Google announced yesterday that it had changed the way it ranks search results so that unscrupulous merchants will find it harder to appear prominently in searches. The change was prompted by an article by David Segal in The New York Times on Sunday about Vitaly Borker, who claimed that he purposely shouted at and frightened some of his customers at DecorMyEyes.com because the online complaints actually worked in his favor in Google search results.

SES is collaborating with OMS to hold a one-day event on Feb. 10, 2011, that is dedicated to learning advanced topics in Search & Social. Called SES Accelerator , it's part of the annual Online Marketing Summit , which will be held in San Diego from Feb. 7 to 11, 2011. Click to read the rest of this post.

Several people contacted me yesterday to ask if I'd read David Segal's article in The New York Times . I had. And " A Bully Finds a Pulpit on the Web " is a public relations nightmare for Google search results. Click to read the rest of this post.