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City Requests Removal from Google Maps
Saturday, May 31st, 2008The Minneapolis Star-Tribune today reports that the city of North Oaks, Minnesota, has requested that all street-level images of their community be removed from Google Maps.
Google says that no community has ever issued such a blanket request. This doesn’t surprise me - North Oaks, sometimes known as the ‘Forbidden City,’ is somewhat unique. All roads [...]
Harsh Reality
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008On the Internet, ‘being a good guy’ will not drive performance in and of itself.
Being a good guy who leverages good guy qualities, such as friends who like him and will link to him and people who will write positive reviews on user-generated review sites helps a lot more than just complaining that a site [...]
Web 2.0 Idea That Screams ‘Uh-Oh’
Wednesday, August 29th, 2007User generated content can be hazardous for any person or company with high negative opinion ratings. Mitt Romney, presidential candidate, is opening the door to a web full of pain with a new campaign gambit.
I35W Bridge Updated in Google Maps
Tuesday, August 7th, 2007Google Maps quickly accomodated changes in transportation infrastructure after a widely-publicized bridge collapse in Minneapolis.
Submissions: Snake Oil
Wednesday, July 25th, 2007People persist in believing submissions are necessary for the top 4 search engines.
Helpful Domain Tip
Monday, July 2nd, 2007If you’re out registering a dot-com domain, and an available domain seems too good to be true here in 2007, go see if it has any residual inbound links (use Yahoo!) or a history over at archive.org.
If you get a really coherent domain name, chances are it’s been used before. Now, sometimes you’ll be fine. [...]
Directories & The Sniff Test
Friday, June 22nd, 2007I think any reasonably competent SEO has the good sense on how to tell if a directory is ‘good’ or ‘eh.’
Unfortunately, many of our clients, let alone non-clients who think they can’t afford SEO advice, don’t have the well-honed sense of smell. Nor should they be expected to — one of the advantages for a [...]
On Self-Defeating Business Models
Monday, June 18th, 2007One of the interesting things to watch over the coming year will be what happens to a fairly common SEO business model, that of the ‘guaranteed top rankings!!!!’
With Google’s move to Universal Search and personalization, and the various manuevers of Yahoo, it’s hard to say where the people who promise rankings will land. It’s certain [...]
Reliability of Online Reviews
Wednesday, June 13th, 2007This one’s for the Funk King of Minneapolis, Paul Jahn.
There’s a Salon blog post today on the reliability of online reviews. Here’s a choice bit:
Online ratings are beset by one main flaw, something pollsters call “response bias.” Because people are more likely to rate products that have moved them in some way — either positively [...]
