Forest Software
Web, SEO and IT & Business Advice for the Smaller Business
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Last updated on April 13th, 2015 at 01:56 pm
Following recent Google updates (specifically the Penguin update that was aimed at poor quality links) there seems to be a lot of SEO firms opening up that say they specialise in getting poor quality links removed if your site has been hit by the Penquin update.
The problem is that many of these firms don’t seem to know what a poor quality link is. Take the example of a directory that lists UK business related sites and adds no-follow to the links. Now then, some people might see a link in a directory and think that it’s a low quality link that needs to be removed and so send the webmaster of the directory a email asking for removal of the link – or even threatening penalties if the link is not removed.
What these people don’t seem to realise is that as you will see in this conversation by John Mu, a Google employee, ” having links (even a large number of them) with rel=nofollow pointing to your site does not negatively affect your site. We take these links out of our PageRank calculations, and out of our algorithms when they use links. “, this means that a no-follow link can not affect your rankings. Continue reading
Reading Time: 2 minutes
Last updated on April 13th, 2015 at 01:56 pm
Copyright owners in England and Wales will now find it much easier to protect their copyright and take action against copyright infringement after the announcement of a new small claims procedure in something called the Patents County Court (PCC).
This PCC small claims track is designed to speed up the court process and reduce the risk of large costs when pursuing basic copyright claims as it is based on informal hearings and no legal representation. You should remember that there is a limit to the amount of costs you can recover in the event of you winning your claim – this is limited to £90 a day for court fees and loss of earnings with a maximum claim of £260 if you win.
It’s expected that the main people to benefit from this new scheme will be those individuals and small businesses working in the creative industries such as craft workers, photographers graphic designers and even web designers. Continue reading