Google spanks those trying to trick it

Google blocks ‘optimized’ pages

For the past few years, webmasters have found tricks that bring their page higher for a given keyphrase search. Google recently implemented a filter to block sites that appeared to be tricking it into gaining a higher ranking.

Among other things, I do website promotion; helping sites get listed in search engines, and running pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns. Some websites try all sorts of tricks to get higher rankings in Google, the 800 pound gorilla of the business. These tricks include multiple nearly identical sites linking to each other, creating “doorway” pages that are supposed to be optimized for one search phrase from one search engine, and other such ploys.

Well, Google just updated their algorithm, and sites trying such silly tricks suddenly found themselves nowhere to be found in the Google listings. And some  of them are howling.

Here’s a clue for them. Provide useful content for your users, do the few simple things that Google advises, stop trying to trick them - and your site will be ranked well. This is the advice of all reputable search engine consultants - it’s what I do for clients - and it works.

PPC advertising is also effective. One of my other specialities is converting ancient DOS database applications to Windows, and I use Google PPC to advertise. Type “Clipper migration” in Google and my ad appears at the top as a ‘featured link”. It also appears as the first Google entry, and that’s because my business website provides useful information about database migration.  If you do PPC ads correctly, they can be quite cheap, and very effective. My Google PPC ads cost about $40 a month and I get a steady stream of business from them.

A website that provides useful information, and which does a modest amount of PPC advertising, will be ranked well in Google. Tricks and devious ploys not needed.

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Well heck, I believe them, don’t you?

FBI publicly denies spying on protesters

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The amazing Matt Gonzalez campaign for mayor in San Francisco

From Patrick, a truly amped Green from L.A. who just returned from volunteering for the Gonzalez campaign in S.F., comes this wonderful inspired rant.

You gotta see the Gonzalez campaign headquarters. It’s a freakin’ beehive of volunteers, all energized, all heart, mostly young, all busting their asses to get a true Progressive elected mayor of The City. At any one time, there’s a hundred volunteers in the office, and at least 500 more out working The City. There’s THREE rooms of phone-bankers going! They got a full-time vegan chef!  They got live musicians playing in the campaign office to keep the staffers going!

And about those staffers… how do I say this non-offensively? Okay, I’ll just say it. Frankly, most of the guys and girls on Gonzo’s campaign staff are kinda, well… hot. Seriously. I’m not joking. Like, really, REALLY hot.

I swear, this Gonzo guy is a rock star. He’s a Green debating champ, who plays bass, writes poetry, wears a borrowed suit, rides the goddamn BUS (!) to City Hall every day, and he RENTS a freakin’ apartment (!). He’s like your cousin Nick, only he’s brilliant, principled, Green, and he’s gonna be MAYOR!  What more do you want?!

Gonzo’s opponent (this hand-chosen, millionaire rubber blow-up doll named Gavin Newsom) is outspending Gonzo 20 to 1. Newsom’s staff looks like an army of Mormons. Many of them are actual GOP functionaries. And, of course, they’re ALL paid. And guess what?  Gonzo is STILL working Newsom like a rented Huffy.  There’s “Gonzalez for Mayor” signs popping up in front windows all over The City like wildflowers. I swear, I’ve never seen anything like it. And certainly not for a Green candidate.

The Newsom campaign is running on fumes and lies and money and more lies and more money. Here’s how desperate he is: he’s flying Al Gore in to stump for him! You believe that shit? They can’t find a single person in San Francisco who likes Newsom, so they gotta drag in a dude from Tenesssee!

December 9th is election day, guys. That’s just two weeks from now. So go now.  Take a bus. Hitchhike. Talk a friend into driving you. Cash in your frequent flyer miles. Rideshare off Craig’s List. Steal your roommate’s car. Jack a Vespa. Just go.

Go. Go. Go.

Why are you still reading this? Go!
 
GO!

This campaign has huge buzz, a massive energized volunteer base, and is in striking distance of pulling off a stunning political upset.

Join them!

Matt for Mayor!

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And why are Californians leaving the Democratic Party?

Because elected Democrats are gutless, that’s why.

Senate Democrats, in a reversal, join in vote to deny illegal immigrants in California the right to drive. The Assembly is expected to follow suit.

After years of struggle to win passage of the driver’s license legislation, the swift reversal by Senate Democrats — virtually all of whom voted for the bill only two months ago — stunned and angered some of the law’s supporters.

The Senate voted, 33 to 0, to repeal the law after only four minutes of debate.

Senate Democrats couldn’t even stand and fight for something they believed in. There was not even one symbolic No vote. Unbelievable. What useless, squishy marshmallows they are. It’s no wonder they got clobbered in the recall election.

PS A lawyer friend tells me the Dems voted this way because they have a nebulous agreement with Schwarzenegger that he may consider a compromise, rather than it going to an ballot initiative which they fear they might lose. But the agreement is quite vague, and there’s nothing stopping someone else from launching a ballot initiative. In short, they let down a lot of people who were relying on theml, and gained nothing by caving in.

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L.A. Greens in the Doo Dah parade

The 27th Annual Pasadena Doo Dah Parade was on Sunday. This is a deliberately loony parade where entries are encouraged to be silly. Walking condoms, synchronized nap squads, and hordes of men in drag are, well, the norm.

About 60 Los Angeles Greens, including several friends, doo-dah’ed on Sunday, using a Fellowship of the Rings theme. Check their website for more!

PS That’s Santa Monica City Council member Kevin McKeown holding the sign.

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Does Diebold get ANYTHING right?

Nachi worm infected Diebold ATMs

The Nachi worm compromised Windows-based automated teller machines at two financial institutions last August, according to ATM-maker Diebold, in the first confirmed case of malicious code penetrating cash machines

The machines were in an advanced line of Diebold ATMs built atop Windows XP Embedded, which, like most versions of Windows, was vulnerable to the RPC DCOM security bug exploited by Nachi, and its more famous forebear, Blaster.

A patch … had been available from Microsoft for over a month at the time of the attack, but Diebold had neglected to install it in the infected machines.

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