UK teenagers are fleeing Facebook in droves: a study by a EU-based research group has revealed.

Matt Cutts, head of the Google Web spam team, confirmed this week that the plan to reduce rich snippets by 15% has been implemented. Cutts made the announcement of this pending change a few months ago at PubCon, explaining that Google intends to promote authoritative sites over low-quality sites claiming authorship. What some call the “good guy algorithm” recognizes subject-matter authorities and gives them a SERP boost.

Social media is sometimes comparable with a tantō, the Japanese sword that samurai warriors used to commit suicide when they were dishonoured. Why do some individuals never appreciate the danger that is inherent in making controversial remarks on Twitter?

News Corp, the global media company that owns the Wall Street Journal, announced on Friday its acquisition of the Dublin-based social news agency Storyful for $25 million. Storyful founder Mark Little is a former broadcaster for Ireland’s national television and radio broadcast network, RTÉ. Little stands to earn about $6.8 million from the deal. The sale demonstrates the growing importance of user-generated content in the news industry.

In with the new and out with the old

An NSA review panel composed of five advisers met with President Obama on Wednesday for a briefing on a report delivered over the weekend to the White House. The over 300-page report contains 46 recommendations that address the NSA’s controversial practices. These recommendations stress increased executive oversight of the NSA but does not encourage the imposition of significant limits.

Are the days of free digital news content numbered? The Digital First Media CEO John Paton announced in November that all its Media News and Journal Register sites - more than 75 news outlets - would adopt pay walls. That means, according to Newsonomics contributor Ken Doctor, that readers’ access to 41% of US news dailies will be restricted.

Google announced on Friday its acquisition of a robotics company, Boston Dynamics. Boston Dynamics is an engineering company that developed several mobile research robots for the Pentagon and its Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) - agile, nimble robots that include BigDog, Cheetah, and WildCat. This is the eighth robotics company acquisition for Google within about six months.

Facebook recently introduced algorithm changes to its News Feed with the goal of bringing its users the higher-quality content and online experience that they want. Jim Tobin from Ignite Social Media reported on the agency’s blog on December 10th that the organic reach of brand pages on Facebook had plummeted 44% since December 1st. Now, only about 3 in every 100 brand fans receive regular News Feed brand updates.

Google continues to penalise link spammers. This week Google’s head of search spam, Matt Cutts denounced another link network, Anglo Rank, through Twitter: “Oh, Anglo Rank,” Cutts remonstrated the spammers after mockingly quoting their marketing material: “There are absolutely NO footprints linking the websites together.” Anglo Rank and network associates have received penalties.
Anglo Rank customers began receiving penalty notifications on December 10th for violations of Google Webmaster Guidelines, which prohibits participation in link schemes. These customer sites have experienced substantial ranking drops. Rectifying Google penalties and re-establishing rankings can take a lot of time, even months.
In the words of reformed link network spammer Carson Ward, who posted in 2012 to Search Engine Trends: “These services [link networks] allow paid subscribers to post their content to a network of sites for the sole purpose of building links.” The resulting spun content encouraged by these networks is ludicrously bad. One headline example reads: “Choosing Tragedy Cleanup Sodium Body of Water Town UT.”
Webmasters began receiving notices from Google’s search quality team for “unnatural links.” The notices explain that Google has detected violations of their guidelines that include participation in link schemes and buying links to boost their PageRank. Those notified have recourse to reconsideration, given that all dubious links are removed. Game over.
Ward counsels people using link spam with impunity to change their practices: “Blog networks,” he says, “are not a sustainable long-term strategy.” This prognosis is confirmed by the rounding up of more link networks by Cutts and his team, who have been relentlessly ferreting out spammers. In May, Cutts had announced that “several thousand link sellers” had been penalised, and the siege continues.
In response to Google’s war on spam, SEOBuffer.com responds in what might be part of a representative chorus: “Well, we all know what Google actually did... They forced the ‘real’ businesses that cared enough about their business to do SEO, off of organic search by penalizing them... which forced then [sic] to rely on Google's paid advertising programs (Adwords) to stay in business!”
Whether or not marketers are in agreement with Google and its policies, they are setting the inevitable tone of things to come. This means investing in quality content and honest links rather than resorting to old tricks.