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Search Quality, Content Farms, and Conspiracy Theories
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by Paula J. Hane
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The blogosphere and media outlets have been abuzz lately with reports of low-quality search results from the major search engines. It started in December 2010 with a New York Times, story about an unscrupulous merchant whose bad treatment of customers and negative reviews pushed the site to prominence in Google searches. In response to the flap that arose, Google quickly addressed this with changes to its search algorithms. Since then, there have been a New York Times expose of J.C. Penney's SEO practices ("The Dirty Little Secrets of Search") and Google's subsequent changes to its algorithm, Google's assertion that Microsoft Bing was copying Google search results, Google's banning of spam from low-quality sites and so-called "content farms," and even a conspiracy theory about which company was launching a negative publicity campaign against Google. This has indeed been a wild and crazy time.
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New National Portal to Historic Collections
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American Heritage and the American Association for State and Local History are developing a new National Portal to Historic Collections, a system that allows searches through dozens of historic collections, from small local museums to collections of the Smithsonian, National Parks, and U.S. Navy. A prototype is now available at www.NationalPortal.org, and members of the museum community are invited to give feedback or comments. The site will launch later this month at www.AmericanHeritage.com.
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MLA International Bibliography Coming to WilsonWeb
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The MLA International Bibliography will be available this summer on WilsonWeb, H.W. Wilson's reference database platform. WilsonWeb access to the MLA International Bibliography builds on the value of the database, adding precise and versatile WilsonWeb searching, links to an abundance of full text, seamless simultaneous searching with other WilsonWeb resources, and WilsonWeb research tools, such as the "My WilsonWeb" individual user accounts.
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The New York Times to Launch Paid Digital Subscriptions
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The New York Times will begin charging for web use on March 28 in the U.S. It was introduced in Canada on March 17, 2011. Under the plan, visitors to NYTimes.com will be able to read 20 articles a month free. The most frequent users will pay $15 a month; print subscribers will have unlimited access. International Herald Tribune subscribers will also receive free access to NYTimes.com. The homepage at NYTimes.com and all section fronts will remain free to browse for all users at all times.
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LinkedIn Introduces News Component
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by Nancy Davis Kho
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Last week, business-networking platform LinkedIn announced a beta version of a major enhancement designed to create deeper engagement with its 90 million members. The new LinkedIn Today gives users a customized view for consuming trending news relevant to their industry and makes it easier to share pertinent news with their professional networks. LinkedIn Today enables members to customize a front page and to view the day's professional news as curated through three different lenses: industry, professional connections, and the broader LinkedIn network.
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If you are interested in sponsoring the NewsLink newsletter throughout the year, please contact account executive LaShawn Fugate for details: lashawn@infotoday.com.
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