Around 2004 when I was still finding my feet in SEO and was confused by the SEO noise that was out there I played about with buying keyword rich TLD’s and tried to get traffic to them to see how well they ranked.  I never really witnessed the true potential, and whilst me and a mate made a little bit of money from slapping some AdSense on them once they hit 2nd page, I can easily say that I never ranked in the giddy heights where traffic enabled me to just sit back and watch the pounds roll in.

That was a long time ago, and whilst the tactic for keyword rich TLD’s still exists, I have never truly witnessed their natural ranking potentials from scratch at the time as I didn’t understand SEO fully enough to employ all of the tactics needed.  Thankfully I have been given the opportunity recently with a few TLD’s that I have been dabbling with and I can say that it is pathetically easy to get a 1st page ranking for a phrase you want to target if you have the .com/.net/.org

I recently bought alcoholaddictionclinics.com and lo and behold I now have a 1st page ranking for a low-competitive keyword.

Let’s look at the stats for this:

• Date Registered:  9th February 2010
• Unused until site launched (Wordpress):  20th February 2010
• Google Webmaster Tools & Sitemap.xml submission:  20th February 2010
• Local UK Search (Exact):  590
• Global Search (Exact):  210

The rewards for a 1st page ranking for this domain are pretty much non-existant but for the sake of “testing” I was surprised at how quickly I achieved 1st page rankings – and how highly:

Alcohol Addiction Clinics (Google.co.uk)

• 1st Page Ranking:  27th February 2010
• Position:  5
• Competition:  468,000

Alcohol Addiction Clinics (Google.com)

• 1st Page Ranking:  27th February 2010
• Position:  4
• Competition:  504,000

“Non-Competitive” I hear you say, and I agree.  I just find it worrying that a site with no links (I built none!), a simple XML site-submission and a default Wordpress installation with a made up article can rank so highly – and so quickly.

Knowing my luck this blog post will end up ranking higher

**Disclaimer:  This post as all with goosh.co.uk, contains my own views and no-one else’s – not my employers, my mothers, my friends or my pet dog – simply mine**

This is a rant; A bloody great big rant.

When I left school in 1996 I was a fresh-faced, naive and inexperienced boy entering the real world.  I was given advice about a variety of things when I left and one of them was “Swot up on the company you are going to for an interview”.  This advice also extended to researching the role I was applying for – it would appear that some people don’t adhere to this advice anymore.

Having partaking in several interviews in the last week and a half I am continually astounded by the audacity and bare-faced lies that people put across during an interview.  The job spec we were interviewing for was a junior SEO role and required basic knowledge of:

• link building
• on-page optimisation / copywriting

Experience was preferred whilst online searching experience was necessary.

As explained in my previous post There’s a Difference Between Reading Something and Doing Something you can’t know everything – nobody can, but you certainly know something a bit more when you actually do it – the proof is in the pudding with that one.  But to sit and watch some people tell lies with words they don’t understand is not only soul destroying but also infuriating!  Don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of bending the truth, but simply waffling around something when you don’t know it makes you look a much bigger idiot than you actually are.

Know the difference between Website Development and SEO

This one keeps rearing its ugly head.  I’m a web developer by trade – we all know that, but I know there is a gaping divide between Onsite SEO and XHTML & PHP – so should any coder who knows the words Search Engine Optimisation.

When asked “What on-page elements or tags do you look at when initially optimising a site” do not reply with answers such as “make sure the CSS is working properly; make sure your links are coloured; make sure a customer can navigate my site easily”.  Even when given hints with “title tags, meta tags?” don’t reiterate the importance of semantically correct mark-up – it’s got fuck all to do with mark-up if you are taking each individual tag & optimising them in a Word document! (At the early stage admittedly, but still!)

Don’t say you have link building experience when you don’t!

In a true case of ‘caught out’ you cannot say on your CV, in your covering letter and in your interview at an SEO company that you are a link builder when you cannot explain even one method of getting links.  I’m serious, if asked “How would you go about getting a link for a client in the X industry” do not sit there and waffle around how you would look at their site and see how you could improve their site with links from guestbook’s whilst not actually giving one of over a hundred methods of gathering links that are common knowledge – hell, even a plain “Get someone to buy them” would have been better than being insulted.

When asked for working examples of your previous success – don’t say they are offline!

Whilst the job spec was for a junior several potential candidates had web development experience and were ‘avid readers of SEO material’ and ‘extensively experienced in SEO’.  However, when asked for working examples of live SEO projects you have, do not reply with “They are all currently offline”.  Also, it’s best to come up with several keywords you rank highly for when asked and not saying “Well, we went for a variety of them” – give me ONE – JUST ONE!  Hell, if the tables were turned I could tell you now I have had 1st page rankings for Sailing Holidays, Personal Injury Solicitors, Bingo, Designer Clothing etc – I’m applying for an SEO job FFS!!  Ok, cutting them some slack – they were applying for junior roles – but just ONE example of a phrase would have been good, even if it’s an uncompetitive term such as ‘snowy mountain holidays in brazil in April’.

How would you improve a sites Search Engine Rankings? – The answer is not Twitter

This is unforgiveable.  Any book you read will either be out of date, full of 101 or full of factual information.  No book I know of says that to affect your 1st page results in the major search engines should you create a base of twitter followers and promote your clients website with tips and promotional messages.  This is where the lines of SEO & SEM really blur and another testament that you have to DO it to KNOW it otherwise you are just regurgitating what the other person said.

With the industry so blurry in its initial advice I can see why someone would trip up on this, but to focus on this as the first thing you think of is very worrying indeed.

At least know what PageRank is

When coming for a job interview, particularly when you say you have experience in giving clients SEO advice at your current role, be prepared to talk about the role.  When discussing varying offsite page elements that some SEO’s look at to determine credibility and authority, such as toolbar Page Rank as a basic indicator (despite its revered inaccuracies within the industry) do not reply with:  “PageRank, I don’t think I have heard of that!”

As you are reading this you might be asking “Perhaps it is your interview technique” or “Perhaps the questions weren’t phrased right” and I hear you – but they were reworded, broken down and spoon-fed until you knew that the glazed look in their eyes was recognition of the fact they did not have a clue!

Seriously, I might be a little bullish in my analyses of the responses or I might have just let the waste of time get the better of me but if you are applying for a role as an SEO - it also helps if you know what SEO actually is!



As part of the latest Google Grope they have chosen plain text password storage as their keyphrase of choice. I was surprised by this, but I am also passionate about it from a development point-of-view.  Having worked with databases such as SQL in the past I know that password storage is high on the security requirements and under no circumstances should passwords be stored in plain text format.

The SQL standard for password storage (when I was coding) was MD5.  This may have changed as I am a little rusty with the ole PHP & SQL, but once again this was a security requirement to avoid compromising passwords & hacking attempts.  This was of course if the password was being stored in a database at all.

Using Plain Text File’s For Storage

When coding with PHP the easiest way, if you had no database availability, was to store everything in a text file.  Whilst this was great for non-sensitive information it was certainly a risk if someone managed to find the location of the text file and access it through a browser – particularly if it stored passwords and user information required to login.  There were several ways to combat this when I was developing such as CHMOD FTP settings, Apache file access writes and good ole PHP masking but none of those options were 100% secure when it came to plain text password storage – you just need to ask RockYou.com

RockYou.com’s Plain Text Data Hack

On December 14th 2009 a hacker gained access to over 32 million usernames & passwords through an SQL Injection attack.  How 32 million  – the data was stored in plain text format.  Exposing your users to that kind of attack through incorrect data storage methods is, to be blunt, ignorant and dangerous.  Whilst the attack was not malicious and was only to prove a point, plain text password storage nearly gave 32 million users an endless heartache – after all, how many of those users would have used the same password for RockYou that they would have used for their registered email address – it’s a personal identity thiefs wet dream.  All because of irresponsible plain text password storage.

As one of the senior Online Marketing Consultants at Mediaworks Online Marketing one of my roles is the distribution of the monthly email marketing newsletter and subsequently the syndication of news on our blog.  This is something I love doing, particularly when you can track opens/reads/bounces/clicks etc and really get an insight into how successful your topics and writing actually are.

When I first joined Mediaworks I was a one-man band SEO with my own blog that ranked around 3rd for a local phrase – “SEO Newcastle” – and as part of my job offer I returned the favour by offering to 301 my blog to the Mediaworks website to help boost rankings for local and national terms.  That was in 2008.  In 2010, as the longest serving member of staff, I simply asked if I could have my blog back to simply write about things that might not necessarily be deemed suitable for a corporate blog and I was very pleased to hear that I was actually encouraged to blog, encouraged to integrate with the SEO community and encouraged to vent my nuances on my own personal blog – and that is how I relaunched my blog.

Do Your Employers Encourage You or Do They Stop You?

Speaking to a variety of people via twitter, sphinn and linkedin I am surprised at the number of people who feel they aren’t in a position to blog about their sector because their employers might not approve.  Why is this I hear you ask?  A lot of the reasoning is due to their emlpoyers being fearful they might give away trade secrets, costing models or even processes.  I think that is a very bad place to be and more importantly it shows a distrust for the individual – but I do suppose this changes on a person-by-person level.

We like nothing more at Mediaworks than to share information internally with each other and I think the fact we are trusting enough to pass on tidbits of information makes us a stronger company – after all, how valuable is useful information when it helps you complete your job quicker and more efficiently.

I wouldn’t say I have it hammered home to me that I must blog constantly, and network constantly for the good of the company, but I am definitely encouraged to stay abreast with the latest goings on in th isfast moving industry and I think there is no better way to do that than to actually speak to people, read the latest articles and discuss things (whether in the open or via private message / email).

Having a blog that I can openly write about some of the more tragic things this side of online marketing (such as the @vodafone ballsup and the bet365.com geo-location problem) makes my life less stress free and it allows me to get rid of some of the pent up fury that builds when a link request pisses me off (such as Affiliate Millionaire).  As long as you know the boundaries between slander, potential pitfalls in future business and common sense then you cannot really go wrong by having a personal blog – after all, you’re an individual with your own mind so you might as well put it to some good use.

At the end of the day, it’s a win-win for you and your employers as you are shouting about your pride for working for them as well as your pride in your sector – whether it be SEO or not!

As you may have seen on the blog lately, I have been mildly amused at the spam I have been receiving.  However, there is one spammer that is really starting to piss me off – and that is the make-money-quick Affiliate Millionaire.

In the past two days I have seen a variety of automated blog comments for the “Affiliate Millionaire” – I’ll be honest I briefly looked at the site and it’s the same old “do it faster, harder, stronger, longer & get rich quick with no actual effort” types.  The same types that piss other SEO’s off with their Instant SEO Bullshit.

I hate automated blog comment spam – hell, even a human who is shit at it can piss me off with their unimaginative and less-than-thoughtful messages.  So imagine how narked I was when I saw this:

Affiliate Millionaire - The Automated Blog Spammer

The message is exactly the same, but they have tried to dupe me by changing their name – it nearly had me, it really did! (idiots).

Anyway, Affiliate Millionaire has already got a black mark from me, so anyone who is thiking about partaking in their service (whatever it is) might as well not bother.

When it comes to Wordpress blogs & indexation I’ve always gave out the advice that “You know you’re indexed when your blog starts getting spammed“.  I relaunched my blog on the 15th Januaray 2010 following a 2 year 301 redirect to my employers site.  Within days 2 weeks I had automated spam from a lazy spam bot.

The spam has continued in abundance which is a good sign that the blog is being indexed more and more (in a round about false-positive way), and this little one caught my eye…

Are spammers getting more creative? Looks geniune doesn't it!

I had to actually check that this wasn’t spam but the URL gave it away.  Are spammers getting more creative or was this just a one off?

One of the biggest problems with Twitter is that when you have a small number of followers (like myself), it is sometimes hard to get feedback or even general interaction with people you would LOVE to hear from. Whether it is a peer you look up to or simply a friend whose opinion you value highly, you just sometimes don’t get the response that you crave.  Is it vanity? No.  Is it recognition?  No.  Is it need and acceptance?  Maybe.  I recently found out a great way to get some feedback from friends and it is…

Make A Balls Up

As I recently found out, there are numerous ways to get people to interact with you on Twitter and this is the best one.  Post something with grammatical errors or even a link to the wrong URL and you are onto a winner (sorry @dazzler03 for the baiting) – just don’t go the same route Vodafone UK went about it.

Twitter Feedback

Ask For Feedback

As simple as it sounds, just ask for feedback.  I respond to many more requests for help than I do ego-boosting soapbox types.

If you have a burning question, if your goldfish is on fire and you need help or if you run into a problem with PHP that you need help – just ask for it. I like to help – and you would be surprised how many other people do too.

Recommend A Link and Ask For A Retweet

Again, being polite, courteous and honest will get you far on Twitter.  No-one likes the class-idiot demanding something.  They don’t like it in person, they don’t like it over the phone so why should they like it via their screens?  Just by recommending something worthwhile and being honest will help you get the feedback you desire (or not depending if your already an arsehole)

Ask for Friends

Be humble and ask for a  #followfriday by someone much, much more popular than you.  As with everything in life, it’s always good to get a helping hand from someone already at the top of their ladder.

Have No Shame and Beg!

Simple ask to be followed, advertise yourself in an non annoying way (unlike this guy!) and things will happen.  I’ve always been a fan of practising what you preach so if you like this post and want to show your appreciation then please don’t hesitate to follow me @goosh.

The recent social marketing nightmare that has enveloped Vodafone UK’s operation has been highly talked about around the web.  Dave Naylor has gone so far as to suggest it was a linkbait tactic.  If it was, it was a dumb move that will cost Vodafone UK dearly.

There are many linkbait topics out there that do just that – bait people.  The famous 13 year old who stole his dad’s credit card for xbox and hookers story by the ever brilliant Lyndoman at CornwallSEO is proof of the pudding of how easily the media lap it up.

For me, there is something not quite right about the notion that Vodafone, a massive multi-national corporation, have given their backing to a linkbait campaign that involves making derogatory comment about homosexuals and sexual references to oral sex via their very own Twitter feed.  Both of these topics are minefields in themselves and whilst the general population are used to sleeze, shock-tactics and scandals I can honestly say that I don’t think Vodafone UK are not behind this one   – despite amassing over 1,000 new Twitter followers.

At the moment there are many outraged customers getting onto their soapboxes and calling for the sacking of the “monsters” that were behind the Tweet, but it will all die down – at least until Vodafone UK tweet “Sorry for the balls up, but we have some great deals on a Google Nexus One coming up!”.

They might as well have said “I wanna show you my ball sack”.

Throughout my working life I have always referred to myself as a “Jack of all trades – Master of none”.  The reason being is that I like diversity in my job, I like to get my hands dirty and have every single one of my fingers in the proverbial pie and I have never concentrated on one field of expertise – until I decided I wanted to be an SEO fulltime.

Even then SEO is such a wide topic that it is always easy to get caught up and distracted.  This became so apparent recently when we were interviewing for Junior SEO’s at Mediaworks and it reminded me of my own experiences trying to learn the elusive skill of SEO.  As a result of the wide circle that encompasses SEO it is simply not something that can be learnt from a book – you actually have to do it to learn from your mistakes.

Reading the knowledge through the noise

When I started out doing SEO, I learnt on the job whilst I was a web developer with a high knowledge of XHTML & CSS and basic knowledge of PHP so as you can imagine learning SEO for me was formulaic and processed – but I also tried and tested what I was reading.  Access to how to do SEO is a lot more accessible than it was 5 years ago, but it is now also surrounded by a lot of noise, ambiguity and “make money online” websites.  From what was once a simple role, being an SEO can easily be confused with a fully fledged online marketing expert due to the ability to snowball into a mass pit of distraction if you don’t learn  the basics first.

Looking at my current role, I get involved in so many areas it’s hard to gauge what is SEO 101 and what is a specialist subject – and what to learn first:

-          Copywriting

-          Content optimisation

-          Link building (sourcing, arranging, building)

-          Site architecture & link strategies

-          Conversion rate optimisation & site usability

-          Social media (online brand management)

-          Networking (Online & Offline)

-          Analytics, Statistics & Metrics

-          Code optimisation (page load)

-          Online PR & Article creation & submission

I didn’t wake up one day with this knowledge, nor did I read them from a book and regurgitate it word-for-word.  I have learnt all of these areas by getting my hands dirty and fiddling, tweaking, testing and getting amongst it.

SEO Oddjobs

Unfortunately, as the demand for SEO increases, we are now in a position where print/pr/marketing companies are not able to deliver the SEO they offer due to a lack of in-house expertise or simply employing a web developer who read a book from Amazon at the weekend.  This bullshit approach to SEO appears to have spawned the latest circle of friends down the pub – something that was once reserved for web designers – the “My mate can do that for £100” referral.

Simply learning the skills to be an SEO involves such diversity in topics that there is a great risk of simply reading far too much and doing very little.  My advice to anybody who wants to get into SEO has to understand that SEO is a very, very broad field now and you have stop yourself getting bogged down by all of the branches attached to it.  Read about the basics – content optimisation, site architecture and link building – then you can get caught up in the glorious position of users finding your website and having the headache of getting them to buy/partake.

Google does what?

Yes, I giggled when I spotted it.  And yes, the first thing I thought was to share it.