It’s the first linky goodness of a new month. Hurray!
- More not-so-good news for Yahoo: the DOJ will reviewing the Yahoo-Google ad deal and plans to consult Y&G’s rivals. Yet another reason for MSFT to celebrate today, I guess.
- Webmaster Central Blog gives a little checklist of things to do before and during a reconsideration request using Google Webmaster Tools, complete with video.
- Has someone at Google misspoken? In a Google Groups thread, Googler JohnMu said that blocking countries, regions or continents from your website is against Google’s cloaking policies. I always assumed that you had to show visitors something for it to be considered cloaking. . . . Michael Martinez takes Google’s logic to task here, too.
- Research indicates that personalization in marketing can often make us actively dislike the message’s sender (cough, Amazon, cough, QUIT EMAILING ME). Said one researcher, “People bristle at personalization just for the sake of personalization.” Now, does this count for Google’s SERPs?









