Ok, so let me just say that I definitely called this one about 9 months back when I saw this as a LABS feature in Google Webmaster Tools!  Site SPEED is now a FACTOR in the Google Algorithm!  Your SLOW sites now need to be optimized for SPEED! The faster the pages load, the higher your rankings! I have been working on this on my own site ever since I first predicted this day. You may not WANT to migrate your site to a faster server, but when your rankings drop you’ll now know why! This can be done by reducing the amount of external requests off of your site, reducing the number of stylesheets, minimizing the size of your images to just BARELY be not fuzzy looking and several other things! These are just off of the top of my head… but you need to start considering this for rankings!

via Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: Using site speed in web search ranking.

This came up in a meeting last week with a client.  They were wondering if they could TELL Google exactly what they wanted for their snippet in Google Search.  I didn’t think they could then I found a control for it in All In One SEO Pack plugin for WordPress.  We modified it and are now waiting to see if it worked… in the mean time, here is Matt Cutts talking about this…

Is this new updated slightly to Google Docs influenced by Google Wave?  Hmmmm I’d certainly say so! Live collaborative editing of files is a welcome edition to Docs!  Let’s just hope it is not as buggy as Google Wave.

Official Google Docs Blog: A new Google Docs.

Will this be the iPad killer?!  Hmmm I don’t think so.  WePad just doesn’t quite have the same ring to it from a branding perspective… don’t ya think?

German tablet PC sets out to rival Apple’s iPad – Yahoo! Finance.

Please note this is ZenCart 1.3.9 BETA!  TEST ONLY! Report back to the forum here! Do not use this on a LIVE Site folks!

v1.3.9 BETA AVAILABLE – Zen Cart Support.

MAN I didn’t even know that Google and Twitter were DATING!

Google Now Highlights Top Links Cited in Status Updates – The Steve Rubel Stream.

DRUDGE: GOOGLE FRANKENSTEIN SAYS MACHINES TO ‘CHOOSE YOUR NEWS’.

Why would anybody EVER need to remove pages from their site from the Google Index? And why would this be beneficial?!? Isn’t everybody fighting like crazy to be IN the Google Index?!! Man, I can think of a LOT of reasons…  discontinuation of a product line, marketing change, branding change, internal company change, new division acquisition… just lots… and just like a bush, if you PROPERLY prune your site, it will grow MORE!

Official Google Webmaster Central Blog: URL removal explained, Part I: URLs & directories.

And let the lawsuits begin… this will soon become not about what is the RIGHT thing to do regarding your or your company’s privacy, it will slowly evolve into who has the most amount of money to spend on lawyers to be the winner of certain competitors’ keywords – Let us please hope that Congress or any other government will NOT try to legislate any of this or it will be a REAL MESS!

Buying Your Competitor’s Keywords an Invasion of Privacy?.

If this takes off, this will be a NEW MESS of ONLINE personal reputation management fraud repairs! 😐

Unvarnished Launches: A RipOff Report for Individuals?.