I Want AVC To Go Dark On The 18th

A number of popular websites will go dark this coming wednesday in protest of the SOPA and PIPA bills. Apparently Reddit, Minecraft, Craigslist and possibly Wikipedia will go dark. I want to join them.

I don't control my blog's web server. Typepad controls it. But I control my domain, AVC.com. I'm guessing the right thing to do is redirect where AVC.com goes on the 18th. But where should I redirect it to?

If you have good ideas, please share them in the comments.

And I'd encourage everyone who has a blog do to do the same.

And I'd encourage Twitter, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Vimeo, eBay, Amazon, Etsy, Tumblr, WordPress and Typepad to go dark too. I know most of these services won't do it. They need to be respectful of their users' needs. But it would sure make a strong statement about the importance of the Internet and the danger of messing with it.

#Politics#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. gregorylent

    go dark on the 18th … and go to DC on the 17th, for #occupycongress

    1. fredwilson

      hmmmm

  2. John Doherty

    Hey Fred! I think your idea is great, but you should do it in a way that will not affect your site’s longterm SEO. Do you have the ability to put up a “Site Temporarily Unavailable” page? This would probably be the best way to go, as you could say “This site is temporarily unavailable. I’m joining with Reddit, HackerNews, etc to show how an Internet with SOPA would harm the world.”I would not redirect all of your posts to your homepage. This will end up being a nightmare for you longterm.

    1. fredwilson

      that’s great feedback Johni will see what i can come up with that doesn’t mess with my SEO

      1. John Doherty

        If TypePad has a Under Construction page option like Adrian below says, this would be exactly what you need.

      2. Graham Siener

        There’s a great post [1] from a Google employee on the recommended approach.  Sounds like a 503 status is the cleanest implementation, though there are some other options that won’t wreck havok on SEO/indexing.[1] https://plus.google.com/u/0

      3. John Doherty

        Fred – This is the official word from Google. They’re saying to do exactly what I said, a “Site Unavailable” page with a 503 status code (which means temporarily unavailable). Good luck!https://plus.google.com/115… 

        1. Dale Allyn

          Note that properly executed javascript (as in the overlay that I intend to use) is also said to be acceptable in that thread. Googlebot will see the content of my sites just fine, and while the small “Stop SOPA” message *may* be indexed as well on the day of the 18th, I’m fine with that. There’s no harm in it, and it will eventually correct itself on subsequent crawls. 🙂

        2. fredwilson

          thanks John

    2. Rohan

      Hi John, A more basic question from me – how would this affect the site’s longterm SEO? (Beginner’s level understanding..)

      1. Adam Gering

        Good question. Robots.txt to disallow indexing will prevent the temporary site from getting indexed by the search engines. However, will it de-index the existing site? I don’t believe it will immediately.Using 404 Not Founds (with custom content regarding the blackout) will also prevent the pages from getting indexed. And again I don’t think it will immediately de-index pages, often sites are temporarily down with such errors.

        1. Rohan

          I see. Thanks Adam.. 🙂 Very helpful! 🙂

      2. John Doherty

        Rohan, do you mean how a temporarily unavailable page would affect the long-term SEO? This is actually a safe play, as this is what Google tells webmasters to do for site maintenance. Redirecting the pages, however, will result in some getting de-indexed and it will take time for them to a) get back into Google’s index, and b) to rank again like they do. A 302 (temporary) redirect would be better than a 301, but I still don’t see the need for it over a Site Temporarily Unavailable message. Plus, implementing 302 redirects would happen from the server (which Fred doesn’t have access to) and would be harder to both implement and roll back.

        1. Rohan

          I see. Perfect. Thank you for the explanation John! 🙂 Very helpful!

  3. Blaise Vignon

    You could probably replace your main blog page with a very simple and short HTML page that explains your position

  4. David Abraham

    Isn’t there a “Stop SOPA” website somewhere that we could link to?

  5. Adrian Sanders

    I believe Typepad has an “under construction” type thingie where you can have a short message.

    1. fredwilson

      ooh. good idea

    1. fredwilson

      ha!that is great

  6. Jesse Wolgamott

    You don’t control the site, but you do control the layout — change that to black background with no text for the day.

    1. fredwilson

      hmm, good idea

      1. John Doherty

        Fred – If you have a designer/dev, get them to make your text background black. They need this little CSS rule:{background-color:black;}

        1. testtest

          that would been seen as cloaking, by google etc

          1. John Doherty

            I have a tweet out to Matt Cutts asking about this.

          2. testtest

            it’s cloaking

          3. John Doherty

            Technically, you’re right Chris. I wonder how Google would treat it for the day, though. This is why I’ve pinged Matt. If Fred put a “This text is blacked out to protest SOPA. You will see text tomorrow” message on the top, I don’t know, it might be ok.THAT BEING SAID, I think the Site Under Construction with a custom message is the best way to go.

          4. Dale Allyn

            Chris, if your text color is not black (i.e. #000) it should not trigger Google’s page stuffing concerns. Just need text to not match the background color exactly. Very near black will then not show to a casual viewer. 

          5. testtest

            but you don’t know where the line is. why take the risk. as you know, since you seem to know a bit of seo, nothing is black and white (excuse the pun)

          6. Rohan

            Super clear. Thanks Dale.And thanks @chrishuntis:disqus  🙂 

          7. kidmercury

            doubt google would penalize avc if this was done for just a day. 

          8. testtest

            the algo does automatic penalties. fred would then need to submit a reconsideration request: http://support.google.com/w…if i had to bet, i’d say he would be ok as well. but it’s a bet. it exposes the blog to an necessary penalty.

          9. kidmercury

            yes the penalties are automatic, but i’m sure the algo factors in a trust score based on inbound links, frequency of posts, ability for posts to go viral, etc — all of which avc would rank high for. google doesn’t want to penalize high trust sites, no search engine does.

          10. testtest

            “yes the penalties are automatic, but i’m sure the algo factors in a trust score based on inbound links, frequency of posts, ability for posts to go viral, etc — all of which avc would rank high for. google doesn’t want to penalize high trust sites, no search engine does.”you’re “sure”? no one knows, that’s the point. it’s risk-reward.i’ve not seen many domains go black for a day, so i couldn’t say for sure what would happen. but if someone who was managing my site told me they were going to do it i’d fire them on the spot

          11. kidmercury

            depends on how we define sure. in reality, no one can be sure of anything. i’m quite confident, though. there are certain rules that search engines cannot disobey — or rather if they disobey them their whole value proposition falls apart. trustrank is one of the founding pillars and in my experience google obeys this rule to a fault.but given that there are other options, many of which are just as simple, i agree there is no real need, or even upside, to going black on black (cloaking).

          12. John Doherty

            I’m with you, kidmercury. I don’t think AVC would have a problem by doing this for a day. After all, Matt and his team are very much against SOPA.Also, guys, it’s more hiding text than cloaking. You’re not redirecting Googlebot. But we can’t even really call it “hiding content” in the traditional SEO/spam sense, because it’s not being done for nefarious reasons (which is why cloaking happens). I also don’t think it’s an automated (or algorithmic) penalty. I think it would be a manual penalty, which would mean that the webspam team would have to find it and penalize. And since it’s Fred and Matt is aware of his site, I bet they would let him make the point.ONCE AGAIN, I think the “Site Temporarily Unavailable” way is the best way to go. But I still think he’d be fine doing this.

          13. Rohan

            Can you help me understanding why that is seen as a problem?We are entitled to change background colors on our own site, right?

          14. Dale Allyn

            Rohan, you asked Chris, but to answer your question: in the past it was a very common tactic to stuff a bunch of keywords into an html document (a web page)  that would trick search engines into “thinking” your site was chock full of information on those keywords. The text color would be the same as the background color, and hence hidden from human view in an normal web browser. Google and other search engines began penalizing sites which engage in this deceptive practice.

          15. testtest

            this should explain it, rohan:http://www.youtube.com/watc…note, matt says “all types of cloaking are against our guidelines”

      2. Digikist

        I think making a black screen is missing the opportunity to educate.  Most people except the tech world really understands this issue.  To reach a broader base, the everyman crowd who would use Craigslist/Wikipedia would be confused by a blank screen or a Stop SOPA message.  If we want an understanding of the importance by the masses, we should have a simple message displayed that brings light to this issue.  It would likely be more impactful if all those sights and yours pointed to the same message.

  7. testtest

    a 302 redirect is the best thing to do:http://en.wikipedia.org/wik…301 redirect is “saying” permanent. 302 is temporary. 

    1. fredwilson

      i will look into that

    2. testtest

      from matt cutts’ blog:”The difference between a 301 and a 302 is that a 301 status code means that a page has permanently moved to a new location, while a 302 status code means that a page has temporarily moved to a new location……Okay, back to our regular discussion. Now let’s talk about off-domain 302 redirects. By definition, those are redirects from one domain A.com to another domain B.com that are claimed to be temporary; that is, the web server on A.com could always change its mind and start showing content on A.com again.” http://www.mattcutts.com/bl…

    3. testtest

      and an interview with matt cutts:”Eric Enge: Let’s briefly talk about 302 Redirects.Matt Cutts: 302s are intended to be temporary. If you are only going to put something in place for a little amount of time, then 302s are perfectly appropriate to use. Typically, they wouldn’t flow PageRank, but they can also be very useful. If a site is doing something for just a small amount of time, 302s can be a perfect case for that sort of situation.”http://www.stonetemple.com/…

  8. kirklove

    I’m lobbying for exfm to go dark (or quiet) on the 18th. 

    1. John Revay

      I like the reference to “quiet” in your case.I very much like ex.fm

      1. kirklove

        Thanks John. We appreciate that!

  9. Elia Freedman

    I wonder if Wikipedia could go dark except the page on SOPA then you redirect there. Where was the page with that great video explaining SOPA and PIPA? That would be a good page to redirect to also.

  10. ShanaC

    Umm, could you lock the ability to post on posts? and write a post directing people to go elsewhere?

  11. Peter Bordes

    redirect it or set up a page of causes so someone benefits from the traffic. shine light on something important in the blackout. 

  12. Dan Bowen

    You might want to send them to the US Debt Clock with a little reminder that the geniuses in DC have no credibility on just about any subject…  http://www.usdebtclock.org/ 

    1. fredwilson

      for sure!

      1. Rohan

        I see you are on a reply spree. 🙂

        1. fredwilson

          yup. that’s how i roll.

          1. Rohan

            Thanks for taking the time Fred. 🙂 We can’t always do big things but we can do small things with great care.Youngsters like me are watching and learning..Happy weekend.. looking forward to seeing you in London! 

          2. fredwilson

            big things come from doing many small things with care

  13. Jason

    Stop censorship banners on those properties would even be enough, it seems most people don’t even know the legislation exists.

  14. John Revay

    I would suggest you simulate – what the experience of censorship on the internet might be like- I am assuming it is a 404 error – page not found.I opened a ticket on typepad to ask if they can take a blog off line for one day – I will let you know if I hear any thing from them.

  15. awaldstein

    I like this idea but I wonder whether you have a greater protest value by shutting down or making the focus of the day a discussion on the topic.Guest post maybe? A signature campaign?IMO people gathering to talk has more impact than a strike in most circumstances.  

    1. William Mougayar

      I’m leaning towards your idea Arnold. When you strike, you’re almost muting yourself and leaving it to other to interpret it. I would re-double the debate and amplify our voices, complementing that with some additional web effects/logos for maximum exposure. 

    2. Dale Allyn

      I like your point too, Arnold. In Fred’s case, both can have impact because Fred’s blog gets mentioned in the press as well. If Fred were to do as you suggest, and if Fred could afford to devote the extra time on that day, perhaps AVC could be a hub sort of “raising havoc” as members of the community contact reps., etc. and report back here. ((  @wmoug:disqus  Disqus double posted an earlier post of mine, and when I tried to delete it, it simply changed poster to “guest”. If you’d like to delete the duplicate below by “guest”, feel free. ))

      1. awaldstein

        How many people who comment and follow AVC have their own blogs and Twitter accounts? Many.Would be hard to get each of us to post individually.But if there was a funnel campaign where maybe a thousand blogs pushed one message, not dogma, but a common call to pay attention to each of our networks.I feel good about the Stop SOPA stripe on my avatar. I’d feel good about doing something like above. 

        1. Dale Allyn

          I’m not sure I exactly follow your comment, but I think our views are similar. I wasn’t suggesting that thousands should comment here, but that the day be devoted toward encouraging contacting one’s reps., providing links with appropriate contact info, posting the results of said contact, etc. Point mainstream media to the post, and so on. It’s obvious to me that the outrage and protests are having some effect on the process. I don’t agree with Kid M. that there is no gain to be had from the protest, as I believe we are already seeing positive results as SOPA is being “re-evaluated” by those likely to vote on it. There’s no doubt that the reps. will try to pander to their “johns”, but we just need to illustrate the high cost of that to them.

          1. awaldstein

            I agree. Thousands as hubs to their own networks creating a focus around a single topic could be powerful. 

    3. Aaron Klein

      Have to agree. Going dark makes a bigger point if you’re a service. Content is another story…

      1. Donna Brewington White

        And AVC is not a service?Thanks for the link below, btw.

        1. Aaron Klein

          I thought that after I hit send.My real point is: if you come to consume, there are lots of other places to go consume. Content is not scarce, as good as this content is.If I go to use Twitter, and Twitter’s not available, there’s not an instant alternative (at least without investing a lot of time).So I’d prefer the site go black, and then Fred make his point in the middle of the page. A special and very memorable post.But that’s just my marketing hat talking… 😉

    4. kidmercury

      yup ^2

  16. jaygould

    Google & YouTube homepages should blackout Replacing standard logos with STOP SOPA logos, and a tiny black altered logos for the respective sites just below them… Then directly below that should be the search input fields to search Google or YouTube..

  17. Dale Allyn

    @chrishuntis:disqus provided the suggestion that I would suggest (302 vs 301). Before I understood that you don’t have control of your site, I was going to suggest that you simply redirect you main landing page to a new page such as avc.com/stop_sopa or similar. On that page we could style anything you liked such as a black background and “Censored” or “Stop SOPA” stamp across the screen in white. This method will not materially affect your SEO because the 302 is temp. and your other pages will still be in place (the actual blog posts). Of course, the children in the home directory could be included as well, depending on how “dark” you wanted to go. In your case, I doubt that one day of missed crawls will affect you much anyway, assuming all will return to normal on the 19th.I don’t love the “Under Construction” option, unless TypePad allows you to customize the message. Just redirecting to your favorite “Stop SOPA” site may be the easiest and most effective message. But hopefully that won’t knock down that site because of your traffic. ;)You’re such an active member of the internet, it’s too bad you don’t directly admin. your site for times that you’d like to make such mods. 

  18. Rob

    Have you seen the administrations latest response to the stop SOPA/PIPA petition? I was glad to see it is well-reasoned and hope they follow through with something along these lines:  https://wwws.whitehouse.gov…

    1. William Mougayar

      It seems that there are a handful of key Links about this. Fred could curate a few and post them on that day, for e.g. 

    2. Rob Hunter

      Spooks me a little bit that the response in that link suggests that the White House is looking to get SOMETHING passed this year… that mentality gives me the sense that the resultant bill will be rushed.Their statement that copyright infringement is a problem isn’t wrong, but I’m struggling to understand a framework under which any entity should be able to block a site in any sort of genuine way.  Maybe it’s that I’m afraid that any framework will be abused, but I personally can’t construct a narrow enough sentence on the matter that I agree with.Fundamentally, I don’t think that the US has the right to regulate overseas sites, and I don’t think that the US has the right to regulate US citizens’ consumption of information/media coming from overseas servers.  That statement leaves me really concerned about ANY legislation on the matter.

      1. Otto

        Yes. I would like to know why Hollywood and their friends think they can get between me and legal content they don’t have a copyright to.Anti-SOPA pressure should not stop.

  19. William Mougayar

    You could write a very short post with the right links in there so that visitors continue to get educated on it, go to black background, and close comments for that day.The next day, we’ll all report that we had a super-productive day because we didn’t spend time commenting on AVC 😉 

    1. Aaron Klein

      On the flip side, we’ll have learned very little and missed trading jokes with the bartender. 😉

  20. Guest

    @chrishuntis:disqus provided the suggestion that I would suggest (302 vs 301). Before I understood that you don’t have control of your site, I was going to suggest that you simply redirect you main landing page to a new page such as avc.com/stop_sopa or similar. On that page we could style anything you liked such as a black background and “Censored” or “Stop SOPA” stamp across the screen in white. This method will not materially affect your SEO because the 302 is temp. and your other pages will still be in place (the actual blog posts). Of course, the children in the home directory could be included as well, depending on how “dark” you wanted to go. In your case, I doubt that one day of missed crawls will affect you much anyway, assuming all will return to normal on the 19th.I don’t love the “Under Construction” option, unless TypePad allows you to customize the message. Just redirecting to your favorite “Stop SOPA” site may be the easiest and most effective message. But hopefully that won’t knock down that site because of your traffic. ;)You’re such an active member of the internet, it’s too bad you don’t directly admin. your site for times that you’d like to make such mods. 

  21. BillSeitz

    Here’s a simple JavaScript you can put in your blog template: http://sopablackout.org/

    1. sprugman

      I was going to suggest something similar — you could do the do the whole thing with a little javascript — add a message, make the page fade out, and then redirect somewhere. Happy to help make that happen….

    2. fredwilson

      thanks Bill

  22. WA

    To the Website of the author of the bill as in Mr. Smith? That would be quite the statement. Sort of a list of the votes he would not get in National Election perhaps

  23. Austin Walne

    I agree. It’s unlikely Twitter, Tumblr, and others will go completely dark. What if they turned their homepage background black with links to find information/take action [call their congressional office] on SOPA? Once past, it wouldn’t affect their service but would still generate a lot of attention and hopefully calls to Congress.I’ve worked in politics before tech and a Congressman’s first priority above all else is getting re-elected. Calling and informing them that you’re planning to donate to whomever their opponent is for supporting a piece of legislation will quickly less their enthusiasm for the bill. Especially when they’re voting on something they don’t understand anyway like how the internet works.

    1. fredwilson

      i have been using that argument in all my discussions with elected officials on this issue

  24. Jonathan Whistman

    Why not post a link for a lawmakers blog/ facebook page who supports the legislation, and ask all of your regulars to “move” the conversation to that “page”? Maybe make that link change every day for a week to a different place…kind of a traveling commentary.

  25. Carl J. Mistlebauer

    I think that if the whole web went dark on one day you would change the whole debate, how about just a moment of darkness?This debate is one that needs to be raged beyond the confines of the tech world, and it should be a way to find common cause.  I use this video to explain SOPA to the people I know:http://vimeo.com/31100268Since its “Sarcasm Saturday” in my world, I have attached a couple of pictures that you could use rather than just going dark

    1. Donna Brewington White

      Thanks for the link, Carl!

  26. Tom Evslin

    I don’t think WordPress and Typepad and other hosting services should go dark – that would be making a political decision for the companies they host. We don’t hire them to do that for us.Seems to me the best action for them to take consistent with their mission is to allow their users to go dark easily if they want to. So Typepad should provide you with a go dark option. Amazon should let its shops go dark or not as they please – not shutter all shops because Amazon (like you and me) doesn’t like SOPA and PIPA. Facebook could even let users go dark. We need to keep the web a place of individual choice even in the face of SOPA and PIPA. 

    1. Dale Allyn

      I agree with you, Tom. It would be great if Typepad and WP provided a simple “go dark” solution for their less-technical users. An alternate page to the “under construction” screen would be simple and sensitive for them to provide. 

    2. fredwilson

      i totally agree Tom. that’s a great suggestion.

  27. kidmercury

    my take:1. dont do anything, i don’t think this type of protest is effective. they want you to shut up anyway, so you are just doing what they want. it reminds me of when kooks and the peace activists go on hunger strikes. there are more effective forms of protests: spamming congress, planning for civil disobedience, supporting ron paul are three off the top of my head. that latter one is particularly important, but people while we are definitely getting much closer i think we still need some more bad news to get people really embrace ron paul. right now i think people are still a little too scared because once you go ron paul you are a quick hop away from 9/11 and aliens, and then oh boy what are you going to do then????? but we are getting closer to the grand awakening…..2. put up a temp page, just plain text with a message that can replace the index file, then next day back to business as usual with the regular index file that shows your blog posts. i think this is what charlie is talking about. 3. if you want to redirect your whole blog, not just the index page, put a 302 redirect in the header include file. chris huntis mentioned this.  

    1. Carl J. Mistlebauer

      Kid,Why would I want to embrace Ron Paul if “once you go Ron Paul you are a quick hop away from 9/11 and aliens..” I would like to believe that by getting closer to the “grand awakening” it would somehow lead to something other than conspiracy theories and space creatures…Yes, maybe with “more bad news” Ron Paul will become a better looking option for more Americans, as he would legalize drugs, and that might be our last great hope…..In regards to protest methods, history has proven that the guillotine and self immolation really make a bold statement and lead to almost immediate results.My sister supports Ron Paul too and like I reminded her just yesterday, she voted for Ronald Reagan when she was 18, I think old grandfatherly like white guys are so comforting for a portion of our population….Harold Stassen was another Republican who consistently ran for President, 12 times between 1944 to 2000!  In 1948 he was the surprising winner of a few early Republican primaries and was even projected to win the popular vote against Harry Truman, but he lost the nomination to Dewey……The Republican Party has always had its “odd man out” or anti-establishment guy, before Paul it was Stassen…..If Ron Paul is truly an “alternative” then he needs to go third party…

    2. fredwilson

      it may not be effective but it will make me feel better

  28. Max Abbottt

    I think it would be cool if Wikipedia blacked out every page except the SOPA page and redirected all other pages there as well. It would be cool if other sites redirected there too. This would be the very “decide for yourself” option, and get people informed about what it is. Of course the other option is Fuck SOPA: http://www.fucksopa.com/ 

  29. Conrad Ross Schulman

    my 2 cents:1st cent: Gotham gal should black out her blog also2nd cent: point the site or change the layout to something having to do with the George Bush.He is so funny and you could make a funny bubble with him saying “Even I’m against sopa, it dries out my skin when im takin’ a shower”

    1. fredwilson

      i will certainly suggest she do whatever i end up doing. it will be her call at the end of the day

  30. Digikist

    Fred I think the best thing ALL of these websites can point to would be a simple one screen bullet point summary of what the law is trying to do, why it is bad and perhaps an alternative.  Its got to be simple so that all these people getting to Craigslist and Wikipedia (millions) will have an instant education on the topic which is clearly the whole point of the ‘dark day’.I love this idea and am impressed many of the big sites are doing it.  Its more powerful that the message is getting out through distribution channels such as this blog.  Coordinated message is key here.  If each of those sites is pointing to different things are just a black screen saying ‘Stop SOPA’ you’re missing the opportunity to educate people with the movement’s concise message.

    1. fredwilson

      the coordination of the stop sopa effort is not that strong. so many people doing so many different things. but i’m ok with that.

  31. David Strebinger

    What about using the opportunity to create an AVC Facebook fan page. Then on the day, everyone could be re-directed to that page and could like your business and become part of an entrepreneur network. As an entrepreneur it would be amazing to connect to be able to see and connect to other like minded entrepreneurs who also follow your blog to learn and grow. I aways think about what an amazing group of people must be connected to and reading your blog like I do every day. 

    1. fredwilson

      you can do that now via disqus

  32. LE

    “I Want AVC To Go Dark”You could go dark in a way that would simulate what would happen to a real site which means there is going to be some minor impact on SEO unfortunately.  And a site that goes dark will be dark for much longer than a day. The way to do that is by changing dns or putting the domain on registrar “hold” which I don’t think you should do. A site that goes dark doesn’t work or is redirected to a government page from my experience with a notice. No existing URL’s can be accessed on the site (other than cached by google, alexa etc.)I don’t think the SEO damage from whatever you do for a day is going to be a big deal in your situation given your ranking and inbound links. We regularly delete domains for non-payment which then are totally unreachable. When they come back up (which is always more than a day later) it’s not the end of the world for the domain owner’s seo.Attached is an example: http://www.hedbergdatasyste…. The domain was deleted on 12/19/2011. It wasn’t paid for by the customer (and taken out of redemption) until 12/30/2011 about 11 days.  During that time period it didn’t work at all.  “Server not found” because no dns.I’m in favor of simply changing the http://www.avc.com/a_vc/sty… sheet which others have recommended and I wouldn’t stress over the google or seo issues.

    1. fredwilson

      thanks LE

  33. Guest

    “I Want AVC To Go Dark”You could go dark in a way that would simulate what would happen to a real site which means there is going to be some minor impact on SEO unfortunately.  And a site that goes dark will be dark for much longer than a day. The way to do that is by changing dns or putting the domain on registrar “hold” which I don’t think you should do. A site that goes dark doesn’t work or is redirected to a government page from my experience with a notice. No existing URL’s can be accessed on the site (other than cached by google, alexa etc.)I don’t think the SEO damage from whatever you do for a day is going to be a big deal in your situation given your ranking and inbound links. We regularly delete domains for non-payment which then are totally unreachable. When they come back up (which is always more than a day later) it’s not the end of the world for the domain owner’s seo.Attached is an example: http://www.hedbergdatasyste…. The domain was deleted on 12/19/2011. It wasn’t paid for by the customer (and taken out of redemption) until 12/30/2011 about 11 days.  During that time period it didn’t work at all.  “Server not found” because no dns.I’m in favor of simply changing the http://www.avc.com/a_vc/sty… sheet which others have recommended and I wouldn’t stress over the google or seo issues.

  34. LE

    @disqus:disqus those extra “guest” comments were created when I hit “post” after receiving a message indicating an error posting. I was logged in at the time. 

  35. Mike Geer (MG)

    I think a lot of people are not quite understanding what this will be like, if either PIPA or SOPA pass. The whole thing is that you won’t get to access the sites you want to, no matter if you are running a business on them or simply want to read information on them. I know everyone means well, but a whole discussion on SEO seems a bit out of place. We need to all go black and put a page to contact our users’ Senators and Congressmen. This is of vital business interest and therefore should be weighed exactly the same as any other vital business interest.Every single one of the companies you listed above could NEVER have existed under these laws.

  36. Nick Grossman

    My feeling is that a blacked-out site overlaid w/ a short, specialized message would make sense (despite the fact that it’s not 100% logically consistent w/ the idea of censorship). Seems to me that a straight-up redirect to an outside site could be more confusing that communicative.  

    1. fredwilson

      yup

  37. Shaun Dakin

    My firm is offering a tool to robocall congress on SOPA and is donating a % of rev to EEFhttp://reverserobocall.com/…Congress doesn’t read the internet, they do care about pressure and robocalls are pressure.Shaun Dakin

  38. jason wright

    “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one party under SOPA, indivisible, with liberty and justice for none.”

  39. eastdakota

    Fred:At CloudFlare our engineering team is putting the finishing touches this weekend on an anti-SOPA blackout app that will be live beginning Monday — in time for the planned blackout on the 18th. You don’t need to control the underlying platform, just make a change to your DNS settings, so you will be able to use it after signing up for CloudFlare. We’ve also designed it to ensure it won’t have any impact on search engine crawlers, so it won’t impact your SEO rankings.Matthew PrinceCEO, CloudFlare, Inc.

    1. LE

      “putting the finishing touches this weekend on an anti-SOPA blackout app”Matt, what is the advantage of what you are offering vs. just putting the domain on “registrar hold” or simply putting in dns servers that haven’t been programmed for the domain or dns servers that point to 127.0.0.1?”We’ve also designed it to ensure it won’t have any impact on search engine crawlers”How?

      1. eastdakota

        While registrar hold or redirecting to 127.0.0.1 will take the site offline, it doesn’t do anything to either: 1) educate people who don’t already know about SOPA (e.g., the “normals”), or 2) provide a call to action to get people to contact their legislative representatives in order to express their concern. The CloudFlare Anti-SOPA app will “blackout” the page but still provide information and a clear call to action.We have two versions of the app we’re currently testing. One creates an interstitial “blackout” page the first time someone visits the site. We’re following search engine crawl guidelines to mark this page as temporary and ensure it is not indexed. The second inserts Javascript on the page which randomly blacks out chunks of text. Those blackouts become links which take the visitor to more information on SOPA and a call to action. We’re again following search engine crawl guidelines, marking any links we create with rel=”nofollow”, and taking additional cautionary steps to allow people to protest on Jan. 18 without hurting their long term search results. Finally, we are planning on clearing the app with our contacts at the major search engines’ crawl/ranking teams before it goes live.CloudFlare powers more traffic today than Amazon.com, Wikipedia, Twitter, AOL, and Zynga — combined. We’re hopeful that a significant number of our hundreds of thousands of sites will participate in the protest in order to educate and inform the web about the dangers of SOPA.

        1. LE

          Cloudflare is great by the way.  And Cloudfare security http://www.cloudflare.com/f… in itself is an amazing product.

    2. ShanaC

      you guys are awesome

    3. John Hinnegan

      Hopefully you update this thread with a link when it’s ready.  I’m posting here just so I get the email when you do 🙂

      1. eastdakota

        Here’s our blog post announcing the CloudFlare Anti-Censorship app:http://blog.cloudflare.com/…And here’s the app detail page:https://www.cloudflare.com/…We included a link to the Javascript source as well so you can use it even if you’re not a CloudFlare user. But, if you are a CloudFlare user, it’s one-click simple to install.Enjoy!

    4. Eric Friedman

      Looking forward to using this as well.

  40. Morgan Brown

    Hey Fred,We’re going to be launching a free notification bar on Monday that any user can add to their site in opposition to SOPA. We hope sites that can’t go dark will at least add the bar as a way to spread awareness and show their opposition to the bill.You can grab the bar, it’s just a little script tag inside your body tags, and remove it at any time. The message will never change.http://www.hellobar.com/sopa/We'll be spreading the word on Monday, and if you can’t get your site down, we’d encourage you and all of your readers to use the Hello Bar STOP SOPA edition to stand in opposition and spread the word.Thanks,MorganHello Bar product manager

    1. fredwilson

      ooh. that is great.

    2. Donna Brewington White

      Thanks!

  41. Bruce Warila

    Coming from someone that works in the music industry, I would be great to see something in the way of SOPVVM – Stop Online Piracy Via Voluntary Methods, as the tech industry could do so much more to protect rightsholders.It’s ironic that you (Fred) and all of the sites you mentioned can entirely switch off your intellectual property for a day; if only songwriters and filmmakers could do the same…@brucewarila:twitter

    1. fredwilson

      i think it would be great if the content industry created a blacklist of sites they believe are pirate sites. then websites could voluntarily popup notices when people click on links to those domains much like sites do now with NFSW content. at least we’d be telling people that they shouldn’t be pirating content. that might even be more effective than the SOPA/PIPA proposals.

      1. William Mougayar

        Exactly. Let technology fight technology, not policy.

  42. Aaron Klein

    “The price of liberty is eternal vigilance” but I think it might almost be time to declare victory.The White House made a clear statement this morning that it “will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk, or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”http://mobile.reuters.com/a…

    1. sigmaalgebra

      Almost time! But likely still not quite yet time!Back in December I called and sent FAX letters against SOPA-PIPA to my NY20 Rep Dr. C. Gibson and two Senators.Then yesterday at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pk…I got the PDF of”PROTECT IP Act of 2011 (Reported in Senate – RS)[S.968.RS][PDF}”draft of PIPA and read it. This may be the latest draft available to the public. Apparently the “RS” abbreviates “reported to the Senate” or some such which means it is a version closer to what would be voted on by the whole Senate.While I am no lawyer, the draft seems to have had a lot of its teeth and claws pulled.I called Schumer’s DC office and talked with one of his guys. My sense was that, yes, Congress ‘got it’ that playing with the DNS system would be a bummer. Various news reports are that PIPA sponsor Senator Leahy did ‘get it’. When have V. Cerf, etc. saying that playing fast and loose with the DNS system could cause security problems, e.g., that likely banks would be nearly hysterical about, even Congress has to listen up!It appears that the ex parte stuff is out’a there: That is, it was that a copyright holder could go to a judge, put on a dog and pony show, and get a decision, and then big things would happen to some Internet sites within 5 days or some such. So, it was a one-sided kangaroo court, ex parte (pardon my Latin), and really bad “due process”. Also the process was a loaded gun for big guys to shoot nonsense legal bullets at little guys just because the big guys liked the sport of shooting little guys — bummer.So, I asked Schumer’s guy about the “due process”, and he said that the situation was still ambiguous. At least he understood the due process issue. It might be that eventually the Supreme Court would understand also.Starting on page 32 is:> (7) the term “Internet site dedicated to infringing activities” means an Internet site that—> (A) has no significant use other than engaging in, enabling, or facilitating the> (i) reproduction, distribution, or public performance of copyrighted works, in complete or substantially complete form, in a manner that constitutes copyright infringement under section 501 of title 17, United States Code;It appears that only sites “dedicated to infringing activities” would have to worry about legal incoming fire.Not nearly new is:> And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, The instruments of darkness tell us truths, Win us with honest trifles, to betray’s In deepest consequence.> William Shakespeare, Macbeth Act I, Scene iiiso I remain concerned. Besides, what has been deleted from the bill can be added, quietly, on a weekend, in single digit darkness, in an amendment or in a conference committee or via a second bill, this year or next. It is tough actually to drive a stake through the heart of such a monster.So, yes, likely we will need “eternal vigilance”.But there are also suggestions that this time Congress backed into “an Internet buzz saw” and maybe learned a lesson. E.g., at http://news.cnet.com/8301-3…is> CNET News> Paul Ryan turns against SOPA following a Reddit-based attack> by Declan McCullagh January 9, 2012 11:16 AM PSwhere apparently Rep. Ryan woke up with a headache, a bad dream, and an epiphany, changed his mind, and said, in the famous words of Emily Litella, “Never mind”. That in 48 hours Reddit raised $15,000 for Ryan’s opponent may have had something to do with Rep. Ryan’s late conversion.Congress is good at counting votes and maybe still better at counting money.If SOPA-PIPA stop moving forward and just start gathering dust, maybe some in Congress will believe that all has been forgiven and forgotten. Not a chance: I have a nice, rich file system directory on SOPA-PIPA and also the letters I’ve sent to The Hill, backup the files once a day, and will not forget.I’ve got better things to do than push back against deliberately brain-dead, dysfunctional, destructive nonsense and very much resent having to do so.Maybe Schumer and Gillibrand have accepted that such nonsense is SOP, but I don’t, and they have big black marks on my report card on them.Our country has some BIG problems; the Internet is one of the biggest successes and not a problem; Congress needs to concentrate on the problems and not attack the rare, big successes; if Schumer-Gillibrand can’t think of anything constructive to do, then maybe some others can.We’re trying to build something important with the Internet and are being successful; having people just trying to tear down the Internet just because that’s all they know to do is UNgood.My kitty cat doesn’t make a mess on the rug, and I don’t want senators to do so either.

    2. Otto

      It’s not over yet. People need to stay focused.

  43. The Mandarin

    Fred,Where can I purchase this blog layout?

    1. fredwilson

      you can’t. it’s a custom build

  44. Rayhan Rafiq Omar

    Maybe redirect to the twitter hash tag that tracks the buzz from all the sites going’dark’? Or link to a page that allows US Citizens to do their bit too (send letters/email to their Congress representative?)

  45. bfeld

    Cheezburger is going dark as well (as are all of our sites). They are setting up a redirect as well as plugin overlays. I’ll connect you.

    1. JamesHRH

      @fredwilson:disqus this is the answer – people can’t get to AVC and get redirected.That is what the bills effect is going to be. Simulating it is a nice parallel.You goal should be not to go dark but to go dark by making weird things happen. On wednesday, people landing in weird places with little to no explanation would be a eye opener.Short of that – I would not post anything other than a set of 6 or 8 links. I would also close comments for the day.

  46. alain94040

    Redirect your 

  47. alain94040

    You should redirect your domain for a day to http://ninjavideo.net/Why? Because it’s the closest to what SOPA will look like: official seizure of websites by the US government. The more people can see what it looks like *for real*, the better. No arguments or talk. Just show them.

  48. John Revay

    Word Press Plugin – so this post for word press siteshttp://zd.net/wdNkw4

  49. Donna Brewington White

    When I received the email about the blackout, I immediately thought of AVC.  I would feel a sense of loss if I did not even have the option of visiting AVC — I even came here on CHRISTMAS!  But I believe this stark statement and reminder is needed even for those of us who are among the believers.   It sounds like you (Fred) are already planning to do this and are not asking for alternative suggestions, but rather a way to implement.  But, of course, you will always get so much more than you asked for with this crowd. ;)Even though I really like some of the ideas shared about how AVC could be a sort of depot on the 18th, I think going dark would be a more stunning statement.  Maybe some of these suggestions could be done the day before — or after.  And regardless of the results we are going to need a place to debrief after the blackout and then again after the vote and I can’t think of a better place than AVC. But on the 18th, no matter how valuable a discussion we could have here, somehow it would feel like a cop out, like an effort to have our cake and eat it too.   Maybe, even a lack of integrity. BTW, if anyone wants to tweet about the blackout, feel free to cut and paste mine:  http://bit.ly/zNPrGz

  50. Donna Brewington White

    Deleting double post — either Disqus or my computer is misbehaving.My children already serve this role in my life, thank you.Moderators feel free to delete this.

  51. Riley Harrison

    “But where should I redirect it to?” How about a picture of hell – that’s what  a fettered society would feel like to me

  52. Dave W Baldwin

    Just found out and tweeted Obama is against SOPA/Pipa as it stands. Since Romney is the same way (I think), the tide is turning.

    1. Otto

      Obama has led people to believe one thing and then he does another.Keep your guard up.

      1. Dave W Baldwin

        You’re right.

  53. Jennifer McFadden

    Sara Chipps from GirlDevelopIt built this:Hey All, I’m going to be blacking out all the web content I own on 1/18 for 24 hours in protest of SOPA/PIPA. I made a super easy way for you to do this as well. Drop the following code in between your two <head></head> tags on your site, your users will be redirected to the blackout page that describes what we are doing and why. Then, when the protest is over, simply remove the added code. <script> window.location = “http://protestsopa.org”; </script>I added it via a code injection on my SquareSpace site. It just redirects to the Protect Sopa page. Took 5 minutes.

    1. fredwilson

      it’s a funny coincidence. i bumped into sara yesterday at a lunch spot and asked her what she was working on. i bet this is it.

      1. Sara Chipps

        It was :). Great to see you!So, I reached out last weeks to folks with the same question. I got the same mix of responses. No one had put together anything standard yet. I bought http://protestsopa.org and put some information on it about SOPA, why people are protesting, and what the user can do to help. If you place the code Jennifer posted in between the two HEAD tags, your site will be redirected to http://protestsopa.org until you take it down. People have jumped in to contribute to the GitHub here: https://github.com/SaraJo/S… They have added banners for folks that don’t want to take their site down. I have since added a timer so people don’t have to get up at 12am on Wednesday to insert the code. This is the improved version below. It will start redirecting your site to http://protestsopa.org at 12am on Wednesday, and stop at 12am on Thursday. This will likely be according to your server’s local time. Place the snippet below in between your two HEAD tags on your homepage.  var today = new Date(); if((today.getDate() == 18) && (today.getMonth() == 0) && (today.getFullYear() == 2012)) { window.location = “http://protestsopa.org”; }We have a burgeoning list of sites in the README on Github, I will update it as more sites commit to taking themselves down. 

        1. fredwilson

          thanks!!!this seems like the answer i was looking for

        2. Luke Chamberlin

          Go Sara!

    2. Donna Brewington White

      Perfect.  Thank you!

  54. kidtunafish

    I disagree with this point if only because I presume that 99+% of the people who comment here have the same position on the bill. But when the New York Times wants to know what they are going to write about in the tech/biz section of the paper and they come here to crib ideas only to find the site blacked out, well, that might start a discussion among people with differing views.

  55. Dino Dogan

    A buddy of mine made a cool Stop SOPA ribbon (plugin) that goes across the upper right corned of any WordPress blog. Hate to be the guy who leaves links in comments but since it’s way relevant, here it is http://diyblogger.net/sopa-…Many bloggers want to take their blogs down for a day. The problem with that logic is that our blogs are not essential to people the way google and Facebook are essential to people. Ergo, few will notice or care that the blog is down. A think a more effective way to show support is to write about it and provide an anti-SOPA ribbon, logo-block, whatever it takes to get it canned. 

  56. John McGrath

    I think you should Rickroll everyone on the 18th.

  57. Michal Illich

    If you can add some custom Javascript you can just cover your page with a dark layer. That shouldn’t affect your search engine ranking.Or you can do the same thing with CSS.

    1. fredwilson

      good suggestions. thanks

  58. Guest

    Or do the same thing with CSS.

  59. panterosa,

    Why not have all the AVC readers somehow make a petition, each by posting their objection on the 18th. We could send FAKE GRIMLOCK to congress with this long petition list on a scroll. FG busts through the wall while they are in session, light the scroll like a match, and roars and breathes fire on them until they reject SOPA.

    1. fredwilson

      he lives nearby!

      1. panterosa,

        yes,i know, which is why I suggest he be the AVC pit bull!! 

  60. jason wright

    Can the AVC html page source code be customized with this template? Change the color codes to black #000000 for background and all text.Then nothing can be read but the spiders SEO as normal.

    1. fredwilson

      good idea. thanks

  61. LE

    One thing that is not helping your SEO (which I’ve mentioned before) is the fact that disqus comments aren’t indexed by any search engine because they are a javascript embed. I just checked with Tyler @disqus:disqus  and for wordpress they have a plugin that puts the comments so they are output in the page markup and are picked up by search engines. But not for typepad. For anyone not using wordpress you have to do this: http://docs.disqus.com/help…In my opinion the lack of indexing of  comments is a big deal. It’s an additional valid point of entry to your site that is currently missing.   There is plenty of valuable information and education in the comments and that information should be available through search engines and of course will drive additional traffic to avc.com

    1. fredwilson

      i heard that google was indexing javascript now. is that incorrect?

      1. awaldstein

        Not to my knowledge but glad to be wrong on this. 

        1. Dale Allyn

          Info at SearchEngineLandCC @fredwilson:disqus  @domainregistry:disqus It’s not perfect yet, but it is an important improvement for Disqus content. 

          1. awaldstein

            Thank you!

          2. Dale Allyn

            It’s a big deal and needs to get resolved. As you and @domainregistry:disqus have mentioned, Disqus is giving up a lot in this area. AVC.com is very poorly indexed wrt comments. There is so much great content in the comments that if they were properly indexed the page rank of AVC would take a substantial upward leap. Of course this applies to other Disqus-enabled blogs. It’s a deal-breaker for some. 

          3. LE

            Problem is it’s not implemented. It’s like when a auto manufacturer says “available 7 speed transmission” means “costs extra”. They say “has the ability” which is different from “we are doing”.If the guidelines are not followed, it will be some time before content like this is indexed by default: http://code.google.com/web/…In the near term, your site will remain indexed by Google as-is, with many pages likely not fully represented in search results. However, we are continously working to make Googlebot behave more like a browser. As we implement more features, Google may start to index your pages properly without help.

          4. Dale Allyn

            Agreed, Larry, hence my comment below to Arnold stating “It’s a big deal and needs to get resolved…”. There is such value in the comments of quality blogs, but that is especially true of AVC.com.I’m not sure if Daniel et al are in conversation with Google, but Disqus is now a credible company that should feel comfortable talking with them about this. Of course, study and adjustment should be implemented from the Disqus app. point of view as well.I wish the very best for the folks at Disqus and simply wish that they’re able to clear this important hurdle so that they and their users benefit.  

      2. LE

        Well they are not indexing avc.com comments that’s for sure. A snip of a post on your site comes right up. A snip of any comments does not. That news was related to indexing facebook comments in particular. But they also issued guidelines to allow other sites to get indexed. Disqus said in response to my original question earlier about crawling comments  “No news yet if this will be expanded to all/other JavaScript things but we’re keeping an eye it.”I’ve asked him to clarify (and will update my response) since from my reading it is possible if they follow certain guidelines that google puts out.  I know something about this but I’m not an expert so I will defer to what they say about it.http://www.searchenginejour…Guidelines:http://code.google.com/web/… Also Matt Cutts did qualify his tweet by saying they have the ability to “index some dynamic content”.  He didn’t say “all”.

    2. awaldstein

      This is a really big deal.I’ve been telling @danielha:disqus and @rogupta:disqus about this for a long time. Bloggers should be their best friends and bloggers care about natural traffic…as they should. SEO results from Disqus consider the volumes of comments I have under my blogs are very poor. I actually make a conscious tradeoff to choose conversation and community over natural traffic. I do this willingly but wish this wasn’t a choice I needed to make.Thanks for raising this,

      1. LE

        This thread reminds me of something which I often think about. How experience can actually get in the way, and how younger people (with less experience) sometimes have an advantage because of what they don’t know.  Like when Fred couldn’t wrap his hands around not funding airbnb. I also would never think that idea would work. Rent out your house to strangers? No way! Meshugenah!  I feel somewhat vindicated about airbnb though when I read about a similar service for cars that shut down (higear.com).  http://techcrunch.com/2012/…Anyway my point is that to me it would have been a non-starter to have a product that doesn’t allow comments to be indexed.  I would think “who will use this if the comments aren’t indexed” it can’t be released without that. But I guess it is a MVP so that’s a lesson to learn. But how do you know in advance that lack of a feature would be a non-starter? You don’t.Wine bottles without corks! Oy!

        1. awaldstein

          Well said.I’ll leave the discussion of generational wisdom, ‘think differently’ and my feelings towards artificial corks and screw caps on wine aside, although I have strong opinions on all of them…of course.A really important discussion to have is about the inability of search and social to get along. And further whether the G+ social/search rankings reality is basically a bell weather for a complete shift in how search plays in the game moving forward. This is a huge juicy subject. Could comments be the new implicit thread for discovery? What does the world look like where basically you are forced to play within the G+ walls to get rankings on an equal footing?Thanks for nursing this string along.

    3. awaldstein

      Please share the info on the plug in. I’ve reread your comment and thrilled that this plugin is there. Puzzled why I don’t know about it.

      1. LE

        From Tyler at disqus today:However Disqus can be indexed in other ways:- Our WordPress plugin syncs comments back to the local WordPress installation so comments are output in the markup.- We have a “Data synchronization” guide for anyone who doesn’t use our WordPress plugin: http://docs.disqus.com/help

        1. awaldstein

          Thanks…but my response to this is also…Oy!This is really important info. Top of the ladder for the blogging community.I push Disqus really vigilantly into my vertical niches. Tech knows them. Wine and food, not so much. SEO is question #1.For every issue that there is a good suggestion, this should be a topic of communications. What’s that movie line…”Help me help you!” 😉

  62. Tristan Louis

    How about redirecting the www to http://americancensorship.org/ which you already use to block out your logoIn your DNS administration page on register.com (whois tells me that’s where you register your domain), you would look for the www CNAME Take whichever name is in there and save it in a place where you can find it again. Then replace it with americancensorship.orgThat might do it. The challenge with a DNS redirect is that it would probably last longer than the 18th, considering DNS propagation. 

  63. Guest

    Regarding SOPA, is there anyone here interested in prototyping a citizen-centric flashPAC?  A flashPAC would be similar to flash flood, flash mob, etc– but applied to political fundraising– to my knowledge it’s never been done.  Specifically, I’m looking for someone with knowledge of how federal political action committees (PACs) work and people knowledgeable about how to spend money effectively on Capitol Hill.I have the domain flashPAC.org and would like to contribute it to the effort.  Creating flashPACs seems to be legally feasible and could be a much needed new tool for how we govern ourselves as Americans.  Such a PAC would be able to raise and spend money just like the big boys, fighting fire with fire.Until the campaign financing rules change, it’s best to work with the tools available.  Although PACs are currently used by established interests only– it seems the Internet can change that.SOPA seems to be a great fit for prototyping the flashPAC model by raising significant money for a worthy cause in a very short time period.  We’d need transparent, participatory, and collaborative methods for deciding how to spend the money most effectively against SOPA– so I welcome advice from folks with knowledge of the lobbying process.If interested, please feel free to discuss it here or reach me at lucas.cioffi[at]gmail.com.

  64. Yoav Lurie

    Drop in an iFrame… explain what you’re up to above and load http://keepthewebopen.com/ in the iFrame…

  65. Mihran Papazian

    Ask @typepad to go black

  66. William Mougayar

    I just read that The Tide is Turning on SOPA via Forbes who reports that the White House is tipping towards anti-SOPA. This is good news!http://www.forbes.com/sites

    1. Otto

      Still need to keep up the pressure.

      1. William Mougayar

        It seems that Rep. Issa’s bill has gained ground. Now people are understanding that piracy is not the issue, rather it’s the old players inability to embrace new models. – posted via http://engag.io

    2. James Schaffer

      26 minutes ago on NYT:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012… “We will not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression, increases cybersecurity risk or undermines the dynamic, innovative global Internet.”

  67. Dale Allyn

    This is what I decided to do. I’ll apply it to ~six web sites. Thoughts?(I’ll improve IE7-8 transparency support, but it should render okay in most other browsers for now.)

    1. Donna Brewington White

      That’s great.  How did you do that?

      1. Dale Allyn

        Hi Donna, I created a simple little javascript and a little bit of CSS (styling) to place in the html document of the webpages. I have it on several sites now, although on one I allow it to be dismissed because I get a lot of traffic for the Asian University for Women on that particular site from overseas visitors. They can click a link to dismiss it if they like. I don’t use WordPress or TypePad, so did not explore if it would be an easy solution for those users. WP should be okay if hosting it yourself as it can simply be fitted into the template, but many WP users don’t code their own templates. There are plugin solutions posted various places for WP though, and now I’m seeing some for TypePad too. Edit to add: I recall that you use Blogger and I’ve never styled a blog there, otherwise I’d be happy to help you apply it to your blog if you wished. I simply have no experience with the platform, user-access or limitations, etc.

        1. Donna Brewington White

          Hi Dale — I found something that I can use with my minimal knowledge of html thanks to @jenmcfadden:disqus Yours looks great.Thank you!

        2. Donna Brewington White

          Where I had trouble was with my ATT hosted site (for my biz) because I don’t have access to html there. And you’ve seen/heard what happened to my Blogger site — although I was able to add the “stop censorship” banner just fine a few weeks back. In the end, having the site taken down accomplishes a similar objective and even more poignantly — because THAT is what could happen with SOPA! Only problem is that I don’t get to make the point. (not that I have a lot of traffic anyway)Good ol’ Tumblr accepts the script just fine.That settles it, must make time to do those CodeYear lessons!

  68. Mike D.

    Just put this line your stylesheet and every page will be blank: body {display: none !important}It will still be visible to Google so you won’t be penalized. If you kept it like this for weeks, it might be viewed as cloaking, but for a day, you’ll be fine.

  69. Neil Braithwaite

    The whole internet can go dark but it will make no difference to those bent on f-ing with the internet. If you want to make some noise and be heard then put your money where your mouths are and start a PAC and/or lobbying effort. Money talks in Washington, not boycotts or some protest that would seem to only hurt the ones protesting. Geez, you techies need to get a clue about how Washington works. For heaven’s sake, do something that will be covered by the MSM not a bunch of tech-news sites.

    1. fredwilson

      neil – don’t think i am only doing the blogging and protesting stuff. i have given quite a bit of money to washington over the years. i am calling in those favors. and calling in other ones too. i am not naive about how the world works. but protests do matter too. everything matters when you want to win.

      1. Neil Braithwaite

        OK great! Tell us who you think we need to financially/politically support and who to call in Washington that will make a difference.

  70. Lucas_Cioffi

    Anyone interested in prototyping a citizen-centric flashPAC?  I have flashPAC.org that I’m willing to donate to the effort.A flashPAC would be similar to flash flood, flash mob, etc– but applied to political fundraising– to my knowledge it’s never been done.  Specifically, I’m looking for someone with knowledge of how federal political action committees (PACs) work and people knowledgeable about how to spend money effectively on Capitol Hill.Creating flashPACs seems to be legally feasible and could be a much needed new tool for how we govern ourselves as Americans.  Such a PAC would be able to raise and spend money just like the big boys.I’d be interested in seeing the idea discussed here.

  71. William Mougayar

    You saw Murdock tweeting about slamming Obama for being anti-SOPA? http://gizmodo.com/5876189/…And he took a jab at Google too while he was at it. 

      1. William Mougayar

        Nice response. And the CATO article is excellent. Let’s hope you have that meeting, definitely. – posted via http://engag.io

      2. William Mougayar

        He just popped at the Golden Globe Awards.

  72. paramendra

    I think you should redirect AVC.com to http://technbiz.blogspot.com for that one day. Not that I support SOPA or anything like that. …… SOPA Is So Going Down http://bit.ly/z4ZSNw 

  73. Josh Fraser

    Fred & anyone who’s interested,We just released stop-sopa.js — a free JavaScript widget for blacking out your site on the 18th.  You can either use our hosted version or grab the code off github and modify it however you’d like.  You can check it out at http://torbit.com/blog/2012…Josh

  74. Polly Jenkins

    I guess we will find out on the 18th. By the way I love your website.

  75. Jesse Middleton

    Fred, if you want, I can show you how you can make avc.com go dark on the 18th with GetBackstory.com. Since we rewrite the page on load, it would be one simple rule to show what you want to every visitor. Let me know if you want a hand (and it’s only one line of Javascript code).

  76. Guest

    Here’s how you do it the right way: https://plus.google.com/u/0…

  77. John Revay

    Just saw a retweet from Tim O’Reilly via Matt Cutts (Google) on Practical advice from Google about how to do a #SOPAblackout without confusing search result.http://bit.ly/ylHxzUQuestion – how do you generate a 503 HTTP header on typepad

  78. Dan Epstein

    Just saw in @bfeld:disqus twitter feed. How to blackout from Pierre Far at Google: https://plus.google.com/u/0

  79. Koslow

    What he said.

  80. ayosha

    Fred, what are your thoughts about Dick Costelo’s tweet, “Closing a global business in reaction to single-issue national politics is foolish.”

    1. fredwilson

      i talked to Dick about this. he struggled to get his point across in 140 characters but he is committed to using the twitter platform to communicate. his point is that Twitter is a global platform. people in parts of the world where SOPA/PIPA is a non-issue would be very upset if it was down over something irrelevant to them. i think SOPA/PIPA is an important global issue but i understand his point of view too.

      1. jason wright

        I wonder if there’s the technical capability for Twitter to attach a SOPA ‘tag’ or reference with each tweet that goes out tomorrow? Short notice, capacity issues,  major headache, not worth the hassle,…..or, send his SOPA view as a tweet link to each US account.  It’s not easy trying to get a message across through the constraints of the mass media. Makes 140 characters seem like an opportunity to write ‘War and Peace’.

  81. Carl J. Mistlebauer

    Here is another twist to SOPA:http://news.yahoo.com/great… Content that is readily available at anytime to anyone via the internet…for a price.So now someone asks, why should be forced to pay for content?

  82. jason wright

    Is something going on? I’m beginning to wonder if SOPA is actually bait designed to hook and identify hacking groups and networks, and ‘dissidents’ – a grand FBI unmasking op.

  83. Dale Allyn

    I like the idea of simply putting up a temp page (or redirect to a temp page for the day), but it’s not clear how much control and comfort Fred has with the administration of the site. I have no experience with TypePad, but I would assume that one can temporarily replace the main page template. Most CMSs allow for the “home” page to point to any template file of one’s choice. 

  84. fredwilson

    yeah, something like that seems like the right idea. thanks charlie

  85. Dale Allyn

    This is what I decided to do. I’ll apply it to ~six sites. I don’t have significant traffic, but at least there’ll be the added voice of solidarity. I admin a few sites for others as well and will encourage them to allow me to add it to theirs on the 18th as well.

  86. Tom Evslin

    Charlie:Fred can do that but many bloggers can’t or would be afraid to. So I think a simple facility from the hosting services – including facebook – would be helpful and empower their users.

  87. fredwilson

    yes, we need more Tom!