websense

Illegal data gathering by Google – really?! I’m shocked. Not. Google is being investigated, sued and reprimanded all over the world for illegal data gathering – gathering information from unsecured networks. A new case is being investigated now in Connecticut. The New Haven Register reports: “Google has acknowledged that the cars it uses to generate “Street Views” for its Google Maps have collected data in Connecticut over unsecured Wi-Fi networks, possibly including e-mails, Web browsing histories and passwords”.

Google maintains that this collection of data is a “mistake” and that it has taken steps to ensure that the data is “secured”. Not destroyed, secured.(Though they say they have begun destroying data in several countries where it was demanded that they do so.) Doesn’t this make ya think that just maybe they might be holding onto it for a while, just in case they need it for something, and hoping that you don’t remember they have it? Especially since this same thing has happened in several other states and 30 countries including Germany and Australia. I mean, what could they possibly want with all over 600 gigabytes of unsecured browser, password and email data? I can’t think of a single thing, but I bet they have a few new product ideas in the works after they review and secure that data!

According to the L.A. times: “Connecticut Atty. Gen. Richard Blumenthal said Monday that he was leading the multi-state probe, which will also look at how personal information, including e-mails and passwords, were collected and why the data were retained.

“Street View cannot mean Complete View — invading home and business computer networks and vacuuming up personal information and communications,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “Consumers have a right and a need to know what personal information — which could include e-mails, web browsing and passwords — Google may have collected, how and why.”

Let this be a lesson to those of you who have not yet secured your wireless network be it home or office – do it! Take the five minutes and just put a password on it so that your tax documents don’t end up in Google’s archives secured data center.

I find it interesting that as the eyes of the country turn to small businesses to see how they will react to and handle the (hopefully) rebounding economy, there is an increased focus on local search. This makes perfect sense, since small businesses are really starting to understand what the web can do for them, and web companies are eager to get a piece of that pie.

This can only mean good things for small businesses. Local search is a great tool to promote your business, and there are many, many ways to go about it. One of the first steps would be of course to make sure you have a great presence on the web. Even folks in your area will go to the web to grab a phone number, store hours, or perhaps your exact address. Making that first great impression can really help boost traffic to your brick and mortar, and therefore, sales.

The next thing I’d do is make sure your business is listed in any online listing services, such as:
GetListed.org
YellowPages.com
Google.com/places
Local.yahoo.com
Bing Local Listing
City search

There are many, many more, but you get the idea. Make sure you can be found online, even if you have not yet set up a site. A listing in most of these does not require that you have a site.

Many of these listing sites allow you to set up a profile to get reviews of your products or services. This can be really helpful to people who are new to an area especially if you are a medical professional, home service provider (such as housekeeping or carpet cleaning) or a mechanic – someone who people need a frame of reference in order to establish trust.

Make sure you have your physical address on your site. Our best practice recommendation would have you putting it at the footer of every page (most especially the home page). At a minimum have it on the contact or about page of your site.

When you are doing your on page optimization, be sure to include geographical phrases in both the copy, headers and tags. This will help your rankings when users search for business in your area.

Local Search seems to be taking on a life of it’s own. I’m excited to be a speaker at NE Ohio’s GetListed.org’s Local University on the 30th. Should be interesting to hear from others in field. I’m thrilled that some local business owners will have the opportunity to learn and implement strategies that will help boost our local economy. Hope to see you there!

You have probably read, heard or Tweeted about last month’s Google update, nick-named ‘MayDay’ update. I’m not here to tell you about the update itself, there are plenty of posts up all over the place for that. If you haven’t seen them here are a few:

Google’s May 2010 Update
Whiteboard Friday – Google’s May Day Update & What It Means for You
Friday Recap: Stop the Madness Edition

In the end the update appears to be an algorithmic update that seems to be causing some fluctuations with long tail phrases. The point I am desperately trying to make is that even with this update, as with every update Google every makes, the idea is to always create quality content, and you should be fine. If you are getting hit hard in your rankings with this sort of update the recommendation, straight from Google’s Matt Cutts is to create quality content that can’t be found any place else. Ah – yeah, where have you heard that before? yeah, I know, it just makes good Websense.

For some slightly more specific information on what this update means Matt Cutts has provided a video:

You’ve probably heard the buzz. Some content providers on the Web are beginning to consider asking users to pay for the content. WHAT? We are all so used to content on the Web being free, that it almost seems like a foreign concept. However, many sites have charged for content from the beginning. Encyclopedias, How-To sites and others have traditionally charged a fee to view their information. Really it’s only fair. It is their content, why should they give it away for free? Some might say that this has given rise to such sites as Wikipedia. A very useful site, but many teachers and professors will not allow students to use it’s content, as it is open source and anyone can contribute. The information is not guaranteed to be correct.

So, do you read your local paper online? I do -it’s free, and some days I only have time to read a few sections anyway, or just need a quick look at the classified ads. Some sections aren’t immediately available, it is a day or two before you can see them online, but breaking news is always there. One way to encourage folks to subscribe to the paper. Our local paper, the Canton Repository, is considering the option to charge for content. Already you have to be a registered user to be able to view most of the content, so they are able to see how many people would potentially purchase the service, were they to request payment. The Wall Street Journal has always charged for an online subscription.

What types of content would you be willing to pay for (Let’s keep it clean here!)? Would a more widely accepted encyclopedia for the kids school work be on your short list? How about a mechanics how to guide? What are the chances that all those recipes you look up will suddenly come with a price tag?

What types of content do you feel should remain free? Many places charge a nominal fee for access to public records, which you’d think should be free, but someone spent time and money uploading them, so I guess they can charge a fee, the same as if you’d gone to the courthouse and paid for a copy in person.

The free sharing of information is the cornerstone of the Web, yet many site owners feel that they cannot garner enough revenue from ads to cover the cost of running their site, which is leading so many to consider the possibility of charging for content. I can see their point, if it is not generating income, then something needs to change, although I am not sold on the idea that charging for content is the only solution.

Polls suggest that I am right on that score – people just don’t want to pay to read content online. I do think it’s more of a moral imperative – they just don’t think they should have to pay to read online – or watch TV, or lots of other things. In a recent (January) poll, 77% of respondents said they would not pay to read newspapers online. In a much more recent poll (May) users voted 63% would not pay for blog content.

Are you a site owner facing this dilemma? What do you see as your options? You know what I am going to say, but I’ll go ahead and say it…

If you have a site with valuable content, then perhaps a review of your marketing budget and efforts is in order. Some additional ads, along with some SEO efforts to drive more users to your site to click on those ads would be a better way to go than alienating the people that have supported your site thus far. I know what you’re thinking, it always comes back to that, right? But, you know how it works, the more you spend on marketing, the more money you make, and that’s what this game is primarily about.

Google is branching out into entertainment. I mean, why not:
1. They’ve dominated search
2. They are creating the library to end all libraries
3. Google owned YouTube is incredibly popular
4. They have to compete with Apple TV somehow

They’ve got to be getting bored, so why not create a whole new way to insinuate themselves into your life? It sounds pretty good, too:
1. You browse and watch pretty much anything, at any time
2. You can surf the web from your easy chair without having to focus on a small laptop screen
3. It’ll be possible to browse all your flickr and picasa albums on your tv screen
4. Music at your finger tips
5. Tons more stuff, go watch the video:

Commercials?

Oh yeah, there’ll be commercials alright, and I think Google has the concept of mainstream television advertising mixed with the way we approach web marketing down pretty well here.
As an advertiser you’ll have the ability to:
1. Search for a target audience
2. Pick and choose which programs you think will have the best audience for your product, and block those on the channel that you don’t think will work for you.
3. Simple interface for setting up and running and changing ad campaigns
4. You’ll have the ability to test and change campaigns based on analytics.
5. Create your own, ready to air tv ad for Free? That’s what they say.
6. Want more info? Watch the video…

I know the question that is lurking in your brain right now… what’s this gonna do to search? That’s something that we’re all going to be concentrating on pretty hard in the coming weeks and months, especially if this thing looks like it will really take off, and I am hedging bets that it will. Some things to consider:
1. Making sure that your video content, especially, is well optimized. Are your videos being found in search results?
2. Your site, videos, and whatnot looking fantastic will matter more than ever. How will your site look stretched out on a big screen? Is your site “stretchy”? Does it look good in every browser window? This is an important question if this goes big because having search right at your finger tips in a comfortable chair will have most Americans searching this way regularly before too long. A great, functional design will be the best way to make certain your site is ready for whatever GoogleTV brings.
3. How are your results in Google now? If GoogleTV takes off, we’ll be seeing folks use Google more than ever. It will matter more than ever.

Want to sign up for GoogleTV Beta? If you are really determined, Mark Erickson has a tutorial on his site…

So, will you do Google TV? Or are you totally sold on your Apple TV? Or do you just not want Google to have that much information/control over your life?