Yesterday, Google's Matt Cutts posted a detailed videotrying to define how Google's manual spam fighters determines what is a paid link versus what is not.

Now, 99% of the time, Matt Cutts said it is clear if a link is paid or not. It is a clear transaction that the link on a site was paid $X for. But sometimes it is not clear. Matt summarized it on Google+ these are the other criteria Google uses to determine if a link is considered paid or not. Google asks these questions when looking at a suspicious link:


What is the value of the gift, product, or service?
How close is the gift, product, or service to actual money?
Is it an outright gift or a loan?
Who is the intended audience?
Is the intent of the gift to get links?
Would the gift be a surprise to third party?



Here is the video:

Got A Google Penalty? Should You Start A New Site?

As more and more Google penalties become more transparent, recovering from them seems to get harder. Even when you do recover, the rankings don't always return.

In a recent column by Eric Ward named When The Best SEO Move Is To Kill The Site where he concluded that "in almost two-thirds of the cases I advised that the best move was to kill the site." This is when it comes to unnatural link penalties or Penguin related issues.

The question is, is that true? Is it often easier to kill off the site?

Matt Cutts has said time and time again that digging yourself out of a spam hole is often harder then starting fresh.

Also, now that we know penalties may follow you to your new domain, if you don't start a fresh new web site, then making the decision to kill off a site is even more costly and timely.

If it was as simple as copying your site to a new domain name, switching might make sense more of the time. But if you need to rewrite your content, redo your CMS and design, then it can take a long long time.

Google's John Mueller posted on Google+ a comment about Eric Ward's article saying:


It's never a decision to make lightly, but there can be situations where a website has built up so many problems, that it may appear easier or faster to start over with a fresh & new website, rather than to try to fix all of those problems individually. This isn't an easy way to get past problems that have been built up over the years, it's a lot of work to create a new website, even if you already know the business area.



If you feel you're in this situation, make sure to get advice from friends & other people that you trust (including webmaster communities where you trust their opinions) before doing anything drastic!



In a Google Webmaster Help thread, John Mueller gave advice to someone in a hole that if he will go the new site route, he should start fresh. John wrote:


If you're creating a new website, and don't want to be associated with the old one, I'd strongly recommend really making a *new* website and not just moving the content to a different domain. You don't need to wait for anything in a case like this -- it's fine to remove (or block) the old website, and to create a really new one elsewhere at the same time.



So making the decision to start new is not easy. If it was me, I'd go in this order:

(1) Try removing the bad links (2) Submit a reconsideration request (3) Repeat this a few times until it is successful (4) Wait two months for traffic to change (5) If no traffic change then start a new site

Of course, it is not always this black and white and the specific situation might change the solution. Like if you put a ton of money into your brand name and you can't go elsewhere. Or if there are investors you need to worry about. Or if you simply can't make a new site.

It is a shame to have to deal with this stuff.

Google: You Don't Have To Disavow Off Topic Links

A Google Webmaster Help

 thread has Google's John Mueller responding to webmaster concern over off topic links.

Off topic links are when sites that are unrelated to you are linking to your site. In the link craze these days, Webmasters are afraid of getting link penalties and thus, they are concerned with off topic links.

Google's John Mueller went on record saying:

Just to be completely clear on this: you do not need to disavow links that are from sites on other topics. This tool is really only meant for situations where there are problematic, unnatural, PageRank-passing links that you can't have removed.

So not all off-topic links are problematic or unnatural.

Doing it right vs. doing it over

Cap Watkins in Just Ship*:

We work in a world now where fast isn’t good enough. Where quantity is fairly regularly getting edged out by quality. You shipped twelve just-good-enough things this year? You’re about to get smoked by folks who shipped three of those things thoughtfully and holistically. Where you cut corners on twelve projects to get them out the door, someone else crafted three focused experiences and left themselves little-to-no design or technical debt.

This also describes why arbitrary release dates are poison to good quality products. It forces teams to cut corners to hit a date, which puts them in a more vulnerable position than if they just took the time to do things right.

WorldFloat, India Home Grown Social Network Grown Faster

Worldfloat, India's home grown social networking site with over 45 million users, has introduced a new feature called "viralx" that provide realtime access to videos mostly shared on Twitter, Facebook and other social media.

"Worldfloat viralx are like trending news of Twitter except in a video news version only and not like Twitter which is mostly text based or video links based. We play videos directly upfront on the viralx page," said Worldfloat founder Pushkar Mahatta.

He said viralx offers access to latest real-time video news from all over the world and internet. "These viral videos are the ones which are getting mostly shared on Twitter, Facebook and other social media channels of internet and TV channels like BBC, CNN and Fox News."

Drawing a comparision between Worldfloat's new feature with those of leading social networking sites, Mahatta said: "Twitter's main focus is to broadcast public views of trending celebrities and their conversations via text and video and photo links and the main focus of Worldfloat viralx is to broadcast upfront trending video news of celebrities directly via videos, not via links of videos or text."

In Worldfloat viralx you can not only watch the videos of trending topics from around the world but also type in a celebrity name and see their latest viral videos and their life happenings and events and movies and music.

Viralx is a direct video broadcast of viral celebrities and their trending life and events.

We see many celebrity news channels publish text news and photos of celebrities along with videos of celebrities but latest viral videos only of all celebrities and their lives are a special feature of Worldfloat viralx.

"From top to bottom in celebrities viralx we show videos from the latest videos to the older videos based on time events of the celebrities and their life and happening. We are featuring in viralx all kinds of celebrities like movie celebrities, political celebrities, music and cricket celebrities," Mahatta said.

Viralx videos get updated every hour and shows only the latest one. It shows high trending videos from various topics like latest music videos, latest funny videos, latest technology videos, latest movie trailers, Bollywood and Hollywood news.

Mahatta said viralx is the first viral video news broadcast channel for the online internet world in India.

"We imagine viralx to be like the TV for the Internet showing latest news from mixed channels and extreme high trends of the social networking worlds of the internet. Worldfloat viralx is a new feature from Worldfloat among its other features like free online movies, news and social networking," he said.

Anonymous social apps provide forum for gripes, gossip

"I admit that I secretly crave attention so I lie that I have ulcers and that I have gotten surgery on my knees."

"I'm quitting in May and will drive across the country."

"Sometimes I secretly wish I would catch my bf cheating just so I'd have a legit reason to break up with him."

These are just a few of the confidential posts on a growing number of social apps that encourage nameless users to post anonymous confessions, gripes and gossip. These networks, which includeWhisper, Secret, Confide and the forthcoming Rumr, make it possible to share thoughts anonymously with strangers, friends or friends of friends.

Unlike Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, there's no need to worry about offending your friends, harming your career or tarnishing your online persona.

"Anonymity can help people be themselves and share what they really feel or think," said David Byttow, co-founder of Secret, which launched in January.

Unburdened by the consequences that come with posting under real identities, posters on these apps can be brutally honest. For many people, anonymity can mean a freedom from maintaining their personal brand, the "self" they carefully edit for their friends and family on Facebook and Twitter.

If Facebook is sipping champagne during an après-ski selfie, Secret is letting it all hang out with a cheap beer and no makeup in your parents' basement.

Secrets among friends

These startups have taken cues from the original secret sharing service, PostSecret. That blog anonymously publishes select postcards, decorated with images and words, that people mail to founder Frank Warren. The twin barriers of needing a stamp and having to make it past a human curator has kept its confessions interesting without being cruel.

But when PostSecret tried branching out in 2011 with an iPhone app that let anyone publish their own secrets, it had to be shut down less than three months later due to abusive and malicious content.

Fast forward a few years, and social apps are trying again -- this time with a few variations on the formula.

Two-year-old Whisper is a popular service for posting anonymous messages that anyone can read. They can be sorted by most recent or nearby, which will display Whispers from anyone within a certain number of miles.

Of course, as with all these apps, there's no way to tell what posts are true. Many are about sex or love, and some are offensive. Most Whisper users are young, between 17 and 28.

Secret also lets people post a sentence or two on top of an image or colored background. But in an interesting twist, Secret only shares your posts -- anonymously, of course -- within your circle of friends. The app combs through your contacts to determine which of your friends are also on the service. It won't tell you who it finds, so you can only guess who in your circle is posting to the app or commenting on your confession.

When people click a heart indicating that they "love" a post, it is shared with their circle, and so on. Only people within two degrees of separation can comment on posts. Because Secret has drawn many of its early users from the Silicon Valley and New York tech scenes, many posts so far are tech-industry rumors and jokes.

Secret has already had its first viral falsehood. In early February a user claimed that Evernote, the popular note-taking app, was about to be acquired. The post gained some traction in social media, forcing Evernote CEO Phil Libin to deny the report.

Fighting the trolls

One big challenge for these services, which mix social networks with Internet commenting, is to strike a balance between juicy gossip and cruel, abusive posts. Anyone who has glanced at an Internet commenting section knows that anonymous chatter can turn nasty, fast.

To combat this, the official Secret Twitter feed re-posts many of positive Secret messages about friendship, heartbreak and overcoming adversity, but ignores mean-spirited ones.

Because Secret posts are shared with people in the same networks, there's always the tantalizing -- or frightening -- possibility that other users could puzzle out who you are based on your writing style, image choice or subject matter.

"Secret users always have the benefit of plausible deniability," said Byttow. "Sometimes guessing who a secret is from is part of the fun. It certainly sparks a lot of entertaining offline conversations."

To fight trolls, these apps typically include features that let users report bullying or flag posts as inappropriate. On Whisper, a team of employees scans posts for offensive content. Whisper has also launched Your Voice, a nonprofit resource for college students struggling with mental health problems.

Secret's first incarnation was as a web app for sending anonymous messages directly to people over text or e-mail.

"It was fun, but proved to be something that could be used for evil in the wrong hands," said Byttow. "We didn't want to give that to the world.We set out to help people convey thoughts and feelings with their friends."

These anonymous apps seem to be popular for now. But only time will tell if they flame out, like the much-hyped "social discovery" apps from two years ago, or gain traction like Snapchat, the popular app that lets users exchange self-destructing photos and messages.

Secret isn't sharing any user numbers yet, but Whisper has reported some impressive statistics. In December, the company said it was nearing 3 billion page views a month. In September, it raised $21 million in funding.

Nasty LinkedIn rejection goes viral

When you're a city's "Communicator of the Year" and have hailed yourself as a "passionate advocate" for job-seekers, you probably ought not blast one of those job-seekers in a snide, dismissive e-mail.

Because the Internet hates that sort of thing.

But that's what's happened to Kelly Blazek, who runs a popular online job bank for marketing professionals in Cleveland.

Blazek's response to an e-mail and LinkedIn request from Diana Mekota, a 26-year-old planning to move to Cleveland this summer, has made the rounds on Reddit, Buzzfeed and other viral hotspots after Mekota posted it to her Imgur account.

And the resulting backlash is yet another cautionary tale about how posting something mean-spirited online can come back to haunt you in the social media age.

"Your invite to connect is inappropriate, beneficial only to you, and tacky," Blazek wrote, according to Mekota's post. "Wow, I cannot wait to let every 26-year-old jobseeker mine my top-tier marketing connections to help them land a job."

And she was just getting warmed up.

"I love the sense of entitlement in your generation," she wrote, then continued. "You're welcome for your humility lesson for the year. Don't ever reach out to senior practitioners again and assume their carefully curated list of connections is available to you, just because you want to build your network."

She wrapped up with: "Don't ever write me again."

How social media can affect your job search

Mekota's original e-mail, sent February 19, was a short message detailing her education, professional and volunteer activities and asking to join the 7,300-member jobs list. She said she got Blazek's response shortly afterward and, after composing herself, wrote a response.

"I realize you told me to never write you again, but wanted to reach out as there has been a large miscommunication and I merely wanted to explain myself," she wrote.

She said she sent a LinkedIn request so Blazek could see her credentials because a friend told her not to send a resume.

"I apologize if this came off as arrogant or invasive as that was never my intention," she wrote. "I was again, hoping to join your very impressive job board but I understand you(r) reservations."

After the posts went viral (spawning, for one, the obligatory Twitter parody account), Blazek on Wednesday e-mailed an apology to the Cleveland Plain-Dealer.

She repeated the statement in an email response to CNN, saying she has apologized to "everyone involved."

"I am very sorry to the people I have hurt," she wrote. "Creating and updating the Cleveland Job Bank listings has been my hobby for more than ten years. It started as a labor of love for the marketing industry, but somehow it also became a labor, and I vented my frustrations on the very people I set out to help."

Blazek was named 2013's "Communicator of the Year" by Cleveland's branch of the International Association of Business Communicators.

"I've always been a passionate advocate for keeping talent in NE Ohio, and we have so much of it in the region," she said in her acceptance speech. "I want my subscribers to feel like everyone is my little sister or brother, and I'm looking out for them."

On Thursday, she appeared to have deleted her Twitter account and Wordpress blog.

"The note I sent to Diana was rude, unwelcoming, unprofessional and wrong ...," she said in her e-mail. "Diana and her generation are the future of this city. I wish her all the best in landing a job in this great town."

Playing it safe in the social media world

On Twitter, Mekota confirmed having received an apology.

"Would like to let you know Kelly Blazek has sent a very nice apology email, for which I thank her," she wrote.

But this may not have been the first time Blazek has had a nasty exchange with a potential job-bank member.

Rick Uldricks told CNN affiliate WJW-TV in Cleveland that he received a similar response in December when he messaged Blazek saying he'd been deleted from the jobs list and would like to be added again.

"I suggest you join the other Job Bank in town. Oh -- guess what. There isn't one," Blazek wrote, according to an e-mail he provided the station. "Done with this conversation, and you."



According to the Plain Dealer, she has also apologized to Uldricks.