Google failures take umbrage

The Register carries a series of letters, that responded for calls for failed applicatants to Google to share their interview experiences.
Now, I’m no Human Resources expert by a mile, but some the replies to me just plain underline unsuitability for employment in any environment, let alone Google.
In most instances, the candidates show exceptional arrogance:
Candidate 2:

The […]

Marketing Do’s and Don’ts

Todd Malicoat posts one of the best weekly round-ups I’ve seen in a while.
Two key posts stood out:
1. Scoreboard Media on Client Baiting
Evangelises business networking and identification of potential clients - in this instance, CEO’s as risk-takers. The cheeky end line is that investing in a porsche could help sell his business. I’ve heard that […]

Removing low quality Adsense

Since I rediscovered the issue of Adsense Smart Pricing, I’ve been looking more carefully at how my Adsense is deployed.
I have no idea if Google even still employs such a system - but I figure paranoia about it is a good excuse to focus on making my own Adsense campaign leaner.
Now, I’m not a big […]

Why American business needs the UK

Both Matt Cutts and Jeremy Schoemaker post their blog stats online.
What’s really interesting is comparing the stats together, to peice an image of the English language internet.
For example, Matt Cutt’s site has the largest data sample, and in a simple and succinct manner I think most clearly demonstrates an image of the English language internet:

Combine […]

Google patent threat to Presell Pages?

SearchEngineLand posts about a recent Google patent intended to help filter out duplicated content.
Text isn’t too much of a worry - any good content development strategy in general markets will aim to minimise any duplication of text.
However, this bit really strikes out:

2. Similarity sketches can be created for pages based upon lists of hyperlink in […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 / […]

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.

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 […]

Contextual Ads and AdSense Tips

Some great tips on using contextual advertising - especially Adsense - here: Earning Money From Contextual Ads.
As I’ve had rubbish success with banner advertising I noticed Jen’s comments about using an image only ad as a second ad unit.
Now testing it out on chronicles due to the high PageView volume. :)
Also - nice site […]

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 […]

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. […]

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 […]

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 […]