Technology

Google Inc. is penalizing Overstock.com Inc in its search results after the retailer ran afoul of Google policies that prohibit companies from artificially boosting their ranking in the Internet giant’s search engine.

Overstock’s pages had recently ranked near the top of results for dozens of common searches, including vacuum cleaners and laptop computers. But links to Overstock on Tuesday dropped to the fifth or sixth pages of Google results for many of those categories, greatly reducing the chances that a user would click on its links.

The incident, according to Overstock, stemmed in part from its practice of encouraging websites of colleges and universities to post links to Overstock pages so that students and faculty could receive discounts on the shopping site. Overstock said it discontinued the program on 10 February, before hearing from Google, but said some university webmasters have been slow to remove the links — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Google said late Thursday that it had made a major change to its algorithm in an effort to improve the rankings of high-quality Web sites in its search results — and to reduce the visibility of low-quality sites. While the company did not say so explicitly, the change appears to be directed in part at so-called content farms like eHow and Answerbag, which generate articles based on popular search queries so they will rise to the top of the rankings and attract clicks — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Dual- and quad-core Intel processors, a new FaceTime HD camera, and an illuminated keyboard are offered in Apple’s new MacBook Pro lineup. Also in Apple’s new MacBook Pros is a new 10-Gbps connection port called Thunderbolt that supports gigabit Ethernet, FireWire and USB devices. Apple also released a preview of Mac OS X Lion — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Whether you want to look at two PDF pages side-by-side or you want two Twitter accounts open at once, sometimes OS X requires a separate instance of an application to be open. Here’s how to do it with a simple Terminal command — via Lifehacker

The eBay and PayPal developer programs will be merged in order to establish a common platform that will allow external programmers to create applications with both e-commerce and payment capabilities for a broad variety of devices — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Jonathan Blow is known for two things: creating time-altering indie platformer Braid, and being a very outspoken game designer. Soon he might be known for a third thing, as development gathers pace on his exploration puzzle game, The Witness.

At this year’s GameCity event in Nottingham, I sat down with Blow to talk about The Witness, how he’s avoiding the design flaws that killed adventure games in the mid-90s, and why, in his opinion, social games are evil — via redwolf.newsvine.com