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The Google Dance: Page Ranks January 2007

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Why Does Anyone Care about Page Rank?

Google uses a numbering system — page rank — to determine how relevant each is blog is. The system is based on a complex algorithm that places weight on how blogs are linked. I explained it this way during the Google Page Rank Update last February.

Page rank determines how relevant your blog is by using linking as a vote system. Google has developed an algorithm that weighs links between blogs A to B to C to A, and also looking also at the importance of the blogs making the links. Quality blogs that are well connected to other quality blogs are considered highly relevant to Google users. Relevant, quality, important blogs receive higher page ranks. Higher page ranks can mean higher advertising payments for blogs that monetize.

Many tools are available to help you query Google’s various data centers to check for any changes in PageRank values for a given URL. During most times the data centers deliver the same rank, however during an update you might get a glimpse of changes URL’s PageRank value. Beaware that the information is only as accurate as the tool you use. I’ve had rankings predictions vary as much as three points between tools.

Google changes their algorithm frequently. This is the tool that I use. Click the image to go there.

Keep in mind that many fluctuations occur and that the dance takes many days before things settle down into their final place.

Also read:
Aaron Wall’s Google PageRank Leakage & Misconceptions on PageRank

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
Google Page Ranks Underway Feb. 2006

Net Neutrality 11-30-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

No Slam Dunk for Net Neutrality (with apologies to George Tenet)

What isn’t yet known is who will chair the pivotal Telecommunications and Internet Subcommittee. If it’s Ed Markey (D-Mass.), then you have a strong Bell opponent, strong Net Neutrality proponent and some momentum. But, Markey has a lot of options. He could try for the chairmanship of the full Resources Committee, and he also has seniority on the Homeland Security committee.

Depending on what Markey does, the Telecom Subcommittee could be led by Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.). Boucher, like Markey, is a strong Net Neutrality proponent. But unlike Markey and very much like Dingell, Boucher tends to favor the Bell companies on many other issues.

[ . . . ]

With some positive Net Neutrality leadership in place, then the question becomes, what would be in any overall telecom legislation, and there the picture gets lots more murky. Let’s start with video franchising. This is the concept behind the Bells’ push for a bill this year. They want to get into the cable business, providing TV programming over their fast networks, and they don’t want to negotiate with 30,000 local authorities to get permission as the real cable providers had to do. So the Bells pushed the bill that gave them, and cable, a free pass nationally to enter cable business, pushing aside objections from local governments.

[ . . . ]

Remember, the Bells still have a lot of friends and a lot of votes in Congress, whether on Net Neutrality or not. There are many legislators of both parties, on the relevant committees or not, who will vote the Bell line regardless. Net Neutrality isn’t a slam dunk. The key will be how much the Bells will be willing to deal. They didn’t feel the need in the last session of Congress. Now, with the leadership against them, they may have a different calculus, of trying to get the best bill they can.

By now, the Bells have realized how important Net Neutrality is to a great many people and organizations, ranging from large companies like Google and Yahoo, to public interest groups like Public Knowledge (my day-job employer), something they probably didn’t count on this year. If they try in good faith to negotiate a reasonable Net Neutrality provision next year, the Bells could gain some of their goals despite themselves.

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 11-06-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

Battle over ‘net neutrality’ arrives in Canada

. . . “Right now, the internet is almost a perfect, universal democracy,” says Pippa Lawson, the executive director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Law Clinic.

“The smallest bloggers can be accessed as easily and as quickly as the websites of major corporations.”

There’s clear incentive there for those who have the economic interests to discriminate. That’s why it’s necessary to ensure that there’s a level playing field and you have to do that legislatively.”

Lawson said Canadian companies want exactly what American companies want — to control the web and make a lot of money doing so.

“There’s a big push in Canada right now to allow those sorts of discriminatory practices,” Lawson said.

“The companies that own the pipes of the internet — the telecom companies — haven’t liked sitting back and watching big content providers like Google and Yahoo make billions of dollars. They want a piece of the pie, and they want to be able to favour their own content or the content of the corporations that would pay them big money.”

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 11-03-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

The Banned Site tool turns up something interesting

Over on Threadwatch they were discussing the newest MSN seach parameter, which allows the parameter LinkFromDomain. Russ Virante, one of the commenters, posted his newest tool based on that parameter, which will show you which of your outbound links that are banned from Google, pretty useful if you want to weed them out, though it only shows the first hundred, and this site has more outbounds than that. Be that as it may, it was useful in weeding out one from my webgeek directory.

also ran it on the Bitchslappin Political Blog to see what turned up over there. . . . But the other surprise was the Verizon PoliBlog, which I won’t link to, but you can find here:

http://poliblog.verizon.com/PoliBlog/blogs/poliblog/default.aspx

Hmm, one has to wonder why that is? Is it something in the algorithm? Did they do something shady? Have they been spammy? Or could it have something to do with Verizon’s stance on Net Neutrality?

Want to know what you can do?
MA Bell Monopoly Versus the Free Internet — Tell the FCC Net Neutrality Is Not Negotiable

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Net Neutrality 10-17-2006

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Net Neutrality Links

I’m adding this link to the Net Neutrality Page.

A Merger of Mixed Blessings

America is at a time where it needs change from the status quo.

Meanwhile, in terms of YouTube, not much has changed since the merger with Google despite the woe and dispair we’ve been told about this merger but Mergers between AT&T and BellSouth get good press despite being a very bad thing.

I’m come to realize that everything that we are told by the media is wrong. The Media can tell us the sky is green because you don’t send Jesus money when we all know that the sky is blue because of the refraction of light particles in the atmosphere.

And since this is not the first time that AT&T has tried to merge with Bellsouth (anyone remember the break up of AT&T in 1984 should know why AT&T is a malevolent entity) this is deja vu all over again. Yet the YouTube/Google merger is consider a bad thing? This coming from a failing mass media regime that tells us “Net Neutrality is bad”, “Net Neutrality is a bunch of mumbo jumbo”, “The Internet is a series of tubes”, and “If you support Net Neutrality, we’ll slow down your internet access and block pro-Net Neutrality websites” (that one wasn’t written down, but Comcast subscribers know exactly what I’m talking about conisering they couldn’t access Google).

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related
NET NEUTRALITY PAGE

Interview 10.2: Sebastian Blogs, Life, and Advice

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Seb Talks about Blogs and Life

Seb Prooth

When we left Seb Prooth of Seb’s Random Thoughts he told us about his current film work on YouTube at YouTube.com Melting Clock, http://www.youtube.com/meltingclock/ and the success he’d enjoyed being part of the www.globalgeekpodcast.com “>Global Geek Podcast.

Seb, How does blogging fit with your life?

This is a really interesting question. It just so happens that I have recently been making the conscious decision to blog more often. With the effect of quitting a weekly podcast and having no other connection with the fast moving world of digital media other than my blog, I decided it was time to take things more seriously.

Aside from that, I usually blog when I have something to say. For instance, last week when Richard Hammond of the BBC’s TopGear was severely injured in a crash, I covered the story on my blog. TopGear is one of my favourite shows and when I saw the headline I was compelled to write something.

Where has your blog taken you so far? Where do you see your blog taking you in the future?

My blog has made my writing better. I have written very formally on the blog at times such as when I talked about the effects of Digg and being Dugg when I openly opposed telemarketers making use of Skype to sell their goods. I see that my blog has made me a name on a couple of forums. On a Google search for “Sebastian Prooth” it pulls something in the region of 40 grand results. Although my efforts in podcasting contribute greatly to those numbers, many of the results are due to things I have said on my blog.

In the future I hope to see my blog progressing as it has been. I enjoy the casual nature of blogging. I have the motto on my site “writing not for hits, but to hit with what I write.” If my site gets Dugg and I get 20 thousand hits in 2 hours, I will be pleased, but If I continue getting 150-500 hits a day for what I write without the assistance of Digg or other mass media distribution service, I am happy with that.

What you tell a younger friend to do if he or she were just starting a blog?

If I was advising a younger friend about blogging I would probably tell him or her to go for it. Definitely. The Internet does not need blogs about what you had for breakfast (unless you are a gourmet chef,) or what you did when you had 20 shots of whatever on Saturday night. The Internet needs blogs where people talk with passion about what they know. I can’t stand it when I go to blogs that are there obviously to benefit a company or to push someone’s agenda. We all have agendas, your blog is not the best place to bare your agenda naked to the world.

The Internet is a cruel place at the same time as being the largest and most resourceful – resource on the planet. If you are going to start a blog, and you want readers the first thing you should consider is if what you are going to write about is of interest to anyone but yourself. I don’t really care if Joe Bloggs (pardon the pun) ate chilli for breakfast. It doesn’t have any bearing on my life. But if you are blogging about a feature on the latest beta release of Windows Vista, or reviewing a film that has just come out, or maybe one that came out before you were born, you have an audience there.

If you don’t care if anyone reads what you write, then I suggest you do whatever you like on your blog. Remember, even though now a tired cliché, do not release a great deal of personal information about yourself. And the last rule of blogging is – ENJOY IT!

Thanks Seb, can’t wait to see where you take your blog next.

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Interview 10.1: Sebastian Prooth, Blogger, Podcaster, Film-maker
Interview 9.1: A Conversation with Dr. Tammy Lenski
Interview 8: Marti Lawrence, Blogger, Author, Publisher
Interview 7.1: Meet Cat Morley, World Designer