Astonishing stuff. Nice to see TW under Jim's care. Who's have thought this thing would still be going in 2013!

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So earlier today there was a thread on here about Rand Fishkin and BlackHat Link Building. It was posted by Shoemoney, and later Shoemoney decided to delete the thread here.

So what's the word?

Are we back or not? is fantomaster here?

May I suggest you remove all profile links and-in message links. They are not needed.

Then maybe consider banning all new signups without recommendation for a few weeks.

If you get enough time, that's the conversation you may engage in with people who invite you buy a PR1 link for $1:

{Update: The PM option is back but feel free to suggest other features you'd like to see here!}

In the last few years since Threadwatch has been having a holiday there have been a lot of changes.

At least we've still got bollocks!

bollocks has always been the essence of this place and people will revolt if you take heir bollocks away

Matt Cutts, a senior software engineer for Google, says that piling links onto a competitor's site to reduce its search rank isn't impossible, but it's extremely difficult."

Oh this is great shit. -- Google calls for more limits for Microsoft Enjoy the BS Full Story

So we all know about the 419ers, the phishers, the pump-n-dumpers & everything in between. Well there's a new email scam out there and its a bit darker.

Today I would like to point out these great Google Results ...

Developer Chad Upton came across some really colorful debug statements from Google developers in YouTube.

Who doesn't love a little parody in the morning?

Nothing new about google recycling an old concept and launching it as "new" but launching a product that didn't even pass the "creepy test" with AMAZON?

It sounds like they dispatched cars, drivers and GPS enabled cell phones to gather this data and while I'm sure its not as creepy as it looks, I'm not sure how they'll overcome the "icky" factor.

Global growth is a pipe dream if you can't crack China and it looks like google met its Waterloo. Probably reason #1 why the stock price is stalled.

Baidu understands Chinese better - proof positive that google is more social phenomena than anything else and that is a pretty weak model.

SEOUL, South Korea - Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said Wednesday that U.S. regulatory approval of his company's proposed acquisition of DoubleClick will not be hindered by concerns over privacy.

Funny stuff.. they exclude Google, but list a bunch of firms that even lost value over the past year... BTW.. make sure to use the CNN search powered by Yahoo! while you are there...

Google recent acquisition trail seems a bit like a kid, who has just realised you can do things with money, being given $100 and let loose down the candy store by their extremely rich parents.