Search Headlines – Fox didn’t buy YouTube

Did Fox News just buy YouTube?

We’re not sure yet if this is fact or fiction, but Digg is reporting (in a somewhat sketchy post) that Fox News Corp just shelled out $580 million to acquire YouTube. Could it be true? If so, this is very big news, however, we’re still looking for another source to confirm it. Meanwhile, cynical Susan is crying big fat lie.

John Battelle interviews Matt Cutts

John Battelle and partner-in-crime Melanie Colburn spent the past month email-interviewing Matt Cutts. The result is a very good read. For me, the most interesting part of the interview came as Matt discussed the role human intervention plays in the Google algorithm.

“When savvy people think about Google, they think about algorithms, and algorithms are an important part of Google. But algorithms aren’t magic; they don’t leap fully-formed from computers like Athena bursting from the head of Zeus. Algorithms are written by people. People have to decide the starting points and inputs to algorithms. And quite often, those inputs are based on human contributions in some way.”

It’s important to remember that just because Google doesn’t manipulate search results or the stories appearing in Google News, the algorithm was designed by a human, which means some bias has been entered into the equation. No algorithm is 100 percent objective, both with its content and sources.

SEW was more interested in Matt’s comments concerning W3C and using the meta nofollow tag. You may be too.

Evil Matt Cutts!

Speaking of Matt, this is kind of hilarious. SEO Home (via SEW) located the slightly evil mirror version of Matt Cutts blog. The crazy behind the blog rewords Matt’s entries to make them spout evil instead of holy Matt goodness.

Remember Matt’s post about verifying Googlebot? Well evilMatt tells you how to verify Googlebot and then eat it and cook it. Hmm, I think evilMatt needs a hug. Look how he attacks my poor Ask:

“Speaking of Ask Jeeves, we kicked their asses so bad Jeeves ran away and left just Ask. Now they want you to "try" their new approach to search engines? HA! We could buy your little company with my Christmas bonus.”

Okay, fine, that was funny.

Yahoo linked to click fraud. Again.

BusinessWeek’s recent click fraud article garnered a lot of attention last week, but what few touched on was that it once again linked Yahoo! to the controversial issue. Part of the article focused on a company called MostChoice.com, who says Yahoo! charged them more than $10,000 last year in fraudulent clicks coming from Oemji.com.

“Ninety percent of the clicks came from such places as Mongolia, Vietnam, and Honduras, where MostChoice does no business. Only eight clicks, less than 0.3%, turned into sales, compared with 30% or more from clicks on ads on Yahoo’s own Web site.”

Very not good. It looks like more click fraud trouble is headed Yahoo!’s way, but we’ll have to wait and see where this one goes.

Fun Finds

Kathy Sierra shows users how to make powerful sites easier to use without neutering them. An excellent read.

Google Video lets viewers watch the premiere episode of House of Carters for free. Oh, please. Stop pretending you don’t know who Nick Carter is.

Lisa Barone is a writer, content marketer & VP of strategy at Overit Media. She's also a very active Twitterer, much to the dismay of the rest of the world.

See Lisa's author page for links to connect on social media.