I don’t know whether to laugh or cry this morning about a situation one of my clients is having. They, like many other sites, get a fair amount of traffic from Google. In their case, because they’re a news site, Google News is a key traffic driver as well. A week ago, with no notice or changes to the site, their articles disappeared from Google News and their traffic dropped precipitously. What’s really weird is that the site is still fully indexed in regular Google – only News is affected.
Why am I telling you this? Because while the cause is still unknown we have an idea of what’s doing it and there are larger thoughts beyond our specific case that I want to share. Continue reading
Tag Archives: google
The Shotgun Approach
Filed under digital media
Because I Can
There is a hugely alarming report in the Guardian today about the iPhone. In a nutshell, the device keeps a record of everywhere it goes. The file is hidden and is synched to your computer. Assuming you are the one carrying the phone, it becomes very easy to find out everyplace you’ve been once someone wanting to know your history gains access to your phone or your computer.
That’s bad enough but here’s what’s worse: Apple doesn’t seem to be collecting the data since the researchers found that the file doesn’t “phone home” or get otherwise used in the synching process. Which raises the obvious question. Continue reading
Filed under digital media, Reality checks
Grown-Up Supervision
I’m sure you read about the change of command at Google last week. The CEO stepped aside (is it down or up?) to let one of the founders run the company again. That’s not particularly unusual in the business world. Except that it’s Google. Aside from the fact that it’s a huge company with major impact on just about everything digital, there was something in the aftermath of the announcement that caught my eye and raised a point I’d like to share. Continue reading
Filed under digital media



