Thanks to our sponsors: Check out their websites!

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We’re always happy to say ‘thank you!’ to our sponsors. This month, there are four sponsors that

  • Mortgage Quotes for their website in which they provide mortgage quotes right from the front page.
  • Best Loans Rates provides a one-stop shop for quotations in insurance, loans, mortgages, etc.
  • Student Credit Cards: pretty much says it all. There are also useful articles on finance and forums for students.
  • Credit card processing sells merchant accounts for credit card processing.

Do check out these advertisers at least to see what services they provide. You never know when the information they provide might come in handy!

Would you like a similar buzz for your company? Then you can go to my profile, check out the stats, and sign up for your very own account.

Can Selling Paid Links Hurt Your PageRank Or Rankings On Google?

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My article of the day goes to this article that examines Google’s stance on paid links and asks if Google is being reasonable or not.

Official: Selling Paid Links Can Hurt Your PageRank Or Rankings On GoogleMore and more, I’ve been seeing people wondering if they’ve lost traffic on Google because they were detected to be selling paid links. However, Google’s generally never penalized sites for link selling. If spotted, in most cases all Google would do is prevent links from a site or pages in a site from passing PageRank. Now that’s changing. If you sell links, Google might indeed penalize your site plus drop the PageRank score that shows for it.

It is well worth reading this piece of news, and considering for yourself what to do. In the face of Google’s slow PR rank update, flipflop on paid links, and general high handedness in all things search, some companies are now exploring other metrics as a way to figure out what their audience’s worth. And some bloggers, like John Chow, seem particularly unphased by the issues, despite still not ranking well, after his penalty by Google.

I’m not an SEO expert, so I’d appreciate some feedback on that one!

Mozilla and a Flock of SongBirds: Developments in Browsers

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Firefox was quite a development in its own right, but with its origins in OpenSource, it has spurred some interesting developments of its own. First there was Flock and now there is SongBird. Read about them.

Flock is a browser based on Mozilla technology. It is a web browser for Social Web Era, with support for RSS feeds inbuilt, photos, videos, blogging, uploading, etc. Currently version 0.9.1.2 is available. Of course, as with FF, it’s multi-platform, multi-language, with versions in many languages, and support for Windows, Mac, Linux. Like FF, it is also extensible, skinnable and can work online and offline. I’m particularly interested in versions for my new CRUZER!

flockpage

The second is SongBird which relies on Mozilla technology, but follows the same principles using, the developers at SongBird have created a browser as a “desktop Web player, a digital jukebox and Web browser mash-up. Like Winamp, it supports extensions and skins feathers.” Like FF and Flock, it is multi-platform and will, likely, be multi-language, but it hasn’t been released except as a ‘developer’s version.’ Its expected launch date is 2008.

songbirdpage

Are you aware of any other Browser developments? How is Firefox or Mozilla being used to develop new products? Comments, please…