Damn! Someone over at Google has seriously got it out for me! Why is it that just 30 days ago I reported that I was number 2 for a search for “John P.” and number 12 for the word “John“, but just today I was amusing a friend and noticed that if you search for John I’ve now dropped to number 206! Oh, and Pope John Paul II just passed me for “John P.” But I’m going to let that one slide…

Oh, this is such a huge blow to my ego. I’m just not sure I can keep going on. I’m no longer more important than John Dvorak, Sir Elton John, John Travolta, and the Johns Hopkins University. How do they justify this egregious act!

I’m telling you. Someone over at Google reads my blog and they are manually manipulating results to keep The Man down! Just like YouTube. Those people keep turning off the videos I link to within a day, even if they’ve been on YouTube for a year! And just because of a little copyright violation? Bah!

These big and powerful Internet companies need to stop messing with little old me.

Folks, this amuses me. By the way, make note of the date. It is NOT April Fools day…

Yesterday when I was on Cali’s show I randomly mentioned that I wished I was like Matt Mullenweg because if you search for Matt he comes up as the first result in Google. The last time I checked “John P” I was like the 90th listing. However, someone watching the broadcast dropped me a note to let me know that I’m actually now the second listing!

It looks like the number one position is occupied by a gospel singer by the name of John P. Kee. So, if anyone out there wants to help me take over as the king of “John P”, just link to my blog using my name (”John P.”) specifically and it might even drive me to the pole position!

Either way though, number two isn’t bad out of 46,800,000 results!

Oh, and incidentally, it looks like if you just search for “John” now, I’m about 12th from the top out of 141,000,000!

That is just crazy! It looks like I’m right after Senator John Edwards and singer John Mayer (whom I’m a big fan of), and before Senator John Kerry, popular columnist John Dvorak, and singer Sir Elton John. Amazingly I’m even ahead of John Travolta, and Johns Hopkins University (which won’t make my sister in law very happy).

Anyway, thanks to all of my loyal readers and the thousands of Web sites that have linked to me!

Some interesting data from Starcom MediaVest seems to indicate that the majority of clicks being purchased by the known world are being consumed by unemployed, Twenty-something, gambling, shop-a-holic, Internet addicts.

Hmmm, this tends to explain why those overpriced Google AdWord campaigns you are running don’t seem to be performing very well despite the mountains of cash you’re dishing out.

The study illustrates that heavy clickers represent just 6% of the online population yet account for 50% of all display ad clicks. While many online media companies use click-through rate as an ad negotiation currency, the study shows that heavy clickers are not representative of the general public. In fact, heavy clickers skew towards Internet users between the ages of 25-44 and households with an income under $40,000. Heavy clickers behave very differently online than the typical Internet user, and while they spend four times more time online than non-clickers, their spending does not proportionately reflect this very heavy Internet usage. Heavy clickers are also relatively more likely to visit auctions, gambling, and career services sites – a markedly different surfing pattern than non-clickers.

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For hours today every time I do a Google search it comes back with a “we’re sorry” message and makes me keep putting in a capcha. WTF? I know it’s not something on my PC because the same thing is occurring with searches conducted from OMB’s built in Google search.

Specifically the error reads:

We’re Sorry…

… but your query looks similar to to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.

We’ll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.

We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we’ll see you again on Google.

Somebody there needs to get this sucker fixed!
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Well, I know you guys normally notice this before I do, but I was filtering through the spam here on OMB with FireFox when I noticed the SearchStatus bar was reporting we’re back up to a PR7. It’s not quite the PR8 we used to know and love, but it’s better than the downright insulting PR4 we suffered with for a couple of weeks.

Anyhoo, now my previous rant seems a little silly. But I do wonder if someone saw it and corrected things (mostly) as a result? It’s impossible to know what to do to appease the Google Gods. I’ll just keep sending random offerings of frankincense and myrrh.

You know, I don’t think I could be any more disappointed in Google than I am today.

And that is a shame because I’m normally a big fan. I mean, just look… I’ve got an entire category dedicated to Google Tools with 50 posts in it! But the problem is, today Google decided to penalize a whole boatload of sites for some reason or another, and in the process they dropped OMB from a PR7 to PR5. And just in the last few weeks it had already moved from a PR8 to PR7.

I just don’t understand this at all. I know Matt Cutts, and have spoken with him and we’ve e-mailed one another several times on the topic of Google PageRank, and even I just have no idea why in the hell this happened.
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I’ve been holding off on sharing this information, which is really mostly rumor and speculation, up to this point - but Google is supposedly readying the launch of a new cellular phone which will come GPS and have built in access to Google Maps, Gmail, Calendar and Docs.

Google previously bid for the FCC’s 700MHz wireless spectrum, one which could be used to operate a new Google cellular phone service, and as I previously reported they acquired GrandCentral (I handed out around 75 invites to the beta service), a unified messaging platform which provides “find-me, follow-me” service, voice mail, and other goodies.
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Google recently launched a pretty amazing program clearly designed to build out their base of information for the Google Local Search. And only a company like Google could actually afford to do this! They are honestly paying up to $10 for each business you manage to take photos of and get updated in Google’s database.

All of the program details can be found on the Google Local Business Referrals page. So if you’ve got a little extra time, a digital camera, and a computer check it out and you can pick up a little extra spending cash.
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It pains me to report this, because the Secure and Accessible PHP Contact Form version 2 from Mike Cherim and Mike Jolley seems to be a nice contact form for Wordpress, but the fact remains that this plug-in is dangerous and designed to secretly Spam blogs on which it is placed.

This stems from the fact there is an option that users believe will disable the display of credit links back to the author’s web sites; however, this option does not actually remove the links. It merely makes them invisible - and this is enough to cause Google to remove a site.
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In the recent past I’ve done a lot of harping on the security woes of financial institutions (see here, here, and here) so when I saw this announcement I was both extremely happy and a little disappointed at the same time.

PayPal is about to issue SecureID cards to all business clients in order to provide further account security. Now this is what I’m always talking about when I speak of defense in depth! PayPal will combine layers of security, in this case something I have (SecureID password generator), with something I know (my username/password combo) to ensure it’s actually me accessing the site.
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Religion is one of those topics I normally don’t want to touch with a 10 foot pole. I’ve found that no one ever agrees when it comes to this topic. Heck, I’ve seen Christians arguing with one another over the meaning of a particular passage of scripture, so you know no good can come of a debate with an Atheist.

Having said that, I was very disturbed to learn that some YouTube staffer decided to ban a member on religious grounds. Nick Gisburne, an outspoken member of the YouTube community recently posted a video comprised solely of a slide show of quotes taken from the Qur’an. All of the quotes deal with the negative aspects of being a non-believer - such as going to hell, being killed and burning for eternity.

Clearly this video illustrates just one side of the discussion, and I would imagine an appropriate Islamic response would have been a video depicting passages of love and peace from the same book. But no one had the chance to issue such a response.
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As most of my readers are aware, I’m a fan of Google in general. More specifically as of late I’ve become fascinated with the wide variety of creativity being demonstrated by developers that choose to use Google services to build games.

So, about two weeks ago we launched a new site called GoogleGames.org with the sole intention of cataloging and showcasing all games Google. I say “we” because it’s a collaborative project between myself, Terry Green, and my brother Kirk.

We invite everyone to check out the site, and if you know of any worthy games which should be included please use our contact form to let us know! We promise to give credit where credit is due if you, unless you wish to remain anonymous.