Doubt they’ll keep up with all the surrounding road closures, given how day to day they are, but it shows a few things:

• Google learned from the outcry that occurred when the pre-Katrina satellite images stayed on Google Maps/Google Earth long past the destruction of the levees.
• There are clearly some mechanisms on the back end that can leave the appearance of a road in the map, but have it on a perpetual exclude.

Now, yes, you can still see a yellow interstate line where the bridge should be, and still is — albeit in the river, and not especially traversable. But if you try to set up a journey that would typically route you via that bridge, Google is automatically routing you via one of the currently preferred alternate routes. For instance, just route between Rosedale Center (10 Rosedale Center, 55113) and the Metrodome (900 S 5th Street, 55415). Google chooses a routing that has you exit from MN36 to Highway 280. If you attempt to drag the map line to take 35W, it will force you to exit at Stinson. It will NOT allow you to take the bridge.

Total distance, per Google’s preferred route: 8.4 miles.

I35W would normally be the preferred route. Note that MSN Maps still routes via the bridge, giving you a trip of 6.5 miles:

Given that some of the exits that Google will allow you to route via only re-opened Monday, this is fairly quick updating of the service. Certainly, this update is faster than the commute many Twin Cities residents will be experiencing for the next 12-36 months as the bridge saga continues!

I also note that Yahoo Maps and MapQuest, both of which are powered by Navteq/Teleatlas, also now realize that the bridge is a bad routing. Looks like MSN is late to the party… again.

Now, given the national nature of the news coverage, most people getting a route via said bridge will know that it’s a bad idea. Google Maps routes are draggable to create variances.

A search on Minneapolis is driving a map, lots of headlines, and the following rapid-response PPC ad:

Neat.

“I got an e-mail from a company that says they will submit me to 181 search engines for $(small amount of money). Should I do it?”

Truly, these people mean well. They see a low price tag and think/hope there might be value in it.

I always end up having to crush them. Assuming a $35 submission fee, that’s between 8 and 10 delicious gourmet schmancy coffee drinks. Mmm, caffeine.

Submission to the top 3 search engines — Google, Yahoo, and MSN — is technically unnecessary, as they’re all crawler-based, but if it makes you feel good, it can be done while drinking one of the abovementioned caffeinated treats. Yum. I actually tend to recommend submitting to MSN, because they’ve been totally irregular about indexing some of the sites I’m associated with even when we submit. Ask only recently started allowing submission, rounding out the top 4 properties.

Then, let’s look at Nielsen’s list of the top 10 search referring properties in the US, June edition. Pretty much everything in the 6 remaining entrants in the top 10 have some relationship or data feed from the top 4. So, with the top 4, you’re really probably reaching into about 96.5% of households.

So, what to do with those other 7-9 coffee drinks? I typically recommend making a coffee date with your web traffic reports, once a week, for 7-9 weeks with the rest of the money you saved by not using a submissions service. Check your referring sites and URLs. See if you see any chances for inbound link building. Get all happy inside if your search referrals start going up. Be a coffee achiever.

The basics of the situation is that many of the themes with sponsored links on the WordPress site got nuked. Most theme owners claim there was little notice to get themes updated and into compliance with new policies. Others claim that even themes that complied with new policies got nuked.

Reading some of the justifications from some of those happy about affairs shows quite a bit about myths surrounding the idea of inbound links.

I’ve seen a number of people claim that when you use a sponsored template, with links to the sponsor in the footer, you are ‘giving away your PageRank to this sponsor!’

I really see several issues with that assertion:

1. Most blogs don’t have much in the way of PageRank to ‘give away.’
2. Those that DO tend to create custom designs, or know enough about branding to want to avoid heavily spammy sponsored links.
3. Most of the themes I’ve seen that have 3-4 sponsored links look really bad. Ugly = not likely to be downloaded.
4. Providing a few outbound links on ANY site isn’t going to trash your own ability to rank. It’s all a matter of proportion.

I honestly doubt all that many sponsors of the spammy-class of sponsored themes (ie, themes with 4-5 outlinks on it) see a lot of rank help from the activity. It doesn’t fall into the same class in my mind as the people who comment-spam blogs on Bob Dole drugs, but it’s not altogether dissimilar.

The people who know least about sponsors and themes and etc. most likely use hosted solutions and don’t know how to download themes anyway. Those people also likely have the lowest PageRank, anyway.

Those who know at some level that all the footer links at least look bad, might be spammy, and might be intended as SEO (but kind of fall into Dunce Hat SEO in my book) are the people less likely to have downloaded these themes.

Those who are pretty sure, if nothing else, that the spammy footer links are ugly, and who have high-traffic blogs, are likely also the ones who get some customization done and don’t need sponsored links anyway. And those are the blog owners who could actually help a sponsor.

(And that’s before even calling into question if the links count for much anyway. Footer links are the dead real estate and code zone of a page, and are typically easy enough to discount in an algorithim the way most page code lays out. But I won’t even go there right now.)

I think for both agencies and little guys, this is outstanding news. I’ve said before that I think some bad behaviors by little webmasters tends to occur from good intentions (the road to hell, etc.). Having clear communications when these good intentions really do lead into hell will benefit the perpetrators, and hopefully improve overall content quality within SERPs.

As far as agencies are concerned, I already think Webmaster Central gives the agency a better view of what the client may be doing on their own, especially as far as ill-conceived (well undoubtedly well-intentioned) independent link-building is concerned. Having a formal communications channel when penalties or removals occur helps deal with client confusion, and to deal with the inevitable questions:

• “You’re an SEO. Can’t you just call someone at Google and have them fix it?” (no)
• “How can you tell I’m penalized?” (duh, check your traffic and indexing)

Ought to be fun to see how this develops…

But here’s the thing: Search engines aren’t biologically programmed to do the same. In fact, they aren’t biological at all. They’re logical. Tech-no-logical. Robots don’t love you, no matter what watching Steven Spielberg movies, Star Wars, and Terminator films may have had you believing. I know this may be hard, but you need to separate yourself from your fantasies of Googlebot as R2D2.

There are many snowflakes on this cold, icy and loveless glacier we call the Internet. What makes you unique amongst the snowflakes? Do you have prettier edges? Are you more crystalline? Are you whiter? Are you the proverbial yellow snow that should not be eaten?

Make your web site reflect that, even if you’re yellow snow. Some people like that kind of thing — the Internet was built on that kind of content. Search engine logic loves that kind of thing: communities grow around the eating of yellow snow, links spring up, and you become unique. Uniqueness is algorithmically recognizable, and will earn you the closest thing a search engine has to love: attention and traffic referral.

Unique Value Propositions have been the basis of marketing for years. The internet has not changed this equation. If anything, it encourages businesses to engage in true self-reflection on what they can offer that someone up the street cannot. If that means pouring blue liquid on yourself and calling yourself a snowcone instead of a snowflake, that’s what it may take to drive traffic to your business, whether online or offline.

The events are always well-run, the crunchy snacks are always crunchy and snack-like, and the cash bars tend to be pretty reasonable. The socializing is as good as you’re willing to make it.

For anyone in the area, it’s a good event to attend. I plan on making it, unless the summer sunshine beckons me too strongly to ride my bike.