Are questions in search results more clickable?
A question is an invitation to find out more about something. We read
a question, and the natural response is to answer that question. Maybe
it's just me, but I quite like the idea of someone subconsciously
thinking "yes" while reading my search result.
WANT TO LOSE 10KG WHILE SITTING AT YOUR COMPUTER DESK?
You bet. I have answered YES to the question, so now it's time to
think about...
Added: 13 Jul 07
Do Follow - would you like anchor text with that?
A lot of blog authors are joining the dofollow revolution, and are
hacking their Wordpress installs to remove the ugly rel=nofollow
attribute from comment links. I'd like to announce a new feature of
this blog, and other blogs based on Jojo CMS[1], where a good comment
is rewarded with not only a live link, but with your choice of anchor
text.
A LINK IS A LINK
As I see it, a live link is a...
Added: 13 Jul 07
Paypal funny money
I'm a huge fan of Paypal[1] when it comes to online shopping. From a
merchant's point of view it's free to setup, isn't difficult to
configure, and the ongoing fees are fairly reasonable.
From a shopper's point of view it's also great. My personal favourite
feature is that I can shop at dodgy...
Added: 11 Jul 07
Getting left behind
I have just spent most of the weekend out at my parent's place,
building a gigantic wooden playhouse for my 2 little girls.
Today, I caught up with my dear old grandad who was visiting, which
was lovely. Grandad has Alzheimers[1], and it's normal to have the
same conversation over and over...
Added: 1 Jul 07
Has my 3 letter CAPTCHA been hacked?
Last night I was minding my own business, cutting some code, when the
blog comments started to race in. But rubbish spam comments, not real
ones.
I haven't had a big problem with spam since installing a simple
CAPTCHA on my comments and contact forms, and where my previous
spam:real ration was...
Added: 25 Jun 07
Alexa bot on the ball
A few days ago I wrote a quick and nasty script that emails me a dump
of the PHP $_SERVER variables. The purpose was to find out some
connection information from a client - for whatever reason his IP
address wasn't being detected properly, and I needed some more
information to work with.
I put...
Added: 24 Jun 07
WDANZ Wellington Conference
I spoke this week at the Wellington Web Developers Association of New
Zealand (WDANZ[1]). This was the first WDANZ conference I have been
to, and I have to say, the event was rather enjoyable.
It was good to hear from the 14 different speakers about all those
other aspects of web development...
Added: 15 Jun 07
Dreaming, surely
I got some nicely branded marketing in the mailbox yesterday from
Register Direct[1]. They are selling domain name registrations and web
hosting, with a nice affiliate package.
I have been signing up for affiliate schemes quite a bit recently, so
this was interesting enough to read.
THE...
Added: 15 Jun 07
SEO issues with moving a domain
MOVING A DOMAIN IS NOT FUN, especially when you are enjoying good
rankings on the old domain. I'm getting asked how to move a domain
more and more, so it's time I put my thoughts online in a place where
I can easily reference them.
THE PROBLEM
Let's say you own a domain like...
Added: 29 May 07
Google's sponsored links getting sneakier
I just got tricked into clicking on Google's Adsense today, and I
thought it less than amusing how they are starting to use the same
dodgy tricks as the other MFA (Made For Adsense) spam sites out there
to get more clicks.
I'm working on a different monitor today, on a LCD which is a bit...
Added: 25 May 07
Regional search results - always different
I met with 2 different clients this morning and had more or less the
same discussion about all the different flavors of Google regional
search results out there.
The client wants to know where...
Added: 23 May 07
New-look Google Analytics
Looks like Google are having a play with the layout of Google
Analytics.
First thoughts - it looks cool. Certainly seems to be faster, and it
looks more simplified (not always a good thing).
...
Added: 13 May 07
On-page SEO is like the lottery
It happens quite often that on-page SEO is done to a site and it
doesn't yield any results. This is generally considered a bad thing.
I'd like to throw an alternative viewpoint out there.
This...
Added: 4 May 07
Google honours the ANZACs
Google sometimes tweaks their logo to reflect special occasions. It's
one of those nice feel-good things we like about Google. I read
somewhere on the Google site that they didn't like doing this...
Added: 26 Apr 07
Renaming pages = lost links and traffic
I have spent some time recently doing housekeeping on a number of
older sites I manage. A part of the housekeeping is a review of sites
that we link to. I'm not talking link exchange links here,...
Added: 23 Apr 07
Does a spider follow links on a 404 page?
I have been reading an article by Lisa Barone (bruceclay.com[1]) on
nice 404 pages[2]. This interested me as I have only just got around
to improving my own 404 page[3].
I agree with the concept...
Added: 20 Apr 07
The CAPTCHA to end all CAPTCHAs
I love CAPTCHAs. The amount of comment spam and contact form spam I
have been getting has all but dropped to zero since adding a simple 3
letter CAPTCHA to my site.
However, some CAPTCHAs can be...
Added: 17 Apr 07
'All your base are belong to us' - Google
Matt Cutts has just announced Google's new witch hunt for paid
links[1]. He's been against paid links for sometime, but it now seems
the world's biggest vendor of paid links is serious about...
Added: 16 Apr 07
The Spam-o-Meter is back
I managed to axe the spam-o-meter[1] with a recent CMS upgrade. Thanks
to those who emailed me, and it's all up and running again.
On the plus side, the new plugin system in Jojo CMS[2] (first...
Added: 12 Apr 07
The Queen says Search Engine Optimisation
If the Queen were a SEO (I'm pretty sure she isn't), she would refer
to her profession as "search engine optimisation". It makes sense to
assume that the English have a firm grasp of the English...
Prove you have something to offer - 11 Apr 07Added: 11 Apr 07
Bye bye MSN backlink check - 10 Apr 07
Top 0 reasons to love MS Office Live - 3 Apr 07
Matt Cutts website hacked? - 2 Apr 07
Just get a phone by your computer - 19 Mar 07
No more indexed search pages - 14 Mar 07
Dynamic URLs look like affiliate links - 9 Mar 07
No more "Did you mean..." - 9 Mar 07
A new SEO is born - 7 Mar 07
Friday night SEO humour - 2 Mar 07
SEO Poker Tournament - 28 Feb 07
Dynamic Currency Conversion - 28 Feb 07
So you do SEO... - 24 Feb 07
2nd hand Link building for the Link Puppy - 24 Feb 07
Buy Propecia - How blog spam brings you traffic - 24 Feb 07
That trailing slash DOES matter - 20 Feb 07
Why don't people use 301 redirects? - 19 Feb 07
Blogging good for business - 5 Feb 07
Some comments on comments - 1 Feb 07
SEO Form - New SEO Tool - 31 Jan 07
