Please be wary if someone approaches you and wants to pay you for links or “advertorial” pages on your site that pass PageRank. Selling links (or entire advertorial pages with embedded links) that pass PageRank violates our quality guidelines, and Google does take action on such violations. The consequences for a linkselling site start with losing trust in Google’s search results, as well as reduction of the site’s visible PageRank in the Google Toolbar. The consequences can also include lower rankings for that site in Google’s search results.

If you receive a warning for selling links that pass PageRank in Google’s Webmaster Tools, you’ll see a notification message to look for “possibly artificial or unnatural links on your site pointing to other sites that could be intended to manipulate PageRank.” That’s an indication that your site has lost trust in Google’s index.

To address the issue, make sure that any paid links on your site don’t pass PageRank. You can remove any paid links or advertorial pages, or make sure that any paid hyperlinks have the rel=”nofollow” attribute. After ensuring that no paid links on your site pass PageRank, you can submit a reconsideration request and if you had a manual webspam action on your site, someone at Google will review the request. After the request has been reviewed, you’ll get a notification back about whether the reconsideration request was granted or not.

We do take this issue very seriously, so we recommend you avoid selling (and buying) links that pass PageRank in order to prevent loss of trust, lower PageRank in the Google Toolbar, lower rankings, or in an extreme case, removal from Google’s search results.

We would like to wish everyone a happy Christmas and a prosperous New Year! Best regards from all the team at Aonach. We look forward to talking to you in the new year. Our offices will be closed from 24th of December until Wed 2nd of January 2013

Very simply the regulation means that you need to alert users to any Cookies you are using on your website and get them to consent to their use. What are cookies? – Also known as browser cookies or tracking cookies, cookies are small, often encrypted text files, located in browser directories. They are used by us to help our users navigate this website efficiently and perform certain functions. Due to their core role of enhancing or enabling usability or site processes, disabling cookies may prevent users from using certain parts of this website. Source: www.allaboutcookies.org

The legislation does not proscribe the solution so there is endless discussion about what is necessary, what your competitor is going to do and a number of approaches to the legislation ranging from ostrich-like head in the sand strategies to very clear upfront approaches are emerging:

Do nothing:
A lot of sites seem to be taking a watch and see approach to this. The legislative intent is not currently clear and full compliance would mean taking the Opt In approach which will undoubtedly put websites in competitive verticals at a disadvantage should they implement such a solution while their competitors sit on the fence.

Opt in:
Asking the user to opt in to the cookies upfront is currently the only approach that appears to be fully compliant with the legislation. (Note – It’s also the approach that will leave you without critical data on visitors as experiments have shown.)
So for example the ICO.gov.uk site has the following banner at the top of their website:

The ICO would like to place cookies on your computer to help us make this website better. To find out more about the cookies, see our privacy notice. 
I accept cookies from this site. Continue>>

www.ico.gov.uk/Global/privacy_statement.aspx

Opt Out:
This puts the onus on the user to opt out but gives them a tool to do so. For example this is the approach taken by BT.co.uk

The cookie settings on this website are set to ‘allow all cookies’ to give you the very best experience. If you continue without changing these settings, you consent to this – but if you want, you can change your settings at any time at the bottom of this page. https://www.bt.com/static/includes/globalheader/cookies/more-about-cookies.html

User Onus
A lot of sites are simply adding a link to information on cookies and how to disable them in your browser.
JohnLewis.com is one site that takes this approach. They comprehensively list their cookies and explain how you can disable them.

http://www.johnlewis.com/Magazine/Feature.aspx?Id=567&intcmp=privacy

We have a diverse portfolio of clients in different industries that results in a challenging set of projects and we’re looking for a developer with an insatiable drive to problem solve through code.

We’re looking for a lead developer to join our team in Kenmare to work on online projects arising from our internet strategy consultancy. We are looking for someone friendly, flexible and curious – and of course skilled.

Aonach’s raison d’etre is to help organisations do business more successfully on the internet and the developer we seek will be someone who can share our vision of how code can breathe life into an online strategy.

To offset the challenges you’ll face while coding, the position is located in Kenmare Co. Kerry and comes with spectacular views and a satisfying pace of life. Kenmare is on the coast of Kerry (South West Ireland) and is one of the food capitals of Ireland with great cafés and restaurants.

Remuneration will be dependant on the candidates skillsets and experience, contact us if you would like to chat about salary.

See the views…

Desired Skills & Experience

• A burning interest in the internet is essential
• We’re looking for a problem solver
• We want elegant code!
• Senior-level PHP/LAMP developer with 3+ years experience
• Competent in SQL
• Excellent knowledge of Javascript and JS libraries, HTML5 and CSS3.
• Strong Unix/Linux knowledge
• Experience in CMS development required eg. WordPress, drupal etc.
• Knowledge of Magento would be an asset.
• Strong interest in UI.
• Ability to follow, complete and report on comprehensive test processes.
• Ability to work in a team environment
• 3 – 5 years web development experience. B.A. or higher in Computer Science, Multimedia or similar preferred.

The Process

Simple, easy and uncomplicated. Send us your CV info@aonach.com and we’ll get right back to you!

The speed is impressive and is a clear signal that Google is serious about speed as a usability issue.

They have focused on two consumer purchasing triggers for one of the filter options – Price and Duration of flights and have come up with an interesting approach.

Combining this with their Hotel Finder they are shaping up to a serious force in online travel. Is this a threat or an opportunity?

See this search for Barry Packaging in Google.ie:

The new site links (12 in a double column) also have a URL and a little snippet. This dominates most of the above the fold real estate in the search results and will mean that brand owners will dominate the results for their brands should Google roll this out. Naturally it will have huge implications for affiliates and other distribution partners – particularly those who have invested heavily in SEO in an attempt to dominate the brand search results for Brands that have been slower to move online.

This is what the Site links were like in the “Classic” results:

In light of Google’s recent refocusing on prioritizing product efforts there may be an indication that they are serious about this – so probably worth paying attention to developments here…

The search is unsurprisingly very slick and the hotel details pre-load on the listing page so when you click on an individual hotel the speed is amazing! The mapping feature is uber-cool! You can select multiple within a destination that you are interested in by dragging a selection polygon around the hotels. I’ve no idea how useful this actually is, however it’s going to be a talking point. When you click the “Book” for a property you get a strange pop up list of advertisers (with pricing) for this property followed by the hotels own site. One interesting feature is that the price is quoted both with and without all taxes and fees for transparency. So at the moment it’s kind of like Tripadvisor without the advice. Although there is a strong emphasis on reviews and imagery for the property…

Only lists hotels in the U.S. for now.

Kind of hard to imagine how this type of project doesn’t lead to a conflict of interest with Google’s advertising base in the hospitality sector – but lets keep an open mind as we know that my favourite company can do no evil!

$54.91 a click? There must be some margin on that product!