Is guest blogging dead? Matt Cutts had a lot to say about the topic when he posted on his personal blog this Monday. Although a little unclear of the aspect to begin with, he went onto to clarify: “I just want to highlight that a bunch of low-quality or spam sites have latched on to “guest blogging” as their link-building strategy, and we see a lot more spammy attempts to do guest blogging. Because of that, I’d recommend skepticism (or at least caution) when someone reaches out and offers you a guest blog article.” I completely agree, as I’ve mentioned before, many blog publishers (including myself) have been contacted by low quality 'guest bloggers' that target higher profile blogs - often submitting content that's already been used on other sites. Be cautious and always research before agreeing.
As a fan of Google alerts, it was nice to see the new sleek look with some social sharing buttons. However, yesterday Search Engine Roundtable reported that with the design change, some users accessing "manage alerts" were unable to switch their alerts from HTML to text version. There's no word on when the fault will be resolved - even though the new HTML version does look rather nice:
Back in November I posted about a driver that was pulled over whilst wearing her Google Glass. This week we’ve heard that the California woman, Cecilia Abadie's case was dismissed, due to there being no proof that the device was turned on at the time. The question is - are we any clearer on the rules regarding the use of Google Glass? Not at all, this doesn't clarify whether Google Glass has a go-ahead on public roads in the U.S. or if the same situation may recur.
Now this is my favorite story of the week: Ged (one of our developers) was the first to point this one out in our office. Commuters and tourists on the London Underground, have been noticing some signs on the trains that seem a bit fishy... Good news - it's not in your head! Fake signs- beautifully styled to look like real London Underground signs - have actually been put up by enterprising pranksters. Congratulations to whoever came up with the idea. My favourites are “Shepherd’s pie” (rather than "Shepherd's Bush") and “Peak hours may necessitate that you let other people sit on your lap.” I think I may rather stand.
See you all next week!
