Robots.txt - Watching the Minor Details

I noticed that Google was indexing one of my blog’s feeds that I thought I had blocked with robots.txt:
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By Josh | Posted in Site Analysis | Comments (0)
March 22, 2008 – 1:04 pm

WordPress, Google Groups, Porn Spam and Malware Distribution

I was cleaning out spam comments today, thinking about how this site got hacked a few days ago. Most of the spam comments that bypass Akismet on this site link to pages full of spam on Google Groups. Google Groups is getting to be worse than MySpace in that respect.

Here is how the spam works:
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By Josh | Posted in Google | Comments (0)
March 22, 2008 – 10:12 am

How To Defend Against Porn Link Injection

I wrote a post yesterday about how PocketSEO.com was hacked. This site has been heavily penalized because cloaked, hidden porn links were being injected into the site through a WordPress backdoor.

I’ve seen this happen many times to EDU and other sites. “Hackers” break into the sites and put hidden links to networks of porn sites. I even saw one EDU site that had porn links all over the home page. Those links pointed at pages about porn on other hacked trusted sites, which then pointed to or redirected to porn affiliate links. Some of the pages would try to install malware.

Here is a way to protect this from happening to your site and your clients’ sites:
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By Josh | Posted in Black Hat | Comments (3)
March 21, 2008 – 7:38 am

Pocket SEO Was Hacked :(

PocketSEO.com suddenly dropped in the SERPs so I did some investigating.

It turns out that my site was hacked and a backdoor was installed. Someone was inserting cloaked porn links in the footer.
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By Josh | Posted in Black Hat | Comments (12)
March 20, 2008 – 3:10 am

Joongel - Firefox Search Plugin

I’ve just started using this search plugin and it has potential:
Joongel search plugin

It allows you to search many social media sites from the Firefox search box (keyboard shortcut: Ctrl-k).

By Josh | Posted in Tools | Comments (0)
March 20, 2008 – 1:19 am

Why Wikipedia Doesn’t Suck

A lot of people hate Wikipedia. The information on Wikipedia is easily manipulated and is often inaccurate.

I’ve been using Wikipedia and Mediawiki a lot lately, and it’s actually a great site despite its serious flaws.
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By Josh | Posted in Wikipedia | Comments (0)
March 19, 2008 – 3:44 am

New Google Home Page?

I just saw this new look for Google Japan’s home page. When switching to Google.com in English the new design disappeared. Has anyone else seen this new look appear for Google.com?

Click on the image for a larger version:
Google Japan, thumbnail image

By Josh | Posted in Google | Comments (0)
March 11, 2008 – 1:19 am

Alternatives To Becoming a Famous SEO

There have been a couple of recent articles about people who want to become famous SEOs. The first article was over at Top Rank Blog, and the second at SEOmoz.
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By Josh | Posted in Industry | Comments (0)
February 26, 2008 – 1:56 am

Network Solutions Domain Tasting Customers Domain Names

I’ve been watching the issue of domain tasting ever since metapredict.com stole my friend’s domain name.

The Register just reported that Network Solution is now domain tasting, with the dubious excuse that they are “protecting their customers”.
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By Josh | Posted in Domains | Comments (0)
February 26, 2008 – 12:15 am

Marketing Yahoo Messenger on Bubble Tea in Taiwan

Below is a photo from a night market in Taipei, Taiwan of some bubble tea that advertises Yahoo Messenger on the lid. I found it interesting because with the exception of Ask.com, I haven’t seen much offline search engine advertising in the US.
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By Josh | Posted in Yahoo | Comments (0)
February 24, 2008 – 11:43 am