How to complain

In business and domestic life I’ve repeatedly encountered issues where I’ve felt as though a product/service has either been not satisfactorily delivered, or delivered at all.
In raising complaints, I’ve learned a few key pointers on how to ensure a reasonably swift resolution of such issues:
1. Ask, don’t threaten
Don’t threaten anything. We don’t know there is [...]

20 Lessons I’ve Learned in Business

I never trained nor studied in business - getting involved in SEO and then running a SEO company was all pretty much an accidental process, and an interesting learning curve to boot.
However, I have learned a number of principles of business which I think have kept me in good stead.
I’ve already posted them in the [...]

Did Dell drop the Linux PC?

UPDATE: 10th Dec 2007: Dell just contacted me and have fixed the 404 - you can now buy Ubuntu PC’s online from Dell UK again. :)
Just tried to order a linux PC from Dell, but I’m getting a 404 when I try to purchase.
I start at:
Dell.co.uk > Desktops > Ubuntu Linux
But when click on “Customise [...]

I just bought an iMac

I’ve just bought my very first Apple - a nice 24″ 2.8GHz iMac.
The process wasn’t entirely smooth, as it flagged a potential fraud alert on my credit card, refused the order the first time.
I had to spend 15 minutes running through the bank’s anti-fraud checks before I could make an order that would complete.
There have [...]

Using Adsense stats as a business development tool

This afternoon I decided to set up historical records of Adsense earnings for my top performing websites over 2007.
I’m not a high-flyer in SEO - I spend all my time working on development projects rather than posturing - and while I’m certainly not a top Adsense earner, the revenues are enough to make Google my [...]

Live Search: Aggressive duplicate content filters

Live Search - aka MSN Search - has been showing some of the most aggressive duplicate content filtering I’ve ever seen across any search engine of late.
I first noticed it with a client who is performing well on Google, but has dropped down significantly on MSN.
The main problem is that he’s in a market that [...]

Why companies should be wary of in-house link development

At SEW, Justilien Gaspard suggests 5 Best Reasons to Build Links In-House.
While I certainly encourage my own clients to cover some link development in house, it has to be done under guidance.
The problem is, managing a link development campaign requires experience, knowledge and creative thinking that you cannot easily train someone in.
Additionally, good link developers [...]

Tips for buying sites/domains

I’ve been buying sites/domains of late, and already wasted money doing this, so I thought I’d pass on a few tips with regards to buying a website or domain name.
The reason for buying sites and domains should be obvious: asset development.
There are so many reasons why asset development can be useful:
- capturing mindshare
- lead generation
- [...]

Niche directories still offer link building potential

I’ll get straight to the point - directory submission as a way to help improve your search engine presence is entirely dependent on your strategy.
The easiest trap anyone doing directory submission can make is to simply go for large scale directory submission services.
The problem here is that such services are pushing for quantity, not quality, [...]

Search frequency does not equal competition

One of the big misconceptions I see on business forums is the idea:
“That the number of documents returned on a keyword search on Google, has a direct correlation with the competitiveness of the keyword.”
Once you see people posting examples of their “SEO successes” by use of this measurement, you can easily see that search frequency [...]

Don’t you just hate crappy webhosts?

So I turned my attention back to this blog, reskinned it, and made a few posts.
Only, the MySQL database kept crashing, WHM showed almost full processor use on the server, and the load kept freezing the site.
I have to use a lot of reseller accounts, and though I have a generally good handle on the [...]

Web 2.0 logos with PaintShopPro

At around £50 PaintShopPro is a simple and accessible graphics program.
I had thought until recently that you’d need buy Photoshop (CS3 retails at over £500) to create Web 2.0 effects.
However, I had a little play with PSP and found you can easily create Web 2.0 style logos with just PaintShop Pro. :)
Here’s how:
1. Create text
File [...]

Clever new Paypal phishing scam: Andrew Jackson has sent you 85.00 EUR with PayPal

Just received a string of clever phishing scam emails through different email addresses I operate.
I know they are phishing attempts because:
1. They do not address myself in a personal sense, ie, by name
2. They are being sent to addresses I do not use for Paypal transactions
However, they are quite convincing because even in the junkmail [...]

When clueless SEO’s work over the radar

So I received another email approach from another SEO company - who have visited one of my good content sites, and without realising that it’s published by another SEO company, sent a link buying request:

My name is [removed] and I work on behalf of [major UK brand]. We would be interested in placing an advertorial [...]

When forum members set up a rival forum…

When you’re a forum admin, the site of some of your other forum members setting up a rival forum can be pretty chilling.
Firstly, if you do see this, don’t panic.
If you’ve been a good admin, the only people who’ll really resent your forum are the people you probably aren’t comfortable having on there anyway.
Secondly, [...]

ibrian uses DoFollow - here’s more DoFollow blogs

So my past couple of entries were about connecting to blogs for SEO purposes, only to find that I’d been foiled by “external nofollow”, as I had forefox set to only find “nofollow”.
Well, I’ve been looking around and found a few lists online showing blogs that “dofollow” - ie, have removed nofollow to allow live [...]

SEO cock-up - I forgot about nofollow

I just posted tonight about tracking spam behaviour to find link sources - then realised I’d overlooked nofollow.
In fact, I’ve been overlooking nofollow for some time now, and I’m slapping my head in frustration.
One of my SEO projects in development was a small network of blogs, with human writers assigned to write about popular posts [...]

How spammers can lead you to links

Okay, here’s a quickie - just received an email in my inbox showing comment spam.
It’s from an automated blog trackback - you know, those Wordpress installs that just republish feeds and trackback from it.
It’s easy just to throw it away - but having just looked at a couple of blogs I run, decided to run [...]

SMX London: November 15-16 2007

Got a really big workload I’m still working through and haven’t had any time to devote time to any in-depth posts/tutprials/FAQs either here or at Platinax for some time - but a few meet requests for SMX London next week means I need to turn up.
I’ll be acting barfly from around 3pm on Thursday, and [...]

TV - the internet endgame

Bored by people worrying about how big their little green bar is, as if it’s some kind of objective measurement of penis size? Thinking about the real future of the internet?
Read on, then…
Here’s the endgame of the internet laid out in a simple acronym: TV.
Not TV as we currently know it, but an information-rich multi-media [...]