Image by Hajo de Reijger, politicallyillustrated.com

For the past year I’ve been seeing headline blogs analyzing the effect of Google’s last algorithm update, dubbed the Panda. There was much talk of unfair relegation from the first page of Google search results, and general indignance by the SEO community.

As with any subject in which I only have cursory knowledge I didn’t think much of it. I thought that as long as I didn’t engage in link-buying and whatever is known as “black hat” tactics, the search engines would be fair. What I didn’t realise with Google was how subjective it has become in ranking websites. I was particularly tripped up in the area of duplicate content.

Some of my articles are syndicated to DZone.com, a hub for tech bloggers. They’d approached me about a year ago asking if I’d like them to carry our content. It seemed like a good way to gain visibility so I agreed.

Recently, I ran a Google search on the actual content that was syndicated and found the following results:

Perhaps syndication wasn’t such a good idea after all.

Now DZone.com’s pagerank is a 6 while iheavy.com is a 3. Google’s algorithm is probably weighing the pagerank of Dzone higher, and serving up those results at the expense of the original. It could be that the algorithms can’t determine which is original but Google’s bots know full well when content is published, so it knows the iheavy.com content was created before.

More likely it cannot supersede the ranking algorithm. It is one based on popularity.

What’s Original Content?

All of this raises the question of the value of original content. In this case we’ve given this site permission to carry our content, not knowing whether that would be good or bad for us. Nevertheless, it does seem to go against common sense, and perhaps what Internet users intuition might tell them, that they were not clicking through to the original creator of some content.

Can Google’s Algorithm Value *See* Original Work? Is there an incentive to do so?

The update brings up interesting questions about Google’s ranking algorithm. In a world where the popularity indicator is given the highest weight, will we find what we are looking for? In my case, I write articles related to my area of expertise, which is on web architecture, scalability and general tech consulting matters. Of course I want people to find my site when they’re looking for solutions to problems relevant to them. Yet in Google’s calculations, popularity trumps provenance.

Many bigger sites are experiencing the same thing and at an even larger scale. According to SEO Moz, Panda is forcing a change onto the role of SEOs, turning them into that of web strategists. While traditional SEO methods of optimizing for keywords, and putting out quality content still count, design and user experience, shareability, likeability; what’s known as “signals” that could predict the site’s popularity, are influencing the overall results of your site.

As an independent business owner with limited resources my time off hours is invested in writing better articles that appeal to people searching for MySQL or scalability consulting and less about putting in the bells and whistles to raise site popularity. But if that’s what Google favors then I’ll probably have to rethink my approach.

As much as I can squeeze out of a busy schedule, there’s not a high chance that this website can surpass a giant such as Dzone in popularity.

The Internet is meant to be a place where the pint-sized can have a fair chance at making an impression. With the way search algorithms have evolved, things are looking more like a reality TV talent contest where skill alone without good looks and a nice smile are just not enough to win the popular vote.

For more articles like these go to iHeavy, Inc +1-212-533-6828

News/Events/Feedback
MariaDB 5.5 features - 5.5 is now GA!

IOUG podcast about MySQL Connect and the new Development Milestone Release (DMR) of MySQL 5.6.

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News/Events/Feedback
We are very thankful for our listeners! Last week we won a MySQL Community Contributor of the Year award (Sarah Novotny, Gerry Narvaja and Sheeri Cabral, who have all been hosts, won the award). Here's a picture of the award we all won.

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News/Events/Feedback
We are very thankful for our listeners! Last week we won a MySQL Community Contributor of the Year award (Sarah Novotny, Gerry Narvaja and Sheeri Cabral, who have all been hosts, won the award). Here's a picture of the award we all won.

read more

I picked up Phil Simon's The Age of the Platform after running into his blog, and some of his writing online. Simon is an interesting guy with an obvious strong technical background. He's also an accomplished speaker and you can find several videos of his speaking online.

The first thing that struck me about this book was how it came to be. The book was funded through Kickstarter, an online platform for people to fund their creative projects. Perhaps it was Simon trying to drive home the point of his book. But it gets better, he self-published the book through Motion Publishing. Furthermore the book isn't cheap for a paperback at $20. That said I admire that he has obviously eaten his own dog food, as the proverbial saying goes, and done it himself.

The premise of the book is that we're entering a new age exemplified by four companies, namely Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple. He takes us through a quick history of each company, then illustrates their successes and how each of them have successfully created platforms to extend their reach.

Apple did something amazing when they created the Appstore, which boosted demand for their products just a bit more each time a new app is developed for their platform. Google has strong gravitational pull with their platform by building endless free services from email to instant message and voice, to the news, maps & shopping. And let's not forget Amazon who are putting a storefront in your hands with their Kindle, and expanding in other directions with their datacenter technologies. And last but surely not least comes Facebook, who've also obviously gained much by allowing third parties to build apps and extend their own platform.

Simon describes these 'platforms' as a new economic phenomenon. I think large firms have done this in the past, such as Microsoft, Oracle or Kodak. Further one might argue car makers, with the endless variety of third party suppliers & accessories support a huge ecosystem as well.

Another argument that seemed to prevail in the book is that the gang of four embrace openness and that this is something new. Certainly these four embrace openness in certain areas. But overall I would argue that they like many firms that have come before them, embrace openness when they are being disruptive to existing businesses, while they exhibit the same territorial monopolistic tendencies when they are protecting their own established business. Google has shown this in dealing with affiliates dismissively, Apple has shown this by not allowing certain apps into the app store which pose a competitive risk, Facebook exhibits this tendency when trying to export your data, profile, events or photo albums out of the service. And even Amazon has been tempted by and accused of using old economy tactics to pressure publishers for bigger discounts.

Should we all jump on the platform?

Simon's premise also seems to include the idea that you and me, small business owners or sole proprietors can use these same concepts, to build our own businesses in new and exciting directions. In fact he says that we must do this or face obsolesence. Now while I admit that it is certainly important to watch trends, and not allow the changing winds of business and technology to leave us without customers or clients, it's not at all clear to me that focusing on one thing and doing it well is a recipe for failure. The folks at 37 Signals have illustrated this so well with Basecamp. So has Chip Conley has with his chain of Joie de Vivre Hospitality hotels. Read more about his business philosophies in his great book Peak - How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow.

What's more I definitely think great companies have failed in the past by trying to innovate in areas not close to core business.

So overall I think Simon has some good ideas, I think he's stretched it a bit in trying to point out an underlying trend calling this an age of the platform. If we must call it something it's simply the age of the Internet, the age of disruption.

For more articles like these go to MySQL Expert, Linux, EC2 & Scalability Consulting NYC

News:
The MySQL developer’s room at FOSDEM has almost 40 submissions, and only about a dozen slots, so they need your vote to figure out what sessions will be presented. Send in your votes via twitter or e-mail, see Giuseppe's blog post and session descriptions.

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As with everything, there are downsides to remote database management.  Even though there is a lot of architecture experience among the remote DBAs I know, we are not often invited to architecture meetings.  This is because time is the unit of currency, and while sitting in an hour-long meeting to give 5 minutes of feedback can save hours down the road, it's hard to see that.  Many clients have gotten around this by having all DDL checked and performed by remote DBAs, and that helps a lot.

There is also no ownership - we can recommend solutions and technologies, but the client makes the actual decision about whether something needs to be done or not.  I look forward to actually owning architecture after 4 years of making "strong recommendations".

Since folks will ask, I have taken a job as a Senior DBA/Architect with Mozilla, starting Monday.  A former co-worker told me about the job; I was not particularly looking for anything, but I was intrigued.

I have said before that it is hard to find a good in-house DBA if you are not a huge company like Facebook or Google or Yahoo, and that is still true.  At Mozilla, they are 100% open and public about their ideas, and they do a lot of behind-the-scenes work.  Sound familiar?

They also allow their developers to develop on whatever platforms work best.  Their biggest database is their crash reporting database (and they do read it, so do submit your crashes).  They have MySQL, PostgreSQL, and MongoDB, and are starting to move some applications around, as developers are not always aware of what platforms will work best.  There is another DBA, so I will not be alone, but I expect to be just as challenged at Mozilla as I have been at PalominoDB and Pythian.

So, to keep up with PalominoDB, you can:

- like the PalominoDB page on Facebook

- follow @palominodb on Twitter

- connect with Laine on LinkedIn

- follow PalominoDB on LinkedIn

- continue to read PalominoDB's blog and Planet MySQL

To keep up with me, you can:

- follow @sheeri on Twitter

- read my blog and Planet MySQL

- connect with me on LinkedIn

- subscribe to the OurSQL podcast (details at http://www.oursql.com/?page_id=2)

Fig 1. Master/Slave topology

Legend

Fig 2. Fan-in slave, or multiple sources

Fig 3. all-to-all three nodes

Fig 4. All-to-all four nodes

Fig 5. All-masters star topology

Fig 6. extending an all-to-all topology

Fig 7. Extending a star topology