Archive for the ‘Search Engines’ Category

« Older Entries

DoFollow & the “Jew” Google bomb.

Thursday, August 30th, 2007

From time to time, racists decide to google-bomb the word “Jew” or “Jewish” to make Google Searches point to hateful results. Google often detects Googlebombs after they occur. In those cases, they post pages like this: Explanation of 2007 “Jew” Google bomb, copyright 2007.

In the meantime:

  1. I noticed someone left a comment with the name “jew” pointing to the url for Google’s explanation page on my knitting blog. I’m sure the goal is to boost the rank of that page. I approve of this, and I will be dofollowing this.
  2. I suggest everyone watch for any “jew” names with urls, check the link and make sure it’s not a hate site.

If I get any comments with urls pointing to hate sites of any kind, I will be sending them to Akismet.

Posted in Search Engines, SEO | 9 Comments »

Mahalo Search Results: Full of Ads.

Friday, August 17th, 2007

Yesterday, Allan Stern posted Jason Calacanis, the founder of Mahalo, and Melinda part time guide at Mahalo, posted to defend Mahalo’s search results.

In the course of the conversation, Melinda, who does not like Kielbasa, described the process of creating the search results for the Kielbasa search results page. She said:

I put my best finger forward and created what I think is a page that were one to search for Kielbasa they would find the needed information without having to look through hundreds of results as I did. I ran into numerous pages of supposed Kielbasa recipes only to be linked to pages full of advertisements.

(Emphasis added.)

Mahalo Top Seven KielbasaMind you, I’m not sure I, or anyone, knows what the “needed information” is when one searches for “kielbasa”. That said, Mahalo’s top seven results are shown to the right. Most contain ads; I’ve circled the ones I consider riddled with ads.

Still, if Melinda is correct, we will find “the needed information” on these pages that percolated up as she sorted through hundreds of results available on Google. Presumably, we will find also find fewer ads and/or better information than on results returned by Google.

Comparison shows just as many (if not more) ads on Mahalo search results as on Google search results.

(more…)

Posted in Mahalo, Search Engines, SEO | 1 Comment »

Dear Jason, Skype is big news.

Friday, August 17th, 2007

Dear Jason Calacanis ,
I read Allen Stern’s criticism of Mahalo, your new “search engine” that is going to put Google out of business. Evidently, he thinks the fact Mahalo couldn’t catch the news that Skype went down yesterday is a flaw.

Skype : #1 search at technoratiEvidently, you, Jason, think Skype isn’t big news.

Bless your heart, Jason, but Skype is big news. Or at least, it was big news to the many who searched for information yesterday. They couldn’t find that information about the outage on Mahalo.

Luckily, they could find the news they sought on Google and Technorati.

Finding the information you want: that’s what people use search engines for. If Mahalo doesn’t find them, Mahalo is irrelevant.

P.S. I’m glad to see you thought to add the Skype stub after Allen out Mahalo’s lapse.

Posted in Mahalo, Search Engines, SEO | 3 Comments »
« Older Entries