"Bait and switch" is when we list a site based on its content, and then the
webmaster changes the content to something else "not related." For us, it is
sabotage -- the single most harmful thing a webmaster can do to the directory.
We take it very seriously. Normally we immediately go on a crusade to expunge
all that webmaster's sites with extreme prejudice. This is not "revenge" -- this
is our way to protect the directory from further acts of sabotage.If we weren't
talking to you here, that's where your sites would be already. They aren't yet,
but you need to understand that this is deadly serious to us. And, now that you
understand that, there need to be no more "switches." OK, for now both sites are
removed from the directory. I repeat, this is not the permanent ban. Yet. Since
you're here and we can talk to you, we can try to start fresh. Another background
bit of information: the ODP is not a listing service for the benefit of you, the
webmaster. It's a site finding service for the benefit of surfers. Our guideline
is: if a site is useful for surfers and we can list it, then we do. There are two
parts there. It has to be useful. And sometime in the past, your automotive site
convinced an editor it might be useful. (That's a high compliment -- most
automotive classified sites are not accepted.)But the other part is, we have to
be able to list it. And this implies, we have to have a definition of a "site"
so we can distinguish what constitutes a "site"; that definition has to
distinguish few enough different "sites" that we can list them all. This means
we don't try to list every page of every site: just the main page. And when we
see one entity with multiple domain names, we treat all the content on all the
domains as one site, if that makes sense. Now, classified ads sites are, um,
oversubmitted. Most of them are worthless, and many people who have a
classified-ads engine try to abuse us by creating lots of little sites that use
the same (or similar) engines on lots of different topics, and then submit them
all to us. But much larger, name-brand, reputable classified-ads sites have only
one listing because they aren't depending on spamming us for their promotion, so
they put everything on one domain. That's not fair to the users, and it's
certainly not fair to the good sites. So we are very strict on "entities." One
entity, one site unless there's a really good reason otherwise. And having
several different classifications of ads is not a good reason. Here's where you
came in, unwittingly imitating the techniques of the "ancient legions of
big-time spammers." And -- no problem, we know how to handle that, we've had
lots of practice: "Find the main page, list it, problem taken care of." We don't
want much flexibility in the guidelines here: we're better served by letting you
link to all your own pages (no matter what domain they are on) and leting us
focus on reviewing someone else's site. Until the bait-and-switching started up.
(Well, we know how to solve that problem, too, if necessary.)So we won't ask
"how can you get two listings?" We'll discuss "do you get one or zero listings?
If you get one, which is the best URL to use, and which is the best category to
put it in?"So talk to us:-- Commit to one main URL (we don't care how many other
URLs you have so long as you don't submit them; if you need to change the main
URL, we have an "update URL" link)-- Commit to leaving the major types of
content be accessible from that URL (we don't mind additions or changes in
content, so long as the description we have still remains accurate -- or you
request an "Update URL" to correct it).-- Get the basic links in place (we don't
mind site redesigns) and we can look at the site. The forum limits apply: we
can't argue about placement, but we can make sure we're seeing the content you
meant to feature.

It is very interesting and a bit worrying for many SEOs, you can read the whole posting of danny sullivan here,

forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=2976

Google Backlink Update is happening in this datacenter of google, 216.239.39.104, As we know google has been showing only a sample number of backlinks in the link: command for a while, Now the same thing continues too, This backlink update is similar to the recent backlink updates ( showing only a sample list of backlink data ),

This google back link update is first reported in webmasterworld.com

webmasterworld.com/forum3/26815.htm

Quirk 4: "toolbar PageRank and directory PageRank can differ by up to two
units". Given that the toolbar and the directory go up to different maximum
values (10 and 8, yah?), and that in a fully incremental index, updates can
happen asynchronously in one area like the directory compared to the toolbar
display, this wouldn't surprise me an iota.

Who Links To You?
Some words, when followed by a colon, have
special meanings to Google. One such word for Google is the link: operator. The
query link:siteURL shows you pages that point to that URL. For example,
link:www.google.com will show you pages that point to Google's home page. You
cannot combine a link: search with a regular keyword search.

Actually, I think the page has already been changed:
google.com/features.html now just says that it returns links, not "all links"
like it did before. I dropped an email to our webmaster last night after this
thread pointed it out, and I think they managed to change it this
morning.(Thanks to folks for pointing it out, by the way..)

Google Guy as I have always believed is an important person in google company, After lot of research evidence points to Matt Cutts, According to me he is the Googleguy who posts in webmasterworld.com and searchenginewatch.com

The Blogger team has begun the process of internationalizing our
service. While the posting interface and some other pages throughout Blogger are
not yet translated, they soon will be. Meanwhile, right now native speakers of
French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, traditional Chinese, simplified
Chinese, Brazilian Portuguese, and Korean will see an increasingly familiar
version of Blogger in their own languages when they sign in.

As mentioned in a previous post on this blog, we recently received our
first few MSN Bombs. One of these was the phrase "more evil than satan",
which brought up both Google and Microsoft in the top 10 results. A number
of you sent us feedback on this. Well, we just pushed out our latest round of
automated relevance improvements and they changed the results. Now neither
Google nor Microsoft rank in the top 10 any more for this particular
query. Our algorithm changed its mind. Just so you know (since I'm sure
you'll ask), this wasn't a targeted change. We are constantly refining our
ranking algorithms to produce the best, most accurate results, so changes like
this happen all the time. Finally, for the record, we won't be commenting
on the ranking of individual results from here on out. The algorithm
decides! Feel free to send us feedback.

As far as I can tell, the launch today is moving their newest technology from techpreview.search.msn.com to beta.search.msn.com. According to Walt Mossberg at the Wall Street Journal, MSN has promised to move their new technology over to the main search box by the end of January. That's less than 2.5 months, so I recommend that everyone spend their full attention coming up to speed on beta.search.msn.com.
It's very rare to get to see a search engine in transition, because that's the best time to see what the different criteria are for ranking.
Do you see their three sliders? They are for "Very popular vs. less popular", "Exact match vs. approximate match", and "static vs. updated recently." It's really cool to play with these sliders. I'm sure that a lot of WebmasterWorld moderators are off tweaking values to get an idea of how things are computed, and what the relative weight are. For example, if you move the slider all the way to very popular and click search again--viagra.com disappears from the first page! That's a little counterintuitive to me, and it makes for some really interesting speculation about what Microsoft means by popular.
Most search engine optimizers will be fascinated by the ability to play with sliders and try to reverse-engineer how Microsoft is ranking. Not since Nutch have people gotten such a good view at the different components in ranking for a major search engine. Because of that and the fact the MSN has promised their new search will go live by January, I'd get busy playing. :)
Here's one other tidbit I came across while reading this morning. Following on Google and Yahoo's launch of blogs, MSN has launched a blog for its search engine as well: blogs.msdn.com/msnsearch Highly recommended reading--they've got comments enabled, too. I've really enjoyed playing with the new search, and I'd recommend that everyone spend 2-3 days getting familiar with how MSN is ranking pages--I think the effort will pay off.

Everyone who is aware of google guy will definitely understand googleguy is upto something in this post, From what I can see he wants to deceive some dumb SEOs, Definitely he cannot play with the smart ones,

The slider feature is an excellent feature from MSN search engine, Google guy should be really afraid that they don't have that feature, He comments on the viagra authority site not ranking with the slider is increased to most popular, From my Opinion the obvious weight search engines have on backlink anchor text is same with MSN, Googleguy knows it that is what he is trying to say from his post,

"In the process of making our new MSN Search beta broadly available we
experienced some technical difficulties that caused the beta service to function
improperly or be unavailable for some users for periods of time. We're working
through these issues one by one and you should see service availability and
quality improve soon if not already. We apologize for any
inconvenience.
We expected to find some problems in the beta, and we
expect there will also be times when we limit service availability for
maintenance purposes. We want to find those problems in order to help us
build a higher quality product, and we appreciate your help in doing this.
A
few other notes:
1) Several people have reported problems with the search
service and with this blog that appear to be browser compatibility issues with
FireFox. We're working on broad browser support and have done some
specific testing in this area, but it's clear more is needed. Thank you
for the reports.
2) When reporting issues, please include
as much detailed information as you can in your report so that we can reproduce
and fix the bug. E.g. for browser errors, tell us which type of browser,
the version number, and information on any proxy you're using. For
relevance problems, tell us the exact query you entered, any other special
settings you're using, e.g. via search builder, and the resulting URL you
expected to see.
3) The "Help us Improve" link at the bottom of the results
page is an easy way to give us feedback.

"