I have just recently started using mobile broadband, delivered by British behemoth BT. The speed is quite good, although it has a few hiccups now and then. But something strange happened. Suddenly, I was hindered in visiting my favourite blog at www.copyranter.com and 404 redirected to a BT page. Copyranter is know for its harsh language, and I suspect there is some adult content filter on my account.

BT have not answered my emails yet, and this might just be a misunderstanding, but I think, it is a problem that they block some sites without getting my prior consent and redirect traffic to their own site.

ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have begun offering various online services (hosting, business-portals etc.) and I am guessing that it will not be long before they develop their first search engine. And this is a problem, because the heavier the ISPs online presence are, the lighter their incentive to “help” out their online competitors will be. Suddenly, you might experience downtime on some of the major search engines, or a weird redirect to your ISPs own service. And your freedom of choice on the Internet can be compromised. The neutrality of the net might be compromised. It cripples free competition.

My hope is that there will be brought attention to this problem before it has become a harsh reality.

Peace,
Ras.

PS. “B” is now up in the SEO dictionary

Today I give you “A”.

The first section of the Search Engine Optimization dictionary is now up. It is DASIGN’s attempt at producing an overview over the SEO universe.

Hopefully, it will expand with one letter per week. Let’s see how it goes.

Read about things that start with “A” at the SEO dictionary.

Google Chrome

So the giant of giants, Google, has released a beta-version of their new browser, Google Chrome. It has (supposedly) not been created to take over the world, but rather as a bid for a browser, able handle the heavy applications on the Internet. It has a range of interesting features (incognito-browsing (yes, it is as dirty, as it sounds… See the logo below), new JavaScript engine, better error-handling and security), all explained in a cartoon introduction here.

I am actually typing in the browser right now, and I must admit that I am pleasantly surprised. The UI is simple and intuitive, the search bar easily accessible and the performance is steady. It is an open source project, and when the army of developer monkeys around the world start building plugins, this browser can become a serious challenger to the established players.

After the smoke has cleared, we will see what this means for SEO (except douchebags buying domain names with “seo” and “chrome” - try and do the search yourself). Currently, the most interesting development is the emphasis that is now put on the #1 ranking site and popular keywords, as users can select it/them in the auto-fill suggestion box before even seeing the SERP.