Just recently, MySpace changed the way they handle outbound links. So now, my MySpace page "effectively" doesn't link back to my website anymore. they've taken this action in response to spammers abusing MySpace popularity with Google to manipulate SERPS.

Looks to me like it was too little too late! Google appears to have penalized MySpace pages. My own MySpace page came number two (occaisionally No1!) for the keyphrase "internet idiocy". Today, Google doesn't even list it. I'm not talking page one, I'm talking list AT ALL. My MySpace page has been de-indexed before you ask, no I don't care - in fact I am pleased, the average MySpace page is the WORST kind of content on the net and certainly doesn't deserve high placement.

I don't wish MySpace any ill will, just that there is ZERO interesting content on it, and it appears Google have recognised this fact and taken some kind of "appropriate" action.

Of course, some (and I'm not saying I'm not one of them) people may take the stance that Google is penalizing a "competitor". Orkut anyone?

Letter received in the post today reads simply:

Telemessage

(My name & address here...)

Private and Confidential

URGENT

Dear Mr Fletcher,

Please contact us immediately on 08700100563 quoting reference 05011600063223816

Lines are open between 9.00am and 9.00pm Monday-Thursday and between 9.00am and 8pm Friday.



What's truly bizarre is the footer of the letter. It says:

Registered office - 81 Newgate Street, LONDON EC1A 7AJ. Registered in England No. 1800000.
British Telecommunications PLC has no responsibility for the contents of this message or for the decision to send it.

I'll bet they bloody don't! Now if (and I don't belive it can be) this is a communication from BT, they've lost the plot.

If (more likely) this is from some idiot mass mailing people from a database he found somewhere in order to get them to call his national rate number so he can make a couple of pounds out of the general publics' inbuilt gullibility I wonder how much he'll make.

Are the British public REALLY this stupid?