Category Archives: Google

Google, Internet

Google turn to the dark side

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One of Google’s mottos is “don’t be evil”, meaning they shouldn’t do anything that takes advantage of the user’s quest for information. They shouldn’t abuse their position, cheat with results, that sort of thing.

However, today Google has succumbed to evil and turned to dark side, sort of. Well, they’ve gone black at least.

See for yourself here.

Black Google

Why have Google done this? It’s for something called Earth Hour, and it’s for today only as you can read on Google’s website here.

They’re hoping to raise awareness of how we can conserve energy. Personally I’m off to turn the heating up as it’s a bit cold in here, it’s also stuffy so I might open a window too. Where’s my jumper?

General, Google

Happy Birthday Robert (Robbie) Jamieson

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Today my eldest son Robbie Jamieson is 7 years old, and much like Casey last week I haven’t seen Robbie since June 2007. It really sucks when you’re denied access to your own children and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, so hopefully Robbie will one day Google his name and find this website.

So Robbie, if you do find this one day I’d like you to know that I’ve been refused access to you and dearly want to see you. I hope you had a great birthday today and had all of the presents you wanted. If you need anything just contact me, I’m always there for you and have been thinking of you since I last saw you.

So today, on 20th March 2008, Happy seventh birthday Robert Jamieson.

Affiliate Marketing, Google, Internet

StumbleUpon taffic and Adsense

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Last week I had one of my blog posts stumbled, resulting in an extra 10,000 page impressions in one day. The post in question was for a funny IT video, which as luck would have it was pay-per-watch. I didn’t stumble it, it never pays to stumble your own posts. It’s always better when that happens naturally.

What is interesting though is how an extra 10,000 page impressions in a single day affected my Adsense on this site. You’d think that more traffic means more impressions, means more clicks thus more revenue. In truth, it’s quite the opposite.

One week later, when I had 10,000 less ad impressions, my Adsense ads tracked more clicks and more earnings. So an extra 10,000 impressions through StumbleUpon had no impact whatsoever on my Adsense revenue, other than drastically reducing my eCPM.

Of course the Stumble traffic did have an affect on my pay-per-watch video earnings 😉

Google, Torfaen Council

Deb Smith of Torfaen Council sorts out my Council Tax

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If you remember the problems I had with my council tax a while back, and that Torfaen Council actually contacted me after finding this blog on page 1 of Google for a search on Torfaen Council you’ll be interested in the updates.

The news is good. Deb Smith has accepted that as I couldn’t enter my own house due to my ex-wife changing the locks and the fact that the judge had placed a court order barring anything from being removed from the house Torfaen Council have accepted that I’m not liable for the council tax during that period.

This is good to know, and I’d like to thank Deb for sorting this out. Once again the power of the Internet comes good.

Incidentally, this site now occupies positions 3 and 4 for ‘Torfaen Council’ in Google, beaten only by Torfaen Council’s own website.

Not bad eh?

Cardiff Devils, Google, Internet, Transformers

MrDaz.com now has Google site links

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You may have seen Google’s site links? They’re detailed page links that appear underneath the #1 listing for some websites when you make a search. For example, Just Search have had site links for about a year now, which you can see here. Google picks sites it thinks are worthy enough and generates these links, which you can have some control over using Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Now I’m pleased to say that MrDaz.com has attained some site links from Google.

Mr Daz Site Links

This means that Google considers this website important enough to have site links, which is nice. Shame they still have a PageRank penalty on me then eh?

It’s not my only site to have site links either, my Transformers website and the Cardiff Devils site have also attained the prestige of site links.

Thanks Google!

If you’re wondering how your site can get site links such as this, you’ll need to keep adding your content and building up those back links naturally. Google only rewards high quality sites that are updated regularly with site links.

Google, Internet, Just Search, Magazine Articles, SEO

Interview with Revolution Magazine

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Following on from the piece in Precision Marketing, I also did this quick interview with Revolution Magazine about the trends of search and the importance of content.

Though Google denies it, for instance, there is a widespread suspicion that investing in paid search will improve a company’s organic ranking. Easier to prove is the notion that frequent content updates represent one of the most powerful ways to promote a site.

Fresh and new
“It has become apparent lately that Google is favouring new sites a lot, and sites with new content,” says Darren Jamieson, content editor at Manchester-based Just Search. “If you have got a site that does car leasing, and someone is looking for something on the new Audi R8, a site that hasn’t been updated for three months won’t come up, even if it has a page on the R8.”

Google itself, while cagey about its methods, is happy to confirm this much. “We always say, build things for the people you want visiting your site, and that is what we try to reflect with our ranking,” says Google spokesman Anthony House. “It is not about trying to trick your way into the highest results.”

Indeed, Google’s advice for improving a company’s organic ranking all relates to the kind of housekeeping that makes a website visitable in the first place.

You can see the excerpt from the magazine here.

Google

Cole Brooker the illegal driving instructor

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The One Show just did an expose’ on a driving instructor who is apparently working illegally. They said the guy’s name, Cole Brooker, and then Googled his name to find contact details… thus:

Cole Brooker

A click on the first result gives us this page, with Cole’s phone number and his details still listed as a practicing driving instructor.  Now I’m all for exposing people, but as someone who has received random anonymous phone calls in the past (and podcasted many of them) I’m not too sure that the One Show were entirely professional here. Their little film made it very easy for anyone with a computer to get this guy’s phone number and call him.

I no doubt imagine he has received a few prank calls tonight, which isn’t fun unless you enjoy confrontation… which for the record I do.

Think before you do this next time One Show guys, you may as well have published the man’s number yourselves and touted for people to phone him.

Google, Internet, SEO

What is Reputation Management?

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After I posted a scathing blog about a Facebook application someone named Sean added an obviously contrived comment to the post in an attempt to improve the tone towards that product. He was blatantly attempting something called ‘reputation management’ which in our Online World means to ensure that your personal or company name, or product/service receives positive results when searched for in Google (or other engines if you care about them).

So a search for that particular Facebook app obviously ranked in Google, which in turn meant that people looking for it saw my scathing comments; thus someone tried to redress the balance.

It’s not good for your reputation if when someone searches for you all they see is people slagging you off!

Now, you can do what Sean did and feebly attempt to answer the criticism by replying to the comments, forum posts or blog posts; or, a more successful but naturally more difficult tactic would be to ensure that nothing negative appears for your name when someone searches in the first place.

How could you do this? If you have sites like openly slate your name or product what can you do about it?

Simple, make sure that other websites rank above them. For example, if you Google my name (Darren Jamieson) you won’t see anything negative in the top 10 results.

Darren Jamieson

Now I don’t own all of those websites, I’m not even the Darren Jamieson in question on some of them, but there’s nothing negative about me there. Don’t think for a moment either that it’s because I’ve not annoyed anyone enough to try, I have ;).

No, it’s reputation management in action.

If you have a problem with your online reputation and would like to know what can be done about it, don’t post comments on the forums and threads in question from made up customers of yours saying how good your services are, that doesn’t work. Give me a shout at Just Search, I’ll advise you on what can be done.