Google update in progress

Got an excited phone call from a client on Monday - found himself hitting some major keywords that we’d been targeting, but hadn’t expected to rank for anytime time soon.
Strategy was to hit the Longtail before focusing on the generic keywords, but seems the generics have come through early.
What’s interesting is that I’m not able [...]

Google’s use of WHOIS

A fleeting comment by Matt Cutts at the Las Vegas Pubcon gets some attention.
Basically, someone asked Matt Cutts on one of the floors about a ranking issue - and in a couple of clicks Matt was able to call up a record of exactly which sites the guy owned.
Got to admit, it’s a little unnerving [...]

Car accident and noisy kids

We’ve got into the habit of driving around Scotland when we can.
Today I decided to take the family to Glen Afric - which we found to be a wild expanse of rugged hills, natural pine-forest, and ice-gouged mountians.
I’ll be posting up pics later on the blog I mentioned to cover our travels of Scotland.
Point [...]

Another reason why MSN Search is failing

I casually use MSN Search - now Live.com search - for two main reasons:
Firstly, I report ranking positions for clients on MSN.
Secondly, I think the potential integration of MSN search with Windows users offers an exciting opportunitity for Microsoft to gain new users of its search business.
But…Microsoft are setting up unnecessary barriers for users.
The user [...]

Is SMA UK dead?

I was at SES London 2 years ago when SMA UK launched.
After Mike Grehan raised a high-profile series of criticisms at SEMPO - the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organisation - a splinter group worked it’s way out and set up a rival Search Marketing Association (SMA), which was supposed to work on a national level. [...]

Tackling mobile phone spam scams on forums

I’ve been getting a heavy deluge of mobile phone spam on my forums.
It’s not just spam, it’s a scam as well - someone registers a free email address, posts on forums (usually multiple times) claiming they are an online merchant offering discounted electrical goods.
But anyone dumb enough to send them cash, never sees it [...]

New Scotland blog & pics

I really love manually building up websites. Usually they have to have some connection to work and clients, but recently I’ve been trying to set up some personal ones with no income generation goals whatsoever.
It’s like returning to my roots as a webmaster - but only this time being able to use a CMS, instead [...]

Who reads Guy Kawasaki?

Graywolf asks if Guy Kawasaki needs branding help.
Main reason is the change of name.
Originally it was “Guy Kawasaki’s blog”.
Then it was “Signum sine tinnitus-by Guy Kawasaki”.
Now it’s “How to change the world”?
That has a social conscience/spirituality philosophy about it - not a VC blog.
Plus the constant change in identity kills branding.
Simply put, Guy [...]

How to turn trash into cash

Viewing the DigitalPoint and SitePoint marketplaces shows what an incredible amount of bottom feeding is going on for worthless sites and content.
So let’s take a quick tour of how you can turn your worthless websites into real moolah:
1. The forum
Set up a forum. Spend $100 getting 500 paid-for forum posts over 4 weeks.
1 month later, [...]

GMail for PageRank?

An article here suggests that GMail could be used for PageRank benefits in Google.
I think we’ve seen it covered before that GMail offers useful clickstream data for Google to tap into, including which users are visiting which websites.
However, to then throw PageRank into the equation - just seems plain absurd.
GMail has joined the ranks of [...]

Aaron says MSN marketing sucks…

and makes a very good point.
MSN set up 3-D mapping software on some major cities - but immediately dropped ads all over it:

By Microsoft placing the billboards in their images they change the focus of what people talk about from the quality of the product to the stupid billboards. If they have no users the [...]

Taking pride in clients

I know a lot of SEO people have gravitated away from having clients to running their own sphere of businesses.
I have to admit, though - I do like working with people, and I do like working with my clients. I feel a real sense of joy when we set targets and succeed in meeting them.
I [...]

Dreaming of SEO people

I’ve been working till very late a lot recently.
Something I’ve learned before is that if I don’t allow at least a clear hour of relaxation time after work, my sleep isn’t particularly restful. And that’s been happening.
Aside from dreaming I’m at work, I’ve also been dreaming of some of the personalities I’ve met online, [...]

Google News for organic link development

I have a few news sites accepted into Google News - they’re genuine news sites, and to be perfectly honest they’ve always been built as news sites as news sites with no ulterior purpose - not even SEO. :)
However, it’s been very interesting to note how having a news site can be good for organic [...]