We are also running w3 total cache, but experimenting with using its built in memcached funcationalities to cache database queries.

Just uploaded WP Minify as well as a test to combine and minify js/css files before sending them to users. I’m not sure if its a good thing or a bad thing yet. Before we were running just a minify function of the w3 total cache.

Lets see how it goes, thoughts comments?

Traffic to the site has increased (global traffic has increased sharply) and is back to more than it was before the filter was applied at the end of august.

A lot of moderating has taken place with thousands of articles removed. Oddly enough only one person has contacted us and asked us why their articles promoting an online casino were removed. articles linking to online casinos aren’t allowed plain and simple (but we are looking to creating a space for them either here or on another site).

We have caught and removed several large spammers – but i’m sure more will still show up to fill their shoes.

If your reading this and you have noticed that all of your articles are suddenly gone when you try to find them, feel free to email us and we will be happy to discuss your situation with you case by case. Some people had articles removed because of bad email addresses, linking to questionable neighborhoods, etc.

The growth we have seen in the last month is causing us to expand to some new hardware as well, this will help the site continue to be able to handle the traffic in addition to improve the stability and accessibility of the site.

We have started testing some new ad formats — if you have feed back about any of the ads on the site, please email us or use the contact form, we would love to hear thoughts and opinions on them.

Thats all for now — back to work on some more changes for the site. feel free to leave comments & thoughts here.

I don’t really if ever go to McDonald’s but i know other drive thru places quite often screw up orders. Every time something is messed up you have to stop and say “is it worth going back for” – was it messed up because the employees just made a mistake – or was it intentional?

Thoughts comments?

I’m quite thrilled about this, I’ve been waiting for something neat to come out that doesn’t run on the AT&T network — around here its garbage — as is T-Mobile (which I understand works great in california) – but not in many other places. Sure there are always Blackberry’s to go to, but some of the things that Android can do are pretty cool.

While this may not be the end all to the Iphone – it sure might make some headway for all those who are frustrated with AT&T’s data network under performing. Or those who have just been waiting to enjoy their friends and family plan with a cool phone as well.

Let see what happens.

We have removed over 10,000 articles by authors who also promoted these sites. Most of these articles were not actually about the health related topics – and that’s why our editors missed them.

If we found an author who had submitted several articles with links to pharmacies, all articles were removed – in total that was over 10,000 articles. How many of them actually linking to the pharmacies, we do not know.

So if you are an author who is legitimate and you aren’t just trying to pull the wool over the sheep’s eyes, feel free to login to your account, if you feel that we have wrongly removed your articles, just email us and we will be happy to discus your situation further.

We are going to continue our clean up and crack down on inappropriate and poorly written content. If you would like to help save us some time, login and delete things that perhaps you shouldn’t have submitted in the first place. Additionally If you are unsure about something, just email us.

Thanks!

PS — happy to report – increased traffic started saturday.

So far we have removed a lot of things that I’m not sure why or how they got approved in the first place.

All of the stuff that is being removed that is inappropriate and not so family friendly will be saved, not deleted. In the future if we open up an adult only article directory those articles will be the basis of such. We have no immediate plan in place at this time for said directory but have kicked the idea around before.

So in the mean time, anyone submitting adult related, pornographic, online casino related, penis enlargement related things, please just stop.

Also to all those trying to sell “replica” items for $200 that are no better than the $10 knock offs in china town — please stop taking advantage of the public. As we continue to find your sites we will continue to remove all articles related to them and every article attached to that user. So if you have submitted these types of things in the past and you don’t want to see every article you have submitted get removed, please login and delete those articles from your account.

While someone who has submitted one or two inappropriate articles likely won’t have their account banned – we work just like Google does in some aspects, its all about percentages… so if you have more than a certain percentage of junk in your account, we wave goodbye to all of them.

Google Slap

Toward the end of august we noticed a drastic reduction in the amount of traffic coming to the site from Google. Doing some research led us to see that we also were no longer ranking for several key factors. We sent out feelers to several people to see if anyone had any answers to this, of course no one had a concrete go fix A and you will result B. We heard everything from its due to interlinking to spam to buying links to just “regular algorithm changes” to read the webmaster forum, to linking to affiliate programs. We put into place a few of those things, but I still had the feeling that it wasn’t any of those, especially not the algorithm change – articlesnatch.com should rank for the term articlesnatch (rather than a million crappy your site is worth $5500352345235 sites).

After a month of trying to figure out exactly what happened and 2 reinclusion requests being submitted and processed (with very vague answers), making various changes including removing some hacked hidden links into another blog, I remembered Andy Beard and started chatting with him. Together we drummed up a plan that hopefully will remove the Google Slap and restore the ArticleSnatch back into the site. Below I will layout the plan and follow up later with what the results have been.

The Plan

• Expand the number of posts on a topic page to allow for easier finding of the articles
• Add rel=nofollow to all outbound links from articles (I know I can hear you groaning, but wait)
• Fix other redirect, canonical and indexing issues
• Improve the usability of the rss feeds
• Remove some obviously spam articles – like the bunch from a company that included numbers in each of their pen names – nice waste of 7,000 articles from 5,000 “authors” guys – Zapped. (Working on better system to catch it sooner)
• Put on a happy face! Just kidding

Changes unrelated but made at this time

• Moved js-kit.com comment script to the last line of the code, so if their servers are running slow or lagging, it shouldn’t block the page load.
• Removed another Google FriendConnect module that wasn’t doing much but taking up space
• Added related youtube videos to the bottom of each article, stick around and watch some – its pretty fun
• Improved tracking and monitoring for article spam

Of course there is a lot more to it than just that, but thats the meat and potatoes of it.

Rel=nofollow – probably one of the most debated subjects out there. Google says to build as if search engines weren’t in existance, if we did that, then everyone could freely link to other sites that they had monetary interests in and sell ad space, link space, keyword space and whatever else they wanted to. However Google also says to add nofollow to other sites you own, affiliate programs, paid links (which you shouldn’t have anyway), sites you don’t trust and a few other things as well. In June Google changed how they treat the “page rank” from passing to nofollow links, and how it affects PageRank Sculpting, so there is less of a reason to use it on internal links. Noindex might be what you want if you want something to not show up. David Leonhardt even ran a test to see which search engines did what with a nofollow.

Mixx recently got filtered (penalty) and decided to add rel=nofollow. Digg took some protective measures before being penalized and Digg has been commended by Matt Cutts for their action, so thats a good sign.

Twitter has it on almost every link across the board, these sites all being affected shows that its a pretty serious penalty to be linking to sites you know nothing about. Twitter also removed our account in July as well and has yet to respond to any email requests, not bad for a $1 billion company.

From a SEO perspective some say that you should only build followed links, others say that you should not worry about it and build all kinds of links, and others say forget about the links, write good content and others will pick it up and reference it and the links will come naturally. The good content theory is probably the most sound, it worked for some major sites, however it really only worked after they had a following and people were happy to link to them. If you had a group of people as happy to link to your company as they are to link to wikipedia, then I’m sure you wouldn’t worry about links either.

So where do we stand, as of now we have added rel=nofollow on all links in author resource box. We have also stopped filtering out the links that are in the article body, so those links are now present, but nofollowed. Since you weren’t supposed to have submitted articles with links in the body as per our Terms, that’s just a bonus. Remember if an article gets no traffic, whats the difference how the link is? Also many articles end up getting “buried” in a sites architecture and rarely see the light of day, we are working on improving this as well. We think the increased visability some of our changes make will help get more viewers to read your articles.

Remember our editors are only human, we unfortunately do not have millions of visitors every day clicking thumbs up and down and saying this is lame, remove it, etc, although we do have a rating system, so feel free to use it. This change is NOT permanent. We are going to be reviewing authors and looking at the sites they link to. Those are writing quality articles and linking to quality sites, we will be removing the rel=nofollow from their links.

We are also looking at implementing the Google Safe Browsing API to check for bad links when the article is submitted.

We have already started reviewing authors based on what they are writing about, quality and the sites they are linking to. We will continue to do this as well in the upcoming weeks. Authors who have been approved will have the rel=nofollow removed from their resource_box links. We have also upped the removal of undesirable content, so if you have been submitting that (doubtful your reading this), and you login to your account and can’t find things, thats probably way.

Some other changes have taken place that at first we thought caused it, these included a few bugs with the new platform causing too much non changing content between pages, titles on pages all being the same and blocking robots from the wrong things. In late July we implemented a number of changes that improved the load time of the site as well as improvements to the usability of the site. Several of these changes had been long in the making and others were after speaking to some other site owners.

These changes included

• Implemented Google Ad Manager for improved ad targeting as well as faster ad serving.
• Added a feature for authors to select a default language that you would like to view the site in, one of 47 languages
• Moved translated pages to subdomains based on language instead of folders, added more caching to reduce the number of queries for translation, to improve page load time.
• Added a feature so authors can now submit articles in any of 47 languages and they will be machine translated back to english thanks to Google Translate
• Improved page build times, reduced load on server and some other technical things you probably don’t care about
• Added memcached to reduce the number of queries that mysql has to answer, a 75% reduction.
• Several other minor changes that allow for greater customization down the road
• Improved article statistic and logging

After over a month of work and several late nights trying to get these changes, they are ready to be pushed out to the live server. We will continue to fix things as they arrise and hopefully we can get out the google penalty box – this isn’t hockey!

Any questions, comments, feedback, suggestions? Please reply below.

UPDATE:
I think based on reading some of the comments that authors maybe confused about the nofollow policy, this is temporary until we can figure out what caused the penalty as well as who is linking to bad neighborhoods. After we get all of the bad neighbors out of here – and we removed several thousand of them yesterday alone – we will be adding things back slowly to trusted authors.

Also for those who have submitted articles across various topics, including some less than scrupulous ones, may I suggest that you go into your account and delete them. We recently removed all the articles from someone based on a few bad ones, come to find out she had 4400 articles. Now hopefully she will reply our email – but hasn’t yet. Either she can login and remove the bad stuff, or wait in line while an editor works on it, and then have the non bad ones reactivated.

For those who may have noticed pen names with a number in them and them gibberish – we’ve removed 6,000 of those articles as well. anyone see anything you think should be removed – please email us a link.

Update (10/2/2009):
We have found the first hidden link – I’m ashamed to admit that it exists, but now that I have found one, the hunt can begin to look for more. This person used some elements to hide the link, we found some new things to search for thanks to a post from 2007 on mattcutts blog.

In case you are wondering who was the first one we found — anandaapothecary – no I won’t be adding their .com here nor their link.
Another one found – Spencer Hunt – linking to his profile on EzineArticles.com – some “expert” he is.

Update (10/3/2009):
The first signs of some increased traffic from google have showed (thank you)

Update (10/4/2009):
Removed a lot of articles that were linking to online pharmacies, then went a step further and removed all articles by all authors who linked to an online pharmacy — were you affected? Want the legitimate articles added back – email us so an editor can take a look.

Update (10/5/2009):
Removed more articles from people with bouncing email addresses and duplicate submissions. If you notice that you have submitted an article more than once, login and delete the duplicate. If we notice, you will have all articles disabled until you fix the problem.

And he's just posted an incredibly useful list of 69 Free (or low cost) Tools to Improve Your Website.

(I should disclose that I'm mentioned in the 69th listing, which is for Market Motive, but so are Avinash Kaushik, John Marshall, Todd Malicoat, Matt Bailey, and Jennifer Laycock, who are also members of the Market Motive faculty.)

So, check out the complete list of low-cost and free tools. Yes, yes, you'll find ones like Google Analytics and Google Website Optimizer, that you already knew about. But there are plenty of others that I'd never heard about before.

And while you are visiting Eisenberg's new blog, let him know if there are other free (or low cost) tools that should be added to the list. Hey, improving your website is hard, so we want to know as many options as possible.

Oh, and if you come to SES Chicago 2009, thank Eisenberg in person. You can't miss him. He's the New York Yankees fan being interviewed by the Boston Red Sox Nation citizen in the video below.

Bryan Eisenberg, Future Now, at SES London 2008 on SEO

But you'll have to hurry. The deadline for the contest is next Tuesday, October 6, 2009 at 11:59pm EST.

You'll need to use Google SketchUp to design your building and then upload it to the Google 3D Warehouse to enter. Learn more about the contest rules here.

Monopoly City Streets, which launched earlier this month, uses Google Maps for its interactive game.

Seth also spent time at eBay, where he managed APIs & Platform. Before that, he launched Gap's online stores. Seth began his career at NASA.

"Shashi is unmatched in the industry as an innovator with an outstanding track record of developing new and better ways to serve advertisers on the Web," said Jeff Levick, President of Global Advertising and Strategy at AOL. "As we move forward on our strategy of becoming the world's largest provider of display advertising, Shashi will play a critical role in creating the best products in the business for our advertising partners."

Seth is the latest of the fresh talent to head to AOL. Earlier this year, Tim Armstrong left Google to head up the struggling internet company. A few weeks ago, news came that ex-Yahoo! Brad Garlinghouse of "Peanut Butter Manifesto" fame is joining AOL as well.

If you're not familiar, Google Wave is a collaborative tool that features real-time features. They're still working on features, including group definitions, draft mode and permissions.

Those who can expect an invite are developers who participated in an earlier preview, the first people to sign up for invites and select Google Apps customers.

One ad appears at the top of the search results and two ads appear at the bottom. Take a look:

Noticeably missing from the announcement is the inclusion of Windows Mobile phones, a curious exclusion in the wake of the recently struck Microsoft-Yahoo! search deal.

Some of the keywords included in the PSA effort are:

• foreclosure rescue
• mortgage foreclosure
• fix my credit
• credit repair
• money transfer

When a searcher clicks on one of the PSA search ads, they will see a landing page with warnings about scams related to the keyword. The FTC hosts the landing pages for credit repair and mortgage foreclosure while a landing page for avoiding advanced fee fraud is hosted by Microsoft.

"In its simplest form, our real-time audience quality tracking capabilities make it possible for publishers and ad networks to immediately block bad site visitors from seeing ads, and show the right ads to the real buyers," said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics. "This instantaneous audience quality determination is an important step in transforming the results that search, display and social ad providers deliver to their clients."

The new capabilities were built with a RESTful web service API that integrates into existing high-volume ad network infrastructures. As a result, it takes less than 10 milliseconds for Click Forensics' platform can score requests and process requests. This means traffic quality can be determined before an advertiser is charged for a click.

All of this is also the basis for a new real-time scoring engine in development at Click Forensics. The scoring engine will help advertisers and publishers making decisions about ad-serving based on traffic quality.

That's the question that journalists and bloggers are asking after watching HostingYourParty, which tells you how to host a Microsoft Windows 7 House Party.

Microsoft is putting a Tupperware-style twist on the upcoming Windows 7 rollout -- launching a new initiative to encourage thousands of employees, partners and technology enthusiasts to throw parties in their homes and communities to demonstrate and help spread the word about its new operating system.

People accepted as official launch party hosts will get their own copy of Windows 7 Ultimate Edition, and a chance to win a computer. But unlike the Tupperware model, there will be no literal selling. These parties are more about generating word-of-mouth buzz.

To promote this idea, Microsoft has uploaded a video to YouTube. Some journalists and bloggers think it is a public relations disaster.

Cindy Perman of CNBC writes, "You just knew that once they put the Microsoft geeks in charge of the "party," that it wouldn't be a 10-kegger and before long, we'd all be putting lampshades over our heads."

Ian Douglas, a tech blogger for the Daily Telegraph in London, writes, "I'm beginning to think that no one involved with Microsoft's advertising has ever left the house or spoken to a real person."

And James Lileks of The Bleat writes, "If Microsoft had been put in charge of marketing sex, the human race would have ended long ago, because no one would be caught dead doing something that uncool."

Now, you may be tempted to watch this 6-minute, 14-second video yourself -- to jump to your own conclusion. But, I warn you -- only serious geeks like me will watch beyond the first minute.

HostingYourParty

Now, if Microsoft really wanted to show people how to hold a Windows 7 Launch Party, they might have created a remix of the 1950s educational video below about what, in fact, makes a "good" party.

1950 - What Makes a Good Party

Not all of the reaction to Microsoft's Windows 7 House Party has been negative. Some of it can be charitably described as "mixed."

David Meerman Scott of Web Ink Now, asks, "Is this Microsoft Windows 7 House Party thing real? Or is it an incredibly wonderful and clever spoof on a 50s educational video that is so well done as to have fooled most observers who seem to think it is legit?"

Janice L. Brown of The Fussy Marketer also asks, "Hmm, if something goes viral because it's so bad, does that still count as achieving the marketing goals?"

Nevertheless, Lieutenant Columbo, if he were blogging these days, would ask just one more thing: "Why did Microsoft disable ratings and adding comments on HostingYourParty?"

Is this something you'd do if you were hoping for a video marketing triumph?

Inquiring minds want to know.

The New York Times featured a nonprofit organization called Question Box is determined to bring those answers to such communities. Founded by Rose Shuman, Question Box staffs calling centers who receive questions, via cell phone, from developing villages in Uganda. Though the internet remains slow and elusive, cell phones have taken hold in Africa.

Question Box got its start in India, where people have access to an actual box containing a phone. Question Box isn't alone. Google launched a similar effort in Uganda through its foundation this past June.

Wireless internet is widely used in Japan. Over 80% of Japanese Internet users log on wirelessly. 3G adoption has reached over 100 million, more than 90% of Japan's population.

"We are very excited to launch wireless search in Japan, where we believe there is huge demand for a high quality wireless search service," said Xuyang Ren, Baidu's Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. "With the launch of this beta wireless search service we hope to give users in Japan a convenient tool for finding the information they need. We look forward to developing this service further and tuning it to user preferences over the coming months."

Baidu entered the Japanese search market in January 2008. Baidu already has partnership with wireless carriers in Japan to be the official search provider for various handsets.

Meanwhile, Google Trends will now only display the top 40 trends instead of the top 100. And they'll get Ryan Seacrest to deliver the results on his radio show. Just kidding.

Despite the reduction of displayed top trends, the new search results feature will still affect the top 100 trends.

Other notable findings from August 2009 include:
* 81.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
* The average online video viewer watched 582 minutes of video, or 9.7 hours.
* 120.5 million viewers watched nearly 10 billion videos on YouTube.com (82.6 videos per viewer).
* 44.9 million viewers watched 340 million videos on MySpace.com (7.6 videos per viewer).
* The average Hulu viewer watched 12.7 videos, totaling 1 hour and 17 minutes of videos per viewer.
* The duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes.

As I mentioned last week in "How To Pimp Your YouTube Channel and Other Miscellaneous Advice," I'll be speaking at a session entitled, "YouTube & Video Optimization" at SES Chicago 2009 on Monday, December 7.

Online video marketing is crucial in today's marketplace. With 161 million Americans watching an average of 9.7 hours of online video during August 2009, marketers can reach more viewers than the 151.6 million Americans who watched Super Bowl XLIII, which reached the largest television audience in U.S. history.

Today, Content ID is being combined with YouTube Insight to provide more robust analytics.

For example, Sony Music can view analytics on the JK Wedding Entrance video, which, though uploaded by a third party, uses a song by Sony artist Chris Brown.

This is a great tool for companies and marketers who want to track their viral content, such as songs and videos.