Blogged thoughts, is our web blog. Expect views, opinion, rants and tirades about everything and anything 

Typed in ’search engine’ into Google.com today instead of ’search engine optimisation’ by mistake and noticed that Google itself is not in the top 10 results. Google.co.uk currently comes in at 17th. The Google.com homepage has only one occurance of the word ’search’. It does not contain the word ‘engine’ nor does it have a meta description tag with either of these words present, infact it doesn’t have a meta description tag at all. Similarly Google.co.uk does not have the word ‘engine’ or a meta description tag, it does however have an extra occurance of the word ’search’.

Guess it shows that true to their word Google does not manually alter results, additionally it shows that people most likely link to Google with the word ‘Google’ as opposed to ’search engine’ or ‘Google search engine’. Dogpile seems to consistently come in near the top across the major engines.

Everyone knows the benefits of using a blog and blogging for marketing reasons. Blogging is simply one of the best ways to get yourself or your company known as an expert in your industry and perhaps more importantly to get in touch with potential clients. Blogging as a recruitment tool though? This is something I’m currently pondering the merits of. I suppose it like other things has pros and cons, I’ve noticed that the iQ Content guys seem to be giving it a bash anyhow. They’re looking for a project manager and have already got some ’press’ from many of Ireland’s leading bloggers. The following URLs show this:

http://www.mneylon.com/blog/archives/2007/08/14/project-manager-required-chez-iq-content/
http://www.mulley.net/2007/08/20/fluffy-links-monday-august-20th-2007/
http://www.redcardinal.ie/general/14-08-2007/iqcontent-project-manager/

I’m going to keep an eye on this to see how they get on but seemingly they already have had applications from people who learnt about the job on other peoples blogs. It’s an interesting approach and sure as hell beats paying sites like Monster & IrishJobs to advertise vacant positions. Good job from iQ Content - pun intended. Your thoughts are as always welcome.

Has anyone seen shots of (or been in) any of the apartments in the new docklands development? From the ground this whole development looks stunning however it was only when on daft.ie the other day (I’m looking at renting options) that I actually got my first look inside this developments’ apartments. I have to admit that I was just blown away by some of the apartments, most notably though those in Hanover Quay. The contemporary style & decor is right down my street, unfortunately the prices are not. Judge for yourself, here’s some pictures (credit to daft.ie for these shots - I did not take them!). Click on the thumbnails to open fully sized pictures in new windows.

   
As you can see the main living room area has a contempory well lit design and is particularly impressive, as is the very large balcony area, whether or not it ever stops raining to use the balcony is another thing though. Hanover Quay (and the docklands development in general) certainly beats the socks of the new developments down my way (Santry) anyhow.              

If a certain someone up above could arrange for me to win the euromillions on friday I’d definitely snap one of these up straight away. One thing is for sure though, if I ever get to live in a place like that everyone will be leaving their shoes in the hall.

First of all the title says idiot (singular) and not idiots (plural), so I’m not ‘after’ the whole American population in this one, believe me. Basically I just had to ‘out’ one guy as being a complete ignorant fool by publishing an email I got from him earlier today. I think it is more evidence that some Americans think that no other world exists outside the States.

I believe the fact that he is American and not just some idiot from the ‘world’ is significant due to the subject matter of the email which offers an ‘insight’ into how to spell a particular word… seemingly without any regards for where in the world a person is from or the market they are targeting. It’s almost as if he’s saying ’if that’s how America spells it then everyone else spelling it different must be wrong’.

It’s difficult enough to filter through all the spam, phish and other bulls*!t emails I get through to my email address without having to put up with this, have a look yourself…

Name  —    Gary Gr*******
Email  —    *************
URL    —    *************

Though spelling a word incorrectly in your keyword section of your html might be
fine-having a word for an seo web site spelled incorrectly throughout your site is hardly a confidence builder

Optimisation
\”Optimization\”-Correct spelling

The email is all the text in italics. Well thanks for that Gary I’ll make sure to skip tomorrow’s Sunday dinner and change all occurances of ‘Optimisation’ to ‘Optimization’ on my website just for you or perhaps you could a) stop being so ignorant and become aware of how some things (like spelling for example) are done outside America b) stop wasting my time and finally c) spend more time working on your own website which at the moment looks like something out of 1994 rather than incorrectly slating other peoples websites.

I must admit my face went a bit red in colour… sorry I meant color when I got that mail, anyhow the big question now is should I reply and what should I say? Has anyone got any good URL resources which can open this guys eyes a bit? Richard, Dave, have you ever got an email like that?

Ever get that? When you really want to do something which you feel you would be great at but when the opportunity comes around the timing just ain’t right? What am I waffling on about you may ask? Well during the week I turned down pretty much my dream job which was offered to me on a plate. The chap that offered me the job (over the phone) was the managing director of a small company specialising in SEO and Internet marketing services with an Irish (obviously) and a UK presense. I had meet him before and we had talked over the phone about various issues on a couple of different occasions. I had mentioned to him that I noticed his company was advertising for a vacant position (which he told me had actually been filled), it was definitely more ‘banter’ than a formal application but anyhow he obviously had remembered what I had said when the position became free again.

The job itself was essentially a combined web development and SEO/Internet marketing role, which is basically the perfect job for me as I have a strong passion for both (SEO/Internet marketing more so though). My understanding of the role was that it would have involved developing APIs, tools and applications for use inhouse and on client websites as well as performing organic search engine optimisation, PPC based search engine marketing, conversion improvement etc. for the company itself and for their clients too of course. The direct salary that was on offer was a bit better than what I’m on now I must admit but the overall package wasn’t close. For example my current employer pays an amount equivalent to 8% of my wages into my pension fund every week, I also have a semi defined (I roughly know what I’ll be getting each year) bonus written into my contract, additionally I get approximately 50% of my electricity bill paid all as part of the overall package included by my current employer, none of this (or similar) was on offer for this new job.

I would of course want to be rewarded well to change jobs, but in saying that the ‘package’ wasn’t the main reason I didn’t accept the offer. I probabely would have taken a ‘hit’ (compared to my current job) on any overall package due to the increased job satisfaction I most likely would have gotten from the actual role itself. Additionally I liked the idea of being able to play a big part in helping a small company grow, rather than just being another face in a large company as is the case with my current job setup.

Infact the main reason I turned the offer down was due to bad timing, perhaps if the offer had come 3/4 months later I would have at least furthered my interest and possibly tried to bargin for more benefits (not necessarily monetary) before finally accepting or rejecting, but due to the fact that my yearly XMAS bonus (which you don’t get if your leaving) was on the way, I was due a raise in January and also the fact that I have just rejoined the gym (paying for a year upfront) close to my current job meant that the timing was just not right for such a big change. Some people of course will say that the timing is always right for your dream job. Oh well I’ve made my bed and now I’m lying in it.

Folks I recently deleted two threads from my forums, these threads were about a year old and thus were spidered and indexed by the ‘big three’. If I had have spotted these threads at the time they were posted I would have deleted them straight away as they were simply threads going on about how great a certain company is, I believe SPAM is the word you kids are using these days, yes SPAM plain and simple.

Anyhow the threads got through the forum moderation team (me) for whatever reason I don’t know, perhaps it was a busy week so I didn’t even know these threads existed. That was until about two months ago when I started getting emails asking me to remove them because they were ‘inaccurate’.. whatever that means. When I didn’t ‘jump’ when they asked me to ‘jump’ they started asking me for my solictors number so legal action could begin.

Can you believe that? They spam my site and then about a year later when one of the threads appears in Google and I refuse to remove it (at least for the time being) because I don’t like being told what to do be spammers (as it kind of means they ‘win) they threaten legal action. I asked them what possible grounds would they have for legal action against me and my site, there was no response. That was the end of the email ‘correspondence’ (or threats), however this week the voicemails and phonecalls from Manhattan in New York started coming in, about three or four in total, asking me in a not so pleasent tone to ‘cease and desist’ and remove the threads as they were ‘inaccurate’.

I toyed with the idea for a couple of days, not actually knowing if this went further (and I continued to refuse to remove the threads) could it put the future of the site at risk. I came to the decision to just remove the threads and forget about them just in case any ill effects could come my direction by way of any legal action this company may opt to take.

I have to admit that I didn’t feel good about it afterwards, I felt I was right (morally at least) to refuse to remove these spam threads (which by this stage were ’buried’ and not detracting from the quality of topics) from my forums so removing them certainly felt like handing a victory to the spammers. What do you guys think? What would you have done? Was I indeed breaking some ‘law’ which could have resulted in legal action being taken against me? Have I let the ’side’ down? Should I have made it more frustrating for them?