Anonymous hacks Chinese websites

A screen shot of the hacked home page for Chengdu city's business district.

Messages by the international hacking group Anonymous went up on a number of Chinese government websites on Thursday to protest internet restrictions. On a Twitter account established in late March, Anonymous China listed the websites it said it had hacked over the last several days. They included government bureaus in several Chinese cities, including in Chengdu, a provincial capital in southwest China. Some of the sites were still blocked on Thursday, with English-language messages shown on how to circumvent government restrictions. In a message left on one of the hacked Chinese sites, cdcbd.gov.cn, a home page for Chengdu's business district, the hackers expressed anger with the Chinese government for restrictions placed on the internet. "Dear Chinese government, you are not infallible, today websites are hacked, tomorrow it will be your vile regime that will fall," the message read. "So expect us because we do not forgive, never. What you are doing today to your Great People, tomorrow will be inflicted to you," one of the messages read. Al Jazeera's Melissa Chan, reporting from Hong Kong, said that the attack was interesting because Anonymous had mostly previously stayed away from attacking Chinese websites. "This is just (Anonymous') second attack (on Chinese websites)," Chan said. "The first one a few months ago had been a corporate attack against a Chinese company and it had exposed corporate fraud. This time, of course, the message was more general about online censorship in China." Chan also pointed out the attacks did not target national websites, but smaller sites for government bureaus and minor cities. "The other interesting thing is that the messages they left were left in English, so then that begs the question of whether they wanted to try to reach out to the Chinese public or not," Chan said. Some websites that Anonymous said it attacked were working Thursday, and government officials denied the sites were ever hacked.

Source: Al Jazeera

The month's top-ten links check out

It's tough to keep up on the happenings in the world of SEO and online marketing. This digest will do the job for you--we'll send you the month's top-ten links that you should check out.

1) Google's Farmer/Panda Update

In an effort to improve ranking quality, Google updated its algorithm that reportedly affected 11.8% of site rankings. Learn how you can regain your rankings if your site was affected.

2) Bing/Google Clickstream-gate

Matt Cutts, Principal Engineer at Google, accused Bing of using Google data to improve its search results. Bing admitted to (unintentionally) copying Google's results. An ex-Google engineer confirmed that they partake in similar ranking quality practices.

3) Google Launches Site Blocker

Now we're all webspam police: Google launched the ability for searchers to block their choice of results.

4) JC Penney's Busted for Buying Links

JC Penney's site get busted by the New York Times' investigative reporting, launching a media hunt for sites abusing SEO.

5) Social is Key to SEO in 2011

Matt Cutts admitted that social media marketing is key to driving SEO--albeit indirectly.

6) Inbound Marketing Gains Interest

Inbound marketing software provider HubSpot received $32M in investment from Google Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Salesforce.com, highlighting the growing interest in the inbound marketing movement.

7) AOL's Master Plan Leaked

"The AOL Way", AOL CEO Tim Armstrong's master plan for the site, is leaked to the public.

8) The Noob Guide to Online Marketing

Community member Oli Gardner introduces online marketing to newbies who might be SEO-savvy but could use some marketing education.

9) Forbes Busted by Google

Forbes is busted by Google for not cleaning up its paid links. Second time's the charm?

10) Chrysler Fires Agency Over Tweet

The automotive giant cans its social media agency over reposting a tweet that contained a vulgarity.

Il nuovo filtro di Google? Anticipiamolo!

“Finding more high-quality sites in search”. Così, lo scorso giovedì, nel blog ufficiale di Google, è stato annunciato il lancio di un nuovo e mistico strumento anti-spam. Proviamo a leggere un po’ tra le righe:

“This update is designed to reduce rankings for low-quality sites—sites which are low-value add for users, copy content from other websites or sites that are just not very useful. At the same time, it will provide better rankings for high-quality sites—sites with original content and information such as research, in-depth reports, thoughtful analysis and so on.”

Google sostiene quindi che valorizzerà i siti di alta qualità, con contenuti utili ed originali per gli utenti, e abbasserà il rank dei siti poveri di contenuti e poco interessanti. Contenuto originale, ranking… molto, molto interessante.

Vediamo di non fermarci in superficie e scendiamo di livello (ebbene sì, ogni riferimento ad Inception è puramente casuale)

Primo livello

Di che rank stiamo parlando? Page o trust rank?

Io sostengo entrambi: prima il trust e poi, per ovvia perdita di valore dei link dei siti penalizzati, anche del page rank, con buona pace di chi crede sia morto..

(lo so, potrei essere accusato di preveggenza visto che martedì scorso, 3 giorni prima dell’uscita del loro post, vi ho rinfrescato il trust rank)

Secondo livello

“Therefore, it is important for high-quality sites to be rewarded, and that’s exactly what this change does.”

E’ importante valorizzare i siti di qualità. Semplice a dirsi, ma come li selezionano? A mano o in modo automatico?

E’ sensato supporre che si possano basare su piu’ fonti. Oltre a tutti i dati statistici su chi preme il tasto indietro dal browser, tempi di lettura (ricordo che chrome è in rapida ascesa) Google ha a disposizione dati su Directory (la cara vecchia Dmoz?), link su wikipedia.. etc etc Ritorniamo nuovamente sul trust rank? No dai, oramai avete capito.

Terzo livello

I siti inseriti in Google news, e quindi approvati da loro manualmente, saranno considerati come autorevoli? Io penso proprio di sì…

Quarto livello

I siti che generano discussioni sui social network sono considerati interessanti per gli utenti? Di nuovo, io penso proprio di sì…

Torniamo in superficie

Ma dobbiamo quindi preoccuparci? Dipende!

Sì, se il nostro sito agli occhi degli utenti è uno di quelli inutili, di quelli che salvano le ricerche per intenderci, o hannno come uniche informazioni  dati scopiazzati qua e là.

No, se il nostro sito è composto di contenuti originali.

Assolutamente no, se il nostro sito è originale, sviluppa discussioni sui social network e ha un discreto/buon page e trust rank.

In ogni caso il lancio è previsto solo in U.S., ma a breve sarà esteso ovunque.. webmaster avvisato, mezzo salvato!

ps. gran finale: contenuti duplicati, similarity.. vi dicono niente ?