Guest blog posts drawing scrutiny from Google

When it comes to blogging, the conventional wisdom says that you should get your name and material out there as liberally as possible. Any place you can stuff a backlink to your business’s website is great, particularly if it’s on a noteworthy or popular site. Guest posts have long been thought to be a great way to do that: You get to reach a broader audience and link back to your own website, improving your search engine rankings while sharing your expertise. Meanwhile, the website owner gets free content. It’s win-win.
But that conventional wisdom is changing, as many are questioning whether guest blogging may actually lead to penalties rather than better placement in search results.

For the website owner who’s hosting the guest posts, the problem is relatively easy to see. Because you have limited control over the content of the guest post, you’re taking a leap of faith that you’re going to get quality work. Any links embedded in that post are also potentially troublesome. A guest blogger (who is rarely someone you actually know) may embed what looks like an innocuous link in the post, only to redirect it later to a less than savory site. And if your website links to a spam site—whether you or a guest writer does the linking—you can be subject to Google penalties and see your search ranking plummet.

But what about the writer of the guest blog post? Well, there’s trouble emerging there, too. Posting your good work, name, and link on a questionable site can subject you to the exact same penalties as described above. And once Google starts to associate you with the gray areas of the Web, it can be hard to break that association. In fact, today, Google’s own advice is that if you do write a guest post for another site, you should include “nofollow” tags on your own backlinks in order to avoid penalties.

But wait, isn’t building followable backlinks the whole idea of guest posting? It sure is, and that’s why many are wondering if guest posting is a dying idea. If the guest post is well-written and relevant, and if the site it’s posted to is high-quality and authoritative, then there’s no problem. The trouble is that almost never happens. Either the guest post is low-grade or the site hosting it is. Rarely do both sides of that equation ever add up to anything you’d consider “quality.”

Guest posting can still be done successfully, as long as it’s done sparingly and intelligently. But doing the job right is more important than ever. If you want to host a guest post on your business’s blog—or write one for someone else—follow these key tips.

Guest posts need to be relevant for both sides. If you run an online shoe sales site, you shouldn’t be hosting guest posts about plumbing.Quality is key. If you can’t ensure top-notch quality of a guest post, don’t accept it.Check out who you’re dealing with? Good guest posts will come from those with authority on the subject matter they’re writing about. Check their social networking accounts to ensure that they promote material they write, including guest posts on other people’s websites.Length is still important—300 words is widely considered the “minimum” word count for a webpage to be included in Google’s index.Limit backlinks

Bits Blog: Health Sites Under Scrutiny Over Mining of Data

Millions of people rely on Web sites like WebMD and Health.com for information about depression, sexually transmitted diseases, cancer and other sensitive personal health issues. But it can be difficult for consumers to understand how health sites may capture, analyze and share information about user searches and other activities — even the small minority of people who manage to slog all the way through the privacy policies.

Lisa Madigan, the attorney general of Illinois.
In an effort to increase industry transparency, Lisa Madigan, the attorney general of Illinois, has opened an inquiry into the data-mining practices of some popular health sites.

On Tuesday, she sent letters to officials at eight sites asking for detailed information about their companies’ data collection, data storage and data sharing practices. The sites included: about.com; drugs.com; health.com; mayoclinic.com; menshealth.com; mercola.com; WebMd.com; and weightwatchers.com.

In the letters to the sites’ executives, Ms. Madigan said she was concerned about the potential dissemination of information related to people’s private health concerns.

“Health-related information, which would be protected from disclosure when said in a doctor’s office, can be captured, shared, and sold when entered into a Web site,” she wrote. “These concerns are likely overlooked by consumers, as the disclosures about capturing and sharing their information are often buried in privacy policies not found on websites’ main pages.”

WebMD’s privacy policy, for example, says that the site does not make a user’s personal information – like a name or address — available to third parties for marketing purposes.

But third parties, the privacy policy says, may use non-personal data to target WebMD users with ads related to their interests. The policy added that WebMD may combine personal and nonpersonal information about users on the site, or may collate that data with information gathered from external sources.

Risa Fisher, a spokeswoman for WebMD, said that the company had just received Ms. Madigan’s letter of inquiry and planned to provide the information she requested about its user data practices.

“Privacy is very important to WebMD and our policies are designed to fully protect the personal health information of our users,” Ms. Fisher said.

The Illinois inquiry comes after the publication a few days ago of a research letter in a medical journal reporting that some popular health portals leaked information about users’ health searches to third parties, like social networks or ad networks, operating on their Web sites.

For his research, Marco D. Huesch, a health care policy researcher at the Sol Price School of Public Policy at University of Southern California searched for content related to depression, herpes and cancer on 20 popular health-related Web sites.

In the letter about his study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine, he said that 13 of those sites used third-party tracking elements like cookies or social media plug-ins. Seven of the sites, he wrote, leaked his health searches to third-party trackers.

Although Mr. Huesch wrote that he could not determine whether the third parties misused the information, he found the leakage of the health searches worrisome in itself.

“The ramifications could span embarrassment, discrimination in the labor market,” Mr. Huesch wrote, “or the deliberate decision by marketers not to offer or advertise particular goods and services to an individual, based solely on the companies’ privately gathered knowledge.”

The online advertising industry is keenly aware of such concerns.

This year, the Network Advertising Initiative, an industry self-regulatory association for third-party digital ad companies, revised its code of conduct to require that its members obtain user permission before collecting information about certain specific health conditions.

The conditions that would require user permission include “all types of cancer, mental health related conditions, and sexually transmitted diseases,” the revised code said, but not acne, high blood pressure, heartburn, cold and flu, or cholesterol management.

The self-regulatory group has nearly 100 members, according to its site. The updated version of code of conduct is scheduled to take effect next year.

Antitrust Scrutiny of Telecoms in Europe

BRUSSELS — European Union antitrust authorities said on Thursday that they had investigated major telecommunications companies, including Deutsche Telekom of Germany, on suspicion that the companies were using their dominant market positions to limit Internet providers’ access to their networks.

The European Commission, the executive arm that oversees antitrust policy across the 28-member bloc, did not identify the companies or say how many had been inspected in the operation, which took place Wednesday.

But Deutsche Telekom confirmed on its Web site that a raid had occurred, adding that e-mails and other data had been seized. Reuters reported that the authorities had also raided the offices of Orange of France and Telefónica of Spain.

Big telecommunications companies provide the networks that link smaller sites, like movie-streaming services, to the Web, effectively acting as a gateway. In a statement, the commission said it was concerned that the companies may have violated antitrust rules “that prohibit the abuse of a dominant market position.” Those companies provide services “crucial for the functioning of the Internet” so consumers can gain access to “Internet content with the necessary quality,” it said.

Inspections are a preliminary step in an antitrust investigation. Companies found to have broken European Union competition laws can be fined as much as 10 percent of their annual global sales.

Cogent Communications, a company based in Washington that sells Internet access to third parties, said the inspections were probably linked to complaints it had filed in Germany against Deutsche Telekom and in France against Orange, previously known as France Télécom.

Dave Schaeffer, the chief executive of Cogent, said by telephone that the major telecommunications companies in France, Germany and Spain were impeding his business by refusing to upgrade congested networks. The result, he said, was that services for Cogent clients like Netflix, the film-streaming service, or YouTube, the online video-sharing site, would be slowed or difficult to access.

He cited Dailymotion, the French video-sharing site that is owned by Orange. “For example, Orange owns the direct competitor to YouTube,” Mr. Schaeffer said. Orange “wants French consumers to use Dailymotion instead of YouTube.”

The French state holds a stake of about 27 percent in Orange. This year, the government of President François Hollande expressed its objections to plans by Yahoo to buy a controlling stake in Dailymotion.

Mr. Schaeffer said his company had discussed the matter with the commission but that Cogent had not submitted a formal complaint. He said national authorities in France and Germany had rejected his company’s complaints against Orange and Deutsche Telekom but that Cogent was appealing the French decision. Cogent has also had difficulties in Spain but has not filed a complaint there, he said.

Deutsche Telekom said on its Web site that it was “surprised by the initiation of further investigations by the commission into the global market for Internet traffic, since previous allegations have all turned out to be unfounded.”

“Similar investigations carried out by national regulatory bodies, who have also dealt with the issue in great detail, have also been abandoned,” it said. “This market is dominated by major providers based in the United States, which means we are not the right target for these investigations.”

Watchdog defends review of IRS conservative scrutiny

WASHINGTON - The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, facing criticism of his findings that tax authorities targeted Tea Party-linked groups for extra scrutiny, said his office did not find evidence that the term "progressives" was used to target liberal-leaning groups.

As the Internal Revenue Service Tea Party controversy turned inward on itself, with investigators themselves under scrutiny, J. Russell George said in a letter to Democrats that his office found the IRS did not scrutinize conservative and progressive groups equally.

George said that 30 percent of the groups with "progressive" in their names appeared to get extra scrutiny for potential political activity, compared 100 percent for "Tea Party" groups.

Republicans said George's letter weakens the Democrats argument that the IRS targeted liberal groups, too.

"So far, the evidence only shows conservatives being systematically targeted by the IRS, not just flagged," Republican Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp said.

The letter was released ahead of the latest in a series of congressional hearings on the controversy, which led last month to the ouster of the chief of the IRS by President Barack Obama and an FBI investigation.

As weeks have passed, the IRS fight has become politically charged with Republicans trying to pin the IRS practices to the White House, while Democrats have tried to put a lid on the affair and turn attention to George.

George signed a May 14 audit report that accused the IRS of targeting applications for tax-exempt status from non-profit conservative political groups, such as those aligned with the Tea Party movement, for extra scrutiny. The report set off a furor surrounding the IRS.

Democrats argued George's letter said for the first time that some liberal groups were given scrutiny alongside conservative groups.

Democratic Representative Sander Levin said on Thursday that George was "not forthright" with members of Congress about the level of scrutiny applied by the IRS to liberal groups - such as those that might have "progressive" in their name - when they applied for tax-exempt status.

Ways and Means Committee Democrats on Thursday asked Camp to have George testify about the report's findings.

GOP REQUESTED REPORT

Republican Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that is leading the IRS investigation, said in a statement that Democrats were blowing out of proportion the use of "progressive" key words by equating liberal groups' experiences with that of Tea Party groups.

Issa requested the TIGTA report in 2012 after Tea Party groups complained that their applications were being delayed.

In the letter, addressed to Levin, George wrote, "We reviewed all cases that the IRS identified as potential political cases and did not limit our audit to allegations related to the Tea Party."

The acting IRS chief, Danny Werfel, told lawmakers on Thursday some tax-exempt applicants will be getting letters soon saying they are eligible for fast-track approval.

In its internal investigation, the IRS is looking for possible criminal intent as well as political bias by staffers who gave extra scrutiny to the conservative applicants, Werfel said at a Ways and Means Committee hearing. So far, the IRS has found no intentional wrongdoing by employees.

Follow me on Twitter @sajilpl