Imagine, you arrive at work, check your blog and discover a new comment. It reads, “Brian Shoff is a dangerous criminal.” You don’t know if it’s true, but approve the comment anyway. After all, blogging is all about hearing everyone’s opinion, right?

Time passes and one day you get a letter from an attorney. It details that the plaintiff, Brian Shoff, is suing you for libel. It further explains that the lawsuit stems from Brian Shoff losing consideration for a position with a prestigious employer because of the defaming comment on your blog.

Ted Byrne, Editor / Economist for Business2Business Publications, asked about this last Geek Camp. “Are bloggers liable for comment libel?”

I’m not a lawyer and this post should not be considered legal advice. However, I did so some research and discovered Section 230, a surviving piece of the Telecommunications Decency Act of 1996 that can help protect you from situations like the one above.

Here is how it works …

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Website Optimization Tips from Google and the Gang

With multitudes of seminars, books, websites, and other resources available from SEO experts, how do you know who to trust? Who truly knows the most about how search engines work?

Take a guess. Who do you think it is? (No, not me.)

That’s right! The search engines!

This “Ask a Geek” response answers the question, “Where can I find website optimization tips?” by introducing, “Webmaster Guidelines.” Webmaster Guidelines are SEO tips that come directly from Google, Yahoo! and other search engines. They should be the starting point for every website optimization project.

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