Industry News

A few weeks ago, we reported that Google busted another link seller network. We didn't know which link seller network it was - until now. Matt Cutts, Google's head of search spam, tweeted last week that the link network they went after was "TLA linkselling sites...

Last week I wrote about How Do You Uncover Your Spammy Links? There I said, when you want to disavow links or have them removed, using Google Webmaster Tools link report is probably not enough. You probably need to use third party tools as well.

Yesterday I posted The problem with letting algorithms make most of our decisions, discussing how removing all knowledge obstacles can make us less adept at dealing with challenges. As is often the case, within a few hours of posting that I came across two more articles that addresses the same issues. First, from Kyle Baxter’s very interesting essay On the Philosophy of Google Glass:

Page’s idea — that we would be fundamentally better off if we had immediate access to all of humanity’s...

Image source: Knight Rider’s KITT – My finished replica!

Nicholas Carr asks some serious questions about things like self-driving cars and our increased reliance on algorithms for decision-making in Moral code:

As we begin to have computer-controlled cars, robots, and other machines operating autonomously out in the chaotic human world, situations will inevitably arise in which the software has to choose between a set of bad, even horrible, alternatives. How do you program a computer...

I went on a BuzzFeed diet about a month ago, where I stopped following the site and reading the content there. I should have stuck to it, because I wouldn’t be wasting my time now dissecting one of its stupid, pageview-baiting stories. In this one, Pinterest is positioned as a better search engine than Google.

The story runs through 10 examples illustrating how Pinterest “beats” Google “nine out of ten times.” But despite the headline, these aren’t examples of Pinterest being a better search...

Officially, Google distinguished engineer Matt Cutts heads Google’s web spam fighting team. Unofficially, he’s Google’s chief debunker. If someone seems to be talking crazy about Google, Matt may turn up with a polite clarification. When does Matt react? This is Search Engine Land’s guide, based on years of observations (you can click to enlarge it). Origin Of The Flowchart

This flowchart originally appeared two years ago, on May 31, 2011. I was delivering on a promise I once jokingly made...

Ken Norton wrote a really nice post about the problem with prioritized feature lists in product development, using his team’s early work on Google Docs as an example. Specifically, here is the problem he highlights in Babe Ruth and Feature Lists (Why Prioritized Feature Lists Can Be Poisonous):

Our wish list approach also created false equivalence. There was a huge chasm between what #1 meant to us and what it meant to our users. For us, it was first amongst equals. To them it was a...

Rebekah Cox wrote a great post discussing the difference between product Demo Modes (in-store displays, on-stage demos that work without a glitch, picture-perfect product intros) and what she calls Reality Mode:

Reality mode takes time, iteration, data and user research. It takes honestly using what you’ve created and putting it through its paces. It takes asking yourself “is it useful?” and honestly answering. The result may not align with conventional wisdom, you may have to sacrifice...