Are Google Evil?

Google Are Evil

Anyone who's read this blog will know that I think a lot of my friend who runs the Celtnet website. Partly this is due to the fact that he married my friend... but mostly it's due to the fact that almost every cent he makes from his website is given to Liberian refugees here in Dakar, Senegal. In fact, he funds almost 10 of the refugees' children to come to school.

All this money comes from his website, which he has been working on for over 3 years to become a success. It's over $1000 a month, which allows 10 children here to get an education. And just so you know how important this is, Liberians are English speaking but Senegal is a Francophone country. In the main it's women and children who escaped to Senegal. But without French and a French education the children can never be accepted into society, can never make an income and can never have a chance of returning home. The Celtnet Website is giving these people a chance to re-build their lives and to make themselves a future.

This is done through information and the provision of recipes. Just check out the Celtnet Recipes link if you don't believe me. Then, last Friday 6th February the Celtnet site began to vanish from the SERPS (Search Engne Results PagesS). This is done due to a penalty for violating Google's terms and conditions. Now, if someone on the net is violating these terms it may be fair for them to be penalized... we would all agree with that...

But, here's where it gets interesting. Google owns over 70% of the web by being the predominant search engine. They deliver the majority of a site's traffic. As a result they have a majority position on the web and should be regulated. Now, Google themselves have a current campaign for 'net neutrality' revealing the ISPs who throttle back on a website's results delivery. But what of Google themsleves, what of their 'net neutrality'.

The problem with Google's terms and conditions is that they can 'throttle back' on any website by giving them a penalty without even telling the website about it. The webiste may have transgressed Google's terms and conditions.... but the mighty G does not have to tell the website owner about this or the action they are taking. So, one morning any webiste owner can just wake up to find out they have no traffic... and this is what happened to Celtnet.

On Friday Ferbruary 6th 2009 the site's traffic began to dissappear. Rather than being on page 1 of Google's search results pages suddenly vanished to page 20 or worse. A good example being the site's Liberian Recipes pages which vanished. Or even the sites's Welsh Recipes now vanished from page 1 and slowly falling down the SERPs. The point is that the owner of the site is Welsh and his wife is Liberian so these pages represent the largest collections of Welsh and Liberian recipes on the Web. All things being equal, they should be number 1 for both search terms.... but now they've vanished off the web.

All this is Google's doing. Now, this is not to say that people should not be punished for transgressions of Google's terms and conditions. But, Google's actions were taken unilaterally. No information was provided to the site's owner as to why the site was being punished by Google and no grace period was given to fix the problem.

Google's motto may be 'don't be evil' but they are truly being evil in this case. There may well be a transgression of what Google considers good. But I know that this website is written by one person and everything on it is done by him. All the recipes added to the Celtenet Recipes site are written by hand to be unique. And isn't that what Google says they want... unique content?

The site isn't even making any money for itself but for others. To check out what the site is all about, go to the One Million People Campaing page. And just remember that this action by Google is removing over $1000 from this site's revenue every month.

What's being complained about here isn't Google's actions, but how they've gone about it. They've taken a website, removed it from web visibility (without telling the owner why) and are now making African children suffer.

Even worse, the only way for the webmaster to get his rankings back is to file a 're-inclusion request' with Google. This is a form, basically saying 'I screwed up'... The only way to get back into Google's good grace is to sign up to their webmaster tools and to submit one of these requests. Only, the request is an acknowledgement that the website did something wrong.

Basically, for re-inclusion into Google you have to sign the form saying what you did wrong and promising you will never do anything again.... The problem being that if you are not a large website you may never have any clue what you did wrong because Google don't tell you... And, unless you know what you did wrong you will not get back into Google's good graces.

So, if you are a small website owner doing your own thing, producing good and novel content you may never know what you did wrong and you may never get back into Google. My friend is thinking of throwing in the towel. After all 3 years is a lot of work for a personal website, especially if you are giving the money away to others...

As a result of Google's actions 10 children here will not gain an education beyond March and they will lose future. This is all Google's doing....

So, are Google evil or not?

I would say that they are very evil. Their actions are shrouded in mystery. If they can take any website off the web for no reason (at least for not giving the website owner a reason or a chance to fix things) then their actions are very evil. They are ruining lives....

But, what do Google care. The webmaster in question is in the UK and the childrens' lives they are ruining are in Africa. And that's the problem... the net is global and no company should have the power to pull a website and make it vanish. If 'net neutrality' is a reality then that should apply to Google as well and they should be regulated like the global monopoly they really are.

Scams, Plans and New Recipes

It's been a while since I posted... mostly because I've been busy with other things.

Partly I've been working hard with my friends over at Celtnet on upgrades and additions to the Internet Scams and Cons regions of their site.

Anyone who's been reading this blog knows that I am Liberian, displaced by the civil wars in my and today I recieved a scam email which I instantly posted on the Celtnet site (you can read about this here: Liberian 419 Scam eMail. I was so incensed that I decided to submit the email as a scam immediately and to bring peoples' attention to it right away.

On a slightly happier not, I have added some new recipes to the Celtnet Recipes Forum most from North Africa and I hope you enjoy these.

Next week I will be returning to my usual schedule of product reviews and analyses.

Credit Cards; How to Get them and How to Overcome Them

With the global credit crunch, the question of credit cards and credit and how to either get them or stay on top of your debts with them is becoming more of a vexed question. With interest rates falling now is one of the best times to get a credit card or to transfer your balances to a new card.

Of course, you will have a problem if you have adverse credit or if you want to apply for a credit card with no credit history. If you do apply then you need to understand the credit card application process. And, with banks limiting credit as part of the credit crunch it's more important than ever to understand why credit card applications are denied, as only understanding why you have been denied (if you have been denied) will you be able to sort the problem out to get yourself a credit card.

Of course, whether you already have a credit card or you want to apply for one you still need to know what credit cards are all about. In essence you need to have the information to understand the basics of credit cards.

Only by being informed will you know about what the different credit card types are so that you can understand the features of a credit card to get the best one for you. This way you can also know about the numbers on your credit card and what they tell you about your credit card (see this article describing how to understand credit card numbers).

Then there are the numbers on the back of your credit card called CCV (Credit Card Verification number) which, along with 'chip and pin' are part of the security measures that credit card companies use to try and protect you and your card from fraud and theft. That's why you need to understand credit card verification numbers and how to use them.

The next big question is about that oft quoted number APR (anual percentage rate). This refers to the interest charged on any money borrowed on your credit card (if you don't pay your balance in full). See a formula for APR and what it means. This will tell you how expensive a credit card will be tow own and how much you will have to pay if you don't pay your balance completely.

Then there's a question of why credit cards expire and how credit card companies use this to keep in touch with you.

If you do tend to spend too much on your card then you need a guide on how to begin paying off your credit card. If you are completely stuck with payments, have missed several payments and have a lump sum put by you may still be able to offer your credit card company the deal of paying off your credit card with a lump sum and saving yourself some money in the process.

Finally, if you have a credit card... you need to protect it, as it's potentially very valuable. Learn how to protect your card and what to do in the unfortunate event that your credit card is stolen.

Though just a brief guide this should give you some pointers as to what to do in terms of helping yourself with credit cards in the current economic climate.

Improving Adsense Returns

Google's AdSense program can be an amazing source of revenue and it's very easy for just about any website owner to set up. However, actually making any real money with AdSense can be trickier than most people realize. The truth is that unless you understand the program and are willing to put in some work in terms of optimization and improving your site you are unlikely to make any real money.

The first item is to get the AdSense code and to place it on your website. You can then play with the look and feel of the ads so they either match your website or stand out from it (which one of these strategies works best depends on your site). After that the most important thing is to get visitors to your site to see your ads. This means you need to get links to your site and you need to climb in the search engine positions. Basically to need to work hard to market your site and to get it noticed.


However, it's also often forgotten that each ad is worth a certain amount of money and only pays you a certain amount for each click. You want to get ads to your site that will entice your visitors to click on them and which will earn you the most income. This is why you need to pay particular attention to how your website is indexed and the keywords you have.

Your keywords should always be related to your site's content, however some keywords are better at getting high-paying ads than others. Also , the google bots index the whole of your site and if you have a complex page with lots of links this may not be a good thing.

The links and other text you have may lead to areas of your site and topics that are not related to the main focus of the page they're on (this is particularly true of portal sites and forums and article sites) and this is where Google provides tools to help you. One of the most important of these is a series of tags:

<!-- google_ad_section_start -->

text of section

<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

This tells Google that the text between those tags is the most important part of a web pate. Now, the remainder of the page won't be ignored but whatever's between those tags will be given extra weighting. Google recommends that you include at least 20% of a page's content in those sections and you certainly can't use it to just highlight certain words and phrases. But if your page is complex and especially if your page design puts some of the main navigation elements before the main content it can be very powerful.

If, however, you want certain text on your pages to be ignored completely for ad indexing you can use the following tags:

<!-- google_ad_section_start(weight=ignore) -->

text of section

<!-- google_ad_section_end -->

This article is adapted, with permission, from the Improving your Adsense Returns from the Celtnet Articles free articles site.

ClickBank and the State of the Economy

There are many measures as to the state of the US and the Global economy. Financial measures, opinion polls, economic measures... statistics and analysis are published almost daily now. And this obsession with how the economy is behaving and how people think about the economy is, itself, a good indication that something is really wrong.

The sharply-rising cost of gas, food and power means that almost every one is feeling the pinch and the general economic downturn means a pervasive gloom that has most people tightening their belts.

Over the past few weeks I've been examining a rather unusual source of information about the state of the economy. What I've been looking at is the ClickBank marketplace. Now, ClickBank is the largest marketplace of products that are available for electronic download. ClickBank themselves effectively act as brokers putting the creators of the products in contact with affiliates who will promote and market their products on the web.

There are over 10 000 products in the ClickBank marketplace covering just about every topic imaginable (you can browse the entire ClickBank maketplace here). ClickBank orders their products in categories and the products are ranked in terms of how well they sell. Typically, the best selling products are all clustered in the Internet Marketing and Make Money On-line categories. This is hardly surprising, as this is the most competitive area of marketing, with the most affiliates and 'super affiliates'. In fact, if you want to make any money as an affiliate selling electronic products this is the one section of the market you should avoid at all costs... there's simply too much competition.

Which brings us back to my analysis of the products sold through ClickBank... Over the past few weeks there's been a very dramatic change to the new products climbing to the top spots. No longer does the internet marketing niche dominate. Indeed, the following niches are the ones now making the most waves:


Run your car on water (conversion kits to increase your mileage with hydrogen)
Make your own electricity (how to 'live off the grid' by generating your own power)
Electric car conversion (how to convert your gas car to run on electricity)
Weight loss
Make Money with ForEx (How to use Foreign Exchange trades to make money)

These all represent the 'movers and shakers', those products and product categories that have climbed into ClickBank's top 10 during the past two weeks. Now this is a truly fascinatin phenomenon. After all, the majority of affiliates are promoting products in the 'Internat Marketing' niche. In terms of sheer marketing effort other products simply shouldn't get a look-in. But it's products relating to the pocket of ordinary people which are climbing the ClickBank rankings.

The ClickBank marketplace is being skewed by economics. People are actively looking for products that will have a direct impact on their pocketbook. And it's the high prices of gasoline and energy that are directly affecting people and it's solutions to these problems that they're actively seeking.

The rise in the purchase of ForEx products isn't so surprising either, given the volatility of the money markets. If you know what you're doing and have some seed capital then it's an opportunity to make some money. What is surprising is the rise in the popularity of diet and weight loss products. Part of this may be down to economics. If you eat less, you spend less, but part of it may be a re-focusing of efforts on self rather than buying things for the house. If you're fitter and healthier then you will be happier... So it may be a symptom of economic gloom.

As you can see, the changes in peoples' buying practices can reveal a lot about what people think, how they behave and what they believe the economic outlook to be!

If you want a deeper insight about what's hot in ClickBank and the details of the current movers and shakers then you should visit the ClickBank Marketplace Digest.

Liberian Fruit Fools

Fools are a British invention, going back to the Elizabethan era, if not earlier. They're a mix of pureed fruit and either whipped cream or custard. They're a very popular dessert in my native Liberia where lots of fruit are grown. You will, of course, find many 'chefy' versions of this dish, but this is how it's really made back home.

Typically powdered custard is used as the base and because milk is expensive and many West Africans are lactose intolerant the instant custard is often made-up with boiling water. Liberians also love ginger and the country grows cassia and powdered cassia bark is sold there as cinnamon (just as it is in America) so this dish includes that as well.

Here, then is a recipe for fruit food made just the way it is in the homes of Liberia:

Liberian Fruit Fool

1 mango, peeled and with the flesh sliced
2 peaches, pitted and sliced
2 tsp grated ginger
3 tsp ground cinnamon (or ground cassia)
2 tbsp honey
80ml water

For the Custard:
2 tbsp instant custard powder
2 tbsp granulated sugar
600ml boiling water


Add the fruit, ginger, cinnamon and water to a saucepan and bring to a simmer. Cover and cook for 25 minutes, or until the fruit is very soft then take off the heat and either mash by hand or purée with a food processor until smooth. Set aside to cool.

Meanwhile bring 600ml of water to a boil. In a bowl mix the custard powder and the sugar. Add a few tablespoons of cold water to the mix and whisk until smooth then stir-in the boiling water. Tip the mixture into a pan and heat gently until just thickened (you're not looking for a very thick mixture here). Tip in the fruit purée and stir to combine.

Set aside to cool an when cold enough to handle spoon into glasses and chill in the refrigerator for 2 hours before serving (in actuality this would just be chilled in the bowl and everyone would be given a spoon to tuck in).

If you enjoyed this Liberian recipes and would like more then you really need to check out the Liberian Recipes collection on the Celtnet site where you will see several more 'chefy' versions of fruit fools as well as many other traditional Liberian dishes.

Review of Article Submission Sites and Policies

Anyone into internet marketing, especially when talking about traffic generation and affiliate marketing will know the importance of article writing and article submission. After all, this is how you propagate product reviews, garner back-links to your site and get your name and reputation on the web.

But if you do a search for 'article submission directory' or something similar on the web you will get hundreds and hundreds of them returned (many are catalogued here) or you can get an exhaustive list from the Celtnet Forum. Of these, which ones do you actually submit to?

I've been submitting articles for many years now and I've seen article sites come and articles sites go. In the end I've become quite choosy as to where I submit my articles to.

Many authors will tell you not to submit articles to article sites with PR (PageRank) less than 6. This can be a good rule of thumb if all you want is to get page rank to your site. But it can also be misleading. Having an article site can be a very lucrative means of getting money. Many of the less scrupulous sites are sites with high page rank actually bought by someone and then turned into an article site. They start off with good page rank and then their page rank plummets and they vanish from the web. I would rather submit my articles to a new and up-and coming website, one that wants good content and is picky about the articles that get in rather than submit willy-nilly to any site with good page rank.

I also only submit to about a dozen sites in all and all my articles are unique. I never use auto-submitters and I never have machine-written articles.

I also look for article sites that make an effort to get the word out about the articles submitted to them. These are article sites that submit their RSS feeds to news aggregators and article sites that integrate social bookmarketing into their articles and sites. If these site creators are willing to go to this effort to help publicise the ads they have then this is a site worth sticking with. I also look for sites that help eZine and site owners get content for their site. This means that the articles must be easy for others to publish and must have at least plain text and HTML publishing facilities.

But my main criterion as to which sites I submit to has to do more with how quickly the article is approved than anything else. I need a quick turn around as some of my articles only have a short useful lifespan. I will not wait more than three, at the most four, days for my article to be approved and incorporated. Many of the article directories out there take two weeks or more for approval. Some never even get back to you.

As a result here are my top five submission sites:

ezinearticles.com

celtnet articles

buzzle.com

articledashboard.com

goarticles.com


These sites all only allow self-serving (ie links to your sites/products) in the 'About the Author' resource box. Though GoArticles will allow some URLs in the main text of the article. With Buzzle it's an either/or case. Either you have URLs in the main body of the text or you have self-serving URLs in the resource box. Each site is different and you need to read the guidelines or terms and conditions before submitting.

For more information on why you need to write articles read this article: Why you Need to Write Articles and for a guide to the basics of article writing read: Article Writing 101.

I also submit to six or seven other sites, but these are far more subjective than objective, so I suggest you play around with article submission sites to find out which ones you prefer (the list given above will help you here).