Google Autolink Video - learn how it hurts your site. Even GoogleGuy thinks adding links to other sites is a scuzzy practice.

A question many people are asking themselves this month.

I tried to write an article explaining why many sites, including this one, no longer rank for their official site name.

Generally recurring themes which have been seen are a combination of the following:

• Many sitewide inbound links.

• Lack of anchor text variation.
• Low deep link ratio.

Some of the sites that were hit may have deserved to be filtered out, but some of them that were hit just don't make sense.

Should a site be penalized because most people link to it using it's official site name? The current algorithm says yes.

Some people are wondering whether Google has lost its focus.

Have not tested it out myself yet, but a buddy found a link for a free $50 AdWords credit for new Google AdWords accounts at adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=Login&sourceid=Yh91503. Here are some more recent AdWords coupons

Google AdWords:

• You can get a free $75 AdWords coupon here (or here or here or here or here or here or here) ... many options linked because some of their coupon offers expire over time & we update this page periodically. The Google Partners Program also offers coupons to consultants managing AdWords accounts.

Update: in addition to this AdWords coupon we recently came across coupons for Bing Ads (formerly Microsoft adCenter).

Bing Ads: get a free Bing coupon today.

• Are you from the United States? Use this $50 coupon.
• Are you from Canada? Use this $50 coupon.
• Are you from the UK? Use this £50 vouchers.
• Are you from Germany? Use this €50 coupon.
• Are you from France? Use this €50 coupon.
• Are you from Italy? Use this €50 coupon.
• Are you from Spain? Use this €50 coupon.
• Are you from Australia? Use this $40 coupon.
• Are you from New Zealand? Use this $40 coupon.
• Are you from India? Use this ₨1000 coupon.
• Are you from Brazil? Use this R$60 coupon.

Google Toolbar:
Version 3.0 launched.

Version 3 of the software also lets people automatically check their spelling in Web forms; translate words in English into several languages; and add Web links to certain plain text. For example, an address could be enhanced with a hypertext link to its location on a map, with the click of a button on the toolbar.

Still no FireFox toolbar though...

AdSense:
picks up VNU as a partner.

IE 7:
to launch. Beta version available this summer. Look for search integration.

Dublin:
Yahoo! Creates Dublin HQ.

Day Trading 101:
Actually, I know nothing about day trading. For no reason at all Mamma.com went up 36% yesterday and looks like it is down 30% today. [added: there might have been a reason for part of the drop. oops]

Yahoo! FireFox Toolbar:
released, reviewed by Danny Sullivan.

Wonder when Google will do the same, they are likely missing out on some amazingly valuable data by not having an official one.

Newsburst:
Cnet creates an online aggregator that will compete with Bloglines & Rojo

Brand Pyramid:
Good post about building products and services at various price points. Also, Rob Frankle on how CEOs screw up branding.

Google Investor Day:
was yesterday. slides and audio if your into that sort of stuff. some of the sides:

• 60: their revenue was split nearly 50 / 50 between Google.com and their partner network.

• 72: the top 20 markets have a 17.6% web penetration.
• 73: shows 66% of revenue was domestic.

This guy thinks they will be worth a trillion dollars in 20 years.

In 20 years nobody will remember his prediction, but Battelle gave him a link yesterday and I gave him one today. Random arbitrary predictions are a good way to gain free links ;)

Atomz:
site search provider gets snarfed up by WebSideStory. More people should use the word snarf.

Google's Search Results are Crap?
Danny says people should not be so quick to discout the opinions of SEOs.

Hiring:
Ammon Johns is hiring.

Cold Calling:
is evil. Nick W has some tips on how to cold call. My personal goal when people cold call me is to ensure I drastically increase the likelihood they will have a bad day, and to hopefully lead to eventual attrition at their work place.