Google Cracks Down on Stolen Content

Tired of seeing scraped sited do better in the SERPs than your home grown content farm? Google announced this week the maturity of new algorithmic analysis of sites to provide search clients with site sources and results closer to the source of such content. Industry uproar over Xrumer, scrapebox, and other scraping tools has pre-empted this change. Web spam is a sore point to many webmasters who write or source their own original content, only to see it scraped to all points of the compass, largely without credit or permission.

The content farming done by many unscrupulous (black hat) webmasters channels stolen content to keyword rich portals, betting that the Google algorithm will pick up on their site first. No More! Administrators of websites with coded or script dynamic content fulfilled by other sources should evaluate any change in the SERPS for their web site and make changes accordingly. By submitting to Google (and other web directories directly) confusion about source origins can disappear.

Google Shakes Up Management

Any book written since 2005 on VC startups or funded dot com ventures or even enterprise angel funded corporations with bricks and mortar realities behind a new Internet presence has a different story today.The next page has been turned for Google (Earth), with a juggle king, veteran Page again newly crowned at the top of the biggest new media empire since, well , Microsoft, Ebay or Apple. Sergey Brin will turn to other projects.

Larry Page, coming back from semiretirement at thirty seven, will take up the reins as Google Czar at the company he helped found in 2000. Just as Google and many other flexible flyers in the new Internet race a decade ago flashed ahead of the huge titan companies still trying to grasp what the Web could mean, it now will muster new (old) leadership when products are most at stake. Google’s online apps, email and evolving omnimedia in Internet life needs a courageous hand at the tiller.

As Silicon Valley has ebbed and flowed in the last decade and then gone back out with the tide, dynamics like those posed with respect to FaceBook in the Social Network and other dotcom stories have never touched the giant that is Google. Ebay, IBM, Microsoft, Apple Computers, Yahoo, and other online behemoths have settled into their respective territories. Google is generally regarded as valuable rather than on the cutting edge among anaysts.

But this was the year FaceBook roared, in 2010 and probably louder in 2011 as well. Google, whose footprint currently is stamped in SEO, Android and online apps, will cement a possible social networking presence online soon. They’ll have to, with so many age rank and indexing players getting into the game (Yahoo, Bing). And if Google sees which way the wind is blowing, it might want to get into the domain business. Before Facebook does.

Google Wants Your TV Names

There is a burgeoning hybrid opportunity for Google and TV domain names. The possibilities for names that Google can use, or that customers of home televisions with Google search capacity can see, opens up a new range for end users for websites, portals, and TV calendar listings. Names with “TV”,3D, set, “watch”, screen, home, channel, and other tech keywords are in demand.

Video plays a new role in ever more congruent SEO to domain name partnerships and value building online. Sites with “best of’ lists and video links will be fun home entertainment, family fun instead of programmed network shows stuffed with commercials. Websites composed of programmed TV viewing that families or niche watchers want can win the SEO wars. Nostalgia TV and cable viewing from video uploads and film segments has already made Hulu.com and Guba.com popular sites.

How does this change the business model for site development? Movie content makes search engine optimization the new driving force for website development. Articles and links to other TV based sites can also bring up the searchability quotient for these names and the sites behind them. Fansites becomes destination viewing with the new Google home TV site model. Your email list can start the home viewing wave and help get the word out.

This gives the SEO campaign for any TV name new legs. Given that entertainment is already a huge market for domainers and name auctions, and even deleting names and drop list auctions, domain developers should have at least one television name in the launch works with Google home-TV potential. Do fans want to blog or chat the shows while they watch? You bet they do. This is social TV networking.

Site managers and webmasters can formulate affiliate strategy to reach the home consumer. As home television and computer driven apps converge, a website with video and Google SEO matrices plugged in, wins. Because home viewers can surf your YouTube channel and maybe move on to your site if the spirit moves them. The webmaster without YouTube sinks in the SERP.

Chrome TV-searched visits to your site could be the elusive end user your sites has been waiting for. Google-owned YouTube connected sites will have a little more depth in the Google SEO than random video sites. All those domainers holding TV names and HDTV names and 3D names, as well as the Dot-TV extension of any relevant television or big screen tech name, there is a new focus for your end users and resale customer buyers.

Chinese Firm to Buy Godaddy.com?

China and its leading Google competitors may soon be shopping down Godaddy’s lane. Bob Parsons may need to be raising some extra cash because Godaddy.com is up on the auction block. Reliable news or rumor? Domainers were stunned today when the Wall Street Journal announced the celebrated blog-era registrar and massive hosting company Godaddy.com is for sale.

Priced at about 9or over) $1 billion, Godaddy owns a significant share of both all internet domain name business and beginner-to-intermediate web hosting enterprises online. Domainers mourned that the days of the dollar discount and Godaddy coupon codes may sadly be over. Whomever buys Godaddy will have 43 million domain name contracts with ICANN intact, and the owners reading their new partner’s email at rapt attention.

Godaddy is in decent shape for an auction. The company posted revenue (after a few choppy years in a row) between $750 million and $800 million in 2009, and has a whopping 50% of web hosting market share hands down. This is one of the healthiest industries in America today.

Godaddy enjoys a reputation among online customers a reliable warhorse with flexible hosting plans for every level of computer user. Domain names and bundled third party applications canted at the beginner webmaster through the career website administrator regularly accompany domain sales.

The Scottsdale, Arizona company offers tiered web hosting services and discount-code name promotions that have kept Godaddy hopping with the general public and industry regulars.Internet pricing wars between web hosting companies led Godaddy to scale its offerings in every shape and size, including online carts, forums, security, and traffic building.

After several hard years shaking off many smaller hosting competitors,  and promotional representation by Danica Patrick (et.al) Godaddy is archly the common friend/enemy of most domainers.  Yet almost every domain name owner has a Godaddy account and/or hosting plan. Godaddy antics have been chewed over in the blogosphere by domainer cognoscienti daily.

Why sell Godaddy.com now? Speculators wonder if Parsons is low on cash or simply looking to take a profit in the best domainer tradition. Google has been suggested as a buyer, but more interesting acquisitions of Godaddy.com might be by Oracle, a company long rumored to try and match its hardware industry presence with online services and interactive client sales potential.

Certainly Oracle (or Sun, for that matter) could power their Sparcstations with self telephony and owned packets for a lower price that leased VPS or whatever redundancy they have now. If Hewlett Packard somehow assembled a leadership squad, then they might arise anew as the Internet business phoenix of all time.

Could Conde Nast or Trump be thinking of expanding online?

Or could China, newly emerging as the era’s leading moneymaker, pick off Godaddy and suddenly own 50% of the Western world’s hosting files? If a China firm marshals one of the private equity bidders to acquire the webhost monolith, China could grasp a tenterhook on Western media and global consumer eyeballs in a one-check power play. (And become Paypal’s new best friend).

Godaddy.com goes on sale shopped by Qatalyst Partners of London and San Francisco. (Danica Patrick not included).

Texas AG Probes Google

According to the WSJ, the Attorney General for Texas is probing Google inc. for antitrust laws business practice violations. Complaints concerning rankings violations by some small firms have led to this action. Google has responded by alleging that the complaints stem from Microsoft Corporation-based companies and their offshoots.

These smaller companies (and what companies are not smaller than Google.com), are price comparison sites whose visitation and success would be in part decided by the mysterious formulas of the Google organization. The companies, Foundem.co.uk, Tradecomet.com LLC, and myTriggers.com are evidently at the root of the matter. legal action has been ongoing. British authorities are also looking into the matter.

But can any company today get a fair judicial hearing against a company with the resources and business powers that Google now commands? Google.com is a worldwide monolith whose corporate reach and operating budget may outdistance that of many governments. Are the antitrust allegations part of the monster that Google has become, or are these shadowy business practices that helped Google get where they are today?

Google is not without its own flaws. The WSJ announced today that the search engine monolith paid a $8.5 million judgement in a privacy matter where the Buzz social network violated user privacy. In related recent online policing activities FaceBook was also involved in marketing user details in an unethical manner.  Privacy violations have become somewhat of  a marketing gray area in recent business cycles where marketing targets are big money.

Is this a sign that Google intends a no-holds-barred spear into Microsoft business-practice monopoly waters, or that Microsoft feels threatened enough to risk its offshoot ventures to bring charges against them?

Stay tuned.

Google Courted by Would-Be Speedy Cities

The final phase of Google Fiber Town is approaching. As the March 26 deadline for applications for the key enhancement of the high speed fiber installation has past, the process has advanced another block, and interested parties are watching closely.

Google has become the courted object of many town’s desire. All across America, the cities identified as potential guinea pig test cities for the primary launch of a high speed network through an entire geomap have been vying for favor. The advantage for residents and businesses, home businesses and internet service related vendors for products and consumer spending to maximize value and opportunity is a test case the world will b watching.

How does this affect domain names? The geological place names and related domains for the selected town or city that gets the high speed internet fiver trial will instantly become huge attractions enabled to reach global traffic by the nature of the physical location alone.  Startup enterprises in the selected region will have enhanced telephony capacity for any type of Internet venture or online presence.

Google, a $23 billion enterprise, has announced it plans to provide an undetermined number of communities of between 50,000 and 500,000 people with ultra-high-speed broadband network s  The implementation is considered an experiment in next generation applications. The focus cities will become test beds for high speed fiber enabled communities, measuring growth when potential is infinite due to the residents using fiber-optic cable.

Godaddy Boots .CN Namesells

Concerned about new Chinese data collection policies, Go Daddy announced Wednesday that it will no longer allow customers to sign up for new .CN domain names. While .CN management is currently intact, Americana and global customers may ultimately vended to a third party if GoDaddy washes it hands of .CN altogether. China’s surveillance and monitoring of the Internet activities of its citizens has unsettled many human rights legislators and internet business operators.

As China changes the internet model, so may they also see declines in international traffic and online profit taking opportunities from Western consumers. The domain registrar follows recent reporting of rejection of Google data management policies inside the Asian meganation. The curtailing of sales of  .CN domain names spells the end of the open book playing field for internet domainers.

Google China: What Went Wrong?

Evidently the overarching deal terms to whatever agreement Google had with China didn’t stipulate clearly enough that Google’s brand and emechanisms would be falling under the red banner. Did China backwards engineer a Google fault or did they use proprietary technology to spark a lethal cyberattack against (American) competitors online?

     It would seem that some code originators in China are not nearly as scrupulous as the Chinese government would believe. Experts say Google has a case to proceed no matter what. Either (A) malicious hackers are so prevalent in China nobody can stop them, and hence Google can proceed unimpeded by censors, or (B) China’s Internet policy is hopelessly imperialistic given the elasticity and speed of the Internet andthe genie can’t be put back in the bottle for billions of Chinese Internet fans.

China’s unilateral policy towards Internet use is ungovernable and technically indefensible, as the last week’s hacking activity shows. If China wants to control the Internet and write dictatorial policy for the entire planet, such as altering Google engines would demand, they need to address more internal matters before presuming to articulate market forces.

No Google Flowers for China

Chinese citizens, grateful to Google for stepping up against the unholy internet filters, started leaving flowers at the China location for Google, reports say. Al-Jazeera reports that  Chinese citizens are aware they are getting shafted by Chinese government policies and are happy someone is finally standing up to Big Red. This could mean a slammed shut China market for domaining and web space enterprises. Many experts cannot predict where China’s inflexibility will take their internet presence and how citizens will react.

China Strangles Google Access, Users

China continues to pretend it isn’t strangling natural growth and internet access to its citizens; Google isn’t buying. When will China figure out that political doubletalk doesn’t equal partnership? A BBC story details the myopic projection of Chinese Internet policies as the world’s biggest Internet company threatens to walk.

China today released a statement announcing that “Internet firms are welcome to do business “according to the law”.

The statement, from Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, is Beijing’s first response to Google’s threat to stop filtering content in China.

Google said late on Tuesday that Chinese cyber-attacks aimed at human rights activists might force it to close its Chinese operations.

Ms Jiang said the internet was “open” in China.

Google announced that it was no longer willing to censor its Chinese search engine – google.cn.

The search engine subsequently said it would hold talks with the government in the coming weeks to look at operating an unfiltered search engine within the law in the country, though no changes to filtering have yet been made.

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