There's been a lot going on in the technology industry over the last month. Apple has had a rocky month, Panda 4.1 launches, Wales gets their own domain extension, a worrying internet security bug is spotted and the SEO ranking factors for 2014 are released.

Apple has a bad month

This month Apple have dealt with a bug within iOS 8 software, plus the free U2 album which was automatically added to all iTunes accounts...which nobody seemed to want. In addition to this was an issue dubbed as 'bendgate' - shortly after the launch of the iPhone 6, customers reported that their new device had become bent in their pockets. However, the Huffington Post has posted a video which gives Apple a bit of a break. By showcasing a video created by Consumer Reports, the Huffington Post suggests that the iPhone 6's bendiness may have been blown out of proportion.

Watch Huffington Post's iPhone 6 video

Want more info on the iPhone 6? We mentioned its launch in the August tech round-up.

Panda update 4.1

Google quietly announced their latest update - Panda 4.1, which is the 26th change to the algorithm so far. During their announcement, Google said that they had discovered new signals which made the detection of low-quality or spammy content even easier. The update affects between 3-5% of queries and will offer the greatest benefit to small and medium sized businesses who consistently publish high-quality content.

Find out more about the recent update - Panda 4.1

Read Mercurytide's more in-depth introduction to Google Panda 4.0.

Wales gets its own domain

Following in Scotland's footsteps, Wales launches its own internet domains .wales and .cymru. The domain will be available for businesses to purchase in November and for the wider public in March. This comes as part of several new domains being launched by ICANN, in order to meet the growing demand for domains.

Read about the new domain for Wales

Find out more about Scotland's new domain and if you have any questions, please get in touch.

Shellshock Internet security bug detected

Last week, a malicious bug was discovered which was said to affect a huge proportion of devices, home computers and servers. Said to be more severe than Heartbleed, our technical team got to work immediately to patch servers so that Mercurytide's clients would not be at risk from the bug. The Telegraph published a helpful video which discusses the threat posed by Shellshock.

Watch video about Shellshock

We contacted our clients to let them know about the bug immediately, if you want to be on our mailing list then please sign up.

2014's SEO ranking factors

Searchmetrics recently published the eagerly awaited ranking factors for 2014. For those of you who aren't SEO savvy, Moz have kindly gone into more detail about what these mean for businesses. Unsurprisingly, a lot of emphasis is still placed on signals from social media and the production of high quality content.

Read 2014's SEO ranking factors

If SEO still seems a little confusing, get in touch with a member of our team to find out how we can help with online marketing and SEO.

Missed last month's feature? You can catch up on all of our tech round-ups on our website.

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