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Best lesson for all spammers, A recent news article says more than 300 spammers are fined 1 billion $, extract: Robert Kramer, whose company provides e-mail service for about 5,000
subscribers in eastern Iowa, filed suit against 300 spammers after his inbound
mail servers received up to 10 million spam e-mails a day in 2000, according to
court documents.
U.S. District Judge Charles R. Wolle filed default judgments
Friday against three of the defendants under the Federal Racketeer Influenced
and Corrupt Organizations Act and the Iowa Ongoing Criminal Conduct Act.
AMP
Dollar Savings Inc. of Mesa, Arizona, was ordered to pay $720 million and Cash
Link Systems Inc. of Miami, Florida, was ordered to pay $360 million. The third
company, Florida-based TEI Marketing Group, was ordered to pay $140,000. Source: www.cnn.com/2004/LAW/12/18/spam.lawsuit.ap/index.html
As Google shares flirt with the $200 mark, investors have to wonder whether many of those buying the stock near that lofty level are money managers who once spurned it at half that price.Google (GOOG) shares have more than doubled since the Web search firm's Aug. 18 initial public offering, when a modified Dutch auction priced the shares at $85. Google closed up $7.33, or nearly 4 percent, at $193.30 Thursday, after earlier rising to $194.39.]
More news here: ---- www.newratings.com/analyst_news/article_576593.html
Google has started putting holiday logos on their homepage, they used to do this every holiday season, they make more than 10 logos for athens olympics, now they have posted the first logo for this holiday season its here,
stay tuned to this posting for more holiday logos, this page will be updated as new logos come out,
Check this page, this is the main patent page of the google's duplicate content algorithm, Check it out here,
Detecting duplicate and near-duplicate files
This web page describes
research I did for Google 2000 through 2003, although mostly in 2000.
This
work resulted in US Patent 6658423, by William Pugh and Monika Henzinger,
assigned to Google.
The information here does not reflect any information
about Google business practices or technology, other than that described in the
patent. I have no knowledge as to whether or how Google is currently applying
the techniques described in the patent. This information is not approved or
santioned by Google, other than by giving me permission to discuss the research
I did for them that is described in the patent.
The patent describes
techniques to find near-duplicate documents in a collection. Google is obviously
considering applying these techniques to web pages, but they could be applied to
other documents as well. It might even be possible to sequences that are not
documents (such as DNA sequences), although that raises some questions that
aren't covered here.
I'll get more information up shortly, but for now: more information on the google's patent of detecting duplicate files on the web is here,www.cs.umd.edu/~pugh/google/
A poster in webmasterworld.com asks whether the pagerank updating is just a comedy act by google, He asks whether continuous pagerank updating is true or false,
here is his posting,
I would appreciate it if someone could shed some light on this "continuous
updating" that google is supposed to be doing.
First, let me explain a few
concepts the way I understand them: 1) Google has 8 billion pages in their
index. 2) To calculate pagerank, google must do several "iterations" throught
the data. On the first iteration (of 8 billion pages) google has to see all the
outbound links from ALL of the pages. On the second iteration some pages gain
rank because they have incoming links. But this is not enough, several more
iterations must be completed in order to get a good reading and establish a
rank. 3) The computing power required to do numerous iterations across 8 billion
pages must be enourmous. 4) Google uses "supplemental results" in addition to
the main index, alluding to the idea that PageRank may only be established for
the first 4 billion or so pages, and the rest is just used to "fill in". 5)
Before google moved to only doing (allegedly visible) updates once per quarter,
there were numerous problems with Google keeping on their monthly schedule.
People would become alarmed. 6) Even before the quarterly updates, Google was
using "Freshbot" to help bring in new data between monthly updates. Please check
me on this: Freshbot results did not have PageRank. 7) We have been told that
even though there is no update to what we see in the little green bar, there is
actually "Continuous PageRank Update"
I find continuous update of PageRank
implausible. In order to get a true calcualtion it requires calcualtions across
the entire dataset of 8 billion pages multiple times. We have already seen signs
that there were issues in the past (missed updates), attempts to remedy the
problem (freshbot), and use of additional measures to hide what is really going
on (quarterly updates). Most likely, we are now in an age of "PageRank Lite".
And here is the "kicker": we have this mysterious "sandbox effect" (aka
"March Filter") that seems to place a penalty on new links and/or new sites.
Could it be a result of Google's failure to calculate PageRank across the entire
index?
IMHO, Yes!
Quietly, Google has been building more datacenters.
Recently, they opened a new one in Atlanta, GA, but there was no public
announcement. There is not even a sign on the building. If you go up to the
building to the door, there is a voice on the intercom that also doesn't tell
you that you are at a Google facility (source: Atlanta Journal Constitution).
With the number of datacenters Google has already, the main reason for
adding more is probably not uptime and dependability. Though these things are
important, they certainly have plenty of datacenters, and you rarely see
problems with downtime or server speed. The reason for adding these datacenters
(quietly) must be they need more computing power to calculate PageRank.
I
believe I have provided many examples to support the idea that continuous
updating of PageRank is indeed a farce. I also feel that this "sandbox effect"
is a result of the inability to do complete calcualtions across the entire
dataset (especially new additions to the data).
I look forward to hearing
what others think. more here www.webmasterworld.com/forum3/27065.htm
This is what google wants to say about this new tool,
What's a Deskbar plug-in?The Google Deskbar plug-in is a simple extension
mechanism for customizing your Google Deskbar. When you enter a search term and
choose your plug-in from the menu, Deskbar passes your search term to your
plug-in code, which can then return a specific URL to be displayed in a browser
or mini-viewer window, or return text to be displayed directly in the Deskbar's
text box.
Users need to install the latest version of the Google Deskbar and
version 1.0 or higher of the Microsoft® .NET Framework to use plug-ins. The
easiest way for users to get the .NET Framework is to visit the Windows Update
website. It's a good idea to remind your users to install the latest versions of
the Deskbar and the .NET Framework before they install your plug-in.
more here, http://deskbar.google.com/help/api/index.html
Google to Put Millions of Books on the Internet read the news story here,
The Internet search company Google plans to put millions of library books
online and make them searchable.
This week, Google announced a project with
the New York Public Library and the libraries of four universities. These are
Stanford, Harvard and the University of Michigan in the United States and Oxford
in England.
Stanford University and the University of Michigan have
agreed to let Google copy their full collections. Michigan put some of its seven
million books on the Web this week. Its full collection is about six years away.
The New York Public Library says it will only provide Google with materials
no longer under copyright restrictions. Oxford will offer only books published
before the twentieth century. And Harvard University will provide just forty
thousand books at first.
more here
Google toolbar updates to a more recent version automatically, Current new version is v. 2.0.114 previous version is v. 2.0.113
Check about toolbar screen shot here,
Google introduces a new feature named google suggest, google suggest is an unique feature of google which does a drop down suggestion of related queries, This is what google says about google suggest, Today we launched Google Suggest, a new Labs project that provides
you with search suggestions, in real time, while you type. We've found that
Google Suggest not only makes it easier to type in your favorite searches (let's
face it -- we're all a little lazy), but also gives you a playground to explore
what others are searching about, and learn about things you haven't dreamt of.
Go ahead, give it a spin.
Picasa is a recently acquired photo editing tool from google, forums.picasa.com helps people support on queries regarding picasa photo editing software,
recently the picasa site was under hacker attack, news here
Google’s Picasa Hacked Via Security Hole
Google’s Picasa was allegedgly hacked into over the weekend. Zone-H reports that Picasa was victim to a security hole in its forum. Picasa is a software for managing photos, the company has been acquired by Google earlier this year.
More here: searchenginejournal.com/index.php?p=1116
and here,
zone-h.org/en/defacements/mirror/id=1775926
Screen shot of the hacking attempt from zone-h.org
The picasa forum now redirects to google groups beta version, groups-beta.google.com/group/picasa , this hacking was more probable because of the security hole in their forum, A guy named Prieni asks about this in the picasa groups, Hey there,
what happened to the Picasa forum? I tried to access
it as per normaland got the Picasa homepage. I thought "hmm, server must be down
or so"and tried again later. Now I tried it again and clicked on the Forumlink
and ended up here. Very confusing. So my question is: Can we stillget into the
forum? Or will this Google Group be a replacement? If so,what happens to the
knowledge base reflected in the 'old' forum?A very confused (where are the
emoticons?)Prieni Answer from google,
Hi Prieni,
We had to take the forums down temporarily, and we wanted to give thenew Groups beta a whirl so people would have a place to go. =) Wemay return to the old forum style, or we might keep up the Group, buteither way the old data and knowledgebase should be back up onlinesoon.
I guess we're back to retro emoticons now...astro.umd.edu/~marshall/smileys.html- how 1993!
Lorna from google,
Google has recently revamped googlegroups and i like most of the new features in it, if you are interested checkout here, groups.google.com
screenshot of the new google groups site,
The new Google Groups which has been available as a Google Labs test since May, brings the search giant the type of community feature that has been a fixture for such competitors as Yahoo Inc. and Microsoft Corp.'s MSN division.
For its e-mail list service, Google is emphasizing its combination of user-formed groups with Usenet and its search functionality.
More here...
MSN has started a blog service similiar to google, Google bought blogger and is going on great, Now MSN seem to have jumped into it, MSN starts its free blog service here,
spaces.msn.com
Screen shot:
Google Guy promises not to take action based on spam reports,
Posting here, forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3030
I'll promise that no spam-related action will be taken based on the
reports. If months later, the domain comes up for review for an unrelated
reason, then that's a different matter, but I'll instruct whoever collects the
feedback to only use it to check out how we pick canonical pages.
Click Fraud Biggest Threat to Internet Economy So says Google's chief financial officer, and he ought to know.Google CFO George Reyes, speaking at an investor conference sponsored by Credit Suisse First Boston, said that click fraud could potentially threaten his company's whole business model. By extension, click fraud threatens Yahoo!, eBay, and other firms that depend on revenue from cost-per-click advertising. What happens in click fraud is that scam sites set up for the sole purpose of hosting ad links, then either humans or software click on those ad links to steal revenue. Some observers estimate that click fraud may be responsible for as much as 20 percent of all clicks on paid search ads. Reyes said that click fraud costs his company and others who depend on this type of paid advertising "tons of money." It could seriously spoil things for the rest of us.
More here, money.cnn.com/2004/12/02/technology/google_fraud/?cnn=yes
Recently when i was going through the searchenginewatch.com forum, I came accross this thread, forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3054, the guy who started this thread says he got a mail from google saying the toolbar pagerank display is for entertainment purpose only, this is what he posted,
"The PageRank that is displayed in the Google Toolbar is forentertainment purposes only. Due to repeated attempts by hackers toaccess this data, Google updates the PageRank data very infrequentlybecause is it not secure. On average, the PR that is displayed in theGoogle Toolbar is several months old. If the toolbar is showing a PR ofzero, this is because the user is visiting a new URL that hasn't beenupdated in the last update. The PR that is displayed by the GoogleToolbar is not the same PR that is used to rank the webpage results sothere is no need to be concerned if your PR is displayed as zero. If asite is showing up in the search results, it doesn't not have a real PRof zero, the Toolbar is just out of date"
In my opinion what he says is complete false statement, He just wants to spread some rumour and that is what he is doing here, I alert people not to listen to fake postings in forums, Google will never every say such a thing pubilically even if that is true, Red alert
Google seem to be expanding all over the world, They seem to start datacenters everywhere , Now they have opend an R&D center in Tokyo, Check this information,
The centre's role in Google's global R&D network is yet to be defined
and will be shaped by the people who are hired to work there, said Howard
Gobioff, the centre's engineering director and principal engineer.
Gobioff is
one of two engineers currently working at the centre, and said their first job
is to recruit additional members. Three people have already been found although
none have started work yet.
Engineers accepted by Google can look forward to
working on both company-assigned projects and in areas of their choosing under a
system that encourages engineers to spend up to 20% of their time pursuing
projects of interest to them. The projects do not need to be approved by the
company but Google asks that they are in some way relevant to its
business.
computerweekly.com/articles/article.asp?liArticleID=135535
Recently I came across a posting in webmasterworld.com saying a guys account has been disabled due to some sort of bad tactics, This is what that guy posted in the forum, SOurce: webmasterworld.com/forum89/4406.htm
I have had an adsense account for just about 8 months now. My earnings were
moderate as my site doesnt get a whole lot of traffic. This past weekend i was
away visiting family and when i got back and logged into my account, I found
that it had been disabled due to fraudulant clicks.
I checked my server logs
to see if there was anything unusual or out of the ordinary, and i couldnt find
anything. The last time i had checked my adsense earnings prior to leaving for
the weekend, there hadnt been any spikes in impressions, clicks, CTR or
anything. Everything seemed pretty normal.
I replied to Google explaining my
findings and to find out what I could do to rectify the situation so that I dont
lose my account. I never did recieve any warnings from Google that there was a
fraudulant click being generated, and I assume that the fraudulant clicks they
discovered had to have happened over the weekend. But all i recieved back was
another automated response explaining that my account will remain disabled due
to fraudulant clicks. Is there anything I can do at this point? Or am I just out
of luck. I would greatly appreciate anyone's insight.
P.S. Im pretty sure i
dont have any enemies or competitors that would do something like this, and i
dont have any friends, partners, etc that visit my site or would fraudulantly
click on the ads.
Over four billion Web pages, each an average of 10KB, all fully indexed.
Up to 2,000 PCs in a cluster.
Over 30 clusters.
104 interface
languages including Klingon and Tagalog.
One petabyte of data in a cluster
-- so much that hard disk error rates of 10-15 begin to be a real issue.
Sustained transfer rates of 2Gbps in a cluster.
An expectation that two
machines will fail every day in each of the larger clusters.
No complete
system failure since February 2000. It is one of the largest computing projects
on the planet, arguably employing more computers than any other single, fully
managed system (we're not counting distributed computing projects here), some
200 computer science PhDs, and 600 other computer scientists.
Read more here zdnet.com.au/insight/software/0,39023769,39168647,00.htm
Google news seem to blocked in china, Dont know the exact reason but this posting will help,
The English version of Google's news service has been inaccessible in China
for more than a week. Zhang Junwei, a Google Media official stationed in
Beijing, acknowledged that the company's English News channel was inaccessible
when contacted by Interfax, but could not provide further comment.
The
Google English News channel, which monitors more than 4,500 online news outlets,
has become a popular resource for Chinese netizens searching for information
from around the world. As Interfax previously reported, the Chinese government
blocked Google's News channel in September of 2002.
Although Google's
English News channel is presently inaccessible in China, the search engine's
Chinese language News channel was up and running as normal. Google's Chinese
Language News channel does not display results from websites banned by the
Chinese government.
As of November 29, Interfax was still unable to access
the home page of Google's English News through normal IP services, but was able
to visit the site through proxy servers, suggesting that it may have been
blocked by the authorities.
Ref: interfax.com/com?item=Chin&pg=0&id=5773779&req=
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