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The Official Google Blog announced a new tool that shows webmasters their inbound links through Google Webmaster Central. This tool replaces the broken link: operator and is thoroughly explained on the Google Webmaster Blog here.

The tool provides links differentiated by external and internal links. External links are links that direct to your site that are located outside of your domain. Internal links are links that direct to pages on your site and are located on your domain. A new "Links" tab was added within the Webmaster Central tool which allows you to see external and internal as well as links to specific pages on your site. This data can also be downloaded through the Webmaster interface.

Thank you Google for providing us with a valuable tool to evaluate link information.

99% of the world thinks he's a no talent, money grubbing, poor, white trash excuse for a human being, but Mr. Kevin Federline stole the Super Bowl commercial competition with his Nationwide advertisement tonight. Self-deprecating humor always works best and he pulls it off to perfection.

Kevin Rose announced today that Digg will be removing their "Top Diggers" list in order to combat Digg gaming.

First, let's praise Digg and Kevin Rose for being open enough to admit that Digg gaming is a serious problem if only in perception. Admitting that there is a potential problem definitely deserves credit and talking about the issue in a public manner shows a level of corporate transparency that I appreciate (I wish more companies could follow suit *ahem* Google *ahem*). Although many will debate exactly what the impact of the decision will be, it's definitely a step in the right direction because ranking systems always end up creating a competitive atmosphere leading to mass submissions (creating signal to noise ratio issues), potential Digg gaming and the ability of the few to influence the masses.

However, there's a lot to be concerned about when Digg's founders state that they "strongly believe attempts to game Digg are ineffective". I'm sorry, but the evidence that Digg followers have gathered about friends Digging other people's stories 100% of the time, domains being unfairly banned through over submission, top diggers getting duplicates promoted when others have submitted the same story and other issues show that Digg can be successfully gamed. I have seen SEO forum posts where post creators ask for readers to exchange diggs for certain articles. For Digg to acknowledge the issue and then proclaim it a non-factor should definitely raise red flags to the attentive reader.

What are the impacts of this change?

First, whenever you remove a "competitive incentive", you'll see user contribution decline - not exactly a desired effect when dealing with a social news website. This effect probably will be negligible, but it will occur as people can't see their name on the Top Diggers list. Second, users will no longer be able to blindly add Top Diggers to their friends list and will probably be more encouraged to befriend those users that have similar beliefs and viewpoints. However, Top Diggers from before this move will still have their loyal following so long as they still contribute to Digg, they will be able to influence which stories receive Front Page prosperity. Third, there will be very little effect in terms of eliminating Digg gaming. Many Digg applications have been developed such as average user comment ratings so Digg page scraping is already occurring (Digg APIs are floating around that make it easy for the average programmer to provide this information). Therefore, it's forseeable that those intending to game Digg will be able to still identify volume submitters and potentially influence which stories they submit and digg. In addition, top diggers weren't necessarily the "gaming" problem source as it was more with the lower users and networks built through communities outside of Digg.

With all these things being said, it's still the right move by the Digg leadership. With social news sites where a single voice should be able to influence what readers see, taking out "competition" between users will definitely end up a step in the right direction. Digg will be able to find other ways to offer incentives to their power users in the future that will be more beneficial than publically displaying their Digg rank. I look forward to seeing how Digg rewards its power users (disclosure: I am not one of the power users) and the overall, long-run impact of this change.

And this is why I love Google.

Google announced that they will be offering free real-time stock quotes once the SEC approves their proposal. Now, this isn't a done deal; however, the progress being made in the financial data area is very exciting. Hopefully, this deal gets done and the information not only becomes accessible to the public, but available through a Google Financial Data API.

However, what's the moral of this story? What do you read between the lines?

I would point to this as an example of the potential power of corporate blogging. When was the last time a company put its "cards on the table" before a final deal was struck? Google is putting the screws to the SEC and Wall Street by getting their "free data (read - love) for all" approach out to the public while their efforts are being held up by the "big bad" SEC. Corporate blogging, especially from Internet powerhouses like Google, has hit the mainstream and is now being reported on by social news sites, traditional news sites, other blogs and the print media. Hopefully, more companies see the value in blogging and provide the public not only with propoganda, but useful information and alerts.

I know he won the Gonzaga game basically by himself. I know that he has shot the ball much better from the outside this year. I know that without him Scheyer's game will suffer immensely and completely change the way Jon plays. With that being said, Duke fans, coaches and players should all be saying the same thing -

Greg Paulus must sit.

I believe I've figured out what's wrong with Paulus as a point guard on the offensive end. Paulus, when making a move on a defender, is only dribbling the ball 3 to 4 times before picking up his dribble no matter where he is on the court and no matter which direction he is facing. I believe he's so overly concerned with running the Duke motion offense and not pounding the air out of the ball that's he leaving himself in terrible, non-assist positions. Watch the games - he will take 3 to 4 dribbles against a defender and pick up his dribble looking for an "attacking" type pass (an attacking pass is a pass that moves the ball closer to the opponent's hoop). If that pass has been cut off by the defender, he then turns his back to the opponent's hoop and tries to make a non-attacking pass around the peremiter - a pass he's throwing all too frequently. It's because of his lack of penetration and lack of attacking passes that the Duke offense suffers tremendously and forces his teammates, especially McRoberts, to catch passes too far away from the basket.

Why has Greg Paulus' play suffered so much this year? Here's a few of the many reasons -

• The JJ Hangover - Last year, Duke only had two scoring options and in many games it really only had one - JJ Redick. If Paulus made that non-aggressive swing pass along the perimiter last year, it quite frequently landed in the hands of Redick who was running free off a screen and who would launch from all distances. This year, Paulus doesn't have the aggressive, #1 option on the floor with him at all times since this Duke team scores more by committee than they did last year. Jon Scheyer and DeMarcus Nelson, while both good outside shooters, don't possess the green light to shoot the ball like Redick did last year due to differences in talent, experience and trust.
  
  
• Size Matters - Guys, no matter what the ladies say, this is a fact of life. Paulus, in the few games he has played well in this year, competed against guards of comparable size. Gonzaga's Ravio is built like a sophomore in high school and Paulus actually owned a strength advantage against him. Now, in ACC conference play, Paulus will be matched up against very physical, taller, longer and quicker guards. This causes Paulus a major problem and you can see its effect by the way he dribbles the basketball. When Paulus has to make a penetrating move against a longer, taller, more athletic opponent, look at his shoulders in relation to the basket. Very rarely will you see Paulus with his shoulders squared to the basket in a position to take his defender either way off the dribble. Ninety percent of the time Paulus has to turn one way or the other to "shield" the defender away from his dribble which severely limits his ability to distribute the ball, to penetrate and to see the court.
  
  
• Physical Conditioning - Paulus is coming off an offseason injury which has effected his play this year without a doubt. However, when I look at pictures of him this year as compared to last, I question what type of physical conditioning he's in. He seems to have lost definition in his arms, he gets those neck fat rolls now when he dribbles, he's sporting the beginnings of a double chin, his forearms look flabby and generally just seems slower this year which could explain his lack of penetration. This is all unconfirmed because I don't have access to body fat tests, I don't see him in practice, etc., but just a cursory glance at photos and videos has led me to this conclusion.
  
  
• The Ball-less Statue - Where are the cuts down the lane we saw during the Gonzaga game? Paulus, too frequently during offensive possessions, doens't dip down to the basket and instead just roams around the perimeter in what I would call a passive, supporting role. He needs to stretch the defense, make his defender work and try to create seperation by moving without the ball.
  
  
• "I Think I Can, I Think I Can" - Although confidence is an issue with almost every athlete, the analysts are blowing the confidence issue well out of proportion. Sure, being excluded from the starting lineup against Georgia Tech is going to weight on his mind and potentially cause him to overthink his actions on the court. However, if that's the case, you must sit him and alleviate the "Duke's Starting Point Guard" pressures off of him until he matures. I truly believe if it was purely a confidence issue then Paulus would have snapped out of it after the Gonzaga game, but instead he has regressed even further.

The reasons above only talk about Paulus' offensive game. Do I even need to discuss why Paulus hurts Duke on the defensive end? He can't guard a plant (and not the plants Rick Majerus described that grow in Florida classrooms), he causes the interior defense to collapse off their men to stop penetration and hurts the rebounding game.

The most troubling part about this entire discussion is that Duke needs Greg Paulus to be the point guard they expected he would be. They don't have the personnel at the point to absorb too much time on the bench for Paulus. Although a lineup of Scheyer, Nelson, Henderson, Thomas and McRoberts looks great on paper, having Scheyer run the point leaves Nelson as the only legitimate threat on the perimeter who won't have to worry about ball handling responsibilities.

What can Paulus do to fix his offensive struggles?

• Square his shoulders more when dribbling the ball outside on the perimeter
• Move more without the basketball, specifically, more cuts down the middle of the lane
• Stop picking up his dribble after a very predictable number of bounces when trying to make an offensive move
• Penetrate and shoot more often, but only as the situation allows for it

Until Duke figures out their point guard situation, it's going to be a very, very long year.

I have to thank Search Engine Journal for posing one of the better questions so far of 2007 - does Digg belong in Google's index? (Actually, as you read the SEJ article, Allen Stern seems to have posed this question first.)

So, Does Digg belong in Google's search index?

First, a lot of people have weighed in on this topic since the initial people posed this subject and almost all of them are just plain wrong not because of where they sit on the issue, but more because the facts they used to support their arguments do not make sense or are completely false. What are some of the arguments for both sides and what are the misconceptions?

Pros

Although I believe that each website should have its own individualistic design and feel, having well-written guides for inspiration and to see what the rest of the industry seems to find attractive (on the whole) can often be useful. One of the best Web 2.0 design guides that I have read in a long time was produced by the owners of Web Design from Scratch.

What makes this design guide better than all the rest is its in-depthness, layout, information given, topics covered and clear presentation. First, the entire article, which is very detailed, is presented on a single page. This can't be understated since there has been an increase in websites attempting to increase advertising revenue and clickthroughs by taking a guide/review and splitting it up into several pages so more ads and pageviews can be counted. Next, a clear and simple Table of Contents exists at the top of the article for navigational ease again adding to the terrific presentation.

Most importantly is the content provided. The presentation concepts for the nebulous term of Web 2.0 are captured pretty concisely and backed up with examples that don't all just look the same. Icons, gradients, fonts, color schemes and other Web 2.0 "concepts" are not only explained, but the reader is also given a few contrasting examples to see different ways that a technique can be implemented. Definitely check this guide out to spur some design ideas.

Well, this news puts the lockdown to the SEO project I was working on.

Google has very quietly ended support for the SOAP Search API which allowed SEOs like myself to query the search engine through a SOAP call and take those results and build reports for those looking to measure their site's performance within the search engine. Now, the results from the search engine definitely weren't accurate as manual searches for terms displayed much different results than the SOAP generated results. However, it still provided a valuable tool to SEOs to paint a broad picture of their site's performance.

No more SOAP API keys are being issued and it is unclear as to when the SOAP server will be taken offline rendering all these SOAP driven applications useless.

Google is now directing their coders to the AJAX Search API which is more restrictive than the previous SOAP API. However, now Google requires that a valid URL send the request to the Google server and you can no longer run background processes to gather these results. This means an end to the SEO report generator as we know it and a switch to "illegal" page scraping will most likely occur. I'll reserve judgement on all of this until I fully explore the alternatives, but I definitely see this as an unnecessary restriction that just encourages the more intensive page scraping.

Although Google has been a certified registrar for a few years I believe, Google just announced that you can buy your domain names from them for $10 per year. However, and this might scare some off, they partnered with GoDaddy and eNom to provide this service as opposed to doing it themselves.

What's worse than the partnership?

If you don't go through Google and go through their partners directly, it's actually cheaper. So, what exactly is the benefit from registering your domain with Google (or in this case GoDaddy or eNom)? Answer - none that I can see unless your domains suddenly become more trusted in their ranking algorithm. What are the potential drawbacks? Well, for those black hat SEOs looking to link trade between their sites, Google will now be able to link sites owned by the same individual/holding company and treat those links with a lower weight than backlinks from independent sites (although as I wrote this, I wonder if they have already had access to this information since they are a certified registrar - I would assume yes).

However, even with all that said, I'll probably move my domains to Google because it's actually cheaper than my current registrar - Register.com (brutal decision by me, I know but it's been easier to renew their than run the risk of having the domain transfer not go smoothly). Go Google - I tie my life into you just a little more today.

Google has announced on their official corporate blog the availability of their newest product - the Google Patent Search. While sporting a very similar interface as to their otehr search pages, the Google Patent Search also has a neat feature that displays the technical drawings of a few patents below the search box.

Important to note is the "what types of patents are available" section of the Patent Search Help document. There it states that "We don’t currently include patent applications, international patents, or U.S. patents issued over the last few months, but we look forward to expanding our coverage in the future" which means that this isn't a real-time list currently so looking for ground breaking patent information is pretty fruitless at this point. However, if at some point Google does get patents indexed as soon as they are granted, valuable tools could be built showing breaking patent news and discussing their potential impact.