Without a doubt, Bit.ly is the biggest URL shortener service out there. And without question, what made them so popular is this one social network called… mmm..

what is it called again?.. Oh yeah, TWITTER.

Users who like to share links can really use services such as Bit.ly so that they can keep their messages under the 140 character limit. So it’s good news to know that Bit.ly just announced (on Monday) their new partnerships with Verisign, Websense and Sophos.

The goal of these new partners is to ensure that spam and other types of malicious software stay off the Bit.ly network. The presence of spammy and malicious links is a major problem that Bit.ly is hoping to solve. That grey area of not knowing where you’ll end up after clicking on a link shared through Twitter is just where spammers, phishers and scammers like to be.

Bit.ly’s new parterns are planning to solve that problem in three different ways:

Verisign’s iDefense service will screen IP addresses, domains and URLs based on its reputation database, to find those that “host exploits, malicious code, command and control servers, drop sites and other nefarious activity,” according to Bit.ly general manager Andrew Cohen.

WebSense’s ThreatSeeker Cloud will analyze the content on pages linked to through Bit.ly in real-time to identify and block “spammy URLs, malicious content and phishing sites.”

Meanwhile, Sophos rounds out the equation by analyzing the behavior of potential spammers to “go[] beyond blacklists, to proactively detect spam and malware.”

All I can say is YAY!

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

URL Shorteners and SPAM

Google Wave is Google’s new pet project that according to them will do nothing less than revolutionize the way people communicate online. It will go out to 100,000 beta testers tomorrow (Wednesday, September 30th, 2009).

Google Wave is unique because its platform is combining elements from many different online communication tools into one place. Things such as blogs, photo/video sharing, chats, email, documents, etc, will be all streaming in one fluid conversation, or a “wave” as Google likes to call it.

This web application was displayed at the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, back in May. If you have a spare 1 hour and 20 minutes, you can watch it here.

The Google team in charge of this project see this as something that will become as main stream as Google itself. To quote one of the creators Jens Rasmussen:

“This should be something everybody uses and something everybody knows”

If you read tech blogs, you noticed the hustle and bustle around this topic today. Many of us want to be part of this beta group but trust me, it is a tight and sealed group at this point. If you’re not in yet forget about it, maybe next time!

Wave has been described as “dripping with ambition” and as a “new communication platform for a new Web.” from places such as TechCrunch.

More to come on this… Are you a beta tester? Tell us what you think!

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

Google Wave’s big day

Just in case you haven’t followed this story, Project 10^100 (pronounced “Project 10 to the 100th) is a Google initiative that was launched about a year ago and it aimed at having individuals from around the world submit their ideas on how they could help as many people as possible.

The winning idea (or up to 5 winning ideas) gets $10,000,000 funding from Google.

Initially Google said that they would choose individual ideas, but they received such an overwhelming response that they decided to go for themes instead. And now, that those themes have been selected, Google is asking you and me to go to their site and vote for the best ideas!

Voting ends on October 8, so go vote if this is something that resonates with you!

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

Google’s Project 10^100 themes announced

My Pandora activity widget. I was playing around with it under my Pandora profile. They actually posted this here straight from there, and it was scheduled to be posted 8 hours from now. Kinda weird, but interesting at the same time..

Anyway, here’s my Pandora widget activity… Maybe someday it will make its way to my sidebar, we’ll see. (maybe when they stop advertising ATT on it!)

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

Pandora Widget

The Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) strikes again. I posted a video by this guy in the past, about pay-per-click management, but if you haven’t seen him yet, here’s another chance. The lyrics are good little guide on things to keep in mind when doing a redesign and/or a new design.

Watch the video and read the lyrics, comment your thoughts

Your site design is the first thing people see
it should be reflective of you and the industry
easy to look at with a nice navigation
when you can’t find what you want it causes frustration
a clear Call to action to increase the temptation
use appealing graphics they create motivation
if you have animation
use with moderation
cause search engines can’t index the information
display the logos of all your associations
highlight your contact info that’s an obligation
create a clean design you can use some decoration
but to try to prevent any client hesitation
every page that they click should provide and explanation
should be easy to understand like having a conversation
when you design the style go ahead and use your imagination
but make sure you use correct color combinations
do some investigation, look at other organizations
but don’t duplicate or you might face a litigation
design done, congratulations but it’s time to start construction
follow these instructions when you move into production
your photoshop functions then slice that design
do your layout with divs make sure that it’s aligned
please don’t use tables even though they work fine
when it come to indexing they give searches a hard time
make it easy for the spiders to crawl what you provide
remove font type, font color and font size
no background colors, keep your coding real neat,
tag your look and feel on a separate style sheet
better results with xml and css
now you making progress, a lil closer to success
describe your doctype so the browser can relate
make sure you do it great or it won’t validate
check in all browsers, I do it directly
gotta make sure that it renders correctly
some use IE, some others use Flock
some use AOL, I use Firefox
title everything including links and images
don’t use italics, use emphasis
don’t use bold, please use strong
if you use bold that’s old and wrong
when you use CSS, you page will load quicker
client satisfied like they eating on a snicker
they stuck on your page like you made it with a sticker
and then they convert now that’s the real kicker
make you a lil richer, your site a lil slicker
design and code right man I hope you get the picture
what I’m telling you is true man it should be a scripture
if it’s built right you’ll be the pick of the litter
everyone will want to follow you like twitter
competition will get bitter and you’ll shine like glitter
if you trying to grow your company will get bigger
design and code right man can you get with it

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

Designing SEO friendly code

I know this post is coming to you a day late, but I really wanted an excuse to post this video on my blog. It’s older, and many of you have seen it, but nothing says “Happy St. Patty’s Day” like this video! So watch it and enjoy!!!

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

Happy St. Patty’s Day!

For those of us that were unable to attend PubCon 2008 in Vegas, Google has released a video by Matt Cutts which recreates the “State of the Index” talk he did there.

This is a summary of what Google did in 2008 and what they intend to do in 2009.

It’s a long video, but worth the watch! There’s a slide version if you just want to skim through this.

Enjoy

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

State of the Google Index – by Matt Cutts

Thanks to Barry Schwartz and his Live Coverage of the SMX West, and of course to Vanessa Fox’s post in Search Engine Land, those of us unable to attend the SMX West were still in the loop and being fed notes and great information in real time. (or at least very close to real time)

Today, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft announced their solution to reduce the problem that internal duplicate content issues can cause to a site’s SEO profile. This has been a looooooooooooong time coming, and many webmasters out there will be happy STOKED to finally have a solution to deal with dupe content.

I’m not going to steal their content , so just follow the link above and read the article. It’s good stuff!

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft agree on Canonical Tags

While there are some posts brewing in my draft folder, posts that are actually related to Search Engine Marketing, I felt compelled to write my first 2009 post about something that reflects the beginning of the new year.

I was running out of time as the X’s on my calendar filled up the month of January.

- What should I write about? Should I ignore the fact that it’s my first 2009 post?

Thanks to our new President, and some awesome satellite photography, the answer I was looking for came to me and landed right on my flickr account. I’m talking about a satellite photo taken during the Presidential Inauguration.

My buddy, hifisamurai, showed it to me and it was originally featured in the Popular Science site. Enjoy this awesome image, and have a great day!

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

Earthlings gather to celebrate their new leader

I ran across something on the web today that I can only describe as being top notch viral content. This thing is already “on fire”, but it’s only going to get more and more attention.

A comedian called Toby Jones has put together this hilarious website and video — a delicious juicy bite of goodness for all social networks out there. People will love to share this because they know the people they are sharing it with will enjoy receiving it. If you like this and you’ll be in Chicago for New Years, you can party out with Toby at the Jones Big Ass Truck Rental and Storage New Year’s Eve Bash!

I can’t really explain why it’s so great, you have to experience it for yourself. Before you watch the video and visit the website, keep a few things in mind about creating viral content — this is a good example to learn from:

• It’s a simple concept.
• The video is short enough that most people will watch it through the end.
• The website follows the same pattern, it is simple, to the point.
• The follow up is great, the phone number works and everything (and he sells t-shirts!)
• It is FUNNY!

Without further due, here’s the video:

.. and site: http://jonesbigasstruckrentalandstorage.com/

What did you think? Leave a comment

This post has been syndicated from the SEO Survivor Blog. Please visit http://www.seosurvivor.com/ for more! Thank you :)

Top Notch Viral Content