Algorithm change went into effect earlier this week.

Google web spam czar Matt Cutts blogged today about a recent algorithm change to Google’s rankings.

The algorithm change is a follow up to Cutt’s post a week ago about addressing low level “content farms”.

An algorithm change designed to address these concerns launched earlier this week. It specifically addresses “sites that copy others’ content and sites with low levels of original content”.

I suspect this primarily refers to site scrappers, sploggers, etc. instead of sites like Demand Media’s eHow, which was at the center of attention after Cutt’s first post. A number of commentors have asked this but have not received a response.

Company updates investors on internationalized domain names.

Yesterday VeriSign released fourth quarter results. On the investor conference call CEO Mark McLaughlin answered questions regarding the market opportunity for internationalized domain names, or IDNs.

McLaughlin explained “You could expect us to bid on all of the transliterations for .com and .net” when the new gTLD process is opened up.

Of course ‘all’ is a big number. I expect the company to apply for 15-20 so-called IDN equivalents of .com.

McLaughlin also said the company has about one million existing IDN second level domain name registrations for .com and .net combined.

It’s likely that owners of these existing second level IDNs will be able to pay to “unlock” the IDN equivalent, so that IDN.com becomes IDN.IDN.

(I’m not sure what would happen if VeriSign ever lost the .com contract, as it would still technically have the contracts for the IDN equivalents of .com. I doubt anyone has considered that in the new gTLD process. The same goes for other registries to apply for “IDN equivalents”.)

VeriSign expects the first batch of new gTLDs to come online in 2012, which looks likely given recent developments at ICANN.

Oversee jumps into retail vertical in big way.

Oversee.net, parent company of DomainSponsor, Moniker, and SnapNames, announced today that it has acquired shopping comparison network ShopWiki Corp.

The network of 11 country-specific shopping comparison sites will be the cornerstone for Oversee.net’s entry into the retail vertical. Oversee.net already has comparison engines in the travel and financial services sectors with LowFares.com and CreditCards.org.

ShopWiki.com is ranked #527 on Compete.com, which estimates the site receives over three million unique visitors per month.

ShopWiki Corp was backed by investment firm Generation Partners, a company that “gets” the online content space. The firm also invested in Demand Media, which owns eHow, eNom, and Hotkeys. Demand Media went public this week.

New gTLD conference timing might end up being perfect after all.

Just days after .Nxt Conference organizer Kieren McCarthy lamented that some supporters were asking him to postpone his new gTLD conference, it looks like the timing is better than ever.

Yesterday ICANN released documents showing that it is formally invoking the GAC-Board consultation process and intends to approve the final applicant guidebook for new TLDs in March.

That makes .Nxt’s February timing pretty darn good for people in the new gTLD ecosystem. The event will take place February 8-10 at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco.

It looks like over a dozen companies have signed on to sponsor the event, including domain name registrars Go Daddy, OpenSRS, and Network Solutions as well as registries Afilias and Neustar.

ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom and .Co Internet CEO Juan Diego Calle will deliver keynotes.

Conference registration is still available for $495.

777.tel on its way.

Soon you’ll be able to register .tel domain names existing solely of two or more digits.

This week ICANN’s Board of Directors agreed to amend its registry agreement with Telnic to allow for the numeric domain names.

Telnic requested the change through the Registry Service Evaluation Policy (RSEP) process, which opened up the proposal to public comments.

Go Daddy filed comments opposed to Telnic’s plan. The registrar argued that the change was not a new “registry service” and was a “fundamental change” to .tel’s charter.

Go Daddy said that this change was unfair to another applicant that tried to get .tel, and thus the contract should be rebidded:

We believe that this request cannot be granted without requiring the rebidding of the .tel sTLD itself. It is unfair to other applicants and potential applicants to allow an sTLD to change its purpose after the
fact. Telnic’s promise not to allow numeric only second level registrations was a fundamental aspect of its application and, if we understand the decision correctly, a primary reason why .tel was awarded to Telnic and not Pulver (numeric only second level names were fundamental to Pulver’s application for .tel at the same time).

Although I’m not sure how much Go Daddy cared about .tel’s request (Go Daddy doesn’t offer .tel domain names), it appeared to be raising a red flag about other registries changing their plans:

We believe that certain other recent requests under the guise of the RSEP by sTLDs were also likely inappropriate for similar reasons and we are concerned about what appears to be a growing trend to misuse the RSEP. We hope our comments will encourage Staff and Board to review these requests more critically in the future.

Also on this week’s board agenda was to approve number-only .name domain names, but I cannot find a resolution on this topic. [Update: the board deferred on number-only .name domains.]