Why Google is Creepier than a Nosy Neighbor

by Greg Niland on February 9, 2010

546I know I am in the minority here but Google is creepier to me than a nosy neighbor.

How could I have such a crazy opinion about Google?  Let me explain.

Google is tracking and recording just about every bit of personal usage data they can get.  It does not matter if you have a Google user account or not.  Even if you have never logged into Google, they have been smart enough to create a unique account to store your personal usage data.

The personal user accounts that Google maintains for every person can keep track of what computer you use, your geographic location,  what you have searched for, what websites you like to visit and much more.  They can store this data even on people who have never created a Google account and think they are using Google anonymously.

  • Do you remember when you researched your child’s lice problem?  Google does
  • Do you remember last Valentine’s day when you searched for some private adult items?  Google does
  • Do you remember which months you search for diets aids and which ones you search for chocolate?  Google does
  • Do you remember searching for a local Alcoholics Anonymous meeting?  Google does

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Why Google Allows Target.com to Spam Results

by Greg Niland on December 10, 2009

Please Note – I did not want to expose Target’s flaws but I feel it is very unfair how they are being rewarded by Google at the expense of the mom & pop retailer stores.

If you have ever worked on improving a website’s ranking Google you know that there are rules you must follow.  If you break any of Google’s rules (either intentionally or accidentally) you run the risk of your website being penalized or possibly even banned from Google.  Since Google has a quasi monopoly over online search most people would never dream of doing anything that might attract the wrath of Google.  Target, one of the biggest retailers in the U.S. does not share that point of view.

Target.com is currently flooding the Google search results with millions of near identical error pages.

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Understanding Search Engineers

October 14, 2009

Here is a crazy idea – the better you understand search engines the you better you will be able to interact with them. I am not talking about the mathematical algorithms of the search engines I am talking in more general terms. What does the company want? What are the employees trying to [...]

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Press Releases Don’t Suck, You Do!

October 9, 2009

I had a great time meeting alot of new people this week at SMX East and at Jane and Robots Summit. Several things became very apparent from my brief time stepping out of my cave and mingling with others. I noticed that newbies are still making newbie mistakes (some things will never change). [...]

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Making SMX East Profitable

September 29, 2009

SMX East is fast approaching and alot of smart people are coming to NYC. It is not going to be cheap with airfare, hotel and the conference pass. If you are smart and willing to work hard you can make a huge profit from this investment. Here are some tips to help [...]

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Time Sucks aka How Not to Make Money

September 23, 2009

I know many successful internet marketers who make more money than a Fortune 500 executives. I have also come across many wannabees rookies who never make enough to get their first Adsense check. A big difference between the two groups of people is “time suck”.
Productive people are great at avoiding time sucks. [...]

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Non-Tech Guide to Technical SEO

September 3, 2009

Technical issues are often taken for granted when people are devising their SEO plans. These technical issues can make or break your SEO plans so you should pay attention to them.
Yea I know you aren’t a technical person but you don’t need to be. Here are some easy ways any non-tech [...]

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Backlink Smackdown

September 1, 2009

Backlinks are critical to good search engine rankings.  If you don’t think so, stop reading right now and find me a profitable keyword that has a website ranking with no backlinks.    For everyone else that already knows backlinks are important to get your great content ranking in the search engines I’ll continue writing my poor [...]

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Did Google Blacklist Your Store?

August 3, 2009

How is your e-commerce website doing? Does it seem to be stuck in Google and not ranking? You are not alone. It is simply not enough just to have an e-commerce site in order to be profitable online. You need to spend alot of time working on SEO. Even with [...]

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Turboboosting Conference Q&A

July 30, 2009

Search conferences are a no brainer to attend if you have an unlimited expense account.  For the rest of the world we need to make sure our limited budgets and schedules will be well spent at a search conference.  This is not for anyone that views conferences as a mental health break. For those [...]

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