It's all about Context
Andrew Orlowski writes about TrackBack as the catastrophe that is ruining Google searches and cites the "empty" TrackBack listing pages that are returned as evidence. I place the word empty in quotes since these pages do actually contain content (albeit sparse content) -- a TrackBack URL to ping, any TrackBacks that were sent and a link to the original weblog post that is, in fact, a post about the topic that is searched.
Now, I could echo what others have said and say that it is not the job of the Web to conform to Google’s search algorithms and mention that the same exact search that Orlowski did in Google brings TrackBack-listing free results in other search engines but I think that Orlowski unintentionally brings up an entirely different point that is in fact valid.
Comment Spam
We've all seen that comment spam is becoming a serious problem. Particularly on Movable Type weblogs, where the generated pages are all very similar in structure and semantics, spammers are abusing comment systems to increase their rank on Google.
Even more frustrating than the spamming problem is the fact that there isn't a simple solution that will work for everyone and that all options have their own sets of pros and cons. During the past couple of months, we've been throwing around ideas at Six Apart about the best ways to combat spammers.
Appearance on Headline News
Ben and I will appearing on Headline News tonight between 8:30 pm and 9:00 pm EST. We'll be talking about TypePad and weblogging. It's a brief segment, perhaps a minute or two so be sure to keep your eyes peeled.
Update: Wow, being on live television is pretty scary. Overall we think it went very well. If you missed the segment, here it is in Quicktime format (3.6 megs).
If you're coming from CNN, welcome. If you're interested in checking out TypePad, please visit TypePad.com. Subscribe in October and receive a 10% lifetime discount.
And if you're wondering what the anchor meant by "2000 downloads," she meant the 2000 beta testers during the beta testing period in June and July. With TypePad, there is nothing to download.
TypePad's Official Launch
We're proud to announce that our new personal weblog service TypePad officially launched yesterday. We've been in Preview Release for a few weeks now, and the response has been so overwhelmingly positive that we felt it was time to formally open the doors and welcome everyone in. Since the Preview Launch, we've fixed a lot of issues with the system thanks to the help of our subscribers, and we've added a few new features in honor of the launch.
New features in the system include the ability to map your own domain name to your TypePad site so that your site would appear at example.com if you own that domain name, in addition to the example.typepad.com address that is included with your TypePad account. There's also more bandwidth for users at the Plus and Pro levels, giving users 3 and 5 gigs per month in data transfer, respectively. Plus, all levels now have the ability to password protect any weblog or photo album for privacy.
We're very excited to have reached this milestone for TypePad, and it marks the culmination of a lot of work by our entire team over the past months. We thank our subscribers for all their support in helping us reach this point, and we can't wait to have everyone give TypePad a try. As an incentive, we're offering a 10% lifetime discount to any member who signs up during the month of October, and if you're interested in getting your friends or family started with their own weblog, we hope you'll recommend TypePad to them.
