As per my entry yesterday, someone at google read it. I'm sure of it. It has been many moons or at least a year or more that this had been going on. Up until sometime late last night, like explained with screen shots here, google has changed their blogger adsense advertisements to show up on the search sponsor listings.

Now when you search sponsored listings at google they now display blogger. Ever since Google decided to advertise itself on its own site, Blogger, they never showed up in the sponsor links search. Why? I don't know but I think what I said was right. Google Adsense gave special permissions or special status or pricing for their advertised blogger service. Now when you view sponsor links for the search term free blog, http://www.google.com/sponsoredlinks?q=free+blog&hl=en&lr=&sa=N&tab=wa, google now displays Blogger. Yesterday and many of many of days before yesterday it didn't show up. What changed?

I asked myself that today when I noticed google changed it. Is it possible they read my blog entry. I would bet the farm on it. Now it brings up more questions. Is it possible that other advertisers have special privileges over others? Google certainly has one, or should say had one. Know this, they changed it because I'm sure they read this blog entry. Who else in the world blogged this yesterday? If I am not the only one then maybe they saw it somewhere else.

Ironic Don't You Think

Up until last night google did not list Blogger in the Sponsor Links section for adsense ads. Google for a long time has been the #1 paid position for the search term free blog, but for some odd, unexplained reason, Blogger never showed up when you click "More Sponsored Links". The question is how does an advertiser, especially the #1 paid ad, not show up in the sponsor links? Seeing that the site in question was blogger. who is owned by google who owns and runs adsense, seems to me there is a connection of some kind. Put into the thought that I blogged this yesterday and thats when I noticed google had made changes.

Google owns adsense, make no mistake. But my question is how fair or should I say how good is Google treating the funders of googles operations, the adsense advertisers.

What bothers me more is how they are using adsense and how they compete against other sites with an unfair advantage. Don't get me wrong I do understand Google can do pretty much what it wants. How they get there, means more.

Take for example free blog. If you are searching on google for a free blog you will search results like this:

 Google advertises at the top position for the search term free blog as Blogger. You will also notice they are the first actual search result.

What makes this all come to a point is if you go to the sponsored links and search the term free blog, Blogger doesn't show up. To make me think that Blogger has a special status in the adsense service run by google.

There is no explanation for this other than google messed up. They left this open for too long and someone finally caught it.

The reason this should bother anyone is that you have to bid on clicks with adsense. The next question is what does someone have to bid in order to beat Googles #1 sponsored listing? Who knows, at one time I bumped the free blog term up to $5 a click and still I was second to Google. Does that mean google can run up the cost for advertising if someone is trying to beat Google out using adsense?

The image below was take from a link generated by google: http://www.google.com/sponsoredlinks?hl=en&lr=&q=free+blog&btnG=Search+Sponsored+Links

 If google is not a sponsored site, why are they the #1 position on the search results page listing?

Why are there such crappy search results from google when searching for a free blog.

Googles Fear of Other Blog Sites.

I believe google has a fear of blogtext and other free blogging services . They hide behind crappy search results for some key terms and say that its their technology. Bullshit, ShinyStat. been #1 and #2 search result for free blog for some time now. However shinystat has nothing to do with blogs. Doesn't have the word blog on its site. It does have the word free. I doubt anyone is using shinystat service on a free blog. Shiny stat is not a free service and the limited stripped down version of 10 reports one can run is no reason to list them as a free blog.

Another search result link is myblogsite.com. They do not take free blog registration anymore. Its a broken link.

Stay Free! Daily is another top search result for free blog.

Many of the pages google returns in the first few pages for the term free blog have nothing to do with getting a free blog site.

To date google has kept its compeditors out of the search results and away from the top paid ad spot using adsense along with their other "technologies".

Today on google news for the top US stories, google listed the link http://www.ibnlive.com/news/beleaguered_monarch_says_power_to_the_people_soon/8556/comments.html. The article is about Nepal’s beleaguered King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev. It links to a forum talking about the news article. On this forum page they try to link to the article google originally wanted viewers to see. That link is here, as you may have noticed, this link is dead.

The google news bot linked to a forum page that discusses the article, however the site can not properly link to the article, so in turn, google makes the forum link the most relative of the related articles.

Next google showed this link, http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1025433&CatID=9, and at the current time, that link is dead.

At time Google search results make me think that Google is a childish political tool for whomever they dislike. Granted I have voiced my opinion to the great dislike for president bush, however Google has a responsibility whether they want to accept it or not.

For a search engine as popular as Google, search results for a search term, dumb motherfucker, returned a George bush store to support his campaign. David Krane, a spokesman for Google said, "We think that this appears to be an anomaly. It's difficult to see which factors contribute to this result, though. It has to do with Google's ranking algorithm ... and we like to find out about these things. They let us know how to make Google better."

Krane also said that it was strictly some kind of mistake, and that it would be fixed in Googles next index of the web.

So, in 2001 when Google would return these types of search results, Google answer was, we don’t know, it may have something to do with our algorithm. Yeah no kidding Google. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that something isn’t right. But for Krane to say it was a mistake was a lie.

Here we are present day, miserable failure, the latest Google search result to spark some interest from supporters and non supporters of bush. Go to Google and search "miserable failure", the first result there is the bio page from the white house website of the current president George Bush. But this time it is not a mistake. Its Google now who says the search result is based on sites that link to the bio page of George bush and the amount of sites that link to that specific bio page.

As smart as Googles thinks its algorithm is, they didn’t know that it was being Google bombed in 2001? A term specific to search results from Google, Google bombing, is when a group of sites link to a specific site with terms in the page that change the ranking of pages in Googles index. If a group of people don’t like a site or do like something, these groups can change/distort Google search results by tricking Googles grand search technology.

Google didn’t fix the problem. As stated by David Krane, Google would fix these results with the next Google index. That is not the case. Google still to this day allows those groups of sites to change the page ranking for certain pages for certain search terms. Is that evil? Yes it is.

It is the responsibility of Google to deter people from being able to get there point of view out in this way.  Is Google the next election tool?

Google is the leader in search; they are a leader in allowing agendas to rank higher in their search results.

At one time Google tried to explain the search results for miserable failure through their adsense ads on the same search result pages for the search miserable failure. Of course they had to explain it, because almost anyone with a human intellect sees it as childish and evil.

Point Making Time

To make my point, what if a group of sites Google bombed the search term "Disney" and linked to www.somesmutsite.com. If the first search result at Google, for the search Disney showed a bunch of porn sites, would Google change the page rankings?

What would really get under Googles skin is if someone Google bombed "free blog" and linked to blogtext.org. You see Google wants to be the only blog provider. They cherish blogger more than gmail. You can see this when you search for "free blog". Even though Google ranks the crappy blogger site as the number one result, it’s not enough for Google. Google uses its owns adsense advertising to display the #1 paid listing for the search "free blog", even though their site is the #1 non paid listing for the term. Does Google charge itself for advertising its own services with Googles adsense? Has Google sold itself out?

Have you ever been so confused about what software to use or how to install it or how to run it? Have you ever needed someone to think for you? Maybe you shouldn't be using a computer. 

Google fixes this by making a service called Google Pack, that allows you to one click install, currently, up to 14  programs that they believe to be essential. But i have to ask, if you don't have the mind and body to install software on your own, what are you doing messing with 14 programs google is about to install, will you be able to use them?

Google Pack is described by google as "A free collection of essential software". This is entire collection is not free software. Not all of this software is free.Well this is not new news, it is new to a new bashing. Lets go one by one and detail out this weird "beta" service from google.

To follow along with this article, click here, it will open a new browser window and load the Google Pack Page that I will be talking about. Lets get the obvious out of the way. 7 out of the 14 pieces of software offered are directly related to a piece of software made by google. You could say 8 out of 14 if you agree that the FireFox /with Google Toolbar as a affiliate connection of the two. So at least half of the most essential programs you need to run, are made by google.

Google Software Included

Well this section is bias. First off, Google earth is used to find maps, driving directions, hotels, restaurants, and more. You cant do any of that stuff on the web so you need some software. Give a break of that kit-kat bar.

Picasa a good photo editor. I really like it. However it is very easy to install and doesn't need to be made any easier. If you cant install software, what are you doing messing with 14 programs google is about to install?

Next up, Google Pack Screen Saver. Yeah sounds essential, since the description of Google Pack is "A free collection of essential software". This screen saver program is called Google Pack Screen saver.  to have this essential screen saver program, i have to be dumb enough to want to install it in the first place? I don't get it.

Google desktop. Installed it, didn't find anything on my computer that I couldn't find before. Then again I don't take googles advice to not organize my own files on my own computer. Google has repeadedly been quoted saying that you don't need to organize your computer when you search with google desktop. God forbid I did without google. Didn't like the fact the new version, 3 if set, can store some stuff and or communicates to a google server. The program is fighting a lot of privacy problems that it has created with the new version.

We finish off this section with the google toolbar. It is not essential to use google from a toolbar browser. It is essential for beginner users to know you can search google by typing in your address bar, www.google.com. Fill out the input box and click search.

Additional Software

To the additional software section of Google Pack. First off, firefox with the google bar included, yeah everyone needs a browser with a toolbar of googles. It is essential to get have a browser, it is not essential to have googles toolbar.

Adaware SE Personal is the free version that offers a stripped down version of a over rated anti spyware removal tool. That at one time was taking money from a well known spyware company to be dlisted.  believe me? Do some research on WhenU.  If you are running windows, since you will be required to if you want install the google essentials, microsoft has an outstanding free anti spyware program called windows defender that in an IT technicians point of view is far superior.

Next we have Norton Antivirus 2005 Special Edition. It is specially because Norton 2006 is out and this years version is not offered, the special edition also means it is only free for six months. So its essential to buy anti virus software. Want a decent IT recommended anti virus solution, click here.

Next on the list is the Adobe software. Yeah adobe is a portable document that can be sent around the web, however the Flash plug-in that is on 99% of the worlds computers by far is a faster media that is integrated into browsers in all types of operating systems.Seeing that Adobe baught out macromedia who owned Flash saying it essential to have adobe is in a monopoly way, true. The reason why they say "Launches up to 50% faster than Reader 6.0", next to adobe 7, is because they made it so that every time your computer starts up, adobe is partially loaded into your ram and is a running process in the task manager. So it runs faster because they take up your systems resources by hiding a process that launches at every start up. They don't tell you but look, its there.

Optional Software Section - Real player gets a thumbs down in my book. In my years of listening to video and audio from my computer or streaming of a website, I have never favored Real play mainly because you had to register an account with them and use that sign in before you could install the free player. Most places don't do that now, very few did it back then. Not only that they are one of those software companies that make all kinds of useless, screen hogging, memory hogging, poppy news windows and update now notifies I never asked to receive. Only install real player if you have to install it to see a specific video. Afterwords don't forget to uninstall it.

Next google video. This software only works if you use googles website to buy videos or view free ones. That is not essential software and is not listed at the top of the page in the section labeled google software.

Next to last but not least, GalleryPlayer HD Images software. It is very essential  to install a program to see hd quality images on your computer right now! It is also essential that if you don't have any images that are supported by this software, you can buy some images from there and receive 20% if you use coupon code GSAVE20 at checkout. Because in order for you to see images in the detail this software is talking, you have either had to take them yourself, which more than likely you don't have the camera to do, or buy them.

We finish off the pack with Google talk, an instant messaging program from google, and specific to google and google accounts. Another related piece of software in the same group listed under "optional software", is trillian. Trillian allows people, who use more than one instant messaging program, the ease to use one program that interacts with the other instant messengers contacts combined. It does not support google Talk, it does support msn messenger, yahoo messenger, icq, aol instant messenger. This is an essential piece of software if are use to chatting on 4 different instant messengers at the same time. That is not essential software and is not listed at the top of the page in the section labeled google software.

Now I don't know if I'm alone, but I thought the first time i saw this, that it was an April fools joke.

Key points. This service is for pretty dumb people. Installs these days are not that hard to do on your own. I don't think dumb people should use it. I am sure it would make you even dumber. Really, what if you find a piece of software you like on a friend or family members computer that didn't use google pack? Is it good enough to use? Can you one click install it from a website? Is it free or are you just saying that so I'll download all of this and then find out that the virus definitions are not free? Don't lie to me and tell me a bunch of crap like this software is essential.

The dmoz. directory is syndicated far to often. Often enough it is one of the slowest responding services owned by AOL.

I will use the about page on dmoz.org to demonstrate my argument:

About the Open Directory Project

The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast, global community of volunteer editors.

This means it is a very large database of websites manually entered by people that are not getting paid. Anyone who says they are anyone can become a dmoz. editor, responsible for the quality of sites listed.

The Republic of the Web

The web continues to grow at staggering rates. Automated search engines are increasingly unable to turn up useful results to search queries. The small paid editorial staffs at commercial directory sites can't keep up with submissions, and the quality and comprehensiveness of their directories has suffered. Link rot is setting in and they can't keep pace with the growth of the Internet.

Instead of fighting the explosive growth of the Internet, the Open Directory provides the means for the Internet to organize itself. As the Internet grows, so do the number of net-citizens. These citizens can each organize a small portion of the web and present it back to the rest of the population, culling out the bad and useless and keeping only the best content.

First paragraph, first sentence, wrong. There are trends that are pretty accurate as to the rates of traffic around the worlds network. Second sentence, automated bots are getting better and better at determining content on a given page. Take google for example, though it is strange why google still uses dmoz. they are completely automated and are the number one search site on the planet. The third sentence is a load of crap, how fast does dmoz. think it is to judge people who get paid to place websites. Another example would be google's adsense., or yahoos overture, many places now take bids for site listing on search results. And seeing that google makes all of its money on adsense, i would say it makes plenty of sense to use paid placement. The rest of that section is way out of date. Dmoz. wants to talk about dead links? Give me a break. Next paragraph.

The Definitive Catalog of the Web

The Open Directory follows in the footsteps of some of the most important editor/contributor projects of the 20th century. Just as the Oxford English Dictionary became the definitive word on words through the efforts of a volunteers, the Open Directory follows in its footsteps to become the definitive catalog of the Web.

The Open Directory was founded in the spirit of the Open Source movement, and is the only major directory that is 100% free. There is not, nor will there ever be, a cost to submit a site to the directory, and/or to use the directory's data. The Open Directory data is made available for free to anyone who agrees to comply with our free use license.

The Internet Brain

The Open Directory is the most widely distributed data base of Web content classified by humans.  Its editorial standards body of net-citizens provide the collective brain behind resource discovery on the Web.  The Open Directory powers the core directory services for the Web's largest and most popular search engines and portals, including Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others.

This section lists in detail the other no brain sites that use the dmoz directory and are not afraid of showing how much useless information they are willing to display on their sites.

The rest of the about us page at dmoz. tells you what everyone tells you, you can make a difference, by joining our community of editors.

This article is not sponsored by dmoz.

Stop syndicating a useless directory.

The government is wrong, dead wrong. George bush and his cronies are dead wrong. If they think that taking away users privacy on the web is something that is going to be standard, I will not use another computer.

The government is trying to prepare to defend the Child Online Protection Act, that has been ruled unconstitutional. The government has taken googles and many other search engines search data to prove a point, not to help children. How can the government do this? How can the government act this way while trying to prove something that has been ruled unconstitutional, and use it as the reason for breaking internet privacy?

Because of google's resistance to the DOJ, department of justice,  the DOJ offered the arrangement of fewer URLs and fewer search terms. Why cant the DOJ just search google themselves? They are idiots.

Google claims this as a victory for its users and company. The obviousness of this is sadly mistaken. Make no mistake about it, this is a big loss. If google gives any data to bush's buddies in the DOJ, it only provides more open doors for the government to walk in and take what they want.

Yahoo is weak, no one uses yahoo search. MSN search is only popular because microsoft sets msn as the default homepage on windows machines. Aol is not a search engine, aol is a dummy interface to the real web. So the only one left is google, who out of all the search engines, fought for users privacy.

Its simple. Do taxes ever go down? Do budgets for federal and state ever go down? They always need more money and more people. Compare that to how the government wants information from internet companies, you give them an inch and they will take your freedom. The government will want more and more information. Do not be surprised when the privacy of the internet and its freedoms are in the hands of the government.

One last rant. You tell me, how getting this search data from anyone that contains no personal information, is helping the DOJ prove that the COPA, Child Online Prevention Act, is more effective in protecting children from internet pornography than filtering software. The COPA law has been blocked by all courts, and has never taken effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_Online_Protection_Act

Ask google what is the child online protection act

From what I have read the COPA does not do anything other than make it a crime for anyone by means of the World Wide Web, to make any communication for commercial purposes that is "harmful to minors" unless the person has restricted access by minors by requiring a credit card number. COPA places unconstitutional burdens on a wide category of protected speech, while failing to achieve its goal of protecting children.

Closing: So the government is using the excuse that they are trying to protect an act, the COPA, that was ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court, as an excuse to undermine users privacy on the internet. This is a joke. Open up your eyes and ears America.

For google to give any of their data to the government is a big, big loss to google and its users.

Bob Parsons is one of my good friends and he doesn't even know it. You see bob parsons is the CEO and founder of the best registrar for all the domains they support. He runs godaddy. Way back in the early days of the dot com era, registrars like networksolutions and register.com offered domains for $35 a year. They had interfaces and prices that I had always thought were over rated and way over priced.

Back in the day just to transfer your domain name away from networksolutions was a monumental task in itself. I always thought to myself, why is a domain name $35 a year? All they are doing is using dns entries(text entries) to point my domain to my host. And to this day register.com will charge you $35 a year and network solutions charges $34.99 a year for a domain. Where godaddy charges $8.95 a year. They all serve the same purpose and yet godaddy beats them 3x +.

The new problem facing domain names is the very agency or body of people that supposed to be looking out for me and you, ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers). ICANN puts bids out to companies to manage the different Ltd's or dot something names and they are called a registry. The company in charge of all .com domains is VeriSign. So any registrar like godaddy has to pay fees per domain to registry VeriSign. You see even though verisign is in charge of the .com, they are not the company that people go to to register the domains. That is godaddys job.

What does this have to do with an employee of google? Well the chairman of the ICANN group is Vinton Cerf. Google says do no evil, however this guy is trying to raise the price of domain names at the registry level when the cost of running the .com registry should be going down. Instead now, every year they will charge more, making me and you pay more for domain names. Its greed on a level where greed should not exist, VeriSign is a bad company anyway, search google.

I have copied and pasted from Bobs Parsons blog just because he states the facts well and there is no need to re-invent the wheel.

The economics lesson starts here.
It’s important to first realize that it costs VeriSign, the .COM registry operator, next to nothing to add each new .COM name to the registry, because unlike registrars, VeriSign:

• Does not have to provide customer service to registrants — that’s provided by registrars like GoDaddy..
• Is not under any competitive pressures whatsoever to reduce prices – each registry has a monopoly until the registry contract is re-bid.
• Has everything handled by an automated process. The costs of operating these automated processes (i.e. bandwidth, storage, etc.) have been and are expected to continue to decline. Click on the link here to see historical charts.

Registry profits will soar because of explosive growth.
To the above add the fact that the .COM registry will be the beneficiary of explosive growth that is expected to occur in the Internet. The .COM registry grew 33% in 2005. This growth is expected to repeat in 2006 and continue into the future. While it will take some investment to accommodate this growth, it will most certainly not require price increases – particularly when it costs nothing to add additional names to the registry. Prices in the domain business should go down – they must not be allowed to go up – as VeriSign's Chairman and CEO, Stratton Sclavos wants.

VeriSign gets paid big bucks to run the registry.
Today there are about 48 million .COM domain names. Using historical and current growth rates we expect the .COM registry to exceed 60 million names at the end of 2006. At the current rate of $6.00 per name (this is what all registrars are charged – registrars in turn either discount or mark up this price to arrive at what the registrant is charged) VeriSign will take in $360 million dollars to operate the .COM registry this year.

The profits VeriSign makes now on the registry are huge.
The profits VeriSign realizes in running the registry are enormous. This became evident when the .NET contract came up for bid. VeriSign could not avoid the bidding process and was forced to cut the .annual NET rate from $6.00 to $3.50. As part of this deal VeriSign also agreed to collect 75 cents for each .NET registration year. This fee is paid by registrars in addition to the $3.50 registry fee.

There’s not much incremental cost to run the .COM registry.
Now let’s think about the .COM registry. It literally takes the same equipment that is used to operate the .NET registry. Because of today’s super computer and super storage architectures, and by VeriSign's own admission (after all its goals have always been super scalability) they can do everything they want to do with the .COM registry on the same framework that’s been put in place for the .NET registry. This means that the incremental cost for VeriSign to operate the .COM registry is quite manageable — the same equipment runs both registries.

VeriSign wants a perpetual, unsupervised monopoly!
But if VeriSign has its way, and the proposed .COM registry contract gets approved:
• VeriSign’ monopoly will be extended indefinitely. This means that the .COM contract can only come up for bid if ICANN can prove that VeriSign has failed to perform their obligations. Even then, VeriSign will be given the opportunity to correct any problem before they would lose the .COM registry. This means that the benefits the Internet community realized when the .NET contract was put out for bid simply won’t ever happen again.
• VeriSign will get to raise .COM prices by 7% during four of every six upcoming years. So not only will costs not come down – THEY WILL GO UP!

OK. Here’s the punch line. Grab your wallet!
If you think the numbers I've mentioned so far are big, hang on to your hat. They get much bigger. Now factor in the following: The .COM registry is expected to grow by 33% in 2006 alone. And we’re just getting started. Let’s be conservative and presume that the .COM growth slows to 25% for 2007. This means that the incremental revenue in the .COM registry at $6.00 a name – revenue which essentially comes with negligible cost to VeriSign – for 2007 should be in the neighborhood of $90 million dollars. That increases VeriSign's annual cash take from $360 to $450 million dollars.

But what if $450 million dollars isn’ enough?
But what do you do when $450 million dollars, with a huge profit margin – after all most of your costs are paid for by the .NET registry — is simply not enough? Well, if you are VeriSign you raise your prices by 7%. You raise prices not because you have to. You raise prices because you are a monopoly, and quite frankly, because you can. So instead of taking in only $450 million dollars for 2007 you raise prices on a product that incrementally costs you nothing and get an additional 7% or $31. million dollars. So now instead of $450 million in cash you instead get $481. million.

Let’s do the math for 2008.
Now let's do the math again for 2008. Figure a 25% growth rate in the .COM registry – actually with more and more people getting websites and the rest of the world joining the party, it could be more like 35% — but we'll stick with 25%. And for good measure throw in a 7% increase. I get a number of $644 million for 2008.

ICANN does get a little cut — "Alms for the poor."
In all fairness to VeriSign, I should mention that ICANN does get a small cut of this. VeriSign did agree, starting in 2007, to send ICANN a check each year starting at $6 million and increasing over the following two years to $12 million per year.

I admit VeriSign does a good job.
There’s no doubt about it, VeriSign does a good job in operating both the .COM and .NET registries, and they will be the first to tell you so. They’ll tell you that the systems they have in place result in the smooth operation of the .COM and .NET domain name routing systems and a stable internet.

But VeriSign gets paid to do a good job.
To quote Chris Rock, VeriSign saying it runs the .COM registry without problems is like someone saying “I make my child-support payments on time.” Mr. Rock then follows up by saying “What do you want a cookie? You’re supposed to make your child-support payments on time!" In similar fashion I think we can say: VeriSign is supposed to be doing a good job!

VeriSign is not the only company who can run the .COM registry.
VeriSign would like us to believe that if we allow the .COM contract to be put up for bid that it could be a disaster for all mankind. A few years back the .ORG registry was transferred away from VeriSign as part of a deal that allowed VeriSign to delay re-bidding the .COM registry. There were no significant problems. I would also add that those companies that would bid on the .COM registry would be more significant in scope and size, than the company that was selected to run the .ORG registry. This was evident by the companies who bid on the .NET registry.

My problem with all of this.
I personally don't have a problem with VeriSign making a fair profit — but that's not what we're talking about here. I have a big problem with VeriSign's windfall profits being accomplished outside of the free enterprise system in which the rest of us all must compete. I find it particularly outrageous that because of the special privilege VeriSign wants to be granted, all of us who use the Internet may be denied the economies and innovation that come along as a natural part of our competitive environment.

It has come to my understanding that  it is utterly useless is it for google to be partners with DMOZ.org and on the same note it is utterly useless that the dmoz.org service still exists.

DMOZ.org is owned or run by Netscape. It wanted to be what yahoo was founded on. Manual submissions and manually reviewed sites. The problem with DMOZ.org is that a lot of the sites they list are dead links anymore. Information they have about many sites is wrong.

Earlier in googles life the linked to the dmoz. directory from google.com. For a long time now it has been removed however they still link to it and somewhat promote it. Why would google continue to give charity links to a directory that is the complete opposite of what google does?

What value is there in a service like DMOZ anymore? If they add your site to the dmoz directory and give you a lame description or the wrong title to link to your site, you have to wait for a non paid editor to take the time and read your revision to your own sites listing and then either agree with it or disagree.

I have had several of my sites listed in the DMOZ directory and for three of them I have waited over a year for them to update. The descriptions for my sites are lame and as you will notice if you browse through their listings, they take more time to detail out some sites.

Another message for google, if I decide to take the time in my day to click the search button, do not take up my screen area to tell me that I could save time by hitting the return key instead of clicking on search. How much time are you going to save me, really?

I am always up for a good argument or discussion. Does anyone think the dmoz directory service has any value to the web in general?

Today I was looking for ways to promote a blog in a legit manner. Meaning I was looking for web sites that offer blog indexing services and or xml/rss feed submission for blogs. In my search I found this link. http://www.blog-blast.com. After reading through this site and the description of the software, I can pretty much tell you how he is submitting these "ads" onto 2 million or more blogs.

Blog-blast.com service is a blog spamming service. What this software does is submit comments on found entries of certain blogs. More than likely this software looks to see if the blog is created by a certain blog software. Some blogging sites do not require login and some do, some have image validations to verify the submitter and some do not.

In closing: This guy is looking to make a little money by comment spamming blogs. There is no way that this guys software places "ads" in the traditional sense of advertisements on a website. This program automatically fills out comments forms on blogs and leaves the blog owner the task of removing the comment entries. If you use this advertisement for your site, people will hate you.