The latest unofficial news has Microsoft, Google and two other, unnamed media companies seriously interested in buying the community-based news site Digg. Though rumors about a sale have been around for nearly two years, a source close to the deal says the four companies are in serious talks with Digg, according to Friday’s report. It is believed Digg will sell for significantly less than the $300 million representative bank Allen & Co. had asked for in 2007.

The same source reveals Google is likely to offer up to $225 million. Last year’s three-year advertising deal between Microsoft and Digg gives the latter company more flexibility in holding out for better offers. Microsoft is unlikely to concede the sale to Google, spurring a possible bidding war. This is especially likely since there are two other wildcards involved.

Digg’s success story is a relatively short one. The site was started late in 2004, then exploded early in 2005 when a user posted a link to Paris Hilton’s hacked cell phone information on Digg, resulting in a surge of traffic and making Rose realize the potential of his creation. Since its inception, Digg has raised $11.3 million.

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Source: www.electronista.com

Blogger was launched in 1999 long before the technology became commonplace. Since then blogs have reshaped the web, impacted politics, shaken up businesses, and enabled millions of people to have a voice and connect with others.

Now this technology is becoming more and more applicable to the enterprise both inside and outside the firewall. As this year’s Intranet Journal product award winner in the blogging software category shows, Blogger is at the forefront once again.

The blogging software category ballot was wide open with a variety of hosted and installed platforms. Competition included: WordPress, Movable Type, Traction TeamPage, Apple iWeb, and TypePad.

With the variety of platforms and ways in which to use blogging software, this category is a lot like comparing a basket of mixed fruit. There is no simple one to one comparison. Simply deciding whether your company’s internal blog will reside within the firewall with an installed solution, or be access-controlled outside the firewall with a hosted solution is a major strategic and technology decision unto itself. At the end of the day, one voter’s comments sums up why Blogger got the nod: “simple, fast, hosted.”

If you have only thought of Blogger as an Internet platform open to all, what makes it possible for internal use is its access control feature. Access Controls let you decide who can read and who can write to your blog. Small teams within organizations (or even the entire organization for small operations) can use a group blog with multiple authors as a communication tool.

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According to Google’s Webmaster Guidelines what is done off site can negatively effect a site’s rankings in Google’s search engine results is:

• Doorway pages
• Keyword Stuffing
• Exact anchor text of links
• Purchasing Site Wide Links
• Automated Querying of Google
• Links from “Bad Neighborhoods”

Here are some tactics that your compititor can use to down yor site in search engine ranking.

Google Bowling:

This is universally hated method of negative SEO. Anybody could get your site banned through a method called Googlebowling? Your competitors can link your web site to thousands of spam or bad sites in very short period across a wide range of social media. As a form of negative SEO, they can buy links from bad neighborhoods to ANY site they want. Bad links like Spam domain links, Computer generated content, Same anchor text, Over keyword stuff etc.

Spam Under Your Name:

Your compititor may use your Web site’s URL for spamming in online forums, social-network sites and blog comments & add your website to several spam linking schemes to hurt your site. This all can done by your compititor on behalf of your name. But for you it will be hard to prove that you’re innocent. Result is, your site becomes banned.

Your Exposer To Search Engine:

Google hates to buy links on other Web sites to improve your search engine rankings. Your competitor might report Google and your rankings might drop.
If you are using some black hat seo techniques your compititor may complaint Google for this also and in result your search engine ranking will drop.

Copyright Complaint:

According to the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act (OCILLA), if a search engine is notified that a copyright infringement exists (or might exist) on a Web site, it immediately take down content. Your site will be removed temporarily and it will affect your site ranking definitely. A negative SEO practitioner may file a copyright complaint with a search engine against a competitor, claiming to be the copyright holder.

Google Insulation:

“Google insulation” is the idea of padding the web with friendly-sounding content about a client and then pushing that content to the top of Google results. This technique is used to hide online criticism of clients.

Duplicate Content Creation:

As we know that search engine dislike duplicate content.
If someone creates duplicates of your website’s Web pages,these duplicate pages will split rankings with those of the original site.

Click Fraud:

Click fraud is a type of internet crime that occurs in pay per click online advertising when a person, automated script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user of a web browser clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating a charge per click without having actual interest in the target of the ad’s link.(From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Google Said, “There’s almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index.”

But i think you should be aware of these tactics so you can protect your site against such practices, or at least identify these attacks when they are occurring.

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