Mediaboss Marketing

When it comes to SEO, most people understand that a website must have content, "search engine friendly" site architecture/HTML, and meta data (title tags andmeta descriptions).

Another meta element, if implemented incorrectly, that can also trip up websites is robots.txt.I was recently reminded of this while reviewing the website of a large company that had spent considerable money on building a mobile version of their website, on a sub-directory. Thats fine, but having a disallow statement in their robots.txt file meant that the website wasnt accessible to search engines (Disallow: /mobile/)

Lets review how to properly implement robots.txt to avoid search ranking problems and damaging your business, as well as how to correctly disallow search engine crawling.

Simply put, if you go to domain.com/robots.txt, you should see a list of directories of the website that the site owner is asking the search engines to "skip" (or "disallow"). However, if you arent careful when editing a robots.txt file, you could be putting information in your robots.txt file that could really hurt your business.

There's tons of information about the robots.txt file available at the Web Robots Pages, including the proper usage of the disallow feature, and blocking "bad bots" from indexing your website.

The general rule of thumb is to make sure a robots.txt file exists at the root of your domain (e.g., domain.com/robots.txt). To exclude all robots from indexing part of your website, your robots.txt file would look something like this:

User-agent: * Disallow: /cgi-bin/ Disallow: /tmp/ Disallow: /junk/

The above syntax would tell all robots not to index the /cgi-bin/, the /tmp/, and the /junk/ directories on your website.

In the past, I reviewed a website that had a good amount of content and several high quality backlinks. However, the website had virtually no presence in the search engine results pages (SERPs).

What happened? Penalty? Well, no. The site's owner had included a disallow to "/". They were telling the search engine robots not to crawl any part of the website.

Read more here:
Proper SEO and the Robots.txt File

Web giant says it received more than 1,000 requests from government officials for the removal of content in the past six months, complying with more than half.

Google reports it has seen an "alarming" incidence in government requests to censor Internet content in the past six months.

The Web giant said it received more than 1,000 requests from governments around the world to remove items such as YouTube videos and search listings. The company, which said it complied with more than half the requests, released a catalog of those requests as part of its bi-annual Global Transparency Report.

"Unfortunately, what we've seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different," Dorothy Chou, Google's senior policy analyst, said in a blog post. "When we started releasing this data, in 2010, we noticed that government agencies from different countries would sometimes ask us to remove political content that our users had posted on our services. We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it's not."

Google said it had received 461 court orders for the removal of 6,989 items, consenting to 68 percent of those orders. It also received 546 informal requests, complying with 46 percent of those requests. The study doesn't reflect censorship activity from countries such as China and Iran, which block content without notifying Google.

"Just like every other time, we've been asked to take down political speech," Chou wrote. "It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect -- western democracies not typically associated with censorship."

Among the take-down requests was a Polish demand for removal of an article critical of a development agency, a Spanish request for removal of 270 blogs and links to articles critical of the public figures, and a Canadian official's request for removal of a YouTube video of a man urinating on his passport and flushing it down a toilet. All were denied.

However, the company said it complied with the majority of requests from Thai authorities for the removal of 149 YouTube videos that allegedly insulted the monarchy, a violation of Thailand law. The Web giant said it also granted U.K. police requests for removal of five YouTube accounts that allegedly promoted terrorism. Google also said it complied with 42 percent of U.S. requests for the removal of 187 pieces of content, most of which were related to harassment.

Excerpt from:
Google sees 'alarming' incidence in government censorship

Web giant says it received more than 1,000 requests from government officials for the removal of content in the past six months, complying with more than half.

Google reports it has seen an "alarming" incidence in government requests to censor Internet content in the past six months.

The Web giant said it received more than 1,000 requests from governments around the world to remove items such as YouTube videos and search listings. The company, which said it complied with more than half the requests, released a catalog of those requests as part of its bi-annual Global Transparency Report.

"Unfortunately, what we've seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different," Dorothy Chou, Google's senior policy analyst, said in a blog post. "When we started releasing this data, in 2010, we noticed that government agencies from different countries would sometimes ask us to remove political content that our users had posted on our services. We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it's not."

Google said it had received 461 court orders for the removal of 6,989 items, consenting to 68 percent of those orders. It also received 546 informal requests, complying with 46 percent of those requests. The study doesn't reflect censorship activity from countries such as China and Iran, which block content without notifying Google.

"Just like every other time, we've been asked to take down political speech," Chou wrote. "It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect -- western democracies not typically associated with censorship."

Among the take-down requests was a Polish demand for removal of an article critical of a development agency, a Spanish request for removal of 270 blogs and links to articles critical of the public figures, and a Canadian official's request for removal of a YouTube video of a man urinating on his passport and flushing it down a toilet. All were denied.

However, the company said it complied with the majority of requests from Thai authorities for the removal of 149 YouTube videos that allegedly insulted the monarchy, a violation of Thailand law. The Web giant said it also granted U.K. police requests for removal of five YouTube accounts that allegedly promoted terrorism. Google also said it complied with 42 percent of U.S. requests for the removal of 187 pieces of content, most of which were related to harassment.

The rest is here:
Google sees 'alarming' rise in government censorship

Web giant says it received more than 1,000 requests from government officials for the removal of content in the past six months, complying with more than half.

Google reports it has seen an "alarming" incidence in government requests to censor Internet content in the past six months.

The Web giant said it received more than 1,000 requests from governments around the world to remove items such as YouTube videos and search listings. The company, which said it complied with more than half the requests, released a catalog of those requests as part of its bi-annual Global Transparency Report.

"Unfortunately, what we've seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different," Dorothy Chou, Google's senior policy analyst, said in a blog post. "When we started releasing this data, in 2010, we noticed that government agencies from different countries would sometimes ask us to remove political content that our users had posted on our services. We hoped this was an aberration. But now we know it's not."

Google said it had received 461 court orders for the removal of 6,989 items, consenting to 68 percent of those orders. It also received 546 informal requests, complying with 46 percent of those requests. The study doesn't reflect censorship activity from countries such as China and Iran, which block content without notifying Google.

"Just like every other time, we've been asked to take down political speech," Chou wrote. "It's alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect -- western democracies not typically associated with censorship."

Among the take-down requests was a Polish demand for removal of an article critical of a development agency, a Spanish request for removal of 270 blogs and links to articles critical of the public figures, and a Canadian official's request for removal of a YouTube video of a man urinating on his passport and flushing it down a toilet. All were denied.

However, the company said it complied with the majority of requests from Thai authorities for the removal of 149 YouTube videos that allegedly insulted the monarchy, a violation of Thailand law. The Web giant said it also granted U.K. police requests for removal of five YouTube accounts that allegedly promoted terrorism. Google also said it complied with 42 percent of U.S. requests for the removal of 187 pieces of content, most of which were related to harassment.

More here:
Google sees 'alarming' level of government censorship

16-06-2012 03:26 Dan Willis is one of the Disclosure Project's twenty Top Secret military witnesses that testified at the National Press Club in Washington DC in 2001 in front of every major media, an event that should have changed the world but was manipulated by a controlled media. He explains the history of how a secret government operating illegally within our National Security system has maintained control of the media and secrecy for over 50 years. He served in the US Navy as a high speed code operator at the Naval Communication Station in San Francisco as well as combat action in Vietnam. An ex-radio broadcast engineer and ABC newsman, Dan has taken a keen interest in how the media has withheld disclosure of the full message to the public, a message based on the hundreds of credible military and intelligence witness testimonies. Disclosure Project site

See the article here:
Alien Disclosure and Media Manipulation with Dan Willis - Video