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Google, the World, and the World Wide Web, Weblogged

EtherPad is a collaborative, real-time text editor created by, among others, two ex-Google employees*. An EtherPad document is quickly set up without any need for registration. You can then share the URL of the document, and others who will visit that page will then be able to see, in real-time, whatever you’re typing**. This has an interesting feel to it because there’s no “security buffer” as in typical chat programs: every letter you write will be shown as you write it, including occasional errors before you fix them.

Please join this EtherPad to give it a try (note your IP will show to others). [Update: I’m told EtherPad allows only 8 users maximum at a time. Thanks Guruz, Rossisen and Kirby!]

Yesterday, EtherPad was temporarily down every now and then, but otherwise quite interesting to use. I only tried it for basic chat, but the creators list use cases like meeting notes, teleconferencing, drafting and editing prose, and phone interviews for developers applying for a job. The EtherPad creators write, “With EtherPad, anyone in a meeting can contribute to the notes, or watch them as they’re typed.” They also say, “For

Gmail Rolls Out ThemesNovember 19

A couple of months ago it was mentioned here that Google’s web mail client Gmail might get themes, like a black-and-green terminal view, and the waiting time seems to be over soon – Google announced they’ve started to roll out this feature. While I don’t see it in my Gmail yet (the screenshots in this post are courtesy of Andris and Google), it’s supposed to be added to a Themes tab in your settings. Note some themes are dynamic and may change throughout different times of the day. “We’ve also done a minor facelift to Gmail’s default look,” Google adds.

Google's SEO Starter GuideNovember 14

Google’s PDF titled “Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide” includes basic tips for making sites more accessible to search engines. This 22 page document focuses on a variety of topics ranging from the creation of unique title elements to more advanced issues like navigation and redirects.

While none of Google’s “secret sauce” is revealed within its pages, the Google guide to SEO does provide a number of interesting tips for webmasters who are new to search. Included in the Guide are Google’s best practices for title elements, meta tags, URL structure, navigation, content, anchor text, headers, images and robots.txt. In addition, Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide provides a list of additional resources provided free from Google.

[Via Google Webmaster Central blog.]

[By Brian Ussery | Origin: Google's SEO Starter Guide | Comments]

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Doug Heil on Blackhat SEONovember 12

Doug Heil of IHelpYou.com will be participating at the upcoming Search Engine Strategies Chicago “Black Hat/White Hat” SEO panel. Doug is currently working as a search engine optimization consultant; before jumping on the internet in 1996, he worked in the lumber business for almost two decades, he says. I emailed Doug some questions on the subject of SEO.

What are the latest blackhat tricks in the industry which you think people get away with unpenalized in Google?

If a technique is truly blackhat and against Google’s guidelines, I don’t believe people get away with any of them. Eventually the site will be caught if they are spamming. It’s true that the site might get away with blackhat for awhile, but it’s not a long term solution if the site is serious about their online business. That being said; the paid links thing can be disguised, but I would rather not go into how. This might be something that comes up in our session at SES Chicago on December 11. I’ll be on that panel so things should be interesting.

Could you specifically name some things people may still get away with in terms of (non-nofollowed) text link advertising?

You want something specific. Okay. We all know that site owners who build SE

WebmasterWorld Not Always Showing Content to Google SearchersNovember 11

Two years ago, the WebmasterWorld forums didn’t always show the same page when you clicked through to them via Google. Matt Cutts was aware of it and then posted about how the WebmasterWorld owner made some changes. Today, issues with clicking through to WebmasterWorld results persist, in manners not quite like in 2006 (just today I experienced it while researching some JavaScript task). Because different people see different things, I’ve asked in the forum what you’re seeing, and here’s some of the results:

what I’m seeing is this: when I search for something and stumble upon a WebmasterWorld result, I can click through to it via Google (if I didn’t visit WebmasterWorld recently). However, all subsequent clicks on WebmasterWorld results when coming from Google will show a registration box instead of the actual content that was shown in the snippet... at least that’s what happens for some time (minutes? hours? I don’t know).
Tony Ruscoe says “I got the second click free but the third one displayed a registration box ... Furthermore, every other result I clicked after that also displayed a registration box.”
Garett Rogers says “I see the same thing as Tony – the first and second clicks are free, then the third shows a registration box ... If i visit one of