Today’s link roundup - too big for metatags in the subject line
Indexing Speed from the Major Search Engines
“I thought it would be interesting, 24 hours after we launched the new domain (0awards.org) yesterday, to see how many search engines had us indexed (along with the few thousand links & mentions that popped up). Here’s the results:”
Yahoo Search Index Update & Increased Slurp Activity Expected
“The Yahoo blog announced yesterday that there was a new index update this past weekend.”
Search share
“From a Bear Stearns report on comScore data, Google continues to gain ground in search share in the US. Given all that’s going on in search and related media, that’s impressive.”
Aaron Wall’s favorite paper about search (from 1945)
“A record, if it is to be useful to science, must be continuously extended, it must be stored, and above all it must be consulted.
Our ineptitude in getting at the record is largely caused by the artificiality of the systems of indexing. … Having found one item, moreover, one has to emerge from the system and re-enter on a new path.
The human mind does not work this way. It operates by association. … Man cannot hope fully to duplicate this mental process artificially, but he certainly ought to be able to learn from it. In minor ways he may even improve, for his records have relative permanency.”
The paper.
The internet is for porn - .xxx domain blocked
“What would the Internet be today without porn? Nothing. It wouldn’t even exist!
ARPNET was only invented so some pocket-protector-wearing, sexually frustrated, tech geeks at the DOD could figure could figure out how to send ASCII babes like this back and forth to each other. Before that, there was just no interest in the project.”
DOJ subpoenaed 34 companies
“In its effort to uphold the Child Online Protection Act, the U.S. Department of Justice is leaving no stone unturned. In addition to America Online, MSN, and Google, the government has demanded information from at least 34 Internet service providers, search companies, and security software firms, InformationWeek learned through a Freedom of Information Act request. ”
Matt Cutts answers a few questions
“Q: “What about the problem of directories and shopping comparison spam overriding real pages?”
A: Fair feedback. I heard that recently from a Googler, too. Sometimes we think of spam as strictly things like hidden text, cloaking, etc. But users think of spam as noise: things that they don’t want. If they’re trying to get information, fix a problem, read reviews, etc., then sites that like aren’t as helpful.”
Google aggregate search
“People can: publish chunks of data. People may not need to: publish websites.”
The mon(k)ey shot.
A sneak peek at the new Google UI
“…the changes are minimal, but they give some insight into Google’s plans. The biggest change is the relocation of Google’s search categories. Originally on top of the page in a horizontal layout, Google has now placed them on the left alongside visual representations of the search query’s relevance in these other categories.
Google’s intentions aren’t clear, but in the last day of using this interface, I’ve noticed myself repeatedly looking directly at the leftmost column. It’s where the results used to be, and perhaps more importantly, it’s a natural place to start scanning the page for left-to-right language types. Since the relocation surely serves a purpose, I’ll take a stab at what that purpose is.”
AdsBlackList Offers AdSense Filter URL List
“Nathan Weinberg reports on a service named AdsBlackList.com. The service provides a list of predefined MFAs (Made for AdSense sites) that generate low quality click throughs and low CPCs. I have discussed at SER how adding URLs to the AdSense filter URL list can help increase your daily income with AdSense. That is the whole premise behind a central location for publishers to go and fetch a list of URLs to block. AdsBlackList.com is just that list and it hopes to become a community effort.”