assurances from multiple Googlers to the contrary. Maybe there is no penalty; maybe there is some sort of mechanism at work that webmasters perceive as a penalty... it really matters very little. At the end of the day, if you aren't showing up for your own content but somebody else is... you probably aren't the happiest little webmaster.
As a result, syndication has been quite unfairly vilified. Traditionally speaking, having a site link to your content has always been perceived as a compliment of sorts (Google certainly thought it was a fair indicator of quality). That said, syndicating content... having your great content actually picked up by a larger, more influential site was even better in a lot of ways. The syndicated content was put right in front of a whole new user base without them having to click a thing. Generally you also got a nice link back to your site to boot. If you produced a great piece of content, why not have it show up everywhere you possibly could?
Penalty or not, it is clearly the case that the site where content originates may not always rank best for that content. Google wants to do their best to make sure they keep the content of their results pages as distinct from one another as they can. In short, Google doesn't want to have a result page wh/> [...]
Thu Dec 31, 2009 21:10 pm
“Click For A Cause” Gives Poor Kids Free Books
Visa is sponsoring a campaign for Children International called "Click for a Cause" that will give new books to kids in need.
The "Click for a Cause" campaign allows people to click a button to trigger a $1 donation from Visa to purchase books for children living in poverty. Visa will provide Children International, a U.S.-based humanitarian organization, up to $50,000 toward the purchase of books to be placed in Children's International's nearly 100 libraries serving children in 11 countries.
"This is a great opportunity for us and for our children. Visa's sponsorship of our "Click for a Cause" program will help us purchase more than 5,000 books for our libraries in impoverished communities around the world," said Jim Cook, President and CEO, Children International.
"Their support of this program definitely demonstrates Visa's commitment to education and helping children find their way out of poverty."
According to the Institute for Excellence, only 10% of 6th grade students in Zambia can read at their grade level. UNICEF reports 31% of teen girls and 27% of boys in the least developed countries cannot read, keeping children in poverty throughout their lives.
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Fri Jun 04, 2010 08:15 am
If it's all content, then you had better be tracking it

Image by Anirudh Koul via Flickr
by Frank Reed
Last week, I discussed how all content can be online content. No matter what kind of correspondence or connection you make with a client or a prospect in the offline world, there is now potential for that to become an online piece of content whether you want it to or not.
So, if everything that your business produces is now either online or could get there, do you just sit back and hope for the best? Do you assume that everyone is going to talk about your content, ideas and service in glowing terms? I sure hope not, because that would mean you are living in a fantasy world and good business doesn't take place in Fantasyland.
So, how do you keep track of what is going on with all of your online efforts? How do you keep track of your online reputation? How do you monitor these things efficiently and effectively? Do you even need to do this?
The answer to that last question is an unequivocal, "Yes." No matter the size of your business, you have to be tracking what is being said (or not said) online about your business. The reality is that something is being said whether you are monitoring the situation or not. If that is the case, then you'd better be /> [...]
Fri May 07, 2010 09:15 am