Google announced that it now offering cross-domain support of the rel=”canonical” link element. If you are unfamiliar with this link element, Google’s Matt Cutts discussed it with us here . Basically, it’s a way to avoid duplicate content issues, but until now, you couldn’t use it across domains. “For some sites, there are legitimate reasons to [have] duplicate content across different websites — for instance, to migrate to a new domain name using a web server that cannot create server-side redirects,” says John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst with Google Z
Big businesses with huge pageviews fueled by Google have emerged in recent years that exist only because of a unique SEO / Adwords relationship with Google. Google gives them a huge presence in the
Google made a couple of announcements today that actually combined for perhaps a more interesting announcement than either of them as stand-alone news items. First, Google has added a new share button to the Google Toolbar , which allows users to share any site on the web via their social network of choice. Second, Google announced that with Feedburner, you can now set your feeds up to post to Twitter . The thing that these two announcements have in common is that they both utilize a new URL shortener from Google. They tried to slip that in their quietly a couple of times, but then went ahead and made an announcement about the service itself. The shortening service is located at goo.gl , but it is not available for broad consumer use at this point. Google is just using it itself to compliment the aforementioned services. In other words, you can’t just go to goo.gl and shorten a URL yourself. However, Google says that in time, it may offer such an option. “We think people who use the Google Toolbar and FeedBurner will benefit from a shortener that is easily accessible — making it faster and easier to share, post and email links,” Google says. They also say the core goals of the Google URL Shortener are: – Stability – ensuring that the service has very good uptime – Security – protecting users from malware and phishing pages – Speed – fast resolution of short URLs Google’s standard privacy policy applies to goo.gl. The company says that it may choose to publicly display aggregate and non-personally identifiable statistics about particular shortened links, such as the number of end use clicks. On a related note, Facebook also now has its own URL shortener.
Mark Zuckerberg and I aren’t Facebook friends. That’s cool; I don’t know him. Until recently, all I could see of his profile was his picture, networks and friend list. But this morning, either the Facebook CEO had decided that’s what’s good for the goose is good for the gander, or even he didn’t know what the new privacy settings changed. I’m going to guess that it was B, because since the articles on True Slant and ValleyWag have run, Zuckerberg’s profile is a lot more private. On his Page (where you can be his fan, not to be confused with his profile), Zuckerberg defends the change: For those wondering, I set most of my content on my personal Facebook page to be open so people could see it. I set some of my content to be more private, but I didn’t see a need to limit visibility of pics with my friends, family or my teddy bear Oh, really? Because when I try to visit his profile, I get a “Mark only shares some of his profile information with everyone.” message at the top of his profile, and no photos. Zuckerberg does still share some of his info with everyone: his basic info, personal info (only the about me: “i’m trying to make the world a more open place.”), education and work, and five of the pages he’s a fan of. (These five rotate; screen caps from the privacy changes indicate he has 17 pages.) Also public: his links, friends and events. There is, of course, another possibility as to why some people like Kashmir Hill can see his photos—they have mutual friends (Hill’s is another Facebook employee). When you update your privacy settings, the new default setting for photos is to make them visible to “Friends of Friends.” (I’ve contacted Ryan Tate to see if he also has at least one mutual friend, but haven’t heard back yet. Mark and I share no friends.) But really, as Facebook is pushing more people to go public, and if Zuckerberg is really “trying to make the world a more open place,” he could do a lot more opening himself. The CEO of the site might be seen as an example to users—and if he really wants them to go public, should he be willing to do the same? What do you think? Was this an accident on Zuckerberg’s part, or because Tate and Hill have mutual friends? Comments
See original here:
Mark Zuckerberg Is Hesitant Going Fully ‘Public’ With His Facebook Profile
More professionally-produced, full-length programming (along with a lot of clips) is coming to YouTube, thanks to a deal with a television channel called Five.
Those new to blogging or article writing have often been told to focus on one very niche topic. One narrow vertical. That has commonly been considered the way to gain credibility, readers, links, and ultimately traffic, which assuming the blog/site itself isn’t your primary source of income, could lead to sales of your products/services. But is keeping it narrow really the best way to go? For some, it is. Another way to go would be to cover as much ground as you possibly can. Throw a wide net out there and see what you catch. Once you see what you’ve caught, maybe you can catch more in the same area. The thinking is that the more ground you cover, the more people you are potentially exposing your work to. It’s going horizontal, rather than vertical. Do you think you could find greater success by keeping it narrow or broad?
Those new to blogging or article writing have often been told to focus on one very niche topic. One narrow vertical. That has commonly been considered the way to gain credibility, readers, links, and ultimately traffic, which assuming the blog/site itself isn’t your primary source of income, could lead to sales of your products/services. But is keeping it narrow really the best way to go? For some, it is. Another way to go would be to cover as much ground as you possibly can. Throw a wide net out there and see what you catch. Once you see what you’ve caught, maybe you can catch more in the same area. The thinking is that the more ground you cover, the more people you are potentially exposing your work to. It’s going horizontal, rather than vertical. Do you think you could find greater success by keeping it narrow or broad?