When One Website Bear Scrapes Another Furry Bear’s Website, That Makes Me A Sad Little Panda

I can’t be the only person who thinks of this when people talk of the Google Panda Update?

Who lives in peace ‘neath in Mountain View?
Google Harassment Panda!
Who explains Google harassment to me and you?
Google Harassment Panda!
Don’t cloak that, don’t link there..
Don’t be evil says the silly old bear!
He’s come to teach you what’s right and wrong..
Google Harassment Panda!

In other news: I’ve noticed nothing untoward, so I’m going back to bed/pub/doing what I should be doing.

WWE: When is it Not Ashamed To Be a Wrestling Promotion?

In the last few months, me and a few of my wrestling fan mates (of which there is numerous) have been having a good giggle at the WWE, and it’s refusal to be called a wrestling promotion.

They have tried to distance itself from the name since the mid 80’s, when they used it to get passed being listed as an athletic event so they wouldn’t have the same regulation as boxers (“wrestlers? No, they are superstars!”), but recently it’s got a bit silly, PR departments have been agressive in emailing sources in press coverage asking for titles that mention the word “Wrestling” changed, even removing coverage when journalists not wanting to change. Jokes about how many times the word “Wrestle” was said at Wrestlemania (which is probably going to be changed in name next year to something like “Entertainamania” – hey that could work as a name) did the rounds over the weekend, and as somebody who is involved in the wrestling business in such a small way, I find it amusing.

However, the other business I’m involved in is SEO, and – during a boring evening pissing about on the internet – I found this:-

Furthermore, here is the Meta Description, where it explicitly says it’s targetting wrestling fans!

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Wrestling merchandise from WWEShop.com
includes a huge variety of WWE DVDs, action figures, accessories &amp;
more at everyday low discounted prices. WWEShop.com satisfies all
WWE wrestling merchanidise needs for the wrestling fan in all of us!">

I don’t blame WWE for this. After all, if you sell wrestling merchandise and don’t include the words “Wrestling Merchandise” in your title and meta description tags, then you are – quite frankly – pants on head retarded. Certainly I applaud your SEO team and if Vince McMahon is reading this, I suggest you give them a pay rise for bringing in a lot of sales for standing up to your branding department (who, really, should be fired).

Oh and whilst your at it. Give Zack Ryder a push.

I’m not sure either of those will happen, in fact I’m pretty sure that the word “wrestling” will be removed from the title and descriptions!

Honoured and Humbled

Last weekend at Think Visibility, as well as the merriment at the bar and the great sessions put on by the speakers, there was also an air of sadness. Between this conference and the last, one of the speakers and somebody who I got to know pretty well – Jaamit Durani, was tragically lost in an accident.

Jaamit was such a huge influence on my career when I was starting out on SEO (I wrote about it on my old blog), and to say his loss saddened me and the SEO community as a whole would be a gross understatement.

As part of the celebration of his life, the Jaamit Award was created by The Hodge and his team, and the award was decided by the first (or best, I’m not sure) solution to the questions located in the Think Visibility Robot.txt file.

I was surprised and honoured to be named as the winner.

As Dom said in his speech, it will hopefully grow into an industry recognised award (in an industry that badly needs one), and although I don’t profess to know everything that is known about SEO, I do try and “Share it like Jaamit”, with what I do know with my peers (cheap plug – my Thinkvisibility notes will be on Winwar when I’ve finished typing them up). After all, I’d like to think I’m approachable at the very least.

What was incredibly humbling was reading back the twitter stream of the #thinkvis tag with all the messages of congratulations. Likewise all those who spoke to me in the bar with all the messages of support. As somebody who suffers quite badly from Imposter Syndrome (see Peter Cooper’s notes on his talk), it was very humbling. I wish my dodgy neck didn’t mean that I had to leave the party early, as there was so many people I didn’t get the chance to speak to.

So to all those who congratulated me in person and on Twitter – thank you. To Dom for the Think Visibility September ticket & hotel, A4UExpo for the A4U ticket, Dixon Jones for the Majestic SEO year pass and Gadget Glamour for the iPad skin – thank you!

But most of all, thank you for Jaamit. He had such an effect on my career and on the SEO community as a whole. Just wish that he was still here to see it all.

Need To Feel Wanted? Close a Blog

Happy Blue Monday everybody!

Yes, Blue Monday, the supposed day where you are the most depressed in the year. I wouldn’t say so, but after a bunch of emails to random girls on OKCupid & getting sod all response, I was feeling a little bit low & needing a hug.

Instead I got a notification from The Gospel. My old blog, that I shut down late last year. I had a couple of comments from Carly & Han on that post that were as heartfelt as I’d imagine (they’d took the piss), but I had a bunch of other responses that were a little – shall we say – mispelt & over the top.

How to become private detective said “no you should not do like this.there should be a back up of this”

Make Money Online said “what am I going to do with the rest of my life!”

Twitter Tools said “It’s such a tragic loss to the internet, it will be missed.”

WordPress Themes said “Wow! I never thought I’d see the end. I’m devistated!”

Big Bang Theory Episodes said “NO! NOT THIS WAY!” (which immediately make me think of Michael Cole. It’s a bad thing whenever I think of Michael Cole).

Female Golf Sets said “I am crying for your soul in this time of great loss.”

Bing SEO said “I want to follow you on your next journey, please tell me how you can allow me to!”

Quite. It picked my spirits up a bit!

The lesson to be learned? If you want to feel wanted, close your blog down & get spammed to buggery.

Any spam comment doozies you’ve had in the past?