yahoo!
 
There was a 32% increase in traffic from bing but a drop in traffic of 5% from Yahoo! One interesting fact about this site is while there was a 5% drop in visits from Yahoo! there was a 19% increase in pages per visit over the same time period. Does this mean that the bing search results are more relevant?
 
Yahoo! Traffic:

• 22% increase in search engine traffic from Yahoo!
• 9% increase in pages per visit from Yahoo!

bing Traffic:

• 13% increase in search engine traffic from bing
• 12% increase in pages per visit from

Even with such a small sampling to this SEO it looks like the bing relevance factor is shining it’s light on Yahoo! results.

The 32% of the search market seems to be close these sites show the bing – Yahoo! search alliance to be bringing close to 30% of the organic search traffic to these sites.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Yahoo! Bing Search Alliance Traffic Report is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Install WP Business Directory Plugin Update Be Ready to Spend Time Fixing It

WPBUSDIRMAN – A plugin that provides the ability to maintain a free or paid business directory on your WordPress powered site.
Version 1.8.1 by A Lewis will cause you a lot of extra work and it is still broken. Some of the child category listings just won’t show up and others will if you check both categories.

Let’s start from the beginning… This morning I was shown the message that an update was available for the plugin. Wanting to keep up to date of course I installed the update. (there were no warnings)
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
The update was a good one. It will allow you to separate the directory from your blog including the categories used for each. That said… It blew apart the site (well the directory folder on the site anyway).

This update just seamed to willy-nilly shift some of the directory listings to the posts section and the same for the blog postings. I also sort of split up and in some cases duplicated a few of the categories and dealt them out in some strange way between the directory categories and the posts categories.

After 4 hours of intense work I had the categories sorted out, rebuilt, and placed in their proper places. Now there is no easy way to show the hierarchical directory listings as a widget. I did find a work around. With the help of “Menus” I created a sidebar widget.

Now I have to promote all the category children to top level status… I hope these problems will be solved with the next update.

I even get the following error message:

Warning: Missing argument 1 for wpbusdirman_the_listing_meta(), called in /var/www/html/local-directory/wp-content/plugins/wp-business-directory-manager/wpbusdirman.php on line 5979 and defined in /var/www/html/local-directory/wp-content/plugins/wp-business-directory-manager/wpbusdirman.php on line 6103

Oh well! It still makes a nice directory. I just wish I had some warning the update would blow my directory apart.

Hence this blog post.

I guess they don’t call it the bleeding edge for nothing.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

WordPress Warning – WP Business Directory Plugin Update is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Bing and Yahoo! Conjugate Alliance in the US and Canada

With the sheets pulled back all that was left was for the bing – Yahoo! Search Alliance to be conjugated.

Towards the end of last month Yahoo! fully switched to using bing’s technology as the power for its search results in the US and Canada.

What this means is whenever anyone searches on yahoo.com they will get exactly the same results as as they would on bing. The only differences are the interface, navigation, some universal results (except images and videos) and related searches.

But will this bring SEO woe?

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)

The organic results appear to be identical.

The Yahoo! footer now sports a “Powered by Bing™” identifier.

It looks as though everything is going as planned by the bing – Yahoo! Search Alliance, so unless something blows up we can expect Yahoo to switch to bing powered PPC ads sometime in mid October.

What this means to us SEOs is that bing is now powering 5.2 billion searches monthly which gives them nearly 32% of the search market share in the US and nearly 9% in Canada. Previous information deduced from the numbers published in the comScore report from June 2010.

Yahoo Site Explorer

One of the largest concerns to SEOs is the effect this alliance will have on Yahoo’s Site Explorer. This tool is one of the best free sources for backlink data. If Yahoo’s Site Explorer goes away it will take many of the popular backlink checkers that use its data with it.

Good News

According to the post on the official Yahoo search blog Site Explorer will remain operational at least till early 2012. 2012 is the chosen date when Yahoo is planning to complete the switch to the bing backend technology.

Once all markets are being served by Microsoft, we plan to refine the focus of Yahoo! Site Explorer, and webmasters should use bing’s Webmaster Center to provide information about their website and its structure.

How is the switch to Bing algorithm affecting your site?

Are you noticing a rise or decline in traffic from bing or Yahoo?

Post your story in the comments.

Late,
Gary Pool SEO

Bing and Yahoo! Conjugate the Relationship is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician