I always enjoy reading stuff Malcolm Coles puts out. Today, he just dropped a really well written post:
15 more sites that forbid you from linking to them

Insanity?

Yes. It is. In this day and age more links means more more more rankings. So why are these sites not allowing people to link to them?

Legal Legacy

I blame the lawyers. Many of these statements used to exist in the days of iframes, when loads of people use to iframe other sites to make up their own. These iframes were seen as links, hence hundreds of legal teams just simply copied and pasted terms from one another, and to this day this outdated concept still exists.

Proof?

I randomly picked a paragraph from Malcom’s post:

You are not permitted to create a link to any part of our Services other than the home page unless you have our prior written consent.

What does that give me?

Well of course Malcolm ranks first for it. But what about the rest? Lets look at them:

www.littlecharleybear.com/p/terms

You are not permitted to create a link to any part of our Services other than the home page unless you have our prior written consent (and for the avoidance of doubt, such consent shall be deemed given in respect of widgets and embeddable media players which we may make available PROVIDED THAT you use them in accordance with these Terms and any further instructions published through our Services). We reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice. Our Services must not be framed on any other site.

http://www.gettinglegaldone.com/terms.html

You are not authorized to (i) resell, sublicense, transfer, assign, or distribute the site, its services or content; (ii) modify or make derivative works based on the site, its services or content; (iii) except for linking to this site’s home page, create Internet links to the site, its services or content, or (iv) “frame” or “mirror” the site, its services or content on any other server or Internet-enabled device. All rights not expressly granted in this Agreement are reserved by us and our licensors

http://www.goaugmented.com/index/terms

You must not transmit, republish, copy, modify, frame, store (in whole or in part), pass off or link to any material or information on or downloaded from this site without our prior written consent.

http://www.sandsendholidays.co.uk/tnc.htm

However, you must not copy, transmit, modify, republish, store (in whole or in part), frame, pass-off or link to any material or information on or downloaded from this Site without our prior written consent.

I got bored after the first few proved I was right. However, if the theory holds, there are millions thousands of sites out there with this copy pasta  from lazy legal teams.

Lazy lawyers

Update:

OK, OK, so I dramatised it a bit. There arent millions, but I would content thousands of sites… Thanks to Lord Manley and Matt for rapping my knuckles.  However, you need to run a number of variations of the original query, to find all of these sites… I only ran a few.

In Conclusion?

I have known this for a few years, funny how Malcolm spurred me to post this.

My Tip: Blame the Lawyers (and go and change these T&Cs on your sites!)

Not long if you are owned by Google.

Guess who is back in the SERPs with a vengence?I wrote about Beat that Quote and started ranking for it, in fact, I was at position 1 until today morning (they were penalised for shady SEO only a couple of weeks ago).

Jump To: Quick Answer! ===>

Now lets see what google has given them:

Click for full screenshot

Only Two weeks if You are Google!

7 Listings for Brand? That is Bullshit.

I havent had a chance to look at their KWs, but at first glance, they are on page two for most important ones in the Insurance industry.

Drop your comments and frustrations in the comments

Google Chrome - No Thanks!

So for those of you who read my google Nostalgia post, must have om across th google Friends newsletter. Yes the news letter is still running. ad I just got mine. I picked up the following tidbit which I thought was interesting. Have copied the relevant section, but the highlights are mine:

POWER TIP

Block sites from Google’s search results

This early, experimental Chrome extension lets you block sites from
your web search results. Once you block a site, you won’t see results
from that domain again in your results (you can always revoke a
blocked site at the bottom of the results page). The extension also
sends blocked site information to Google, and we will study the
resulting feedback and explore using it as a potential ranking signal
for our search results. If you’re a tech-savvy Chrome user, download
and try the Personal Blocklist extension today.
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/new-chrome-extension-block-sites-from.html
Download the extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/nolijncfnkgaikbjbdaogikpmpbdcdef

Interesting, especially when Google did infact use it to compare their blow up of the sites in the Farmer Update:

It’s worth noting that this update does not rely on the feedback we’ve received from the Personal Blocklist Chrome extension, which we launched last week. However, we did compare the Blocklist data we gathered with the sites identified by our algorithm, and we were very pleased that the preferences our users expressed by using the extension are well represented. If you take the top several dozen or so most-blocked domains from the Chrome extension, then this algorithmic change addresses 84% of them, which is strong independent confirmation of the user benefits.

Now this isnt the first admission:

One of the signals we’re exploring is explicit feedback from users. To that end, today we’re launching an early, experimental Chrome extension so people can block sites from their web search results. If installed, the extension also sends blocked site information to Google, and we will study the resulting feedback and explore using it as a potential ranking signal for our search results.

What does this mean?

To the clever Black / Gray Hats and the really nasty and dirty players, this is an open anti competitor season indication…

Remember, spam reports in the traditional sense arent acted on using the algo, it seems that this chrome plugin will…

It’s not hard to Spam Search Engines. Seriously, it isn’t. Especially when working on the Long Tail of Search Spam. I mean that is what SEO Automation is all about. However to do so, means falling foul of search engine guidelines, especially that of google.

One of the most traditional methods of SERP Spamming was the use of the site search function – using searches within your site to create hundreds of auto generated pages that were left open to Google to index. Note – this isn’t NOT advisable, unless you want to be hit by Google for spamming, after all the recent case of JC Penney SEO Fiasco should have taught us that Google will penalize right?

According to google guidelines:

Use robots.txt to prevent crawling of search results pages or other auto-generated pages that don’t add much value for users coming from search engines.

If you think that isn’t enough to deter you. Matt Cutts wrote about it too:

As a result of that question, YouTube added a “Disallow: /results” line in its robots.txt file. That’s good because as Google recrawls web pages, we’ll see that and begin to drop those search results.

Great, so google doesn’t want to intentionally index its own results. This does not mean it DOESN’T happen. In fact, Vanessa Fox covered a piece about Google Spamming search with Google Translate results:

I asked Google about this and they confirmed that indeed it was simply a matter of the Google Translate team not being aware of the issue and said they would resolve it.

I typically run 1000’s of long tail queries every week, mostly for fun. It keeps my mind set fresh, and often highlights gaps, issues and gives me great ideas. As a result of this, guess what I uncovered?

Yet Another Google Property Spamming SERPs

Site: Deskbar.Google.com

As you can see, Google has about 4,350,000 results indexed! All the top results are from Chinese queries (I think) and are indexed via “deskbar.google.com/news/more?”. Now the “/more?” url is intended to be a collection of stories from google news that are reached via the google Desktop application.

http://deskbar.google.com/news/ is virtually the same site (that I can tell) as http://news.google.co.uk/ ( I am no Michael VanDeMar who actually looks deep into issues – I don’t have the investigative skill, so I will let others do this for themselves J )

Update

Aaron Wall write about this issue in December 2010. Back then, there were just over 2.6 million results from this domain. As you can see, the results have doubled so far.

So is this a BIG Deal?

Simply put, yes it is. As I demonstrated with SERP Sniffing, the long tail of search is pretty valuable. With over 45 million results indexed, with more being added every minute, the value of the long tail is pretty high to this domain. Let me show you a few:

Glee News

Airline News

Starbuck News

I don’t think these have any commercial value. And apart from being a “collation” source for news related to these long tails, I don’t think they add value. Or maybe they do. I don’t know. I do know if any other site was collating news like this and ranking, they would quickly be dealt with.

Now what?

Well in the Vanessa Fox Article I linked to earlier has Robots Txt instructions in avoiding this sort of behavior for your own sites. I sincerely hope that Google stumble upon this post and add do the same. I advice you to do the same.

Side Note: Surely google should issue a set of guidelines to all those that manage such google properties? And should they have nocticed traffic coming in for those many SERPs?

Matt Cutts recent wrote a “nostalgia” piece about google 2000 vs 2011. I must admit, I started using Google in 2002 properly, mostly to hunt down good scifi stories.

What was great about the Search Engine Back then? Plenty I guess, it wasnt perfect. But I dont think its SERPs were under that much external scrutiny either.

However, sometimes, it good to take a step back and learn the history of the tools of your profession – I wonder how many “new” SEOs sit back and take a moment to do that?  So this post isnt teaching you something about SEO – its just asking you to reflect on where our profession came from. For an industry that is in its infancy, history shouldnt be that hard to study, should it?

So I want to pull out a link that many of you may NOT know exists – the Google Friends Newsletter. I signed up years ago, and I must admit, scrolling through the archives is entertaining…

In 1999, Google was averaging 7 Million Searches Daily.

This is not a typo! Google ended 1999 averaging about 7 million searches each day, a roughly 70,000% increase over the 10,000 searches per day that were performed on the Google site in December 1998! This explosive growth reflects the total number of searches performed by users on www.google.com and on our corporate partner sites. As of the middle of January, we are averaging more than 10 million searches each day! Thank you for spreading the word!

Larry Page Wrote the First Editions

Expect to see a lot of changes in Google in the next few months. We plan to have a much bigger index than our current 24 million pages soon. Thanks to all the people who have sent us logos, HTML and suggestions. Keep them coming!

Have fun and keep googling!

-Larry

Probably the First Custom Logo?

Google Valentine Logo - Feb 2000

See it here (was originally an animated version)

Google Bought Search Share

Now you can reap financial as well as karmic rewards for telling your friends about Google. By signing up for our affiliate program at <http://www.google.com/affiliates/welcome.html> you’ll be able to place a Google search box on your site and begin receiving 3 cents for each search you send our way. It’s our way of saying thanks to all of you who have been spreading the word about searching the Google way.

Finally a Screenshot – From Google Stanford 1999

Google Stanford Screenshot 1999

Based on the interest around my post on the real time Link operator for google results, I though let me see which other operators work in real time search. The first I tackled included the allinurl and allintitle which I really thought would be useful for real time analysis. Unfortunately that was a no go. However, one less frequently talked about operator did in fact work – and that was the “Tilde” (~) operator.

Tilde Search Operator?

The tilde helps you find synonyms of words, as the Google algo perceives them. This is usually done by preceding the term with a ~.

As you can see from the example below, the search for “~money” bolds the results for related words, including “currency” and “Gold”.  The operator also searches for the term with alternative endings, such as plurals. The tilde operator is pretty useful if it is applied in research for keywords that are considered  general terms and terms with many synonyms.

Tilde Operator Results for "Money"

PPC Pro Tip: I havent used this but a few PPC experts advise it works. You can boost Quality Score of an ad by using tilde sourced words instead of your targets if you don’t want to use the target keyword. Gives you a larger number of words you can use to make up your ads.

So does the Tilde Work in Real time?

Yes.   As you can see from the example below – you can easily use the tilde operator in real time!

Tilde Operator Results for "Money" - Real Time

What use is the Tilde in Real Time?

Keyword variance and discovery is the first glaringly obvious one. In the various tilde based searches I ran, Realtime results gave be the biggest variety of words, rather than organic – all on the same page. In my opinion this improves the speed at which you can find related words / synonyms. All you have to remember is that there are millions of people tweeting content continuously – this is giving you a “real Time” view of what words are being bunched together in google algo…

Real Time Sentiment Analysis.

This was suggested by Chris Lake (founder of Heckler Spray) and further expanded by Sam Crocker (or Samuel Crocker), who introduced the idea of “Conversation Grouping”. The idea is to mine peoples sentiments around sets of keywords, while grouping their thoughts together – for Example, if you ran a seach for a footballers name + a related word, you may capture some of the conversations, however using the tilde function on the word, you will actually group similar conversations that use variances of your target word:

Tilde based Real Time Conversation Grouping

Fresh Synonyms!

Both Sebastian (Sebastians Pamphlets) and Wiep (Link Building Expert) Suggested this. Fact is that a larger number of the SERPs on the organic for the Tilde based searches are older, more established searches. However Real time allows you to see what related words people are using now! This could mean that your data from Tilde Mining would be fresher via Real Time than the ordinary SERPs.

Side Note: Thank you to Neyne of SEO Scientist fame for sparking a good discussion on twitter regarding this post.

I noticed this just by chance, and thought its worth a mention.

Google RealTime Search usually gives you data from Twitter, Facebook etc. I thought it was pretty rad when it came out, especially since it threads conversations as well.

Google Realtime Search for Mashable.com

Google Realtime Closeup of Links

However it seems from some point in December, it now allows you to use the Link operator. I discovered this while playing with it for a little while, and clicking on “all mentions“. The results revert to the latest results, and loses the little timeline map.

Google Realtime Link Operator Invoked

However you can trick Realtime into giving you the monthly data for a URL:

Google Realtime: Month / Year Links

Use the month / back , date links highlighted above to steer to the date you would like, and you will see:

Google Realtime Domain Search

Now manually invoke the operator:

Google Realtime Operator in Use

Further Manipulation

You can now use the time line indicator to manipulate link drop on twitter for a URL, based on date, time, and location: (click for larger view)

Google Realtime Location Manipulation

URGENT WARNING! : Risk Threat Level HIGH.

I predicted misuse of the @Facebook email facility:

It seems that it has started. I just received:

Facebook Emails Security RISK

I know that this is 100% spam because I DONT use that email for facebook.  I seriously suggest you share this with anyone you think will fall for it. I havent investigated the  zip file, nor am I willing to try.

It could be a number of things, with malware the no. 1 suspect.

I have been saying for a while that google is going for a Content Play, and in a big way. So far all the changes that have been happening, such as the Credit Card Comparison, Google Places, HotPot, are all integrated into the search properties. Of course google owns other content properties such as Youtube, Picasaweb etc.

Last few weeks there have been rumours of a Fashion Portal from Google, and guess what? They just Launched. The site is Boutique.com.

Boutiques Dot Com

Still think I have a tin foil hat? Imagine the authority of such a fashion site… then compare it with your own. How many fashion bloggers, retailers etc going to get burnt? I dont know, depends to what size Google scales this market. Its not going to be good for some people at least…

From Techcrunch:

Another important thing to note about Boutiques.com is that it seems to appeal to women. One shopping for this demographic represents a huge market and one the eBay has been pushing hard as well.

So not long before other commercial demographics get Google dedicated properties….

See Google Official Announcement Here.

Adsense Beta

Adsense new reporting has been in beta since Nov 2009 and I only just got it. Awesome. If you are still in the old interface you may be able to forrce your dashboards to change by using this link. It is actually pretty good, and has a definate Google Analytics type feel to it.

Resources:

On the New Overview How the new reports work.

Summary of the New Interface