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I was playing with a backlinks checker earlier and stumbled upon some interesting Yahoo and Google link love facts…

Yahoo doesn’t seem to hold a grudge against their rival Google (quickly becoming everyone’s rival). Yahoo lists plenty of backlinks in its search results for google.com. Google isn’t currently returning the favor for yahoo.com. In fact Yahoo shows more backlinks for Google than Google does for itself. Surely Google caps its results.

Try directly at Google with a search like this:
For Yahoo at Google
http://www.google.com/search?q=link:yahoo.com
0 Pages

For Google itself
http://www.google.com/search?q=link:google.com
1,600,000 Pages.

Or even going to Google’s advanced search page and using their Links search,

Links - Find pages that link to the page

http://www.google.com/advanced_search

Try both yahoo.com and google.com there.

Google’s backlinks are known to be only a small percentage of what are actually crawled, but 10% of ZERO is still ZERO. Given the round number 1,600,000, I’d say the results are capped.

Over at Yahoo, the results are quite different.

For Google at Yahoo
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fgoogle.com
Currently 17,475,629 pages.

For Yahoo at Yahoo
https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/search?p=http%3A%2F%2Fyahoo.com
Currently 1,675,687,898 pages. That’s 1.6 billion.

I have always defaulted to Google’s search. Originally because that was all they did. With the Yahoo Directory and all of Yahoo’s other offerings, I assumed years ago that since Google concentrated on search, their tool would be better. Now I’m wondering what I may be missing.

It is every business’ prerogative to do what works best for them. Internet search is becoming a utility though. Millions of people depend on their daily bread for traffic from these utilities. Is there anyone monitoring them?

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I recently tried to transfer a block of domains out of Godaddy.com for a client. We had to update the email as the domain was registered, forgotten and the original email contact was given over to spammers. ICANN regulations say:

Upon denying a transfer request for any of the following reasons, the Registrar of Record must provide the Registered Name Holder and the potential Gaining Registrar with the reason for denial. The Registrar of Record may deny a transfer request only in the following specific instances:

1. Evidence of fraud
2. UDRP action
3. Court order by a court of competent jurisdiction
4. Reasonable dispute over the identity of the Registered Name Holder or Administrative Contact
5. No payment for previous registration period (including credit card charge-backs) if the domain name is past its expiration date or for previous or current registration periods if the domain name has not yet expired. In all such cases, however, the domain name must be put into “Registrar Hold” status by the Registrar of Record prior to the denial of transfer.
6. Express written objection to the transfer from the Transfer Contact. (e.g. - email, fax, paper document or other processes by which the Transfer Contact has expressly and voluntarily objected through opt-in means)
7. A domain name was already in “lock status” provided that the Registrar provides a readily accessible and reasonable means for the Registered Name Holder to remove the lock status.
8. A domain name is in the first 60 days of an initial registration period.
9. A domain name is within 60 days (or a lesser period to be determined) after being transferred (apart from being transferred back to the original Registrar in cases where both Registrars so agree and/or where a decision in the dispute resolution process so directs).

http://www.icann.org/transfers/policy-12jul04.htm

Godaddy.com goes this a few steps further and decides to put a 60 day hold for any change in registrant information (like the contact email). Its an obvious retention ploy, but they lean on security, saying someone may be trying to hijack the domain.

OK… it’s my domain, I’m on the phone with you, what information do you need me to verify to prove this isn’t a hijack attempt? Credit card I registered it with, the original purchase confirmation email (I save everything digital), what do you need?

Sorry, sir but that isn’t going to be possible. You agreed to our terms when you purchased the domain and they explicitly state that any changes to the registrant information will lock the domain for 60 days.

You got me there, the fine print I agreed to three years ago when I purchased. If this was really for my protection, important things like this would be reminded when making a change.

I browsed the site looking for this fine print and was not able to find it. Called back to ask for a link and the next rep gave me the same spiel until I read him the ICANN document. Wait… are you saying you only changed the email address? Usually we let that go as an ‘exception’.

Let me check some things. On hold for over thirty minutes because the ‘transfer concierge’ was really busy. The rep did pop back in a few times to apologize and be sure I was still holding. Thanks for speakerphone.

Finally, the hold has supposedly been lifted. I re-initiated the transfer and crossed my fingers.

Popularity: 37%

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Oracle recently bought out Sleepycat Software, the creators of the Berkley DB. Berkley DB is the most widely used open source database engine. Last October, Oracle acquired InnoDB another major database engine.

The MySQL server application supports several different database engines. Two of these being Berkley DB and InnoDB. MySQL was also recently working with Sleepycat to create a new transactional database engine to replace InnoDB. MySQL’s latest release, MySQL 5.0, was built around the InnoDB transactional engine. MySQL may be starved for alternative database engines shortly. Building a new engine from scratch will be costly.

So who’s next on Oracle’s radar? Current reports list JBoss and Zend.

What will that mean for the PHP community? Traditional open source community thinking views the corporate software world as the enemy. At the top of that list of software dictators are Microsoft and Oracle. A fortune 100 corporation owning the product one of the largest open source communities will not sit well with a large percentage of the community. I have myself have been nonplussed at the corporatization of PHP to Zend. That is bound to happen when a community expands from not-for-profit to corporate entity. Everybody has to find a way to make a living though.

More news on the Oracle Sleepycat deal
More news on Oracle and Zend

Popularity: 29%

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I hate the fact that while I am logged in to my Adwords/Adsense account and I do a Google search from the same browser (different tab or window) that my searches show that I am logged in to Google too. What about all of the times I forget to explicitly logout of a Google property? We know they log as much about each search as possible, if they have your login profile too, the searches can be linked to you, your address, email, SSN.

If the Feds succeed with their subpoena Google’s search logs it will make it easy to put together a full search profile for users tracked by their various accounts with Google; Gmail, Adsense, Adwords, Analytics.

Another thing, why does my login to Adwords or Adsense eventually expire (”You must login again to view this page”) but it never seems to with searches.

Popularity: 24%

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Many SEO boards went ballistic this week after a post by a Google employee let it be known that not only does Google allow it’s employees to have and use real Adwords accounts, but that they even encourage it. Of course their own employees don’t get rich with their inside information - ‘but not to worry, Google keeps an close eye on ‘em to make sure they don’t do anything unethical.’

The guy actually said this:

By policy, AdWords employees may certainly have AdWords accounts. Please rest assured, however, that they are thoroughly monitored and governed by a list of requirements as long as your arm - designed to ensure no conflict of interest.

It is perhaps worth noting that everyone concerned with AdWords, whether an engineer working behind the scenes, or the person that answers your email, is actually encouraged to have a small AdWords account. The purpose of this is to make sure that everyone who works on AdWords knows exactly what it feels like to be an AdWords advertiser.

[…]

Bottom line: Many Googlers have AdWords account. IMO, It’s a good thing, and it certainly is no secret. I can understand why this is concern to some of you, and I can also say with a great deal of confidence that you may rest easy

Popularity: 35%

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Google’s internet search lets users find anything on the web quickly and easily. With a simple cookie, they can track everything you have ever searched for, let alone what they can do if you use the Google Toolbar. Google’s GMail, reads your email and places content sensitive ads next to your email content. Google Desktop Search archives your harddrive and stores the data on their servers to provide quick and easy access to any file on your local machine. Now that they own Blogger, they have access to huge databases of blog posts and comments tied to your credit card number. If they don’t already (I’d be highly surprised if they didn’t) aggregate this data into a pretty consise profile of each of us and our online habits.

A recent NewsFactor story, Google Has Your Data: Should You Be Afraid? looked at some of the implications of Google’s dance with our data.

Google has become a corporate media conglomerate focused on generating revenue by incessantly pushing advertisements at its users. Now, corporate Google is bent on monetizing every user through keeping a careful watch on every Web page users access and every file users open on local machines.

Hold on a minute, what about their privacy policy?

From Google’s viewpoint, once users grant consent by using Google’s services, the collected data is beyond the user’s reach forever. Google states that it might store and process personal information collected on its site wherever it wants. Generally, storage can be done within the U.S., in the company’s agents’ facilities or in any other country where it or its agents have facilities.

If Google’s ownership should change hands through merger or acquisition, Google promises to let users know before any personally identifying information is transferred to a new owner. At that point, the collected and stored data could be subject to a new privacy policy.

It has always been troubling to me that companies could make money off of my information, credit bureaus, medical information bureaus and now the companies I choose to buy from. Thats my information, my property that they are making a living on. Shouldn’t I have the right to take possession back of my data? If for nothing more than to control the accuracy of it. How many people have had their finances thrown into a shambles because of an erroneous credit report?

Several years ago it was Amazon.com that owned the largest database of consumer information. It was particularily troubling to privacy advocates because virtually all of the data was tied to specific user and credit card information, not an amorphous cloud of users with and without known identifying information.

Take a look at this recent Amazon.com job posting:

When was the last time you walked into a store where the clerk greeted you at the door with an item selected just for you? In the world of online commerce we can accomplish the seemingly impossible - building a store for every customer, picking perfect items from a universe of millions, all in the blink of an eye, thousands of times each second. Work with the best personalization technology on the planet - work at Amazon.com: build massive scale recommendation systems, conceive of creative new ways to connect people with things they didn’t even know they wanted, design mechanisms customers can use to make the website *their* website, and help define the business direction of the team.

What would you do at Wal-Mart if an ‘associate’ followed you around with reminders like: ‘Last month you purchased Tide Extra Strength, aren’t you getting low by now?’, ‘Customers who purchased Crest Toothpaste also purchased an Oral-B toothbrush’. or ‘Is it time for a refill of your Lipitor?’ Yes, it is more expected in cyberspace, but it’s still a little creepy for someone to know me that well.

Popularity: 22%

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