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Seems the giving away free templates with embedded keyword rich links has filtered up to the fortune 500 level as Hewlett Packard released a series of free templates today Hewlett Packard Giving Away Free Templates With Embedded Links »

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So hey Google care to explain why this isn’t a paid link page? Any reason you haven’t dinged the page rank of this known link seller or cut off their ability to pass page rank or anchor text? Now I’m not daft enough to believe that any of those companies gave money with the primary goal of getting a link, but at the end of the day no matter how altruistic their goals may have been, this implementation clearly doesn’t match with google recommended implementations.

The selective an uneven application of justice and rule enforcement is one of my major problems with the big G.

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I’ve never seen this before a code snippet as part of a Google Universal Search Result

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Um Hey Google can I ask why Google Grand Central isn’t part of the “Google Accounts” thing? I’m not saying turn it on by default, but at least make the systems talk to each other the way other google apps do. Heck even dodgeball (which could have been way cooler than twitter if you didn’t ignore it) uses a google universal login.

Why do I want to to be part of the google account? Um you know since GMail has contacts and Grand Central has contacts it might be nice and good for the users if the two shared data. I mean heck everyone and their brother can import data from gmail now, you guys have to have an easier way to keep that stuff in sync.

Now of course I won’t tell you how wickedly cool it would be if we could play grandcentral voice mail stright from gmail without having to hit the intermediate screen and how it would totally be good for the users, but just sayin’ ya know.

Of course I also think you should buy Jott and hook it in with Gmail and Grand Central. Because I use Jott all the time and when I show people how I use it to update my calender via voicemail they all have a light bulb moment and get how it would be good for the users.

Because you know when you do stuff that you say is good for the users (but really isn’t good for anyone but you) it’s nice if you do a little cosmic karma and actually do something is good for the users.

You know it’s not like I could have shared interesting ideas froma real google pwith the google team IF I had been invited to the top secret google meetup that really never happened.

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searching for [federal trace commission] gave me my first search in site box

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So I logged into Google Analytics this morning and I get the following message

Google Analytics Why Do You Make Me Distrust You »

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So I was reading Shari Thurow’s piece on Search Engine Land “You’d Be Wise To “NoFollow” This Dubious SEO Advice” and I have to say c’mon Shari you really can’t believe that now can you …

Why There’s Nothing Wrong With Sculpting Your Pagerank »

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So Jason is predicting that “Google will have 90% search market share in the US one year from now“, and while people may cringe at that thought, I don’t think it’s a completely unlikely scenario.

Who Can Stop Google From Gaining 90% Market Share »

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Hey Google Maps and Google Calendar can I get a “send to Google Calendar” option … puhlease …

Of course I’m totally going to ask for a “merge with event” function next. You know it’s not like I was near Mountain View last week or anything and could have made some suggestions when I was there … not at all slightly disgruntled or annoyed about that … because despite the fact that I am royal PIA I am also power user of almost all the Google tools and it’s not like I can actually make suggestions that would be helpful … really … what … I’m totally laying the groundwork for next time …

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Here’s a new google UI test I’ve never seen before an expandable Google map result

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So coming back from SMX (more on that later) I see a trackback from SEL about GWB ranking for [who is a failure].

GWB also ranks for [who is a miserable]. While Scientology no longer ranks for [dangerous cult] they do rank for [cult dangerous] and [dangerous is cult]

Now of course you can’t really expect Google to fess up to hand editing, even though I’ve seen single URL’s get edited out on this very blog, when they poke a hole in an illusion google wants to maintain.

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Don’t you be worrying about why I was searching for Scrooge McDuck now …

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Oh apostrophe you give and then you take away (and suggest)

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I’m sure this has to do with the way things are published, like the times are different, but it’s still annoying to have to mark things read I’ve read already, only to see them appear later on

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sigh ….

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Yesterday I came across a post from Dazzlin Donna entitled Matt Cutts, Why Am I Still Being Punished, there are several points in that post worth noting and discussing in more detail.

Prisoners of War in the Battle for Paid Links »

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If you’ve ever been to search engine conference and attended a site review session chances are you’ve heard panelists mention duplicate content penalties and filters. For “normal” people these problems are real, however with Google a double standard exists for trusted authority websites.

Google The Double Standard of Being an Authority Website »

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in this mornings post I chastised Google for giving straight links to partners, However now I’ve found a whole bunch more

Here’s a Google adwords customer Happy Hounds getting an editorially approved link from Google, lets not forget twiddy.com or cordarounds.com not to worry while they may keep other robots out but they let googlebot in in robots.txt (that was close they almost complied with their own guidelines on that one)

here’s a bunch more from Google Checkout.

and here’s some from Google analytics you have to click the merchants name but the link for “learn more on their site” looks clean to me.

Don’t worry askthebuilder on Google adsense we didn’t forget that you are giving out editorially approved links too

Matt Cutts commented that some of the links in the first post were Ok because they were editorially given. However it seems google is pretty loose with links being editorially given with their partners

Maybe linkbrokers just need to start rebranding themselves as “editorial link partners” for 2008

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One of the more entertaining aspects of the entire paid links debate is Google is pretty quick to dole out the punishment, even though in many cases they haven’t taken the time to get their own house in order.

Google Gives Free PR8 Links to Paid Partners, and Doesn’t Follow Their Own Guidelines »

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So if the word “the” is a stop word an generally speaking just ignored, why does the search for [the golden compass] have a Google news result in the #2 slot and [golden compass] does not.

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C’mon Google WTF how can you possibly say that Wikipedia deserves to above Delicious for the search term [delicious] screen shot because the ridiculous ness of this SERP is mind boggling inept

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I was just reading the 10e20 top 50 of 2007 and picked this up check out the SERP for [I am Legend] screen shot for posterity …

The top 3 results are Google owned properties, for those of you still naive enough to believe that you aren’t competing with Google for content creation, I hope this serves as a wakeup call. IMDB ok nothing wrong there, but should be a little lower IMHO. Wikipedia (twice) because it’s a Google law that Wikipedia (and soon Knols) has to be in every SERP. Followed by the official movie website, which IMHO should be #1.

You may think Google is your friend today, but I think this really demonstrates that they are your competition. Sure they may not be competing with you right now in your market, but as they continue to expand into more and more verticals, there is no doubt they fully intend to squash you like a bug … unless of course you buy your way to the top with adwords …

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Don’t think Google’s war on paid links has an effect on how you do business, then let’s take a look at Michael Arrington and TechCrunch, here’s a look at a November “thank the sponsors” post:

Now here’s a look at this weekspost

Notice all those pink outlines around the links indicating the nofollow tag, that’s because Michael Arrington of TechCrunch, who normally isn’t afraid of anyone, is scared of Google. Plain and simple Techcrunch caved in allowing Google to dictate how they do business.

That’s right boys and girls when the people who we used to trust and respect as thought leaders are afraid to stand up to our Google overlords what chance do you or anyone else have … how long is it before the Google in Cory Doctorow’s radar online story changes from fiction to reality and we all live in a world controlled by Google …

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Google tells us over and over not to repeat text, it’s funny how the algo still seems to like it, screen shot for posterity [youtub]

hat tip to the tipster who wants to remain annon

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While some people realized affiliate marketing has has slowly been changing for some time now many others missed the memo, or are on are sailing a ship of blissful ignorance up a famous river in Africa. For those few people I hope the announcement of Google Knols last week serves as a wakeup call.

Is This the 11th Hour for Thin Affiliate Sites »

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Last week with the announcement of Google Knols, much of the conversation centered around how this was going to affect sites like Wikipedia. However what the announcement also revealed was Google’s philosophy about how they interact with the world.

What Google Knols Can Teach You About Google’s Philosophy »

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So during the Matt Cutts in Hotseat presentation at Pubcon Brett gave me the mic to ask a question (heh dangerous I know). While I did get my question out and Matt did kinda answered I think it’s a topic that could use a little enlightenment, especially considering there has been some back room chatter about it recently.

Hey Matt Cutts How About a Domain Redirection and Consolidation Post »

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The following post is a response to Matt Cutts blog and the Official Google Blog, please stop being a bunch a cry babies …

Google Needs to Stop Being a Crybaby About Paid Links »

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Here are two suggestions for Google’s GMail.

If there are multiple emails do you have to keep adding the signature at the bottom every time? Can’t you do some pattern matching and only put it there once. Or how about adding a signature shortcut key? Or hey since I can have multiple email addresses how about multiple signatures?

Gmail also has hands down one of the best spam filters. If you sign up for Google Apps it’s $50 a user, which is about the price of spam filter software from Norton and McAfee, Since Gmail spam filter is better and you get extra stuff, I’d use that as a selling point. They say it takes 3-5 seconds for a person to process an email and decide if it’s spam or not. Think of the time you’d save and the productivity increase you’d get if you had to evaluate half as much spam every day?