Friday, August 28, 2009

Google and More Antitrust Issues

The Italian government is currently checking Google for antitrust violations. Several newspapers in Italy are claiming that when they told Google not to list their content on Google News, Google also delisted their results from the rest of the Google search engine.

Google have been called a scraper among other things. But looks like the news industry have had a lot more to say on the matter than many other industries. But could that be because print media is dying off? It seems that they won't go with out a fight.

While it hasn't been proven that Google did actually delist these sites I don't see what the problem is really. Much like Microsoft having to remove IE from Windows. Why? Don't get me wrong, I'm really not a fan of either of these companies, but it's their index/OS, so let them do what they want. If you don't like it, don't support them. As an end user it's that simple. If they really are a monopoly, then let the government take care of it... (yeah, I know can't really rely on them)

While I don't really see the problem, I'm going to hope that Google do feel the hard end of that stick. If only to feel what it's like when everyone want's your blood - kinda like they did to Microsoft (payback's a bitch - ain't it?).

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Content is Dead... Long live Content!!

Well the saying has all but been worn out now - Content is King! Okay, so there I've said it. But, it remains as true today as ever... if not more so (yes, you can have truer statements).

While previously the actual content had to be very keyword focused this is not quite the case any more. Sure the content needs to be good, but no longer do you have to focus on keyword density, stuffing your page until it read like a badly translated DIY instruction document.

SEO is Rocket Science hits on the fact contextual links are the best. We already knew that (well, we did, didn't we?), proving that while links are important it's the context or the content that surrounds them that is really important.

Some may argue that links are the most important ranking feature. Others the content of a website. I would say that they are as reliant on each other as they are important. Good quality content will generate links and links to useless content won't guarantee rankings.