Category: Search Engines, SEO

The .com domain is celebrating its 25th anniversary.

With much fanfare Verisign is having a celebration to honor the most popular domain extension to date and the industry that it spawned; Bill Clinton, MoRocca and Arianna Huffington are slated to speak at the Verisign event honoring the 3 letters that pay many of our salaries.

Some industries, such as the telephone, have seen a reduction not just from cell phones, but because more people now communicate via online mediums rather than picking up a land-line phone.

This has not stopped the phone industry from purchasing domain names and websites however. We could possibly even see phone company extensions in the future such as .bell or .sprint?

Along these lines, other domains that seek to get their own domains in the industry have made the news lately.

Canon for example announced its intention to register “.canon” when ICANN gives its final approval to allow virtually unlimited tlds.

The argument could be made either way about whether this change will simplify or complicate online enforcement.

Consider for example the .xxx domain and the possible ramifications of allowing that extension to exist?

A recent study of corporate domain purchasing determined, based upon the empirical data collected, that across the board the days of massive defensive registrations are over, or at the very least in a steep decline.

To many of us in this industry, especially in the ORM field, this is not really news, but validation of what we already know; companies are focusing on making the best use of the intellectual property they already own, especially in a down economy.

The change in strategy has become one of defensively changing search engine results not defensive registrations; basically, trading a shotgun for a scalpel.

Does that mean that everything short of a .com should be forgotten?  That would be un-advisable.

What really is being said by “reading the tea leaves” is that many companies believe that now is the time to act smarter, and explore whatever that strategy entails from their perspective.  This is the time to subtly protect the client from themselves.

Most are turning away from turning corporate budgets over to a service provider and taking whatever advice it gives on blind faith in favor of Corporate legal taking a more active role than ever before.

Are the wild west days of the Internet over?

Italy would like to think so.

This week the most serious threat to Freedom of Speech online since the internet has been in existence may be the Italian court descision to indict 3 Google executives.

Italy has sentenced them to prison time for content in a video that some anonymous Italian YouTube user uploaded. This Italian user has since been punished with community service only.

This event marks a serious change in the censorship, or prior lack of, that exists on the internet.

Many people in and outside of our industry, are extremely concerned over what this could mean to providers of online content; Many theorize that it signals the beginning of the end for free speech and blogs online.

Left unchecked, this movement could spiral out of control and nations with less freedom of speech than the United States could dictate how Americans use their freedom online.

This however is not an isolated incident; a German court has sued Google over its feature called “street view”.

Movie Director Kevin Smith has bought 10 tickets on Southwest over the course of the past week to go to such events as Macworld. This week he said “I’m never going on Southwest again.”

Smith had reportedly purchased three seats for he and his wife for the flight to Burbank, but Jennifer was unable to make the trip. According to the podcast, Kevin was desirous to utilize two of his tickets, and save one, but the clerk inadvertently printed up all three according to Kevin, and long story short, he was allowed to board an earlier flight as a standby passenger.

Even though he had paid for three seats, only one seat was available on that flight. Kevin was fine with that, apparently the airline wasn’t.

This is where the problems began.

According to the story, (and I am paraphrasing), after Kevin was let on the plane, stowing his bags, buckling his seat belt and awaiting takeoff, he was promptly and embarrassingly asked to leave, in front of an airplane almost full of people. Safety and security concerns were stated as the reason for his removal, although the airline refused to elaborate at the time.