It was made perfectly clear in the expo from all the SEO guys there that the best and most effective way of driving traffic to a website is via back links. Lets repeat that, get BACK LINKS… still not clicking? JUST GET BACK LINKS. (though of course adding good content is a natural generator of back links as well and makes life a little easier).

But, bearing in mind that the internet is pretty vast, and also that im currently trying to help a client deal with a rather unscrupulous rip off merchant based on the other side of the planet, the question arouse about using back links and generating back links to your competitors.

eh? give my competitors back links?  Are you mental?

nope. But I wish I was.

Who said they had to be good back links?

Let me clarify.  Simply put the Google algorithm likes high quality sites (lets say for example, the BBC.co.uk). As far as Google are concerned the BBC can basically do no wrong, its respected, established and considered an authority. Hence its always pretty nice to get a back link from them to you by being news worthy in some form or other. Also it would be high on impossible to pull them down with the Golden Bullet Backlink due to this already established authority.

Hence we all work hard at generating back links, a mention, and editorial, or advertorial to include a link from these respected authority sites to your own.

Reverse Engineering Backlinks

But what if you decided to reverse engineer the back linking protocol?  How about targeting all your competitors and generating back links to them from the dirtiest,  scummiest,  spammy websites around all the bad neighbourhoods on the internet… god its scary, but it seems that these “services” are currently on offer.  Its also been a concern of mine for some time and a reason I hate the requirement of back links as they are simply beyond your control.

Now you add all these back links to your competitors and there rankings begin to drop, their respect and authority is reduced and you climb the rankings to fill the void.  Result.  Also how do you think they will remove these back links?

Think about this for a second.

Thought about it? Any ideas?… me either.

It would be a manual, long winded process of sending emails and requests if not downright begging letters to these bad neighbourhoods to try and convince them to remove this god forsaken link that’s hurting your site.  Do you think they would care? Now imagine you had 1000 of these links pointing at you from 1000 different sites.

That has got to be a scary, scary situation to be in.

The Golden Bullet

The way it stands now is that you can actually employ services to utilise this tactic on your behalf.  I’m not clear on the numbers, the effectiveness, or how Google (never mind LIVE and Yahoo) actually reacts to this or what processes are in place to address it, but will certainly be looking into it.

If any of you guys know anything about it, please do drop me a comment  but in the meantime, please dont think about walking down this road!

Youtube seem to have hit a deadlock with the Performing Rights Society for Music in the United Kingdom with the result that they are being forced to remove videos for artists covered under the Society.

“We value the creativity of musicians and song writers and have worked hard with rights-holders to generate significant online revenue for them and to respect copyright,” said parent company Google in a statement.

“But PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our license than before. The costs are simply prohibitive for us – under PRS’s proposed terms we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback.”

This means that groups such as EMI, Universal, Warner and Sony BMG will all have artists assigned to them removed for UK viewers.

Guess why?

Yep.  Money.

What they say

According to the report in the Guardian Newspaper :

Patrick Walker, YouTube’s director of video partnerships, said he couldn’t give a figure for the proportion of site traffic generated by music videos, but that music videos are some of the most popular content on the site and generate a lot of activity including remixes and on music blogs.

“This is about long-term viability,” he said. “If the next Arctic Monkeys is going to surface we need to get this to work. It’s in the interest of the music industry – we’re not just doing this for us. The record industry needs a new business models so it’s kind of a shame that this has happened. But sometimes you have to step back to step forwards.”

even though this has been rebutted by Steve Porter of the PRS:

“We were shocked and disappointed to receive a call late this afternoon informing us of Google’s drastic action,” said PRS chief executive Steve Porter. “… which we believe only punishes British consumers and the songwriters whose interests we protect and represent.”

Clearly pre-empting the fury of YouTube users, PRS emphasised that it did not ask YouTube to remove the videos and “urges them to reconsider their decision as a matter of urgency”.

But even if PRS is completely squeaky clean in this episode, it comes soon after the closing days of the Pirate Bay trial and for web-savvy consumers it will confirm the gulf between the traditional music industry and the technology they love.

It also follows some bad press for PRS over licence chasing; PRS has allegedly been pestering small businesses demanding licences if, for example, they have more than two staff and listen to the radio.

So where does that leave the artists and the UK viewer YouTube user. Up the creek it seems. It amazes me the short sightedness of some groups who fail to realise the significance of technology in their industries today and the potential resulting backlash from the public and artists alike.

If this isnt rectified quickly it could mean serious implications for Youtube UK and artisits as other mediums are imployed to view their preferred content.

Watching with interest… (or not watching with interest if it happens to be a music video :P)

As per usual Joost has been on the ball and ahead of the game in explaining the reasons for and the solution to canonical issues and again provides us with this cool little plugin so instead of waffling on about it I will pass you over to him so you can read and download his new Canonical Plugin for Woordpress.

Also by doing this it means I can get back to installing it…stop reading this and go get it. (And while your there make sure and leave him a nice comment, he gets all giddy over things like that.)

Its Sunday morning and I usually take a time-out to go, browse through the Sunday papers, have a nice cafe cortado, and think about the week to come.  This morning though I came across something very interesting in the Mail on Sunday.

The UK Government wants a Twitter supremo to manage and integrate the new digital technology into the infrastructure of daily government communication and practice. This is very interesting on a number of levels.

I read through the Mail on Sunday article and took the details of the vacancies web address to check it out some more. Details of the vacancy can be found under Director of Digital Engagement on the Careers.civil-service.gov.uk site.

Now, reverting back to the Mails article.  Some of the comments are truly surprising and I wish to address them. The author of the article is one Mr. Simon McGee, seemingly an avid journalist and writer in the Mail group from the results I found when searching for his name, but seemingly not someone who is familiar with the importance or use of twitter itself. If he had a twitter account I could have contacted him directly to clarify his point of view.

The Critics

The first point to address is this:

The salary, (up to 160k per year) which is only slightly less than the Prime Minister earns, was seized on by critics last night as a further sign of ministers’ obsession with the internet, despite the fact that millions of people, particularly the elderly, have no access to a computer.

Critics are complaining at a decent recognition by the government of an incredibly important job? Right, that shows they have no idea what they are talking about to start with.  I suppose they are under the impression that its all kids online and they is no possible value to this new “craze”.  Why not ask President Obama about Twitter first and see what he has to say, or even better check out his twitter account instead. I suppose communication with 308,855 followers has little or no value in the political spectrum.

My opinion

In my opinion the UK Government are doing exactly what they should be doing. Recognising the importance and value of and educating themselves about the social media available and implementing plans to integrate it effectively. A point that the official response backs up:

Officials say the latest post being created is ‘in recognition of the huge increase in the use of the internet, digital communities and social media‘ and because ‘digital engagement‘ is now considered a key Government priority.

Tory MP Philip Davies

The second point to address is this one:

But there was a scathing response from Tory MP Philip Davies, (his site can be found here) who said: ‘It defies belief that ministers are faffing around on Facebook and Twitter.

‘It is a grotesque amount of public money to waste on a pointless job. It is absolutely obscene at a time when Britain is going through one of the most serious financial crises in its history.’

Oh boy, Philip Davies, my honourable friend I can only hope you have been misrepresented, misquoted or this has been taken out of context.

In no small part this is an excellent reflection on your lack of understanding regarding the social network as a medium, especially as a politician who SHOULD thrive on data, information, contacts and communication especially with his own constituents.

Without understanding the social network and by stating that this is a “grotesque waste” on a “pointless job” you are simply highlighting the fact that you are not open to the development and transparency that these mediums can offer to government or the yourself as a representative of the people.

The UK Governements Response

Let me quote again something that is FACT and on the increase.

A Cabinet Office spokesman said: ‘Millions of people find out about things and express their opinions on the internet, so it is vital that Government departments engage with citizens through digital channels.

‘We have created this post to support and encourage all departments to become excellent at using these techniques alongside traditional engagement methods.’

Indeed via the opportunity of two way communication one lady called Alison from Cardiff has responded to the Mails article with this:

If this is true I’m so qualified for this i sense a new career beckoning – and a complete about turn on my (previous) biased, vindictive posts against the Government, which I now completely retract. I will heartily endorse any MPs expense account – and I’ll make sure there’ll be a group on Facebook to validate, and revoke all criticism to the contrary.

I’ll put all MP’s on Twitter – and make them aware of Bebo and what an RSS feed means, plus how to do on line blogging. In my new role of ‘Director of Digital Engagement’ I’ll show them how to embrace the digital age and to wield a ‘Blackberry’ better than Obama. Give me a month and I’ll have the House of Commons break dancing in a train station near you!!

I think I’ll have problems in explaining what a ‘poke’ means on Facebook, especially to Blunkett – but that’s how I’ll earn my humongous salary, Be afraid – be very afraid – and no the 160k has absolutely nothing to do with it – I would never sell my soul for money!

A response similar to my own in regards the foresight the government has in creating this role.  Unfortunately it also means I have to convince them I’m the best person for the role and not her!  :P

The role will certinaly be interesting and challenging for whoever fills it, especially as the job ahead will take patience and understanding in helping people such as the right honorable Philip Davies understand exactly whats going on and the benefits of using these tools.  Wake up folks, a soft revolution is occuring and you dont even seem to be aware that its going on.

Remember Minority Report? Tom Cruise happily interacted with a semi-transparent computer display to manipulate the information presented by waving his hands around and “twisting” the data via fluxations in the hands position to display the information as he required. Fantasy? No way.

Seems Oblong Industries have already worked on making this system a reality. Check out the video to see this amazing technology in action and then think how this type of technology would affect each and every single aspect of our life’s if it became available. I don’t think “g speak” is so far away either as the technology is already in a huge number of homes across the world.

Dont know what I mean?

Think Wii…

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

This wont affect rankings (yet) but I can see it having an effect once this gains momentum and popularity with users and may act as some kind of “vote” helping websites rank higher when more users have them personalised at the number one position within their own accounts, however I´m simply speculating about this at the moment!

For more detailed information about this check out the Official Google Blog here:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/searchwiki-make-search-your-own.html

It was with a little trepidation I downloaded this PDF and began to read as I wasn’t sure what surprises where in store for me. 20 minutes later and with a sigh of relief, I’m happy to say, I have been completely spot on in the advice I give and follow myself in regards the creation, development and discipline according to Google for good SEO practices.

I will be following on with this handbook to my clients as its simple, straight forward and to the point with little technical jargon so making it a valuable document to pass to clients and potential clients alike. The most important point being that its straight from the horses mouth and no one will be able to argue with that!

Heres the official post from Google Webmaster Central Blog and the PDf of the Official Google SEO handbook is right here.

But why do we care? Will it really make much difference in the world or our daily lives? I think not to be honest, however, I believe that this election has changed in a subtle fashion the focus of future America campaigns. How? Well on the internet of course.

Obamas campaign was fully aware of the advantages of engaging the internet population to gain support and momentum and they did it most effectively, something I will be analysing in the close future as hindsight will allow for a much clearer view of its influence and reach.

Don’t hold your breath to long people, but do remember once again, “the times they are achanging”.

Forums have been awash with questions regarding the much used Google Toolbar extension and when it will be available on the Google Chrome Browser but its not exactly necessary except for viewing page rank to be honest.

Its taking a little time for people to realise that you can actually do a search directly inside the address bar of google chrome as if it where the Google toolbar extension and not only this, there’s a nice variety of commands that can be applied to searches to bring back different sets of information in exactly the same way as if you visit www.google.com and do it there directly.

Heres a run down on the available commands on google and on google chrome:

site:mywebsite.com

Lists all the pages on your site that google has detected and which are listed.

link:mywebsite.com

Displays all the pages which have a link on them TO the address you have entered.

define:something

will give you the definaition of the word “something”…obvioulsy you can use define on any word to get its meaning.

spell:something

will spell check your word and tell you that something is wrong ^^.

stocks:

will give you the stock price of a particular stock.

filetype:

will let you search for a particular type of file, so “filetype:doc” will search for Word Documents.

maps:town, city or address

And surprise! A map appears of that particular location.

phone:

or something that resembles a phone number and hopefully you will get a name address with it. Just make sure the numbers right.

Maybe useful, maybe not, but best to be in the know!

Lets break this down a little. The human body is the market sector. Its covered in general by a GP (General Practice) Doctor. Thats the local man in the white coat you go to at stage one for a diagnosis of a problem or symptom. These doctors are the guys who look over the body in general and make the initial recommendations on reaching a solution. So what next…

Well that all depends…depends on what?

If you need your teeth fixed you get a dentist, heart surgery a heart surgeon, brain surgery a brain surgeon, burns a burns expert. Guess what, the internet is pretty similiar in regards the differences in expertise. God knows you would NEVER let a brain surgeon do heart surgery or a dentist fix a broken leg and YES its the same when choosing an expert for completing a job on the internet.

Thats not to say that heart experts dont know about the brain and vice versa (and this is where the lines blur) but its not something they would take on and they would not be able to do it correctly, nevermind the fact that you might die…

So when someone says “I’m an internet expert” I immeidatley assume they are a web user who knows what they are doing SURFING the web, not someone who works directly on it. What you need to find is an expert who does the specific job you require doing… makes sense no? Well guess what, not many people do it they simply assume that the person who makes websites is also an expert in:

Hosting, emails, coding, designing, programming, SEO, marketing, security, development, navigation etc. The list goes on!

And the problem can be that the website builders may not correct the client that THEY are not the experts in this particular area that needs addressing and this is cimply a recipe for disaster!

So how would a client know what choice to make when selecting the right professional for the job. Its not a big secret to be honest, its common sense, but it continues to astound me how many people will skip these all important sensible points when they are doing business.

Check these simple points out before you hand over any money to an “internet expert”

- Reputation
There are two aspects of reputation to check. The “real world” reputation as to the professionals conduct in general and the online reputation, what they are associated with, who they work with and who they are partnered with are examples of reviewing a professionals reputation.

- Testimonails
Client and business testimonials are excellent ways of assessing a professionals professionalism. That is, if the testimonials are REAL. This is something that happens in any business where an apparent glowing confirmation of a business was submitted by someone who never has, and never will exist so NEVER be afraid to check up on these testimonials and speak to the people who have supplied them.

- Portfolio
Some web companies are unfortunately restricted from publishing the work they do for clients and allowing it to be seen in their portfolios (this can be for a multitude of different reasons) but its no excuse. Web Design businesses should have a range of clients to show off in a portfolio.
*NOTE – portfolios are subjective, you might like the work you may not, but the work is examples of potential outcome and also bear in mind clients can, on occasion, have to much input into a design, thus potentially destroying the work in professionals eyes but leaving the client happy.

Follow these few steps and though there are no guarentees, it will help to ensure that the decision you make is more than liely correct and the investment in time and money wont be a waste.

I have plenty more to write around this type of subect so bear with me as I get it together.