Category Archives: General

Why Google Shouldn’t Remove It’s Help Pages From the Index

Posted on by
Reply

I think there are enough published posts about the last saga of how Google is penalising itself but I thought I’d wade in too, since my readership is about 6, it doesn’t really matter anyway.

To cut a long story short, Google caught itself cloaking and has removed some of its pages from the index as a “sign of good faith” to webmasters that it has consistency with its guidelines. However, I don’t believe that this was the correct method of corrective action from either a users or PR perspective. Here’s why:

1. Google users need help pages and by removing them from the index the the user experience declines for many regular users.

2. Removing it’s OWN pages from it’s OWN index is contrived and anyone with half a braincell can see this. I feel slightly insulted to be honest.

I think what would’ve been a better course of action would have been to issue an apology and to say that these things can happen and that they would be giving a little more consideration to websites before they penalise them.

Google now have a bit of a PR disaster on their hands and their trust with webmasters has yet again been slight eroded, especially since they found even more pages which were being cloaked and were violating the webmaster guidelines but are refusing to remove them from the index.

I don’t dislike Google for making a mistake, However, I dislike being patronised. Immensely.

Castrol Nonsense Rankings

Posted on by
Reply

Castrol – in conjunction with Autosport have recently brought out a ranking tool which lists almost every racing driver and “ranks” them according to certain criteria and weighting theories which they have thought up. Watching the rankings over the last six months or so, I have to publicly state that they are a load of rubbish. Never before have I seen something which is packaged so professionally deliver something of such a biased and seemingly poor quality.

Firstly, there is no way to separate man and machine so that you can measure exactly what the performance is of each component, whether it’s flesh and blood or metal and carbon fibre. This brings me onto the first part of the rankings, which has all the top F1 teams near the top of the rankings, and as the teams performance worsens so do the rankings of a particular driver. Does this mean that moving to a top team automatically makes you one of the best, or if you haven’t really had an opportunity to drive equal machinery, does that mean you are a thousand times worse than some of your counterparts. For example, why is Steven Kane number eight hundred odd when he was Mclaren Autosport winner of the year, he’s an amazing driver in my opinion, however you just can’t compare these types of drivers with one another. According to the list and his talent, he should be placed at least as well as Gary Paffett who is a DTM champion and has won in year old machinery who is placed at number forty five! Or what about Timo Glock – is he really sixty four drivers worse than Mark Webber? How can you really tell even with complex theories and weighting systems. Michael Schumacher is only number two hundred – fifty places behind his brother Ralf whom was known to be better(!). Pffffttt.

The trouble with the ranking system is that it’s done by people who have opinions and preferences, and I’m sure the people compiling the data are probably not totally racing aware or as passionate as the editor of Autosport who has put his name to it.

You can’t compare drivers unless they are in equal machinery and certainly can’t even begin to contemplate comparing drivers across different formula. The data is meaningless and pure nonsense built on rules which have no foundation in reality. Sorry to flame you Autosport and Castol Rankings and I’ll probably be dismissed as an idiotic punter that knows nothing, however, anyone with an ounce of logic can see that this list is nothing but a popularity contest.

www.castroldriverrankings.com & www.autosport.com are the websites if you want to have a look yourself.

The Future of SEO Consultancy

Posted on by
Reply

I run a SEO Company, and I constantly question the future and how stable it is. I personally believe that pure “seo consultancy” is a shrinking market and that if you don’t diversify your business you’ll find yourself without a company in the next year or two. It is truly a frightening place to be at the moment. This is because Google’s algorithm is each day becoming slightly more resilient to people trying to manipulate the results for their own gain this is partly down to: Google is reducing the area within a particular webpage from where it counts and trusts links and has other factors to determine whether a link is trusted or not. I estimate that 97% of links that are “purposely” built do not pass PageRank and only the very best link-builders are able to create links which can reliably pass PageRank in any sort of volume. There is a very fine line between ROI and not when it comes to paid links in any sort of competitive vertical market, I don’t have any moral or ethical issue with paid links, all my decisions are based on the amount of margin I can make and I don’t think that paid linking with aggressive anchor text linking is where it’s at anymore in terms of securing a long-term future.

Around 30% of my new business enquiries are for Viral Marketing and Social Media Marketing and this number is growing quickly, people are starting to look past the “free listings on Google” and are starting to diversify their online marketing budgets. Pure Search Engine Optimisation is so competitive these days and the diminishing ROI from a clients point of view makes them not want to commit such large sums of money chasing some top terms which may or may not ever appear, makes investing in pure SEO not appear very prudent now or tomorrow.

SEO agencies need to diversify into full service agencies that offer a full bouquet of services and make SEO just one of the 4, 5 or 6 main services that they offer. I predict the term “SEO” will die in the next few years and we’ll talk about Google rankings and traffic growth from a far more holistic “Online Marketing” standpoint which will include everything from Google Organics, PPC, Social Media Marketing, Viral Marketing to video marketing. A company wanting to grow with search traffic and social traffic will need to participate in nearly every form of online marketing to stand a reasonable chance of success.

There are more sharks and less fish these days and the trend looks to continue for many years to come.

The Metamorphosis of Print Newspapers

Posted on by
Reply

Who would want to own an established newspaper right now? Hands up please. Nobody? Thought so.

With the ever decreasing value of news due to the internet newspapers as we all know are in serious trouble and I strongly doubt any of them will make it long-term without making substantial changes to their business models. Rupert Murdoch  has taken the most outrageously stupid step of putting a pay wall up on his non-niche newspapers which will be the death of the NY times and his other publication in my opinion.  Why? Well, it’s okay if you’re the FT and you need that specialist data and news that’s hard to find in other places, but with normal bog standard publications, the news is everywhere and it’s free. Pay Wall my newspapers here in the UK – I’ll just use the BBC website. Thanks.

To survive they need to change and to do it quickly. They have equity in their brand and they need to leverage that into other areas where people don’t mind paying. The Belfast Telegraph has done it with selling used cars in Northern Ireland or the Guardian has used their brand equity to start a dating website thingy. These newspapers kind of have the right idea and I applaud them, but it needs to be drastic and it needs to be soon. Good luck old timers, it’s going to be a tough ride, most of you won’t make it, but the shrewdest just might.

User Generated Content Rules

Posted on by
Reply

For someone that vaguely understands how search engines work, one aspect that really gets my blood pumping is user generated content (UGC), it’s terribly exciting from a webmasters perspective, if you can avoid having your site spammed to death. Google and and other major search engines love to gobble up content, their proverbial bellies always hungry for more perceived good quality writing to index and display when queried.

This is a classic example of a brilliant UGC styled website whom are now branching out into building out their business a bit further by offering a sort of Yellow Pages based off the back of their hyper successful Q & A style site.

Taking it a step further, you can  used a trusted site in Google to kick start your new venture, even specific queries like this Newport Beach Facebook should get indexed and start to receive a little traffic. Now imagine, each new search created a new non dupe page – yummy.

Moral of the story: Trust (lots of PR) + A ton of content = Lots of $

4 of a kind Queens On Full Tilt Poker

Posted on by
Reply

For the first time in my life in a real poker game I had four of a kind of anything! What an amazing feeling, to top it off they were Queens so I wasn’t going to lose, no matter what. It happened very early in a Sit and Go Tournament and I crushed the guy who dared to challenge my raise and re-raise. You get this huge buzz, almost like nothing you’ve ever felt before, it’s like an energy or an excitement that’s almost uncontrollable that rises from your stomach and into your mouth, you want to scream but you watch the rest of the hand instead with utter glee knowing the guy that just put all his chips is laughing at his most unfortunate luck.

Here is a picture from the screenshot I took as it happened, It’s the game at the bottom. If you;’re wondering why I have more than one game on at a time it’s because Poker can be really slow so if you multi-table there is usually always action and you can make money faster that way.

Four of a Kind Queens on Full Tilt Poker (FTP)

Santander (Abbey) Possibly The Worst Bank In Europe?

Posted on by
20

I bank with Santander – the re-branded Abbey, let’s just say the systems and level of service leave much to be desired. My biggest gripe is that their security system is completely over-zealous and blocks my card every week on average. This is a business account and each time it happens it has a significant knock on effect and costs me money and time. I’ve tried repeatedly to get Santander to loosen the security on my account so that I don’t have to keep their number on speed-dial, however, it’s a gargantuan organisation with thousands of people and nobody knows where to direct you, I’d be surprised if you visited their offices in Glasgow and they knew where the toilet was.

Occasionally, I’ll speak to someone in security who will go through ten transactions of the last six months and I’ll have to verify each company. Sometimes, they will ask me about transactions that haven’t hit my account yet for really random amounts for example £31.57 – I mean, how on earth I am supposed to know who that was for? I can’t see it on my bank statement and the business has dozens of automated transactions a day. If you can’t verify, you can’t unlock your account. Nice.

Other problems have included:

1. “Forgetting” to send a CHAPS payment
2. Sending amounts of money abroad in the wrong currency – this was a huge error and the difference was massive – Then taking four weeks to claw it back.
3. Not setting up Direct Debits
4. Duplicating Payments
5. Not cancelling Duplicate payments.
6. Terrible customer Service.
7. Questions go unanswered and no less than five follow-ups are usually required.

The list goes on, I’ve only been with them for a year and it’s been rather exciting. I guess I should thank them for keeping me on my toes each time I need to pay for something as it’s a bit of a game as to whether I’m actually going to be-able to complete the transaction or not.

If you are considering a move to Santander because of the free banking or some other reason, I suggest you re-think the move as it probably isn’t worth the hassle and heartache you’ll go through.

What’s Up with DMOZ?

Posted on by
1

I’m not sure what’s going on with DMOZ these days but they suck, I’ve added many websites over the last six months or so and not a single one has been added. These aren’t 3 page poo poo websites about how to win at the casinos, rather, serious websites with tons of resource and value. Some of them are not even monetised. I used to be a DMOZ editor myself and I know what format to follow when submitting. So it’s nothing to do with my style of submission.

I think the fact of the matter is that DMOZ is like a third world country with the editors like corrupt policemen, protecting their own interests and the Meta Editors are akin to bent politicians ensuring their own interests are taken care of and are not interested in anyone else.

It’s common knowledge that people who run serious categories will not allow their competitors in and will automatically delete any submissions that threaten their little section.

DMOZ, take control of the corruption problem and sort it out so it’s free and fair for everyone. Shame on you!

Why EasyJet’s New Route To Tel Aviv Will Fail

Posted on by
1

A couple of months ago there was an announcement by EasyJet that they would start offering cheap flights to Israel. Everyone was rather excited by the prospect of going to Israel for almost nothing. I mean this is EasyJet afterall, it’s a soulless budget airline, but it’s cheap, so who cares what colour the bus is right? Ding-Dong Wrong.

I think EasyJet has been ill advised on this occasion and I predict that the route will be withdrawn within 6 – 12 months as there will not be enough people wanting to use the EasyJet service for a number of reasons which I will highlight below.

1. The price saving isn’t big enough to make a switch between Israel’s local airline El Al (which is state sponsored) and give up all the “luxuries” that you get on board compared to what you would get on an EasyJet flight, going to the toilet for free is one of the last luxuries on the budget carriers…for now. When you take the cost of buying some food on an EasyJet flight, the price difference will be almost negligible.

2. Israelis are a patriotic bunch and would rather support their local airline than a foreign one with no frills.

3. Security is highly important to people that live and travel to Israel. El Al’s security is second to none, and if a terrorist was planning to end his life on a flight destined for Israel, he wouldn’t make El Al his first choice as the security is ultra tight. I often get a “special search” when travelling to Tel Aviv. The point being, EasyJet’s security will not be of the same standard as El Al’s.

4. The seats are uncomfortable on EasyJet and you can’t recline them, this isn’t so much of an issue when going to Amsterdam from London (1 Hour) – but try sitting like that for five hours. No thanks.

All in all, with the sacrifices you have to make to security and comfort as well as not supporting Israel’s national airline I don’t think that saving £10 – £20 is going to tempt many people out of changing their preferred airline on this occasion. Nice try EasyJet, but I’d be very surprised if you succeed.

Bon Voyage for now.

Goodbye & Hello

Posted on by

Well, it’s time to move this blog on, it’s evolving, growing up, getting taller – it’s balls are dropping and some other boy turning to man metaphors… Well, actually, SEO is a little dry to write about, (and Michael Gray was probably right) so I’m changing the theme to Internet Marketing in General and everything else that interests me, which is rather a lot. This means that far fewer of my posts will be SEO related and more along the lines of viral marketing, companies that make marketing Fau’pars and Poker. I have a deep interest in Poker mainly the mathematical side of the game. These elements include: EV, the odds and the statistics of the game, I hope one day to play professionally.

I hope to post soon about a couple of things that are floating around my head, they are rather detailed and will take a substantial amount of time to research and write, so please be patient.

As one chapter closes another opens.