SearchInfluence

Have You Been the Target of a Google Places Hit Job? —Search Engine Land
If your company is receiving mediocre/poor reviews on your Google Places page, it is possible that a competitor is sabotaging you. In order to determine if your review is spammy, you should check the source, the volume and validity of the reviewer, and the content of the review. Whether it is spam or a legitimate bad review, you should confront it head on.

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Google’s New Privacy Policy May Violate HIPAA, Congresswoman Says - Search Engine Land
Because Google’s new privacy policy intends to make its services more user-friendly by integrating all of its privacy policies into one.  Some members of Congress, however, fear that this single new policy will violate HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Google states that ads will not be associated with sensitive issues, such as religion, sexual orientation or health, but should Google be forced to comply with HIPAA regulations?

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As first reported by perennial Google watchdog SEOBook, the search engine company has been found using followed paid links for their online marketing, directly in violation of their best practices. Some, including Aaron Wall, see this as further proof of Google’s lack of self-commitment to the values they force on small businesses and other website owners; however, it’s clear that this story’s moral is more far-reaching than simple “Do As I Say, Not As I Do” and even a small business can come away from this story with another case study in outsourcing marketing to a firm.

The most in-depth coverage is from Search Engine Land, who chronicles the story’s discovery, damage control, ...

As the 2012 presidential hopefuls cultivate their public personas through careful manipulation of social media outlets, it’s easy to forget that before the 2008 presidential election, social media had never been used on such a scale.

Politicians had relied on old school phone banks and direct mailing campaigns for decades to mobilize their troops and direct voters to the polls on election day, but the power of the Internet had yet to be fully leveraged in a political campaign.

What was groundbreaking in 2008 has become the standard for the 2012 presidential election, and politicians of all stripes are turning to the power of social networking sites to reach out to potential voters.

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Mr. Spock’s guide to out-of-this-world SEO copywriting — SucessWorks

Attention, Starfleet: the indubitable wisdom of Mr. Spock rings true even in the contemporary world of SEO. Join SuccessWorks’ director and lifelong Trekkie Heather Lloyd-Martin as she discusses some of her favorite Spock quotes and how everyone’s favorite half-Vulcan has wisdom to be applied to even the thorniest of search engine dilemmas.

Miss The Live Q&A With Google’s Matt Cutts? Here It Is. — Search Engine Roundtable

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