Being a part of World Wide Wealth
Archive for June 8, 2008
The Coming Computational Environment
Jun 8th
The Coming Computational Environment
By MG
It may seem like a vision of a distant science fiction world, but this scenario laid out by Adam Greenfield, author of “Everyware: The Dawning Age of Ubiquitous Computingâ€, could be just around the corner. In fact, at this very moment …
A web of mundanity?
By ethicalmartini
… woodwork to become an even more powerful force by virtue of its ability to empower a range of activities, computers may well withdraw into what in 1988 Mark Weiser of Xerox’s Palo Alto Research Center called “ubiquitous computing.â€â€¦ …
2008 international conference on intelligent pervasive computing …
… workshops on a variety of subjects, like pervasive middleware, radio frequency identification, architecture for pervasive devices and computers, intelligent and ubiquitous computing in education, and intelligent healthcare systems. …
NASIG 2008: Information Shadows – Ubiquitous Computing Serializes …
By Anna
Ubiquitous computing was coined to describe computers that are woven into every day life to the extent that they are indistinguishable from it. The power of technology should not be limited to viewing the world through its limited frame …
Week 9
By mel290688
Pervasive/ubiquitous computing technologies for learning. § A topic of your choice (you will need to obtain approval from your tutor). I chose to do interactive whiteboards which can be viewed on the following week’s post. …
Sponsored Search Revenue Manager
Jun 8th
Communism and Adsense
Technosailor – Baltimore,MD,USA
Darren posted an entry today about using Google’s Adsense on political blogs. His observation was that Adsesne, being an advertising tool that tries to …
Sponsored Search Revenue Manager
ClickZ News – New York,NY,USA
Individuals with an expert knowledge of Google Site Search tools – primarily from a publisher perspective hosting Google Adsense for Search and Adsense for …
Now You Can Purchase an Established Website and Become an Internet …
WebWire (press release) – Atlanta,GA,USA
Some of the sites that are available include Holiday websites, Electronics, Amazon, Adsense, Computer websites, and several more. …
Major advertisers slam Google over piggybacking
Jun 8th
June 03, 2008
Brand advertisers are mad at Google, and they may not be willing to take it anymore, according to a story in The Wall Street Journal.
At issue is a practice known as “piggybacking,” whereby smaller advertisers use major brand names, slogans or other trademarked words in the text of search ads to draw traffic to their sites. Google and other search engines have long had policies against the practice, but advertisers say that little is being done to enforce those rules.
According to many advertisers, the widespread abuse raises the cost of doing business and confuses customers.
But more troubling for Google are rumblings from brands that the time may soon come to make a stand.
Last August, American Airlines did just that when it filed suit against Google, accusing the search engine of trademark infringement. But a legal challenge may not be the most immediate fallout from the growing piggybacking controversy.
Michael Menis, VP of global marketing services at InterContinental, said Google’s inability to clamp down on piggybacking would likely influence his brand’s spending decisions. While most brands don’t really have much of an alternative when it comes to search — Google virtually controls that market — sectors such as video and display are relatively wide open.
If brand advertisers decide to punish Google in the display and video categories, it could be a tough blow to the search giant, which recently put display in its crosshairs by completing its DoubleClick acquisition and announced that it was making YouTube’s monetization strategy a top priority. Such a fight also could provide a much needed opening for Microsoft, which has been probing Google on all fronts as it looks to redefine itself as an interactive advertising leader.
Wikia Search Starts Making Sense
Jun 8th
June 3, 2008 — 06:48 AM PDT — by —
Revisiting my initial review of Jimmy Wales’ latest endeavor, Wikia Search, I’m instantly reminded that back then it was just a promise, with actual features and options sorely lacking.
Now, the concept behind Wikia Search
can finally be seen in the actual product. Starting today, you can now edit search results, add annotations, spotlight the result you deem most relevant, add your comments and delete entries – just like you can in Wikipedia. For example, I searched for “Mashableâ€, and changed the title of the result linked to my.mashable.com from simply “MASHABLE†to the more accurate “MASHABLE COMMUNITYâ€. If I wanted, I could have changed anything about the entry: its description, annotations, title, or I could have deleted it altogether and created a new one.
Obviously, there’s room for manipulation and spamming here, but the idea is that the community will keep those in check while at the same time providing the most relevant results – the kind that an algorithm could never do. All of the changes are, of course, transparent, and can be followed at the “recent changes†page.
As far as actual day to day searching goes, Wikia Search is not there yet; not even close. The results are much better than when I first tried out Wikia Search, but try searching for something a bit more precise and you’ll see that Wikia simply hasn’t indexed enough pages yet to be able to compete with the heavyweights.
But, if you’re an enthusiast who wants to help, this is just like the early days of Wikipedia. You can help sculpt the search results for the most important results, web sites, ideas, people and concepts by investing a little time, and this proposition will surely be interesting to many. We’ll be sure to revisit Wikia Search in a while to see if Wikipedia’s concept of community-based editing translates to search or if search is simply too messy for this type of approach. At this moment, it’s hard to tell.
Targeting Niche Audiences – AOL’s New Branding Strategy
Jun 8th
By Scott Buresh (c) 2008 Medium Blue
AOL, once considered a pioneer in internet technology, has fallen on hard times over the years, unable to devise an effective branding strategy. A failed merger with Time-Warner, a non-focus on search while Google built an empire (the AOL search engine eventually began serving up Google results on its portal site), and declining dial-up business are all contributing factors to the ongoing difficulties of AOL and its search engine.
However, AOL seems to have a new branding strategy in mind for the AOL search engine, which would revamp its services and target specific niches. And while many “analysts” claim that it is already a failure before the results are in, it is too soon to tell how this will affect AOL and the search engine that bears its name. Personally, I think it’s a smart play for the company – and something that bears watching. If the branding strategy is successful, another huge company may want to follow AOL’s example.
You see, AOL understands that the AOL search engine and its other services are not a brand beloved by many. The AOL search engine and AOL itself are seen as somewhat ancient, old school, 56k, etc. Nightmare stories about its online services are not in short supply. I haven’t done any specific studies on this, but in my circle of friends and business acquaintances, people consider an AOL subscriber a little behind the times.
The point is (in my opinion) that the “AOL brand” itself has decreasing value and may actually have negative value if the specific sites that it owns or has recently purchased are brought in under an umbrella branding strategy. These sites include those catering toward everything from country music fans to moms sharing photos to guys trying to pick up women. In some cases, the niche sites do not even display their affiliation with AOL or its search engine (or if they do, it is not featured very prominently).
The logic behind this branding strategy is clear. First of all, the AOL search engine and portal weren’t attracting new visitors. Secondly, the AOL search engine and brand itself are not particularly hip or fresh. Third, and probably most importantly, specific portal sites attract specific types of users, which are usually highly targeted, prompting a potential for more ad revenue (in theory).
Basically, the AOL portal has stopped trying to be all things to all people. Google is able to pull off the “all things to all people” approach primarily because it doesn’t have issues with a branding strategy yet – in fact, the new vertical searches that it adds under the Google “branding umbrella” are augmented by implied hipness and coolness. However, as AOL has discovered, hipness usually has a shelf life. If people began to see Google as the huge corporation that it is now, rather than the uber-cool underdog, the company may not be able to keep this record up. There have already been some cracks in its veneer,
There is another company much bigger than AOL that suffers from much of the same problems (and in some cases, worse problems) than AOL does but still wants to take on Google head to head. I refer, of course, to Microsoft.
In terms of a brand, Microsoft is almost universally disliked. The monopoly issue may be one thing. The fact that it is seen as ‘old school’ may be another. Gates and Ballmer don’t exactly have reputations as “nice guys,” like Sergei and Larry do (the fact that it seems natural to refer to the former two by their last names and the latter two by the first may help illustrate this point). And the list goes on.
The bottom line is that I have a hard time seeing MSN.com gaining the kind of traction that Google has, simply because the brand is less than sexy. This means, of course, that any additional vertical search options that MSN adds to its site are bound to be appreciated only by the dwindling few who already swear by the portal.
AOL has decided that its branding strategy for the AOL search engine and niche sites is not nearly as important as the amount of traffic and ad revenue that the site commands. This is not uncommon in the publishing industry, where many different publications on many different topics may be owned by one large (but largely silent) entity. Many of these offline publications have moved online and are beginning to monetize their diverse base of websites. AOL seems to have a similar model and branding strategy in mind for the AOL search engine and other niche sites.
If it works for AOL and its search engine, it could be the best possible branding strategy for Microsoft to follow. Lord knows Microsoft has the money. The company has already bought the ad networks that can service sites under its own new branding strategy. But if pride dictates that it keep everything under the MSN name or add a huge “brought to you by Microsoft” banner across the top of any popular online property that it decides to buy, MSN is, in my opinion, shooting itself in the foot.
I never said it was fair, but your brand and branding strategy can either be an asset, neutral, or a detriment. Microsoft has to realize that most people consider its brand to be in the neutral to detrimental range and that most people consider Google to be in the neutral to asset range (and that’s probably being charitable). Microsoft should not try to compete with Google head to head without considering the disparities in the conceptions of their respective brands.
About The Author
Scott Buresh is the founder of Medium Blue, a search engine optimization company. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including MarketingProfs, ZDNet, SiteProNews, WebProNews, DarwinMag, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. He was also a contributor to The Complete Guide to Google Advertising (Atlantic, 2008) and Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004). Medium Blue has local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, and was named the number one organic search engine optimization company in the world in 2006 and 2007 by PromotionWorld. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee based on your goals and your data.
Improved SEO documentation galore!
Jun 8th
Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO
One of the wonderful things about a search conference like SMX Advanced is that it gives us a chance to finish a lot of things we’d been meaning to do. Google just added a bunch of nice documentation in various places. We even did it in official places — much better than doing it on my personal blog. 
Here’s a few of the things that I know we’ve done recently:
Robots.txt documentation
One of the things that I like about robots.txt and the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP) is that it’s well-supported by all the major search engines and has been for years. But more documentation is a good thing, and several of the major search engines recently did blog posts about how they support robots.txt and REP. You can read Google’s robots.txt/REP post, the Microsoft post, or the post from Yahoo.
By the way: if you haven’t seen it, Google also produced a really nice booklet about robots.txt for publishers (PDF link). This PDF is perfect for regular folks that don’t live and breathe search 24 hours a day.
User feedback
We do appreciate getting suggestions and feedback from users, webmasters, and SEOs. I’m especially interested when people want to report spam, including paid text links. Google’s position on paid links that pass PageRank is well-known, because we’ve been pretty clear on the subject.
In a blog post earlier today, Reid Yokoyama put out a renewed call for spam reports. He gave a peek into the numbers of how many reports Google receives and how we prioritize (here’s a hint: our authenticated spam report form gets higher priority). Read his entire blog post if you’d like to hear more about webspam, paid links, and user feedback.
Just one additional note: we accept spam reports not just in English, but in many languages. For example, I’d love to get spam reports in Russian, spam reports in Turkish, spam reports in Romanian, or even spam reports in Arabic.
IP delivery/geolocation/cloaking
People ask me about cloaking software and technology all the time to find out how risky it is to use a cloak script when Googlebot visits (the short answer: it’s very risky). We did a blog post (and a video!) to describe the difference between things like IP delivery, which is serving different content to users based on IP address, and geolocation (which serves different content based on the user’s location). IP-based geolocation is a specific type of IP delivery that is within Google’s quality guidelines. Then we describe cloaking (which is serving different content to users than to Googlebot). I highly recommend that you read the post and watch Maile’s video for more information. If you’re interested in herding search engine bots in a whitehat/low risk way, that post will tell you what Google considers cloaking.
Nofollow documentation
Earlier this year, Li Evans pinged us with a good observation. We’ve answered a ton of questions about nofollow in various places around the blogosphere. Li asked us to distill the important bits about nofollow into a single page and place it in Google’s HTML documentation. We just pushed that live, so you can read more about the nofollow attribute if you’re interested. Thanks for suggesting that, Li.
Better definition for doorway pages
Michael Martinez was a little less polite than Li. He essentially said that Google’s documentation had a pretty sucky definition for what a doorway page was. Fair point. So we revamped the definition of a doorway page to be more clear:
Doorway pages are typically large sets of poor-quality pages where each page is optimized for a specific keyword or phrase. In many cases, doorway pages are written to rank for a particular phrase and then funnel users to a single destination.
I think that definition is much better than our old definition of a doorway page. Thanks for the suggestion, Michael.
Primarily for users
One of our quality guidelines used to say
Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.â€
We recently clarified that guideline to say “Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines†(emphasis mine). Why add “primarily� As one of the main authors of those quality guidelines, I can tell you that the intent of that guideline was mainly to discourage cloaking (which is doing something different for search engines than for regular users). Some people have misinterpreted that guideline as “You can’t do a single thing for search engines that you wouldn’t do for your users,†and that was not my intent when I wrote that guideline. Instead, the spirit of that guideline is that users should be the primary consideration. But it is fine to do some things that don’t affect users but do help search engines.
I’ll run through 3-4 quick examples of things that are perfectly okay to do for search engines, but that you wouldn’t automatically do for users:
- Adding a nofollow attribute to a link doesn’t affect users, but can serve as a useful indicator to search engines that you don’t necessarily want PageRank to flow through that link.
- Adding a meta description. When a user visits a web page, their browser doesn’t show the meta description data in any way. But you can suggest to search engines to show a particular snippet by using the meta description wisely.
- You can tell Google your preference on www vs. non-www. Again, that’s probably not something that users see or that directly affects them, but it’s still a smart thing to do.
- Submitting a Sitemap to Google or making it available to other search engines is not an action that you’d take for users, because users don’t see Sitemaps. But it can be a smart move because search engines can do better if you provide that information.
Just to be clear: Users are vitally important. I still recommend that you keep your users in mind at all times as you design and create a site. We added the word “primarily†to indicate that people can do additional things that users don’t see but that helps search engines do better at crawling/indexing/serving your site.
I can’t believe I just wrote 350+ words about a one-word change to our quality guidelines. But I hope that gives some background and context.
Conclusion
No search engine is perfect, and everyone will have different opinions about what a search engine should focus on. But I appreciate the feedback that we get from users, webmasters, and SEOs. I know that the suggestions that we get help to make Google a better search engine. If you see me at SMX Advanced, please walk right up and say hello. I promise that I’m not frightening, and I’d like to hear where you think Google needs to improve. There will also be a bunch of other Googlers at the conference — don’t be shy about approaching them, either.
List Building – Proven Strategies From The Trenches
Jun 8th
By Titus-Hoskins in Titus Hoskin’s Blog
List building is one of the most vital elements of any business – online or offline – mainly because building a responsive customer/contact list simply means money in the bank. It is a proven marketing tactic that works.
List building can take on many forms and can be as simple or as complicated as you want to make it.Unfortunately, for most webmasters, it only means slapping an opt-in form on their site to build a simple subscriber list that allows them to send out a weekly or monthly ezine/newsletter to entice these subscribers back to their site or to buy a recommended product.
For other webmasters and marketers, including myself,list building can be taken to a whole new level. They fully exploit list building for its many benefits and rewards. For them, list building is a powerful and effective marketing tool that simply delivers more traffic and sales.
Some History
List building is close to my heart. It was the first “serious marketing topic†I explored when I first started marketing online. It was a very tangible topic since my goal was to build a list of 1000 subscribers for my site’s newsletter. Just the act of accomplishing that feat told me most of what I needed to know about list building. And it sparked my interest.
List building is now one of my targeted keywords; so you know I make it a point to read and absorb everything I can possibly get on the topic. It has proven itself to be a very lucrative education, as I now owe much of my online earnings directly or indirectly to list building.
Building an Opt-in List Is Very Easy
I found building a list very easy to do. Here are some of the most effective ways or things you can do to build your list quickly:
1. Have an opt-in form on EVERY page of your website. Make it double opt-in and remind subscribers that they have to confirm their contact information.
2. Offer something FREE. Whether it be a free ebook,ezine, tips, guides, software… just make sure you entice your visitors to sign up or opt-in. I find giving a visual, tangible image of your ezine or guide will increase your conversion rate, so invest in some good professional graphics.
3. Use simple psychology. People want to be a part of a group; they want to be in the know… offering secrets, private memberships and access to valuable information will always draw in the most subscribers.
4. If you have your own product, doing joint ventures with well-established marketers is the fastest way to build your list. Don’t forget the squeeze page where you collect the contact information; again offer a special bonus to further entice people to opt-in to your list.
5. Use pop-up or slide-in forms. I have found these will greatly increase your sign-up rate. But don’t rely only on gimmicks; offering useful, relevant content on your pages will always help you garner the most subscribers.
6. Social media sites, videos, blogs, forums… don’t forget the new “Internet†is an excellent hunting ground for building your list or lists. Make sure you at least have a blog and RSS feed connected to your site to help spread your content around the web and gather subscribers.
7. Never forget that the web is the best “viral medium†we have ever had. Always encourage your present subscribers to help spread your message and content. If your ezine/content
is first rate, people will recommend it to their friends and colleagues. Let your subscribers build your list for you.
Building a Responsive Loyal List Is the Hard Part
I have always found building a list is the easy part;however, building a responsive list that’s loyal is the real hard part. Keeping your subscribers interested in your information and getting them to respond to your “call to action†is the difficult part.
I have found only good, informative content will keep your subscribers coming back for more. If you bombard them with “product offers†week after week… they will just unsubscribe from your list or simply stop reading.So try to limit your offers to products that you have
tested and used.
Keep in mind that almost everyone is now operating a list and your subscribers will probably be bombarded with hundreds of offers when a major launch is done.I personally ignore most of the major launches these days, which takes you out of the marketing loop; but
everything has become so satiated lately with so many well-known marketers jumping on the bandwagon, it is turning many potential buyers off.
Instead, whenever I find any good free resource,product or marketing tip – I pass it along to my subscribers. Over time, this has a way of building some good loyalty and good will, resulting in the occasional sale when I do offer a product recommendation.
The Art of the Follow-up
Having said all the above, there is one aspect of list building that has proven very effective and
very lucrative for me. It is a little different from offering an ongoing ezine or newsletter and
has to do with the simple follow-up.
I call it micro-list building (for the lack of a better word). I build hundreds of separate lists
dealing with the different niche products I market,micro-marketing and micro-targeting to interested prospects. These are follow-up emails (10-20 or more) offering valuable information on the product being promoted. These follow-up emails also usually contain
or offer special deals, bargains, bonus products and coupons if the prospect buys from your link.
I use an unlimited Autoresponder system (Aweber), which lets me have countless campaigns ongoing at the same time. These follow-up campaigns do require some “set-up†work since you have to write at least 7-10 emails for each campaign; but once they are in place, you can forget about them.
Studies have shown that it usually takes 6 or 7 follow-ups before a prospect will buy. Having all these lists of prospective buyers will increase your traffic and sales. This is one major reason for you to start building your lists today. If you’re like me and make your living with online affiliate marketing,list building is something you simply can’t afford not to do. Your livelihood will depend upon it.
Cookie Your Lists
If your objective is to make money from your list or lists – here is my number one proven strategy for monetizing your list.
Your lists are simply a way of gathering prospective buyers for the products you’re promoting. Your goal is to get them to buy directly from you or thru your affiliate link. One way of making more sales is to “Cookie Your List†– most affiliate products will set a cookie when a prospect arrives at their site from your affiliate link – this means no matter when they buy in the next couple of days or months you still get credit for the sale.
I usually pick and promote affiliate products that have a 90-day cookie or more. This cookie is very important because if the prospect buys in the next 90 days… you receive credit for the sale. A special few marketers and companies will even give you a lifetime cookie.
One tactic I use is to promote 4 or 5 different but related products in a niche market – pointing out the benefits and disadvantages of each. You remain neutral but your goal is get your list’s prospects to visit each product’s site so that they can be “cookied.†Then it doesn’t matter which affiliate product they finally purchase since they are “cookied†and you will get credit and the sale.
Let’s face it, when we’re in the right mindset to buy a product… we usually do it within a few months of considering the idea. That’s why the “cookie†is so important to your overall sales. Combine this tactic with your list building and you will greatly increase your sales.
For me, the object of list building is to find those prospective buyers when they’re ready to buy. Then give them valuable, helpful information, along with bonus gifts or special coupons/bargains to sweeten the deal. And I make sure all the prospective buyers are “cookied†with my affiliate IDs.
As I mentioned before, list building can be as simple or as complex as you want to make it. The possibilities are endless, but I would suggest anyone with a website should have a rudimentary subscriber or membership list just to build a sense of community and to take advantage of repeat visitors. Anyone who is doing affiliate marketing should definitely explore all the different avenues, like the one above, to fully harvest all the rewards list buildingwill give them.
RIM and E*Trade Launch Trading By Blackberry
Jun 8th
Our take on the RIM vs Apple war, by the way, is that, for a while, there will be plenty of room for both. They’ll grow at the expense of everyone else–including lame-o Motorola, which was downgraded again today (weak channel checks and more market share losses).
As Icahn grumbles, Yahoo sets plans for ad growth
Jun 8th
By SETH SUTEL
(AP) - In the latest effort to placate restless investors, Yahoo Inc. president Sue Decker laid out plans Wednesday for building the company’s online advertising operations, and Yahoo announced a slew of new partnerships.
The push is aimed at proving either that the struggling Internet pioneer can go it alone or that Yahoo is worth more than the last offer from spurned suitor Microsoft Corp. The two companies are still in “ongoing, engaged” conversations about various kinds of partnerships, Decker said.
Shareholders led by billionaire Carl Icahn have been calling for Yahoo co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang’s head. Icahn and other investors say he improperly thwarted Microsoft’s advances.
Decker told a digital advertising conference in New York Wednesday that she and her colleagues were “completely rewiring” Yahoo in order to better coordinate sales efforts across various parts of the online company’s operations, which had operated as silos. She noted Yahoo has millions of potentially lucrative relationships with e-mail users and a separate group of people who use the photo-sharing service Flickr.
“We have the largest latent social network in the world,” Decker said. Sites that exist explicitly to serve as networks, such as fast-growing Facebook.com and News Corp.’s MySpace, have become investor darlings for their ability to deliver marketing messages in a casual online social environment.
Yahoo has fallen badly behind Google Inc. in search advertising effectiveness, but Decker said the company has been steadily closing the gap. Speaking to a group of reporters, also on Wednesday, Decker said Yahoo intends build its already-considerable search abilities in order to offer combined packages of advertising to marketers.
“Our ambition is to be a principal in both search and display” advertising, Decker said.
Meanwhile, in a letter to Yahoo on Wednesday, Icahn said he would press for Yahoo’s board to be removed if it didn’t scrap a severance plan it adopted after Microsoft began its takeover attempt Jan. 31. The plan could have raised Microsoft’s costs in taking over Yahoo by as much as $2 billion.
Decker said the company was proceeding apace with its various advertising partnerships and other projects _ despite distraction from the Microsoft bid and resulting protests from investors.
“I’m proud to say it hasn’t affected our road map at all,” Decker said. “In a way, it has had a motivational effect.”
Yahoo announced several expansions of its advertising efforts Wednesday, including a deal to sell all the display and video advertising on Walmart.com, the online store run by Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
Yahoo also said it would stream TV shows from CBS Corp. and announced 94 new members of a consortium that will begin selling online advertising across newspaper Web sites later this year.
David Hallerman, senior analyst with eMarketer Inc., a New York-based online research company, said Yahoo was well-positioned to benefit from the coming growth in online display advertising given its long expertise in the field and vast online reach.
Revenues from online display ads haven’t grown nearly has fast as search, which is text-based instead of visual and far easier for advertisers to buy. Display ads come in a variety of shapes, sizes and placements which advertisers can find confusing.
Hallerman stopped short, however, of saying Yahoo would become the leading player in online display ads, an area Google entered with its recent purchase of DoubleClick Inc.
Yahoo would likely do “better than most,” he said.
Yahoo Directory Has No PageRank
Jun 8th
June 5, 2008
Just a few weeks ago, people started noticing that the Yahoo Directory lost Google PageRank. Well, not the home page of the Yahoo Directory, but the inside directory listing pages. The pages that link to your site and, in the past, past PageRank and link juice.
I am skimming through the pages, even the pages closest to the top of the directory are showing nothing in terms of Google PageRank. For example, the arts section or the WebmasterWorld thread it might be due to how the URLs are set up.
It seems to me that the Yahoo directory is grey barred because its got no pagerank, because the links from the home page http://dir.yahoo.com/ are all via non-search engine friendly redirects like: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dir/home/cats/*http://dir.yahoo.com/Recreation/Travel/
But that doesn’t completely jive with me. I know I have personally linked to many of the non-redirected linked versions of the directory pages. Some of those pages should have PageRank, no?
So is the Yahoo Directory still passing value? I assume many would say yes. What is up with the zero PageRank score for all the internal pages?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.