Adsense Smart Pricing test

I noticed a while back that when I accidentally left AdSense off one of my high traffic sites for a couple of days, the actual revenues seemed barely affected.
I put this down to a lucky fluke and quickly re-added the Adsense.
I’ve also noticed that earnings will apparently start the day with high payments per click […]

2006: A Year in Search

Chris Winfield makes a very interesting summary of the 101 top search engine stories of 2006.
The top 10 - in descending order - are:

10. nofollow concerns (7/7) leads to some high profile sites changing their no-follow policies
9. Digg updates their algorithm (9/8), changes their look (12/18) and bans lots of legit sites in the process […]

Rediscovering the Korg X5D

On Christmas Day I got out my old Korg X5D for the first time in at least 2 years, and connected it up to my PC speakers.
I’m a self-taught musician - first guitar, then keywords. I can’t read music and never read music theory - but I hear music in my head all the time.
In […]

Predictions for 2007

It’s customary every year for people to write predictions for the coming year.
I’m going to be no exception.
Below in no particular order of importance - are my predictions for the internet world in general, with a specific emphasis on the SEO/SEM industry:
1. Vista uptake with be slower than predicted
Microsoft thinks Vista will see rapid acceptance, […]

Converting b2evolution to Wordpress

I have some b2evolution installs from a couple of years ago, a couple of which have been used and really need updating to a more efficient software platform - such as Wordpress.
However, there is no official Wordpress converter from b2evolution. Apparently, what complicates matters is that the database structure changes significantly in successive b2evolution […]

Wordpress on PDA - plugin

Here’s a gift of a plugin for Wordpress install - my CMS of choice:
Wordpress PDA Plugin
Apparently, it works by detecting the user-agent string - if it looks like a PDA browser, it publishes your site on a slimmed down theme to make it much more easily readable on a PDA.
Now that’s nice. :)
Hat tip to […]

Digg banning domains - open to abuse?

Lee Odden has apparently had his domain banned by Digg.
According to a support email from Digg:

“When submitted stories are consistently reported as spam and users complain via our feedback email about submission spam, we ban the domain. The domain will not be unbanned. The domain would consistently get reported as spam […]

Simple reputation management

Brian Turner is a common name - aside from a few minor writers with the same name, there’a a celebrity TV chef in the UK who shares it also.
Therefore ranking - or not - for my own name has never seemed a big issue.
However, today I found in my logs for Platinax that someone had […]

Ecommerce merchants should allow for partial orders!

On December 1st I ordered some lingerie for my girlfriend for Christmas.
The store was found simply using Google for a keyword search.
My order placed, I then sent an email telling them it was intended to be a set of Christmas gifts and that the sale was conditional for getting the items delivered for Christmas.
Now it’s […]

Top Content Links

Duplicate Content
Google provides further information on duplicate content issues. IMO duplicate content issues are one of the biggest dangers to any site traffic. CR has a ton of powerful natural links from universities and government sites - but it’s traffic tanked last October when Google turned up the duplicate content filter criteria. Problems are that […]

Greywolf’s link baiting tips

Gurtie asks how link baiting can apply to:

a small shop wanting to setup an e-commerce site in the North West of the UK selling plumbing supplies to the trade

Greywolf replies:

How about designing a bathroom sink with a laptop in it behind some water proof barrier.
How about an article featuring pictures from the most expensive / […]

Sometimes I just hate webdev work - part 2!!

Dealing with errors in Platinax is proving child’s play at present compared to a recent client site I’m redeveloping.
So far it’s a catalogue of miscommunications and misjudgements as I take a site built with .inc files in .asp to php includes in a Wordpress CMS.
I have never wanted to abandon any project as much as […]

Sometimes I just hate webdev work!

Anyone with a home PC probably knows how infuriating computers can be at the best of times.
When you do webdevelopment work, you’re not simply working with ordinary desktop computers - you’re also working with servers and the whole HTTP she-bang.
And it is all *very* unforgiving, in that unforgiving computer logic sort of way.
Take last […]

5 things you never knew about Brian Turner

Okay, I’ve been tagged by Marketing Guy, which was nice - so before I move this blog, I’ll list 5 things you never knew about me - to serve as an exit from the current site location to the new domain. :)
1. I use to have an unhealthy obsession with explosives
It was soon cured by […]

Bye bye Brian’s Business Blog

Platinax is currently undergoing redevelopment, and with that it’s time to say bye bye to Brian’s Business Blog.
The key reason?
It’s a crap blog.
I read various other blogs online, and the good ones are:
*fresh!
*informative!
*interesting!
I’ve managed to fail on all 3 here.
I have some excuse, though - since the last Platinax redevelopment I found myself separating the […]

The Longtail in pictures

Danny Sullivan posts a series of pics on Longtail traffic.
The Longtail is a key and lucrative element of optimising for search engines - and the images themselves should make it clear why.

The pitfalls of news reporting

Running Platinax News has been an eye-opening experience.
Not only has it shown me very clearly the value of a news portal for increasing traffic and organic link development, it’s also shown me some clear pitfalls on story reporting.
The key lesson is one of wording - you need to ensure you have a lawyer’s perception of […]

Yet another dumb SEO contest

I made my feelings about the latest SEO contest pretty clear on SEOmoz…

SEO contests are so f***ing stupid.
It’s an exercise at throwing bricks at the search engines. The people who applaud them I’ll bet are the same ones who go to SEO forums after, complaining that the new algo updates to patch the exploited methods […]

Google News for quality news sources

I wrote an article at SEOmoz about the usefulness of Google News for traffic and organic link development.
Shortly after, I submitted a news site to Google News - and had it immediately rejected, with the submissions reviewer clearly stating they weren’t going to explain why.
I figured there may be a misperception that I was advocating […]

Buying illegal content

As I continue to develop my forums, I saw a tech forum come up on Sitepoint and rushed in for a quick sale.
The aim was to merge it with Tech Watch and create a larger and better positioned tech forum for the UK market.
It took a couple of days to sort out some MySQL compatibility […]