With @andersoncooper in New Orleans, LA “keeping them honest” it appears as though nobody is at the wheel at CNN.com. CNN recently started including ads on their world famous, PageRank 10 homepage but, all seems to have run amok. I wonder what Anderson or Ford Motor Company for that matter, would say about fully clickable sidebars, possible cloaking and hidden links? I’d suggest avoiding all three…
According to Google, cloaking is “serving different content to search engines than to users.” Other sites serve ads in similar ways so, it will be interesting to see what if anything happens in this case.
UPDATE: Since my post CNN has fixed their site, removed the fully clickable sidebars and resolved possible cloaking issues or at least for now. That is what I call keeping them honest!
The goal of image search is to return relevant useful images based on the user’s query. Image searchers exhibit behavior that is much different from users in other verticals. Because of the subjective nature of images and ease of consumption, Image searchers also view lots of images and image SERPs. These users place less value on ranking position and increased value on image quality. Google’s new image search design allows users to browse multiple pages from a single URL and provides various filtering options to increase quality. Bottom line, POWER image searchers are going to love the new Google Image search interface.
Be sure to also check out Barry’s and Greg’s related posts.
I noticed in the news this week that a possible Russian spy has been working at Microsoft and couldn’t help thinking about a post I made last month.
My post “Did the Russians take Bing?” is about a two month old, PR2 domain name owned by an individual in Saint-Petersburg Russia and pointing at a Microsoft IP. According to reports, the alleged spy had a menial job at Microsoft yet attended Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University, one of the top schools in Russia. As it turns out the domain in my post is registered to an address located only a few miles from Saint Petersburg Polytechnical University.
The two month old domain had a PR of 2 and looked identical to Bing at the time but, is totally different now. Users could easily have mistaken this “site” for Bing. In fact, when I first arrived, I thought the site was Bing. What caught my eye was that Google was driving users and potentially market share to Bing. In fact, I arrived on the site by clicking on an organic result at Google. Sure, I know folks try anything and everything to trick or game Google but, this just seemed like an odd case and really stood out to me for some reason.
The domain was little more than a Bing mirror owned by someone other than Microsoft but, now has a PR 5 and 1,000,000 pages indexed. Since my post, the domain has been pointed away from a Bing IP at another US based IP which is shared by another domain which is… you guessed it, registered to someone else in Saint-Petersburg. I’ve attempted to contact both owners to see if there is a spy connection but haven’t received a reply.
Is this a case of international espionage, a clandestine communication channel uncovered or just total coincidence and an unusual spam technique that appears to be working at least on some levels? I’m not sure, but I think it’s an interesting situation either way and perhaps even worth further investigation….
It is still pretty interesting that folks like Fox News obviously still don’t understand search engines. One recent article states, “BP is being accused of trying to manipulate the search results on sites like Google and Yahoo, as it attempts to salvage its battered image following the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico.” First of all there is an oil spill or oil spilling in the Gulf of Mexico it’s not just a slick. Second of all these results are clearly marked as “Sponsored” in search results. Third, according to Google the estimated cost for these terms is far lower than Fox or the Fiscal Times alleges. This article is basically all spin or just incorrect information. Either way, there is no manipulation and “big bucks” don’t appear to be changing hands. EDF and www.AudubonInstitute.org also appear in “Sponsored” results for the same terms.
There has been lots of talk about the 8GB card in HTC’s new Google EVO (two different cards were provided to IO attendees). It will be interesting to see how the HTC EVO is received Friday when the device finally hits store shelves. I’ve been using my EVO for a few weeks now and really like it. I’ve tried to replicate the SD card issue mentioned by others but so far haven’t been able to on my EVO no matter what I try. Maybe it’s Windows related not sure but, either way I wouldn’t be too concerned .
EVO is the first 4G mobile device and sports the supersonic 1GHZ Snapdragon processor. It’s so fast it needs a kickstand and has one build in the back. While EVO is a phone and not a tablet (though nobody can provide a clear definition) it’s pretty large. EVO’s battery in fact is largest I’ve seen in an HTC yet. I like the hot spot feature and look forward to having 2.2 up and running on my EVO. My favorite feature is EVO’s camera, it can take photos from either side of the phone. If you need a new phone, check out EVO.
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