But for the world  at large, this has gone the way of the dodo – with fond memories, of course; I remember the copy that came with our first non-Apple computer and freaking out at the multimedia (the buzz word of the day) aspect of it all. It seemed like anything was possible if they could fit an entire encyclopedia into just one CD ROM. Years later, that promise has given way to search engine spam, Meatspin and Two Chicks One Cup. Bravo, real world, bravo.

No word as to whether they’re planning on doing something else with it that could actually make them money – like putting it online with ads, either with or without wiki functions – but in an age of Universal Search, it’d be an awful shame to not leverage it fully for the good of humanity. And for the good of humanity I mean Microsoft’s shareholders. Daddy, in fact, does need a new pair of shoes.

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Encarta is Dead, Long Live Encarta

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Awesome test answers

(hat tip: Drudge Report and Fox8.com)

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Your tax dollars at work: Farts interrupt city council meeting

DULUTH, Minn. (AP) — Two Minnesota newspapers will receive a share of state grants normally given to retrain workers in manufacturing and other industries in transition.
The Duluth News Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press will work with the University of Minnesota’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication to help staff adapt to an increasingly Internet-based industry.
Minnesota Job Skills Partnership is awarding $238,000 in state funds, while the newspapers and the university will contribute about $469,000 combined, mostly by devoting staff time to training.

I don’t know about any other agencies who offer training, but I think I can hear our sales team drooling from across the building as we speak.

In one sense, I’m thrilled to see traditional media starting to come around to what must be done in order to survive. On the other, if I’m a Minnesotan I’m torn between being happy to see tax money going to help keep these jobs around but a little iffy on seeing this go to what is in essence a failing business model when the state has a $5.2 billion budget shortfall.

One way or another it’s good for the online industry as a whole; moves like this may finally spur on more formalized training and recognized programs for the masses in online disciplines, which is sorely needed. In the meantime, those who are already in his business stand to make a lot of money – especially if there’s $787 billion more where this came from!

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Taxpayer funds training traditional media in online techniques

So, outside of needing to bail friends out, what would this move mean for SEO? Well, back in the day, search engine spam and shady deals surrounded three areas: Pills, Porn and Casino. 2006’s laws pushing gambling offshore knocked out one of these – we can assume that 2009’s (attempted) repeal will resurrect it. Your blogs will require more monitoring, your search results will become muddier and you’ll be watching what you click even further. Link brokers will be happy, legit SEOers will be pissed and we’ll once again be on the defensive.

Chances of it happening? Slim. But you might want to start upgrading your Akismet filter right now anyway.

(Hat tip: Jason Lee Miller, Web Pro News)

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Congress wants to repeal online gambling ban

If you’re not aware of the stunt that brought Google Bombing to the fore of the American conscious, a large number of people linked to George Bush’s bio at WhiteHouse.gov with ‘Miserable Failure’ as the anchor text in order to try to get it to rank #1 for the term in Google. In retaliation, conservative bloggers launched efforts to do the same with John Kerry on the term ‘waffles’ - no earthly clue how that one came out, but considering it’s a more competitive term I doubt it turned out well, but still funny.

All of that to say that based on the way that WhiteHouse.gov is now structured and was re-directed, Barack Obama’s bio is now on the receiving end of those links – and is now showing up high in the rankings for miserable failure.

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The original Google bomb lives again

Special focus has been placed, however, on the Robots.txt file differences: Specifically that the new site has two lines and the old one has 2400+. Some have gone as far to say that this signified that the site was “blocking search engine access to information on earmarks, African American history…” etc. implying that there was something sinister in the works. Yes, the top secret files on Katrina aid should be placed on the president’s public website – but will be hidden in plain sight from the search engines, so it’s cool.

Here’s the thing, though: Take a look at the structures from the old Robots.txt file. Notice how they largely end in /text/ ,  /query.htm, /search.htm, and so on. Now, I don’t know about you but when I see this, it signifies data living somewhere other than directly on the page – also for shame SEOwise, but also not the full story.

Line 728 lists the imposing-looking directory infocus/defense/text. When you look at the code for the page as it once was via Archive.org’s beautiful wayback machine, you see the following line:

<a href=”/infocus/defense/text/index.html”>Text only</a><br />

It’s easier to read, print ready version of the copy on the page – which any good SEO will tell you if you need or want to include on your site to nofollow and/or noindex in order to avoid duplicate content penalties.

What should have happened here is that the print ready versions should have been kept in far fewer directories – um, like 1 – but is technically the right thing to do…just taken to an unhealthy extreme.

I’m not calling the previous Whitehouse.gov an SEO work of art – my guess is going to be that it’s employing techniques from the time of the last facelift, which as far as I can tell was 2-3 years back – nor am I downplaying the drool-inducing joy of seeing SEO-friendly dropdown menus and two-line Robots.txt files – though perfect it is still not.

Just like anything else, if you’re gonna hate on someone, hate them for something they actually did. And remember – you can ‘hide’ just as much in one directory as you can in 2,400.

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Old Whitehouse.gov issues: Sorry conspiracy theorists

Thematic eye rolling sarcasm aside, SEO really is an awesome field to work in with a ton of upward potential and a wide open field. I can’t recommend enough that whether you’re involved with it right now or not to start reading everything you come across that mentions how it works. The reading time costs you nothing and allows you to at least speak competently on the subject. If you’d like to go further down the rabbit hole, try putting it into practice in a couple of different ways:

• Start a simple website or blog for personal information and work towards getting it to rank for a particular phrase (for example in the current economy, targeting your particular skill combined with ‘resume’ might be a consideration). Go out and get some links to it. For extra fun, add Google Analytics, learn what it takes to do so and what all it can show you.
• Help a friend with his / her site, which will help you get the swing of making indirect changes to a site.
• Nudge your marketing and IT teams to make some SEO-based changes to your company’s website, showing them why it’ll help. Learn what it takes to push through a website change at the corporate level. Track its effect in terms of traffic, revenue and rankings.

Since there’s relatively little experience or formal knowledge out there, even a little is better than nothing. Based on a (admittedly relatively small) survey on the topic:

• An equal number of respondents cited that they were involved in web marketing OR web design and development and ‘sort of drifted into it’ (37% each).
• 24% of respondents got into SEO ‘by accident’, and
• Only 3% got in because ‘I wanted to be an SEO’!

I know ‘by accident’ sounds like a crazy way to end up in a job career, but having been a part of it myself it’s amazing what can happen out of need and opportunity. It’s a great area with upside – look into it today.

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The New York Times discovers SEO

More specifically, it’s Google that’s getting the finger this time. Apparently, between your computer and their servers running:

Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.

The issue here is clear: Tea is far more costly than the Internet to the environment. Who goes first, India or the UK?

In fact, by the time you get this sentence, you’re generating a couple tenths of a gram of CO2 just from looking at this page, you earth-hating bastard. I mean, keep reading please.

Of course this was posted at a website, which not only runs on the same variety of servers but throws in a lot more intensive content, killing more metaphoric baby seals than a standard Google page. The site quotes techs and scientists (and reps from subscription-based sites for tracking your carbon footprint, hmmmm) who clearly corresponded with the website via carrier pigeon and everyone involved traveled to work, I would assume, by emission-free dinosaur or Tam Tam. The ironies of the internet age…

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Scientists: Google’s killing the environment