Is Yahoo Contextual Joking?

I guess they are relying on a bunch of people not thinking their web traffic is worth anything. Google's AdSense at least pays you something. You would think Yahoo would offer a share of the paid listing revenue.

Come on Yahoo how much more are you going to treat web users like fools? With each of your recent steps you show little regard for the development of community. Novel widgets may get you those mesmerized by shiny things, but will not improve your credence.

Anoox Challenges Google and Yahoo

Great publicity gimmick, and not too likely to happen, but you have to give it to Anoox for pushing this challenge out there.
As their press release describes the engine:

AnooX, the revolutionary Search Engine that delivers the most accurate search results due to our innovative mechanism for search generation that 1st machine generates the results and then continuously re-generates them based on the majority Vote of the People - invites Google and Yahoo to a contest to see who actually delivers the more accurate search results

Unfortunately this is like having the Democrat and Republican presidential candidates having the Greenpeace party candidate join them in the debates.

Everyone Should Have Their Own Satellite

Okay everyone is ohhhhing and ahhhhing about MSN's Virtual Earth, their version of Google's Keyhole aka drill down section of Google Maps.
And Google is renaming Google Maps to Google Earth.

The use of Earth will be handy when we start occupying Mars and other planets so there can be Google Mars and MSN Jupiter.

Guess we all need our own satellite.

The really interesting part of this is how long will it take before it gets pulled down - or more likely - how long before Homeland Security gets all user information when people log in to use these services.

I have heard the argument that secured areas are able to be zoomed in on - let's hope there is actually a program that blocks all pixel rendering of the various coordinates that countries want to be blocked. Otherwise the people who misuse this info could run the broad selections through their own zoom program.

Now I am a huge proponent of free speech and civil freedoms in general, but this technology really has no individual worth apart from the vanity aspects of it.

Drop this stuff and move on.

Suing Over ClickFraud: David and Goliath???

I came across a few references to this effort over the weekend. Aaron of SEOBook and Nick W at ThreadWatch posted info about www.lostclicks.com and their attempt to fight click fraud through the legal system.

If this is a legitimate effort, I really think these guys deserve our help. Aaron's suggestion of a forum or blog is a step in the right direction. I was planning on offering my help to run the blog if they need it, but the fact that the site is run by two lawyers gets me thinking someone else is working the angles.

The fine print seems a little odd:
LostClicks.com is provided by the Law Offices of Joel M. Fineberg, P.C. and by the Law Office of Stephen F. Malouf, P.C. Both law firms are located in Dallas, Texas
Not Certified by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization

Also with all the 10s of thousands - 150,000 plus according to Google's number of advertiser -) isn't it weird that Lane's Gifts & Collectibles LLC, a Texarkana, Ark., retailer is the David facing the Goliath.

Maybe that town is soft for plaintiffs, a town that prefers underdogs over large companies... once a judgement is in place the floodgates of the bigger advertising companies will pin back the ears of all PPC search engines.

It is all very interesting and will be watching this with keen eyes.

Google Portal Closing In

Okay when are they just going to tell us they are offering a portal.
Google Portal?

I feel like I just got a lap dance.

While I can see this building out with ties to Friendster, etc. but if they walk down this road they will eventually run into trouble.

Stick to what you do best. Why risk coming in second to Yahoo. This is not email, if it does not weigh in with all the bells and whistles and a bunch of new things too, Google loses the edge.

We will just have to wait and see. Meanwhile can someone lend me another $20 I want another lap dance.

Some Tracking Companies Stealing Links

In my explorations to keep up with tracking solutions and ROI technology I came across Stats Counter and figured I would check out what they offered and how they worked.
Google shows they have 455,000 inbound links - impressive feat.

Curious as to the origin of who was giving them praise with a link I went to look and see how the links were set up.

I randomly tried the UCSD Registrar's page - an edu extension that is always hot to Google.

Unfortunately I could not see any mention of Stat Counter on the page!
So going to the video tape, I pulled the source code and did another search, only to find the following code:

{!-- Start of StatCounter Code --}
{script type="text/javascript" language="javascript"}
var sc_project=426260;
var sc_partition=2;
var sc_invisible=1;
{/script}

{script type="text/javascript" language="javascript" src="http://www.statcounter.com/counter/counter.js"}{/script}{noscript}{a href="http://www.statcounter.com/" #target="_blank"}{img src="http://c3.statcounter.com/counter.php?sc_project=426260&java=0&invisible=1" alt="free hit counter" border="0"}{/a}
{/noscript}
{!-- End of StatCounter Code --}

Now if you pull the image, even that is not shown on the page. It is hidden in the no script section and on the server side the invisible instruction to the serverside php decoder sends back an invisible response....

Anyway you cut this, Stats Counter has found a great way of spamming the search engines - and if that was it I would say okay you have every right to work any way you want - BUT the fact that it is counted as part of the outbound links for a given site (455,000 of them to date) is another issue. I do not see anywhere in their info where they ask for this link.

I am off to see what other web analytic companies are using this approach.

I did call over to Stats Counter and they said you can remove the offending reference if you have the upgraded service - but it is not publically announced and is not referenced on the website. Interesting approach!

Google Readies for War

Recent hires over at Google would suggest they are readying themselves for war. Guess MSN and Yahoo really are seen as enemies by Larry and Sergey.
Either that or they figure hiring DC bigwigs will help them with legisative concerns down the road. Whatever the motivation, the recent hire of Dan Senor as vice president of global communications and strategies, is an interesting choice. As chief spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq and senior adviser to U.S. Ambassador Paul Bremer, Senor would have good global political knowledge.

This type of hire also shows that Google sees their position in the world as more than just internet based.