By: Randfish | Source: seomoz.org

A considerable portion of my consulting time has recently revolved around the optmization of corporate blogs (or the addition of blogs to revamped sites). The most common pieces of advice are here on the blog :

1. Choose the Right Blog Software (or Custom Build)
The right blog CMS makes a big difference. If you want to set yourself apart, I recommend creating a custom blog solution – one that can be completely customized to your users. In most cases, WordPress, Blogger, MovableType or Typepad will suffice, but building from scratch allows you to be very creative with functionality and formatting. The best CMS is something that’s easy for the writer(s) to use and brings together the features that allow the blog to flourish. Think about how you want comments, archiving, sub-pages, categorization, multiple feeds and user accounts to operate in order to narrow down your choices. OpenSourceCMS is a very good tool to help you select a software if you go that route.

2. Host Your Blog Directly on Your Domain
Hosting your blog on a different domain from your primary site is one of the worst mistakes you can make. A blog on your domain can attract links, attention, publicity, trust and search rankings – by keeping the blog on a separate domain, you shoot yourself in the foot. From worst to best, your options are – Hosted (on a solution like Blogspot or WordPress), on a unique domain (at least you can 301 it in the future), on a subdomain (these can be treated as unique from the primary domain by the engines) and as a sub-section of the primary domain (in a subfolder or page – this is the best solution).
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Source: blogs.zdnet.com

Researchers at UCLA and the University of Florida have created a new type of distributed spam-filtering system that is more efficient and scalable than the alternatives in use today. Results of a large-scale prototype were published in the October edition of IEEE Computer.

The idea is simple:

Spammers send the same or similar messages to thousands of users; we have developed a system that lets users query all of their e-mail clients to determine if another user in the system has already labeled a suspect message as spam.

Social filtering has been tried before (for example, SpamNet), but solutions based on a central server are not scalable. Also, they require building up a totally new social network. This new method uses something you already have – your own personal contact list. A novel "percolation search" algorithm plus a digest-based indexing mechanism minimize network bandwidth and maximize privacy.

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By: Candace Lombardi | Source: news.zdnet.com

Google Book Search now offers PDF files of scanned books that can be downloaded and printed for free, Google announced on Wednesday.

Readers can find the books by choosing the "Full view books" option on the Google Book Search home page before they activate their search. Once they have chosen a book from the results page, a download button is clearly visible on the top-right corner of the page.

The PDFs are offered only for those books that fall into the public domain and are intended for personal use.

"We use very conservative rules to comply with international copyright laws," Google spokeswoman Megan Lamb said.

A book’s availability depends on the country from which the user is accessing the site. Google blocks users from works that are not yet in the public domain for their country, Lamb said.

A carefully worded note on usage from Google, included as the first page of each downloaded PDF file, explains what "public domain" means and how it can vary by country. Google also notes that users are responsible for following their own country’s copyright laws.

"Make noncommercial use of the file. Refrain from automated querying. Maintain attribution. Keep it legal," Google lists as usage guidelines.

The bottom-right corner of every PDF book page contains a "Digitized by Google" watermark.

While Google Book Search limits the amount of copyright text a person can view in one session, Google has been criticized for the project, which entails scanning entire works, many protected by copyright, in order to make them searchable online. Microsoft began a similar project but has offered an opt-in method for publishers rather than an opt-out one.

Partners in Google’s project to digitize library books in the United States and the United Kingdom include the University of California, Harvard University, University of Michigan, The New York Public Library, Oxford University and Stanford University.

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