Inside these posts: SEO

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New Google search rules weed out low-quality sites

Google Inc. announced a major change to its powerful search engine to reduce the appearance of what it calls “low-quality” Web sites in results.

The move comes after months of criticism from a few technology-industry insiders and an acknowledgement by Google last month that it “can and should do better” to beat back sites that game its system to rise up in search results but offer users little value. Get the full story »

Google: We’re working on bad search results

If you have been frustrated lately by search results on Google, you’re not alone, and Google knows it.

There’s been a drumbeat of criticism of Google’s search results coming out of Silicon Valley — and now the Internet giant has responded, saying it has heard “the feedback from the Web loud and clear” and believes it “can and should do better.”

In particular, the company is talking about stopping “content farms,” which provide low-quality, often unreliable and sometimes plagiarized information on a certain topic, just to get traffic from search. Get the full story »

Google announces ‘Instant Previews’ search feature

People searching on Google will soon be able to see previews of websites before clicking on them.

The “Instant Previews” feature announced Tuesday is meant to help people bypass websites that are either irrelevant or simply too visually cluttered for their tastes. It works for Google web searches, as well as searches for news, video and local businesses. Get the full story »

The most dangerous celebrities in Web search

If you’re looking for Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts or Jessica Biel online, look out! The movie stars top the latest list of the most dangerous celebrities to search for online, according to new research by computer-security software maker McAfee Inc. Get the full story »

Twitter gets its own ‘Tweet’ button

Twitter made it official Thursday when it rolled out its own “Tweet” button.

This is one in a series of moves to assume control of features that could help further propel the popularity of the service.

TweetMeme built the popular “Retweet” button, which Web sites install to encourage visitors to share links with one click. The button had generated 750 million impressions a day, according to TweetMeme founder Nick Halstead. Twitter is licensing some of the technology TweetMeme developed and TweetMeme will shift to a new product called Datasift.

Movie on deck as Facebook hits 500M members

Facebook said today it has hit 500 million members, a milestone that had been anticipated by the social media industry for months. Get the full story »