Mamma.com’s Copernic division has just announced a new private label program for its award-winning desktop search tool.

The new branded desktop search allows companies to create their own “sticky” desktop search solution.

“We believe the Private Branding Program will allow ISPs and portals to establish a competitive barrier against the threat being posed by the introduction of desktop search tools by Google and Microsoft and help them ensure stronger user retention, while enhancing their users search experience,” said Guy Faure, President and CEO of Mamma.com.

So, we could offer a boring re-cap of how Google’s private plane is subject to multiple lawsuits, but you’d miss the craziest quote of the week…

Mr. Jennings says Messrs. Brin and Page “had some strange requests,” including hammocks hung from the ceiling of the plane. At one point he witnessed a dispute between them over whether Mr. Brin should have a “California king” size bed, he says. Mr. Jennings says Mr. Schmidt stepped in to resolve that by saying, “Sergey, you can have whatever bed you want in your room; Larry, you can have whatever kind of bed you want in your bedroom. Let’s move on.”

And there you have it folks, two of the most influential people in the world fighting over who gets what type of bed.

This was once just a parody, but you can now get your hands on the real 7-Minute SEO Guide!

And this is how the meeting went:

I am going to start this click fraud article the way I wish all other click fraud articles would start, by stating it is based on my opinion. Yes, I may show some stats, yes I may show some quotes, yes I may sound very confident in my words, but they are my opinion and are subjective. I think if all click fraud articles and surveys started this way, the perception of click fraud would be a lot different.

Click Fraud, An Interview With Myself:

Is click fraud real?
Yes, click fraud is real and it is happening, I have seen it myself.

The Consumerist has a recap of how a blogger was bullied by Paramount for publishing an image from the upcoming Transformers movie.

While I understand a company’s need to protect themselves, it seems ridiculous to get pissed at bloggers for offering free publicity, especially when your company relies on publicity (as in the promotion of a new movie).

Ok, so the release of the image messed up Paramounts marketing efforts a little, but how many times have we seen hype build around a new release, because images were leaked by a blogger?

Maybe I’ll send the execs at Paramount a bag of Starbucks so they can wake-up and smell…well, you know the rest.

We don’t often comment on SEO “how-to” posts – there are plenty of blogs that do that – but Andy Hagans wants to blow-away the myth that inbound links can’t hurt your site’s ranking.

Your neighborhood better maintain a certain level of trust — both trust IN and trust OUT — or you can kiss your rankings goodbye.

To put it another way…

1. You have six trusted links to your site, it’s ranking on page 2.
2. Then, add 10,000 untrusted links to your site. These should theoretically just “not count”, and you should still rank on page 2… right?

I think Andy’s example is the extreme, but does highlight how inbound links can hurt your SEO efforts. Flip it around – 10,000 trusted links to your site; 6 untrusted links – and you don’t have anything to worry about.

I’ve told Gord Hotchkiss he “rocks” on previous occasions – which he once told me helped him win some “cool” points with his kids. Well, his new article on search engine “pre-mapping” deserves the same accolade.

Here’s all you need to know about pre-mapping, from Gord’s article…

Pre-Mapping supposes that we’ve interacted with search results pages enough to know the sections of real estate we typically deal with. We know where the top sponsored ads are and what they are. We know about where the top organic listings start. And in our minds, we already have a good idea of the type of site we’re looking for and approximately where we expect it to appear. Before the page ever loads, we’ve already mapped out the sections that would appear to hold the greatest promise to deliver on our intent. As the page loads, we do a split-second scan to get our bearings (orient in the top left corner, see how many top ads there are, see where organic starts) and then we go to the part of the map we’ve predetermined to be our best starting point.