WebProNews

Clearly Google is at the forefront of technology and development and they deserve a lot of credit for their efforts. Much of what they do is very well done. And, in my opinion they have a lot of integrity.

I have noticed however, that Reader sharing has been an issue in the past. It seems the default settings which Google provides are typically "opt out" and you need to know what is going on (or learn it the hard way as some of the interviewed parties did) or you'll have your "private" data shared.

Wouldn't it be simpler and easier for the default settings to be "opt-in" and simply let the user know about the new feature(s)? If they want to share, they can set it that way. If they don't, then they don't have to worry.

Providing some options on sharing, perhaps by categories or groups would go a long way towards resolving the issue. Choose which group(s) you want to see specific info.

Seems like a better way to retain user loyalty and brand equity on Google's part.

-Greg Hill
Trinity Search Engine Marketing

Don't be evil...or Don't do evil...or something like that. That's Google's motto. Funny!

Good news about supplemental results but here is a problem I suspect is far more widespread than people think: hacked sites and what happens to you with the search engines after the hack. It just happened to me and as I look for a way to somehow surivive, I am finding out that lots of people have had this happened. My site, http://www.youthchg.com was hacked via a Live Help script. I stopped showing at all up for an amazing 99% of my customary keywords. Even after my host removed the hack, 100 bogus spam pages PER DAY are added to my site. My site is about helping troubled kids but because of the nearly 1000 fake pages that CONTINUE to be added each day, Google of course no longer considers my page to be about problem kids. It thinks it's about cell phones, drugs and porn. Want to see what a hacked site looks like AFTER removing the problem, type site:youthchg.com into a search engine. My traffic is done 90%. I expect to be out of business by the end of January or sooner. Please write an article on what to do once you are hacked. Thanks

For us, Google is a bit like Wal-Mart; we hate it but still use it. The inside track from a friend within Google let us know that the reason it is so hard to get good placement is by design. This is to frustrate webmasters and businesses alike into using the Adword campaigns while trying to get good placement organically. Quite frankly he indicated, there are millions to be made by this method. Maybe it’s time for a search engine that really cares about the end user finding the information they are looking for without the greed factor involved.

The Internet is fast becoming a monster tracking tool to monitor everything that the masses are up to. It's like "sharing" has a double meaning.