Google News
Google Update Privacy Policy
Gary Price notes that Google have updated their Privacy Policy. Aaron Swartz's HTML diff tool offers a comparison of the current and previous policy. Although the documents appear substantially different, for the most part the changes seem to be aesthetic -- the actual terms laid out seem about the same.
How To Move Web Host Without Confusing Google
Google Engineer Matt Cutt goes into fair detail outlining a common sense approach to switching host, with the aim of preventing any negative effects with Google. In summary:
- Step 1. Find a good web host and sign up for an account.
- Step 2: Make a back-up of your site at the new webhost.
- Step 3: Change DNS to point to your new web host.
- Step 4: Wait for the DNS change to propagate through the net.
- Step 5: Once you are sure people or Googlebots are fetching from the new webhost/IP address, you’re done. You can shut down the old site.
From an SEO perspective, the most important tips Matt gave were to 1) set your DNS TTL reasonably low (~1hr) so the GoogleBot can reach you on your new IP as soon as possible, and 2) to take-down your original site only when you're sure Google is crawling at the new location.