fantomNews™ — the ultimate know

Since end of last month, Google requires AdSense publishers to display a privacy policy on their site. Here’s a cool Wordpress (WP 2.0 and higher) plug-in that creates a generic privacy policy for your blog.

While the news of yet another Googlebomb (an issue supposedly addressed by Google once and for all months ago) has been around for a day or so, here’s a screenshot for history’s sake.

It’s been a long standing assertion amongst the A-list members of the SEO community that PageRank does not equate with ranking: Too many low PR sites hitting top spots in the SERPs, outdoing their high PR competitors, it’s really hard to come to any different conclusion. However, now there’s a statistical study determining PR evolution in the Google SERPs over the past 6 months and analyzing the correlation between PR and rankings, offering some interesting conclusions

The first reports are in and subscribers have begun making serious money only hours after purchase: Seems that Google Payload is a real bigtime winner on all fronts. However, there’s even more news - some good, some bad

Reports outlining PPC traffic arbitrage are a dime a dozen these days and we’ve read them all. But this one’s different - hugely, critically different, in fact. If you’re into monetizing the obscenely huge gap between different traffic sources at all, there’s a number of very important things to consider.

This is truly funny - a spoof on the countless absurdities of SEO by a designer royally annoyed by what he terms “The Tyranny of Design-For-Google”.

Should Google actually go for buying GoDaddy, as the search market grapevine is anticipating, the impact on black hat SEOs could be huge. Here’s a list of viable options allowing you to hedge your bets.

Second Life having announced that it want to integrate the Google Search Appliance, this opens the huge Second Life community with its millions of members as another SEO market to target

The German Ministry of the Interior is calling for citizens to sue Google as the legal owners of video platform YouTube for violation of laws banning public distribution of neonazi material and constituting sedition. Seeing that YouTube has ignored over 100 pertinent cease and desist applications by various plaintiffs, the German government feels that this is the only appropriate step to enforce rule of law.

CEO Eric Schmidt has never been exactly famous for his social engineering skills. With a CEO like that, who needs corporate or public or private detractors? This new blogger takes an exceedingly (and very well worded) dim view of Mr Schmidt’s recent presentation at the Progress and Freedom Foundation’s annual conference in Aspen

One of Google’s most vociferous public critics was sussed out by Matt Cutts at Sphinn and has decided to return underground.

With its controversial anti-paid links stance Google has managed to achieve what only a couple of years ago most people would have thought almost impossible: Provoke an industry wide outrage, accompanied by tons of bad feelings, as demonstrated in a turbulent session at SES San Jose.

Google’s search API is back in action, though not exactly with a vengeance: SEOs are entirely unwelcome and even those select academics who are will have to put up with being gagged and bound by all sorts of restrictions.

Like so many others who haven’t renounced their brains by signing up for the Google Cargo Cult in the hope of eternal page one rankings, Alex Goad of Net Frontier Marketing takes exception to a slew of Google antics, publishing an activist piece you are encouraged to read and adopt.

Seems that in the cause of pimping their Checkout servicel, Google feels that just about any means will justify the end - including violating their own Webmaster Guidelines re paid links.