Lost and found

For the last few days, we've been comparing search engines and evaluating websites in Computer Literacy 1. Part of the problem with search engines is that you never know exactly how their ranking algorithms work. We know some general tricks, yes. For example, lots of links to a site from other highly ranked sites will pump up the site's ranking. That's one way a notorious hate site leveraged its way to the top of a Google search. Well-meaning librarians and teachers were linking to it as a demonstration example for lessons on website evaluation. For a business, the lack of transparency about search algorithms can be devastating. Apparently, Google has a supplemental index, "a holding pen for pages it deems to be of low quality or designed to appear artificially high in search results." Once your site is relegated to this dungeon (called "Google Hell" by marketing people), it's very, very hard to pull it out again. Ouch.

In the found department, our SI swimsuit issue finally arrived. Will someone please remind me why I wanted it? Oh yes, that "principle" business.