Stuff We’ve Noticed

Did Your Google Die?
Barry alerted us to a five page WMW thread and an additional DigitalPoint thread where several users were complaining that all of Google properties died last night – Web search, AdWords, AdSense, everything. The “outage” started a little before 10 pm EST, and but didn’t seem to affect everyone. I know I was googling during that time with no problem, though I was just using the main search.

If your Google died for any sort of extended period time I’d be very interested to know what you did with your spare time. Do share! You know how to reach me. Don’t you?

Are Google’s Results Starting to Even Out?
Threads at WMW and DigitalPoint Forums say Google’s SERPs are starting to even out after the shift that took place exactly one month ago. We’re glad to see many site owners reporting regained rankings. Huzzah!

Yrank?
Steve Rubel noticed a reference to “yrank” while checking his server logs recently. What could it be? Steve guesses Yahoo! may be setting up to launch a new feed reader or that they will begin to rank feeds using a “yrank” measure. With the Google PageRank craze slowly deteriorating, please don’t tell me Yahoo! is about to reopen that can of worms. I might have to hurt them. (Beware, Terry!)

Silly Jeremy Zawodny says it’s just a case of “their bad”.

“I *knew* we should have called it NotPageRank.feeds.yahoo.com! (Or maybe rubelrank?)”

Oh, that Jeremy. I think RubelRank has a nice ring to it.

More Netscape/ Digg drama
Need proof Digg fans are loyal?

Wednesday morning a mischievous Digg user submitted a story over at its clone Netscape site and used a Cross Site Scripting (XSS) vulnerability to insert some JavaScript snippets into the story. The result? Each time the story was viewed different “alerts” popped up displaying various messages (often containing expletives) and redirected visitors to the Digg.com site. I guess some of us never lose that junior high mentality. Who thinks Jason Calacanis did this himself to stir up some more PR? Anyone? Anyone? Relaaaax, I’m only kidding.

Om hits the Goog
Om visited the Goog recently and says his trip reinforced one key idea: Google is all about search and advertising. And beanbag chairs. To me, Google will always be about primary-colored beanbag chairs.

And the Worst Kept Secret Award Goes Too…
No, it’s not Google. This time around it goes to AOL, who announced they will present “an update to its business strategy” during a conference call Aug. 2nd. Hmm, I wonder if this has anything to do with that other AOL-related story we keep hearing about. Naaah.

Sage Advice
PC World Contributing Editor, Stephen Manes offers Bill Gates some parting words of wisdom: “Stop making crap.” Heh.

Lisa Barone is a writer, content marketer & VP of strategy at Overit Media. She's also a very active Twitterer, much to the dismay of the rest of the world.

See Lisa's author page for links to connect on social media.