Google has announced some changes to their privacy policy. The current arrangement includes a total of 70 separate documents covering all of their services. On March 1st, 60 of those documents are being rolled into one main privacy policy.

The new privacy policy, which is available for preview now, is short and wonderfully free of legalese. That’s not to say that there’s nothing troubling in the new policy, there’s a couple of sections that have me concerned. The first (not necessarily in order of appearance) talks about how Google is moving to track your behaviour across all of their services. As a Google fan (and I am), I think this is a good move for personalized search. However:

We may use the name you provide for your Google Profile across all of the services we offer that require a Google Account. In addition, we may replace past names associated with your Google Account so that you are represented consistently across all our services. If other users already have your email, or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Google Profile information, such as your name and photo.

So, if on Google Docs, you’re Sean Enns (as I am) and on YouTube you’re Harbour City SEO (as I am), they’ll replace one to make it synchronous with the other. That’s fine, so long as I have the choice. The troubling bit is here: “If other users already have your email, or other information that identifies you, we may show them your publicly visible Google Profile information, such as your name and photo.”

Emails are easy to get, most people have their email posted publicly somewhere (their Facebook page, for instance), so this represents a privacy nightmare and a goldmine for phishers and data miners. Google would be smart to dress this up a bit, perhaps by offering a link to some advanced privacy controls. I, for one, would like to be able to tell Google exactly how many connections someone should have with me before they’re able to see my personal profile.

The second bit needs some serious clarification, in my opinion. It reads:

We use the information we collect from all of our services to provide, maintain, protect and improve them, to develop new ones, and to protect Google and our users

The word that has me concerned is “protect”. It’s a powerful word, and it’s unclear (in this iteration) exactly whom Google is protecting their services from, and whom they’re protecting me from. Terrorists? Microsoft? Twitter? Google needs to clarify what they mean here.

The answer

I’ve always said this about Google. Because Google is a private company, their first responsibility is to the shareholders, not to the user. Based on my readings, Google seems to try quite hard to find the balance between the two, but their sole purpose is to increase market share. They don’t owe me anything, and anything they give me (such as free traffic from organic search results) is a gift, not a right.

If you don’t like the scope of what Google is doing with your info, while you can’t necessarily opt out, you can log out. When you’re finished checking your Gmail, log out. Surf anonymously, disable cookies on your browser. It’s the best tool you have to ensure that your personal information isn’t being collected and used across platforms. Your search results won’t be as relevant, or as rich, but your personal information will stay that way.

Related content:

Google’s New Privacy Policy Raising Questions in Washington

Feds launch Google Probe

Google’s New Terms Of Service & Privacy Policy: Anything You Do May Be Used To Target You?

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on January 25, 2012 at 12:41 pm, filed under Marketing, Privacy and tagged Google. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Harbour City SEO will be going offline on Wednesday, January 18th. Not for maintenance, but as part of one of the internet’s largest protests of all time.

The Stop Online Piracy Act has garnered massive attention over the last several months from privacy advocates, from free speech enthusiasts, from web giants and service providers, everybody is chiming in with their various cents’ worth. It’s gone so far as to launch an online rebuttal that’s going to go down in history (such as it is) as the day the Internet went black.

This isn’t a case of a few left-wing fringe elements going down, there are major players involved in the day long strike. Wikipedia, BoingBoing, WordPress, Reddit, Mozilla, ICanHasCheezburger and Failblog (etc., etc. and to name just a few) are going dark for the day to protest a bill that, while on its last legs, still has enough teeth to come back and bite us all in the pitoot.

So, it’s easy enough to not link to or host pirated content, but that’s not what has netizens in an uproar. It’s that the sweeping ambiguities of the bill imply that you could be penalized for who you link to, links to.

Let me give you an example. Let’s say I’m writing a piece (as I do) about file sharing, and let’s say I link to the infamous Pirate Bay as an example of how file sharing has been used to illegally share and distribute intellectual property.

According to SOPA, I could be tagged for violating the rights of any organization who’s intellectual property is being shared on the site I linked to. Under SOPA, my site would have to be pulled down, my ISP would be required to deny service and Google would be required to remove my site from the index.

There are other examples, less (that’s right, less) insidious in nature. The implications lead to a censored web, where content is controlled by the biggest holders of intellectual property (the film, television and music industry) and eliminates the “fair” internet.

While SOPA has essentially been shelved, the major opposition to the bill is still planning to speak out against it. This from the Sopa Strike website

On January 18th, 2012 the internet is going on strike to stop the web censorship bills in Congress! Now is our moment — we need you to do everything you can, whether you have a website or not.

If you, like me, want to support opposition to SOPA and PIPA, you can show your support by joining the Blackout SOPA movement. I’ve included a bunch of links below so you can get caught up on the issues.

BoingBoing’s take on SOPA

Reddit’s coverage of SOPA

SOPA for Canadians

WordPress plugin to participate in the SOPA Blackout

SOPA Blackout

SOPA Strike

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on January 16, 2012 at 5:03 pm, filed under Privacy, Social Media. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

I recently tried an experiment. Before I explain, here’s some background.

I post my Facebook page posts to Twitter. Not so long ago, I wondered to myself “What would happen if I auto posted my Tweets to Facebook at the same time that the reverse was true? Would it create a sort of infinite social loop?”

So I tried. Arranged it so my Tweets would auto-post to Facebook, and that my Facebook posts would auto-post to Twitter.

You would think that it would bring the system to a screeching halt. It didn’t. It didn’t do anything. It seems auto posting rules don’t apply to items that have been auto posted.

Segue. It’s 2012, and I’m tired of dealing with Facebook’s auto posting to Twitter. It’s fine in some circumstances, but I end up deleting half or more of my auto-posted Tweets because I don’t want to phrase things the same way on Twitter.

So auto-posting is fine, if you’re almost exclusively on one or the other (my friend Don Power is on Facebook so infrequently, if he didn’t auto-post from Twitter he likely wouldn’t post at all), but if you want to be on both and you like both, then I think it’s wise to commit and be on both.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on January 3, 2012 at 3:21 pm, filed under Social Media. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Fusion Creative and Harbour City SEO are bringing in the holidays with the “12 days of QRistmas!”

We’ve still got room on our tree for 12, very special QRistmas ornaments, one of them could be yours! Starting December 10th, we’re giving away 12, custom designed, branded QR codes.

Absolutely FREE!

There are two ways to win!

1. Post this Tweet in your Twitter feed:
“All I want for #QRistmas is a #QRCode from @fusioncre8tive and @harbourcityseo”

2. Like Us on Facebook and tag us on your status update:
“All I want for QRistmas is a branded QRCode from @fusioncreative and @harbourcityseo”

Enter now, enter often, and your QR Code could be hanging on our tree this season.

Our first giveaway is December 10th. Good luck, and Happy Holidays from Harbour City SEO and Fusion Creative!

Need to know what a branded QR code looks like? Click here to see some total awesomeness!

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on December 2, 2011 at 9:06 pm, filed under QR Codes, Social Media. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

I can sum up the reasons that all businesses should be on Google+ in a haiku. 17 syllables.

Personal results
Google+, “plus one”
It affects your SERPs

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on December 1, 2011 at 9:53 am, filed under Search Engine Optimization, Social Media and tagged Google, SERPs. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

On Dexter last night, Masuka’s intern Louis (played by Josh Cooke) walks into the room while Dexter is trying to find some information on an old priest named F.N Galway.

The intern looks over Dexter’s shoulder, and, well, here’s the dialogue.

Louis: “You know, Google’s kind of 5 minutes ago right? Try Eliot. It uses a targeted algorithm to aggregate content without getting tripped up by all that sneaky SEO bullshit.”

Ok. So, hurt feelings aside, (sneaky?), he’s kind of right.

Some SEO is sneaky, sure. Buying domains for their link profiles is sneaky. Using redirects, cloaking, also sneaky. Most SEO is hard work, research and creativity.

If it were easy, we’d all have #1 rankings after all.

Big picture, I remember when Google was a bit player to Yahoo, Microsoft, metacrawlers like Dogpile. Now they dominate the market, but they might not always. Companies like Wolfram offer a different kind of search. Social layers, mobile devices. All give reasons for Google to watch their sizable backs.

The cameo on Dexter should also give Google some motivation to stick to their mission of “don’t be evil”, because we know what Dexter does to evildoers, don’t we Google?

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on November 21, 2011 at 5:09 pm, filed under Search Engine Optimization and tagged Google. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

It happens every time.

Every time I upload a profile photo to Facebook, and their system mangles it into a pixellated, colourless abomination. I take a moment and summon enough energy to hate Facebook.

Because, when I do it for a client’s Facebook page, it costs me money. I have to explain why the picture quality is terrible, and why their logo is getting mangled. That it’s not me, it’s Facebook.

Then I think, “What’s the point of sharing my photos? They just look like crap.”

And then, I think to myself, “But, Facebook knows that their photo uploader is crappy. They know that photos are getting mangled – and because it wasn’t always this way, they did something to make it this way.”

And then I wonder why they would do that.

And then I wonder why they wouldn’t tell us how to do it properly.

And it’s then that I think Facebook is playing checkers, not chess, and they have little hope of winning the long-game of internet domination. I used to think that it would be Apple and Google, but that was with Jobs at the helm. Now, I’m not so sure.

What do you think? How do you feel about Facebook mangling your photos?

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on November 1, 2011 at 10:28 am, filed under Marketing, Social Media and tagged Facebook. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Local search, well, it’s just different than regular search optimization. The signals are different, for one. Reviews are key, and local search engines are absolutely critical.

In the US, these sources are well known. Yahoo and Bing Local, Angie’s List, Yelp, Localeze, Judy’s Book and Dex are among the top sources for local influence.

In Canada, it’s a very different story. None of the above accept submissions from Canadian companies.

For Canadian companies, the options are there – but they’re not as obvious.  For an example, let’s look at our friends over at Big Green Storage.

Big Green Storage is a small self-storage facility located in my home town of Nanaimo, BC. Like many small businesses, the owner – John – is busy running his business and wearing the half-dozen hats that small entrepreneurs wear.

The goal of setting something up for John is to rank, first and foremost, for the business name. I can’t say how important it is to have ownership of your content – when you have ownership, you have control of the user experience when people land on your site.

The first steps were a domain, hosting and a small, modest website. Those done, we needed to get some links going.

I won’t list all the sites I submit to (I don’t want to give it all away), but they include a mix of fast-acceptance and high crawl frequency (like Craigslist and Kijiji) with longer term, high authority (Google Places and Yelp). The fast acceptance is so the site gets crawled and indexed quickly, the high authority is to build ranks.

For icing on the cake, this post on my blog serves both me and my client well. I get to write about local search marketing, my client gets a contextual link from a decent source – one which I know will help his site get indexed.

It’s a shame that the sites said to have the most influence don’t have a great global presence, but it’s not unusual and, if you’re Canadian, it’s something you’ll have to get used to. The upside is that the sources are harder to find, so it’s easier to get an edge over the competition.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on October 24, 2011 at 1:34 pm, filed under Link Building, Search Engine Optimization. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

I’m kind of a type nut.

Even though I’m not a designer, I have a yearn to learn more about type. Things like kerning and line spacing excite me.

Web fonts, their use and their proliferation online is something I can really sink my teeth into. And have, since the beginnings of Harbour City SEO when I launched my UFO site, and then last year when I pushed on with my main site and used Day Poster Black as my headings, last Halloween when I launched Scary Pants SEO and this year when I relaunched my site with Press Gothic and Museo driving the content.

I like to think I’ve grown and gained some maturity in my usage, and I’d like to think that my designs reflect that growth.  I’d also like to think that I’m showcasing the best of the web, (at least, not the worst) by using modern CSS, HTML5 elements and liberal doses of current content.

If you’re a website that hasn’t yet adopted web fonts in all their glory, well, I want to help you with that. I’m going to help you by giving you five reasons to start using web fonts, and then, if you need it, I’ll help you implement them.

1. It’s easy. Sites like Typekit, Font Squirrel and Fonts.com provide you with kits, even host the fonts for you.
2. It’s (at times) free. There are lots of sites with great and free fonts available. (Font Squirrel has tons of ‘em)
3. It’s a good way to make your site stand out. Nothing says “unique” like a site with custom web fonts.
4. It’s hip. Currency (current-ness, not money) is a great way to show clients and visitors that you’re not just online, but that you’re active online.
5. It’s marketing. I just submitted my site to the Web Font Awards, and might win stuff. At the very least, I’m gonna get a link out of it.

Like what you see? Contact me to add web fonts to your website.

Shameless self promotion - vote for me in the web font awards!

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on October 17, 2011 at 10:55 am, filed under Content Marketing, Fonts, Link Building. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

I’m in a bit of a quandary.

When Klout hit the market, I admit the idea of measuring influence piqued my interest. Building one’s influence for the sake of free perks seemed like a great idea, and if Klout could become (as they claimed) the “Standard for online influence”, then finally we’d all have something to work toward. A way to counteract the million-a-day marketing messages we’re exposed to and place more power in the hands of the consumer.

Of course, I assumed that they were using a complicated algorithm to measure true reach. That they had subtle methods of measuring the relevance and value of conversations.

When you assume though, well, you know.

I just read this post on gaming klout, and this follow up that includes more examples of gaming klout. And my heart sank.

I’ll show you the most nefarious examples. Mi has a Klout score of 72. The Borg Collective has a Klout Score of 57.

In the first case, user Mi has 2 tweets, no fans and no followers. The Borg Collective, conversely, has thousands of tweets – but all of them are the same, they read @someusername: YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED (apparently they can’t even be bothered to add “resistance is futile” every now and then).

So, for everything I’ve added, my tweets and my Facebook pages and my blogs and my Google+ profile, it seems I’ve been wasting my time. I should really have just set up a bot to tweet the same thing over and over again.

This is my quandary, I really do think Klout is a good idea. I think measuring online influence is a big part of the future of social media and social signals in SEO. But not when the scores come from a system that’s so obviously broken.

This entry was written by Sean Enns, posted on October 3, 2011 at 9:44 am, filed under Social Media and tagged Facebook, Google, klout, Twitter. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.