Clickz Takes on the Issue of Blog Credibility
Organic search results credibility and trustworthiness have always been widely debated. When SEO (define) first became a hot tactic in online marketing, search engines results became littered with spam — doorway pages, link farms, you name it. Now that the search engines have become smarter and their algorithms increasingly complex, they are much better at weeding out spam. But how do you define spam? Is it sites that provide no inherent value (e.g., a page full of links or ads) or content that’s potentially invalid, unproved, or biased? The answer to that question probably depends a lot on who you ask. Clickz Questions Credibility of Blogs Here is another article from a different source a few months ago: Credibility online is becoming more and more of an issue. Anyone can have a blog or post to a forum and anyone can edit wiki entries. Web surfers are beginning to comprehend that just because it is in print does not necessarily mean that it is true. In fact, in today’s online world, the collective truth might be the closest thing we can get to the real truth. Peer policing and social bookmarking have become common in the online world. Human nature invariably prompts a level of trust;if it is written, it must be true. We live in a generation where we expect authors, editors and publishers that are qualified to write on various topics. What qualifications are required to post a blog, write an online article, or edit a wiki? Some web surfers may find the answer startling: None. Expertise is no longer a prerequisite. Wikipedia is a popular online reference, that frequently obtains top ranking in search engines as a reference source. How many Wikipedia readers realize that Wikipedia can be edited by anyone at anytime, regardless of their qualifications. Questioning Online Credibility
Government Bloggers
Every U.S. presidential candidate has a Web site, of course, but when the top Democratic hopefuls were asked on Saturday whether they would appoint a White House blogger if elected, all of them said yes. You need not look far to find Government RSS Feeds.
Google Reader Security Hole
A DigitalPoint Forums member points to a vulnerability within Google Reader that enables blog owners to add code to their blog that will allow any visitor to automatically subscribe to the RSS feed.
Webmaster Resolutions for 2007
New Years Resolutions Each and every year people around the world mark the first day of the New Year with resolutions. They resolve to do a wide variety of things, and while few resolutions are actually kept, the tradition is a hallmark of the holiday each year. Experts suggest that people should make lifestyle changes rather than resolutions. I am a bit more pragmatic. Tackle a task you know that you can succeed at. Do not bite off more than you can chew, and you will be one of the few who manages to keep their resolutions. Here are a few suggested resolutions for webmasters and small business owners: Webmasters Resolutions: 1. Prune Those RSS Feeds Large feeds are slow to load, its time to prune those RSS feeds and remove the old contents. Dated feed items can be archived as an HTML web page, but should be removed from the actual feed, to ensure that it loads quickly. 2. Update Copyright Notices Make an effort to update the copyright notice on your website. A current date will reassure customers that your online storefront is active. 3. Update Meta Tags Each and every web page on a website should contain a unique title and description. Update and optimize meta tags to avoid excessive use of keywords. Meta tags should be accurate and concise without redundancy and recurring words. 4. House Cleaning Update old links and remove any links that are no longer valid. HTML is a markup language and without constant maintenance it is easy to have a page with an unclosed tag. While some web browsers make allowances for poorly formed HTML, it is important to realize that not all do. Therefore, it is crucial that you take a look at the HTML behind the web page and make sure that it is properly formed. 5. Try Something New Pick a technology, be it podcasting, RSS, or social bookmarking. Resolve to try or resolve to learn something new. businesses stagnate without innovation. Be creative and willing to experiment a little. Webmaster Resolutions for 2007
Advice For Getting More Out of RSS
RSS may sound like a distress signal along the lines of SOS, but its real purpose is to make accessing Web information simple. An abbreviation for Really Simple Syndication, it allows you to get all the updated headlines and podcasts in one place, without having to sift through individual Web sites. You can put all your feeds together in an RSS reader, which will become your all-in-one destination for news and information. Advice for Getting More from RSS
Reputation Management
The Internet is a bit like the old wild west, and sadly, people often post material about an individual, product, company, or service that is inaccurate or simply nasty. businesses and individuals alike are struggling with how to best deal with online inaccuracy and defamation. The normal steps for dealing with defamation typically involve litigation, but this is not always realistic for Internet-based situations since the Internet is global, and not managed or governed by any single set of laws. If you have the good fortune of being located in the same legal jurisdiction as the offending poster and their website hosting company, you might be able to successfully prosecute them; or at the very least, you might be able to get the webpage with the offending material taken down by the website host. Keep in mind that most defamation court cases require that you show that actual harm was done by the offending material, which can often be difficult. Reputation Management
URLFan RSS Ranking Website
URLFan takes on Alexa using a different algo to rank websites. According to their website URLFan is an evolving experiment designed to discover what websites the blogosphere is discussing all in real time. It does this by cultivating the content of thousands of RSS feeds and parsing billions of pieces of information.
Niche Feeds and Physics
This site has collected all the Physics feeds, talk about a niche feed directory! Physics Feeds
RSS auto Discovery
Use this free online tool to create the code for RSS auto discovery. 1. Simply enter your feed URL and the feed title. 2. Paste the generated code into the head tag of your HTML website The RSS auto discovery code will help some RSS readers auto detect that an RSS feed for the webpage exists.
Blogger Ordered to Pay for Libel
A Malaysian court has ordered a top blogger and editors of an opposition newspaper to pay 2.2 million dollars in damages over libel claims by a university head, reports said last Thursday.
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