TGIF! I can't believe how excited I am that it's the weekend. This week has been one heck of a rollercoaster. For more information, read this. Or this. :)
But enough about that. Let's talk about other interesting things that occurred this week.
Martin Luther King Day
Monday was Martin Luther King Day, and we celebrated with a theme done by one of the newest additions to the RustyBrick team, Mabe. What do you think?
Yahoo Brings Social to Search Results
Yahoo is testing del.icio.us tags in search results. Barry thinks this is a bad idea. His argument is that people won't understand it. Well, if they don't understand it, why not teach them? I think this is a good way to do it.
Customize Your Ask.com Homepage
You can now customize your Ask.com homepage with skins of your choosing. Consider it desktop wallpaper for Ask.com. Barry has a nice cartoon picture of himself on his Ask.com page and it's pretty sleek. I like.
Google Reverses #6 Penalty
Awesome. We reported that Google has implemented a #6 penalty, where users ranked 1 or 2 dropped down to 6. Now, the penalty seems to be reversed. I know people are happy.
Barry is an Artist
Barry uses a cool Photoshop trick to show that some advertisers are taking vanity ads way too far. It's not a real ad but he says "Some want to own it all and become synonymous with the product line they are selling." When has an advertiser crossed the line?
Turning off Universal Search
Google Universal Search is well and good, but wouldn't it be nice to turn Universal Search off? Barry thinks so (and I agree with him this time). Can we have this option, pretty please?
Google Domain Park Program Changes Rules
Google may look to improve domain park ads by forcing domain names to more than 5 days old to be accepted into the domain park program. That might impact domainers a lot, but some people will see it as a welcome change.
Google Wants Your Health Records
It appears that Google is going to want you to store your health records online. Would you do it? We polled the audience and 59% of the respondents said that they would not like Google having their health information. Twenty-nine percent said yes. Seventeen percent was not sure. The question I propose to the 59%: what are you hiding? :)
Check Your Wordpress
If you're a Wordpress.com blogger, you may want to check that Google is spidering your Wordpress site. Some webmasters report that Wordpress is blocking search engines. Oops.
Should You Trust Google?
Tad Chef started a controversy on why you shouldn't trust Google. But many people say that it's not just Google that is the culprit. Personally, I have no comment. Stop asking me, people. :)
Would You Rather have an Old Link or a New Link?
Does Google value older links or newer links? We don't know but we can suspect. So when we polled you guys on whether you'd prefer old links over new links, you told us what you'd rather have: the winner was old links with 70 votes. Only thirty-six of you wanted newer links.
Demographic Bidding Returns to Google
If you're a Google AdWords advertiser, you may be aware that Google has relaunched demographic bidding. This means that you can price your ads based on who is viewing it from age to gender information.
Can You Hide Links on Pages that Search Engines Shouldn't Crawl?
An ongoing debate is happening that discusses whether it's ethical to hide links on pages that search engines are asked not to crawl. My question is: why not? I still don't understand why anyone would do this, but the argument is that it's a "creative issue." It doesn't make too much sense to me, but hey, if search engines aren't crawling it, it's not skewing the results and I think it's fair game. Just don't make me click on a link by accident.
What SEO Tools do You Use?
Do you use a lot of SEO tools? Recently, SEOs shared what's in their toolbox, and you can learn from them. What's in your SEO toolbox?
Our Video: On Hold
Woohoo! Since I don't like video, I'm so glad that Barry isn't doing it today! Actually, he asked me to tell you that he's in a meeting right now, and the following two Fridays, he's in Israel for SphinnCon and a variety of other cool things (I'm super jealous), so video will resume on site on February 15th. You'll all have to suffer through my more interesting commentary. YES!
Update Barry: Ha, I had time to do a quick, 3 minute, video on this recap. So... In your face Tamar! I know, no video for the next two Fridays, that is because I am off to SphinnCon next Friday and won't be back for about ten days. So live it up but in three weeks, I am back!
Have a good weekend :)
