I am sure all of you have heard by now that a lot of web directories are currently being affected by what is called a “Google penalty“. I am not sure whether this is the correct term for it, but it seemed that these directories have suddenly lost rankings and even have some of their pages removed from Google’s search index. And we are talking about supposedly high ranking sites here! Not that little directories that nobody knows anything about, but well-advertised, well-respected and well-maintained web directories. I must say, I am pretty worried about that. And the doomsayers are saying that it will affect all directories in the near future.  Whether what they are claiming is true or not, I don’t know. But I find it weird that Google is only penalizing directories. I mean there are a lot of websites out there that are crap, even blogs and forums, some of which virtual spam centers.

Surprisingly, my own directory don’t seemed to be affected by all these. Searching for my own domain name, my web directory pops right up in the searches. It looks like I am off the hook for the time being.

Shouldn’t all sites be affected if Google decides to take action against “bad neighbourhoods“? Why pick on directories in the first place? I know that there are a lot of pathetic directories, but truth to be told, web directories are usually started by people planning to make some money. And in order for them to make money, some effort must be made to create a reasonably working directory in the first place. It’s not like forums or even blogs where webmasters usually create and then go. You know what I mean? Compared to crap blogs/forums/websites, they have certain (okay, okay relative then) amount of quality in them.

I also believe that this is not really a penalty but perhaps a glitch or a “dance” in Google that went wrong. Google could be doing a shuffle or some modification in their algorithms for their Search Results and something went haywire in the process. Hey, you know how complex it is? Tweaking one part of the algorithms will almost definitely affect some other part and thus this is the result. Anyway, don’t get too worked up if you are a web directory owner, time will tell. I have heard that some of those directories which was supposedly being affected is now climbing out of that hell and things are starting to look rosy for them again.

Yes, I have been that. You see, I have just brought down my entire company’s network today. It was down for several hours as I tried to figure out what caused the problem. And of course my boss was breathing down my neck the whole time. Crazy people these bosses. Anyhow, I am not exactly sure how that happened actually so I will start from the beginning. It started with me trying to setup a linux based server. I am using Ubuntu server edition and the basic installation went fine. So after the initial installation, I decided to add a little more software in it. I installed Webmin, ProFTPD, Samba and some other software into the server. After that I decided to change my IP Address for that server. This is when everything went wrong. At first, it started with this server alone not able to go onto the Internet or even through the LAN. Then in 15 minutes time, everyone else couldn’t get onto the Internet.

And so suddenly everyone in the office kept on calling me. Yes, it is kind of ironic that the time when people call me is when there is a problem with their Internet or their PCs. But this time, I am the cause of it. I don’t understand why changing an IP address on a Linux system will affect the entire LAN. Is it even possible for anyone to bring down a LAN with just one PC? Or did I screw things up so bad? I don’t think the PC is faulty in anyway since it was working fine just a few days back on a Windows OS. Can anyone explain to me how can this happen? It really boggles the feeble mind.

After troubleshooting the modems, routers and the switches, I realize all of them is working fine. Even tried phoning others with the same type of connection, they reported no problems. Then I remembered that the Linux Server itself was down and I don’t understand what caused it. So being an intelligent person,I removed this Linux PC from the LAN and poof….everything was okay again. Internet and the network was accessible again. Man, it really looks like I brought down my company’s network. I am become death, destroyer of worlds. Even my bosses’ worlds. That must at least count for something.