Posted by randfish

Recently I've begun to see massive problems in the search and online community's definitions of linkbait. It boils down to two completely unique meanings for the term:

Linkbait Definition #1 - "Link-Worthy Linkerati-Targeted Content"
This is the way I typically use the term linkbait. It refers to a piece of content one creates (for one's own site or another's) with the goals of launching it to a broad or niche web community who will find value in the material and write about it/link to it through social media sites news portals and blogs. It's the online equivalent of creating viral-worthy marketable content.

Examples:

• Pronet's Beginner's Guide to Digg
• Todd's Search Marketing Manifesto
• This wondrous theoretical computer science cheat sheet (sadly in PDF)

Linkbait Definition #2 - "Attracting Link Attention with Controversy"
A lot of folks seem to suggest that certain things people write on the web or create on their sites are "just for the linkbait" - these can include negative or derogatory pieces inflammatory material and anything else that designed to incite or provoke a reaction from one or many online communities or blogs.

Examples:

• This Piece from Dave Pasternack - horribly lacking logic of any kind
• Michael Gray saying Google pushes a Republican agenda (although he's self-deprecating about it which makes it much easier to stomach)
• DaveN's post on Vanessa...

I never thought I'd say it but I think there's a need to create two separate terms here so we can as a group determine which one is being referenced. The problem gets even more complex when there's an overlap between the two as is the case with something like the Matt Cutts facts page or Chris Hooley's Drinkbait.

What to do? What to do...

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Posted by randfish

Mike Reining from MindValleyLabs emailed me about their blog and while I wasn't thrillled by the piece he specifically sent me I did find great value in a couple of their most recent posts. First off on The Impact of Seeing Your Name in Headlines:

In this test - we found that embedding a user’s name within a headline boosted the number of people reading our sales copy by a whopping 46%.

And then A 'Guaranteed' Way to Boost Your ROI:

the ad that included “guaranteed” saw an 80% boost in ROI!  Now that is excellent!  So while the ad looked more like an ad and attracted less visitors the visitors that we did attract had more confidence in what we had to offer and far more visitors turned into leads (31% vs. 17%). 

There's nothing I love better than folks who are willing to post the results of their own internal tests for everyone's benefit. Kudos to Mike and the team at MindValley - into my daily reading list they go!

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Posted by randfish

Every so often in the SEO world a new rockstar emerges onto the scene - engaging audiences at conferences running a great blog and getting linked to on every other post in the feedreaders. This year two of those guys are part of one company - Neil Patel & Cameron Olthius of ACS.

In all honesty I've been blown away by their rapid rise to stardom. Their blog ProNet Advertising is on Digg at least once a week. Their clients already include some of the best known brands and names in the tech world and perhaps most shocking of all Neil still goes to school full time!

Check out an interview I conducted with them after meeting up at Pubcon.

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Posted by randfish

Aaron had a brilliant post yesterday on on Bad Advice that Sounds Good. He noted a few "white lies" of the SEO world that we continue to perpetuate. I agree with some of them wholeheartedly:

Create quality content. Why do I hate it? If you don't have much brand recognition higher quallity content will lose out to average content. Most people never talk about the social aspects of the web when saying to create quality content.

Create your website for users not for search engines. Why do I hate it? Search is marginalizing many publishing business models. To pay for the costs of creating linkworthy content it makes sense to add a significant amount of lower cost highly monetized filler to a website.

I also want to add a few that I've found:

• Anybody can be a blogger
  It's just not true - you have to be able to connect with an audience write consistently interesting material dedicate time in the beginning to the craft despite the fact that no one's reading and find ways to make yourself stand out from the hundreds or thousands of other bloggers in your field.
• Don't plagiarize
  Obviously I wouldn't recommend that you steal content but being succesful on the web is often about re-purposing ideas for content technology value capitalization branding advertising and everything else that falls under the umbrella of web marketing. Steal an idea improve it and make it appeal to an audience likely to link to it - you don't have to work hard just smart.
• Making money in SEO is easy
  Yeah the salaries are fairly good in the established tech hubs of the US and the consulting gigs can be very lucrative provided you have a reputation. For basement-SEO-types affiliate revenue is still strong and MFA sites can earn a return but all of this requires deep knowledge insight and the will to work through the ugly times to get ahead. It seems like a cakewalk because there are some very smart somewhat lazy folks making a great living but to compete with them you need the years of experience trial and error to know where to expend the minimum effort for maximum return.

I have little doubt that SEOmoz has given out some bad advice over the years either directly or through unclear references and it will always be something we have to work on.

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Posted by Guillaume

I've just been shopping around for a Heat Map tracking software and stumbled upon those two which looks good to me:

CrazyEgg (I think Rand already talked about it) which is simple easy to use and cost between 033$ - 080$ / 1 000 visits. I am not sure how deep the metrics are behind it. Has any of you tried it? It is worth it?

ClickDensity is the other one I found and seemed to offer wider and more detailed statistics. Setup seems to be a breeze. Costs seem lower per 1 000's.. They offer some nice A/B test splitting allowing you to change snippets of html code as you like to compare conversions.

Deep down my question is: is heat map tracking really going to help me? Is any of you using a similar product and discovered great insights with it? Thanks for any feedback!

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Posted by JaneCopland

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Posted by randfish

Looking through some old posts I noticed that there's quite a bit of negativity when it comes to the discussion of the actual work that goes into optimizing and promoting a website. Sure link building is generally no fun and keyword research can get more than a bit monotonous but there are some terrific parts to the job too. Here's a few of my favorites:

1. Training
   I really enjoy the process of teaching folks about SEO - usually I have a Flash presentation but other times it's simply a projector with a company's website. Walking through the mistakes explaining them to a savvy web/marketing team and uncovering opportunities is exceptionally rewarding.
2. Site Reviews
   The process of sitting down with Rebecca and/or Jane to dive through a site's problems diagnose them and offer solutions makes for a good few hours. Usually there's several distinct phases of work for a site review but I would say that it's more enjoyable now that someone else is taking notes and typing it up :)
3. Viral Content Brainstorming
   One of my very favorite tasks - we typically gather as a team in the common room (where Matt Jeff Rebecca Scott & Jane have desks) and start listing ideas we think could help a company/site/blog get some online or offline press. The only frustrating part is when we think we've got a great idea only to have a client reject it - sometimes going back to the drawing board once we think we've got a surefire winner dampens our creative spirit.
4. Analytics Reviews
   For some odd reason reviewing the ins and outs of how a site gets traffic where people spend time what pages convert and where abandonment rates are high feels very satisfying.
5. Launching Linkbait
   The day of a big launch watching the Diggs go up and the del.icio.us tags rise and the blog mentions start to roll in is practically an adrenhaline high. Granted we don't always make it but it's always thrilling to watch.
6. Talking to New Clients
   When we used to pitch/sell clients on our services I never enjoyed this part of the job but now that we get calls and emails from interested parties I find it fascinating to dig into a new property and walk through the trials and tribulations of a company's online efforts.
7. Blogging
   No surprise there - I love to write on the SEOmoz blog. I think that over the past couple years it's been one of the most rewarding parts of my life overall.

What are some of the best parts of your job?

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Posted by randfish

I'm just going to go crazy with this one because I have so much to be thankful for (note that a lot of this will be Pubcon-centric due to the timing).

• Getting out of debt and turning SEOmoz into a profitable company - I owe almost all of it to the people who read this blog (and the rest directly to Danny Sullivan).
• Mystery Guest - I know we struggle when I'm on the road but she's everything to me.
• Joe Morin who's been a friend through thick and thin
• My team here at SEOmoz - Matt Gillian Si Rebecca Scott Brandon Jane & Jeff; you're all amazing.
• Chris Hooley's Drinkbait - that Bombay Sapphire will get me through a hard day next week :)
• Great people like Todd Malicoat. I can't believe what a geniunely good person he is.
• Rae Hoffman - for showing me the wonders of Paigow Craps & high-priced call girls at the Wynn (and for being incredibly sweet to me during all of Vegas)
• Stanford Publishing - I had a fantastic time with Leslie & Beth (photo) in Monterey.
• Brett Tabke for the invitation to speak at my first Pubcon
• Scott Aaron & Andy for organizing a terrific lobster & steak dinner in Vegas (despite the fact that I got berated for being a white hat)
• Mike McDonald from Webpronews who posted a nifty video of me four beers into Pubcon chatting with Lee & Todd about links. Note how I say "like" and "you know" much more frequently than normal - it's practically embarassing :)
• Kim Krause who's been struggling to balance work and family but still writes one of the most captivating and personal blogs in the tech world.
• Three pro football games on Thanksgiving - thanks NFL (even if the first game is Miami v. Detroit)
• Wil from ThinkSeer with whom I exchanged only a few words at Pubcon but was thorougly impressed and blown away by his kindness.
• Lee Odden who's terrific staff members Karen & Jolena were incredibly friendly and warm throughout the conference (Lee also shot this short video of me and has a whole set of great videos from the conference here).
• Google Yahoo! MSN and Ask who've given all of us a profession.
• Barry Schwartz's keen photographic skills (and Flickr on the whole for being such a great photo resource).
• Bob Rains who flat out rocks.
• Maybe most of all I'm thankful that tomorrow I get to spend the day with my family eating talking and sharing time together. You can't ask for more than that.

I'm sure I've forgotten a ton of people and will have to make amends next week. Until then...

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Posted by Guillaume

Sorry for having inexistant lately I'm back for good now!

I've been playing around with this tool Web Ceo Pro for a while and I've seen Rand mentionned he was a little bit tired of it because it was expensive but I'd like to say that for a couple hundred dollars a year (if you don't get into their monthly fees) it can do a pretty good job and can be automated easily. It has some nice tools and can also generate sharp looking reports that you can brand with your company name. Here are a few examples:

-A keyword generator tool which works fine
-A html validator with decent SEO tips
-Automated search engine submissions (although I wouldn't touch it - its like sending a nuclear waste flag to the search engines)
-Inbound link checker from more than 100 search engines and a comparison to your competition (always good to know what your top30 competitors are doing link gathering wise)
-Link text analysis: you actually see what words are used for linking to your site and can ask some correction if needed to heavy sites who link to you
-Despite the reports take a while sometimes (better run it on a great machine) it allows you to get SERPs for multiple keywords from multiple search engines against multiple competitors.

You can even get classes from their specialists and get this:

By using this tool you can learn who is climbing the SERPs who's going down and compare it to your own SEO efforts. You can also study what they did to get there when you see major changes during your scans - and make sure you react to their actions to void their competitive advantage while remaining creative with new great linkbaiting / high valued content ideas.
 
I think Rand is using the paid tools but for anyone who want something that can give you nice reports for VPs and VCs and still generate some value for you it can help you fairly well.

Anyone have a better/faster system to accomplish most of those tasks / tedious reports?

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Posted by randfish

Most folks who hadn't heard of Reddit before November certainly have now. With the sale to Conde Nast Reddit has joined the ranks of social media property successes (congrats BTW to Paul Graham & Y Combinator). To a web marketer though Reddit remains an enigma shrouded in a mystery encapsulated in a cute little robot:

From our research Reddit is one of the very best places to go linkbaiting. While the traffic is typically between 3-6000 uniques over 24 hours (and totals less than 7500 over two weeks) the links are amazing. Bloggers and pundits and news sites pick up Reddit material with abandon - I usually don't point to Google search numbers but they make a case here: search for via reddit -site:reddit.com (250K results) vs. via digg -site:digg.com (600K results). Yes Digg is much bigger (and has been around and popular for longer) but Reddit shows a small number of stories compared to Digg meaning that for every Reddit story you get more play in the blogosphere more links and more reach (just what every linkbaiter wants).

The problem is - I can't seem to figure Redditers out. As many times as we've tried to submit links to them for clients or just in general (to try to grow our profiles) they never succeed. We've had several articles/tools/sites on there but always by accident - someone else submits it and it goes to the top of the site. Unlike the Digg or del.icio.us audience or even the folks at Slashdot Fark Shoutwire and Netscape there seems to be no clear demographic or tendency that you can focus material towards in order to make it to Reddit's front page.

Anyone have any advice? Who are these mysterious Redditers? How do we/you find/make content that pleases them?

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Posted by randfish

Alright this one's just for fun. We were batting around some cliches in the industry (at conferences on blog posts in forums) and thought that a few were worth sharing.

• Black Hats are British
  More specifically it seems they all have some relationship to Leeds (born there live there from "around there"). Maybe there's something in the water.
• "Content is King"
  Ugghh... I imagine that most people who've spent 10 minutes in the SEO field are probably sick of hearing this even if it's true.
• "I'm 100% White Hat"
  Sure I buy links spam the ocassional blog send out cheesy link requests and hide white on white text at the bottom of the page but other than that...
• "I'm a Nefarious Black Hat"
  My sites make $10 a month on AdSense (in total) and I'm still trying to get my first site banned but hey - it sure sounds sexier than "white hat."
• Matt Cutts is a Government Spy
  No. Just no. He's an employee of Google - that's it.
• Matt Cutts Once Said
  Not always valid in my book. If you don't test it yourself or have data to back up your hypothesis the "Matt Cutts said" or "GoogleGuy said" argument does not serve as the final answer. Same goes for anyone else - just because Dave Naylor or Greg Boser or that insufferable yellow-shoed Rand guy said or wrote something doesn't make it gospel.
• MSN/Yahoo!/Google/Ask Sucks
  They usually "suck" because they're not sending you traffic and then when you finally get things right on your site they suddenly "rule."
• My Site's Been Banned/Penalized
  9/10 times your site has not been banned or penalized you're just not getting the links you need to compete and the engines are getting smarter about which ones they count.
• I Hate Web 2.0
  You probably hate it because it's poorly defined and frustratingly over-applied not because you actually don't like UGC RSS feeds AJAX or shiny clean web design.
• Google Reps and PageRank
  In public Googlers seem to have an obsession with using PageRank when they really mean "advanced link quality/quantity score that has very little relationship to the original algo." You'll hear them say that results go into the supplementary index because of low PageRank (of course there's plenty of high PR pages in there that just happen to be duplicate/low quality content) or that PageRank is how they determine which source is canonical between different versions of content (I just don't believe they would be naive enough to avoid using other metrics too).
• I've Been Thinking of Going White Hat
  One of your big sites got banned and suddenly you're thinking that hard work and unique content and hours of labor are more attractive than 3 hours at the computer every night on your $1K-per-day churn and burns... Why am I skeptical?

Please do feel free to add more to the list .

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Posted by randfish

Google has always attempted to collect an extraordinary amount of data about users (and webmasters in particular) - a few recent examples have spotlighted this trend. From what I can tell there's virtually no limit to the amount of personal data the search giant collects:

From Google's Search Box

• Every keyword search you perform
• Any websites in the results you visit
• The amount of time you spend on sites before returning to Google
• Common patterns of navigation via search

From Google's Other Public Services

• Locations/Directions you plot on Google Maps
• Messages you send and receive via Gmail or Talk
• Documents you create/edit on Google Docs
• Calendar information you add to Google Calendar
• Sites you subscribe to or click on at Google's Personalized Homepage

From Google's Webmaster Tools

• Any websites you control or have access to via Google Checkout Google AdSense Google AdWords Google Analytics Google Sitemaps & Google's Embeddable Site Search
• Accounts you create or information you post to Blogger Groups AdSense/AdWords Picasa

From Google's Apps

• Anything you do on your computer after installing Google Desktop or Web Accelerator
• Sites you visit and what you do on the web using their built-in toolbar or the auto-embedded Firefox plug-in

From Google's Web Initatives

• Complete browsing habits of users connecting via free wifi in Mountain View
• Complete browsing habits of users on Google's connections in colleges airports or cities
• Domain registration data and relationships between websites around the world

At this point it's not that far-fetched for a black-hat affiliate marketer to be putting on the tinfoil hat everytime the get on the web. I certainly know more than one who connect through proxies never use the same password/name/address/phone number/credit card twice and maintain that any Google actions against their networks are the result of "data leakage."

The broader question here is - where would Google draw the line? Once they have every piece of data about your online activity from the sites you own to those you visit to where you live who you email and what you like to do on the weekends will they build associative databases to help correlate? Is there a "Rand Fishkin" file at Google that a curious engineer could pull up if ever they wanted to research my activities? If so... just FYI - that whole string of searches regarding "smelly pirate hookers" isn't what you think.

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Posted by randfish

In the world of big brands and sites SEO practices become part of a laundry list of developer tasks often far beneath the threshold of serious attention. While folks in our industry have learned the detriment of ignoring the search engines' guidelines for crawling & ranking in the world of the Fortune 1000's there are hundreds of disbelievers. Thus it's a great time to re-visit some common SEO mistakes.

1. Un-Spiderable Navigation
   From Flash links to Javascript calls to drop-downs and search box interfaces there's dozens of sites that fall victim to a lack of crawling due to their spider un-friendliness.
2. Disregard for Relevant Keywords
   Out of the Fortune 500 I'd estimate that only a scant few dozen are actually implementing proper keyword research and targeting - the rest leave it to a "creative ad writer" to determine page content and title tags.
3. Flash & Image-Based Content
   In addition to navigation the content that's most critical to search engines is frustratingly hidden in files that spiders can't see. Despite the promises from years ago that engines would eventually be able to spider Flash content (or read text in images) it seems we're still many years away.
4. URL Cannonicalization Problems
   With "print friendly" versions different navigation paths in the URLs leading to the same page and plain-old duplication for the heck of it "canonical content" is going underappreciated.
5. Content Distribution & Partnerships
   Along with cannonical issues on their own sites many large owners of web content license it out to dozens (sometimes hundreds) of sources. The only thing more damaging than having six versions of content on your site is having six versions of it on six other big powerful sites.
6. Cookie or Session-Variable Requirements
   Big sites that don't build content access systems for spiders are asking for trouble - if even a spider has to have a cookie drop to pass through someone else will be getting your traffic.
7. Controlled-Access to Content
   The NY Times Economist and Salon.com don't see nearly the link popularity growth of their more generous competitors. Even when you let the spiders through requiring membership of paid-access means that far fewer visitors will bother to link.
8. Multiple Site Creation
   Rather than launch projects behind their root domain big companies seem to take pride in releasing 6 new websites every time their ad agency changes the campaign slogan. Somebody's never heard of the sandbox...

One of the most fascinating people I met at the recent Pubcon was a "proxy design specialist" whose job is to work with big brands' unfriendly sites and create alternate pages for search engines to crawl and index. Basically it's an advanced form of cloaking that the engines tolerate largely because they'd rather be able to spider the content from these sites than to have it removed from the index. I had no idea the extent to which this practice is used but apparently this "ethical cloaking" is much much more common than you might think. Sadly I can't post the examples I know of but if you've got some feel free to share in the comments.

So next time someone asks you about whether cloaking is white-hat or black-hat you can tell them... "it depends."

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Posted by randfish

As always it's the dramatic moments that get the most press. At Las Vegas' Pubcon this year one of the most talked-about moments was Matt Cutts' introduction at the podium during the Super Session at the end of (day 3) Thursday. I got a few emails through the suggestion box asking if I'd make a post on the topic (and heard plenty of buzz at the conference itself). Let's hope my memory serves me well.

Matt rose to the stage and first asked a few questions of the audience. He wanted folks to raise their hand if they were over 30 or under 30 (I couldn't see the audience but he said it favored the under 30 crowd). He then asked how many folks were more red state or blue state (I believe he specifically re-worded it as "How many people were happy with the mid-term elections"). I couldn't believe my ears and stood slightly to turn around the room and look - it appeared to be about 65-70% "happy with mid-term elections." Two gentlemen to my right appeared to take quick offense and one muttered to the other (as the "blue state" types were raising their hands) "f--kers." Almost simultaneously a woman behind me said something to her friend about "damn liberals" - I imagine that there were negative comments during the "red state" hand-raising as well but didn't hear them from where I was sitting. From talking to others afterwards however I gathered that I wasn't alone in hearing antagonistic mutterings.

I want to make it clear that I don't blame Matt at all - I think he was geniunely interested to see what the demographics of the WebMasterWorld conference looked like and had no ill intention whatsoever. However as I've noted in the past on the issue of mixing politics and business the emotions run so strong that it can be a danger to friendly relationships of all types when these leanings are exposed. It's sad that politics is a topic that can't be discussed in friendly company - certainly disagreements on nearly every other issue are easily shrugged off in the conference environment.

That evening at the events I attended many folks used the event as a starting point for conversation (myself included). While no one I talked to felt offended nearly everyone was shocked - some even thought Matt (being someone who carefully chooses his words particularly in front of an audience) was motivated in some way to "stir the pot." The most negative comments I heard were from folks who felt massively uncomfortable and concerned that business or personal relationships they had with the folks around them could be damaged by raising their hand and exposing their viewpoints. I admit that I can empathize with that sentiment.

Obviously it's nowhere close to the most important incident of the event nor nearly the most interesting but it certainly can make for a useful lesson - beware of injecting dangerous subject matter into an unfamiliar audience and use caution when exposing your politics.

Now back to the important stuff...

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Posted by I Brian

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Posted by randfish

I'm thrilled to have spent some time here at Pubcon. While it's the least commercial/business focused of the conferences I've recently attended the level of discussion is incredibly high. The knowledge levels of the average participant far exceeds that of an SES Ad:Tech or other private conference that I've seen which makes for some great professional sharing.

Today I spoke on the topic of linkbaiting (you can see the presentation online here) and had a fun time doing it. My co-panelist Lawrence spoke eloquently and engagingly on widgets and his site Sexy Widget is certainly worth a read. The link potentials in that sphere are phenomenal.

I thought that since I've gotten a lot of fascinating information during my time here I'd try to document some of it and share some predictions (guesses in some cases) about what will happen over the next 6 months:

• Google's Webmaster Central will offer full link information about your site (like the old link command before they broke it)
• Yahoo! will open a Webmaster Central type portal
• MSN will try something similar possibly including some additional tools to help them get more attention from webmasters
• Digg will reach its height of publicity and begin to wane as other verticals in the space take off
• SearchEngineLand will become the definitive source for search-related content; most in the industry foresee SEW becoming irrelevant very quickly
• Linkbaiting will continue to grow in opportunity and popularity - many more firms will begin to offer services in that sector
• The best SEOs will continue to work for themselves. Honestly the most eye-opening part of this conference has been meeting people far more capable than I at exploiting gaps in the engines to gain rankings - their wealth and capablities astonish me at times.
• A few SEO-backed projects will become big brands in the online world. I think the next Zillow or MySpace or YouTube will have its seeds in this industry - so many capable people are hard at work on fascinating projects.
• Google will continue to make it more worth spammers while to take white-hat routes as they close off link spam opportunities and make authority sites impossible to resist.
• Blogs will find more creative ways to finance their growth - and while blog number growth may slow down a bit web traffic to them will continue to skyrocket.

What trends do you see? Think I'm crazy or on the money?

p.s. Many thanks to both YPN and MSN for hosting us at their parties in the Palms. The Hugh Hefner suite and Kingpin suite were both incredibly impressive. Barry has some nice photos on Flickr.

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Posted by rebecca

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Posted by randfish

One of the biggest changes to homepages across the web particularly with big brands is the seemingly mandatory inclusion of the multiheader. Multiheaders allows multiple stories or features access to the primary visibility section of a homepage and let visitors choose (through a click or hover) which featured piece they want to see. Let's take a walk through a few:

Yahoo!'s multiheader allows us to acces multiple sections (Featured Entertainment Sports Life) and multiple stories in each.

C|Net's offering lets users surf from one to the next using the "back" and "next" buttons but if you stay on the homepage a few seconds it starts cycling through automatically (which many of the multiheaders do).

CBS uses their multiheader to provide shows that will air that night. It's point-and-click only though and I'm guessing their stats will show that very few folks notice the top links and use them.

I'm a big fan of the way National Geographic uses theirs - it feels intuitive and the auto-scroll time between stories is just right.

Other sites like NFL Scientific American Gateway MarthaStewart and many more are also using these multiheaders for a variety of reasons. What do you think? Will this trend become the next big thing for web portals and homepages? Do you think users are doing a good job of understanding and using these tools?

p.s. To be honest I'm head-over-heels for multiheaders. I got to watch a lot of hands-on usability tests at Stanford's web workshop and these were very well received (even by non-tech-savvy users). I think we might have to throw one on the new version of SEOmoz (if Matt says it's OK).

p.p.s. Vegas is pretty fun - and attendance is running up over 2000; Pubcon's highest ever from my understanding.

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Last week I got fed up with having to make car payments. Cars should be free! Then someone told me about this thing they have called the linux car . . .

The great thing about the linux car is that it’s free and it never gets flat tires. I’m all about saving money and I love free. While everyone else pays huge companies for their car or taking the bus (which sucks!) I got a car without spending a dime.

The first bad news came when I tried to actually get in the car and drive; I received an error message on the dashboard that said “No tires detected.”

WTF?

I knew I saw tires when I got into the car. So I got out and checked and sure enough there were tires on the car. So I got back in and banged on the steering wheel a few times before deciding to check the manual.

After a few hours of poring over the manual I discovered that I had to tell the car about what kind of tires I had.

So after some digging I found the button to initiate tire declarations (for some reason it was called INI RUBBER-BASED ROAD INTERFACE LIB EZ). I pushed it and a little sign lit up saying “If your Linux car is a 2006 model or better you may need to install a rubber-based road interface synchronizer before attempting to declare tire status to the vehicle.”

I went to the hardware store and bought one but it was the wrong size so I had to go back again. The instructions were in German but I still managed to get in installed. I pushed the button and went on with my tire type declarations after which the car finally decided to recognize my tires.

Great!- now where’s the gear-shift?

After hours of searching I gave up and called up a friend who’s a real car expert. He chuckled. “Dude only idiots use gear-shifts. Linux drivers use gear modulating paddles located on the sides of the driverseat. Don’t you know anything about cars? Jeez.”

I made fun of him for being a virgin and then returned to my car. Indeed the gear modulation paddles were conveniently hidden under the edges of my seat.

I decided to take the car for a spin so I pulled out of my driveway and the car stalled. A message on the dashboard said “Before initializing for road driving please specify your exact model of Linux car.”

It then gave me a list of four hundred vehicle types each with just a slight difference in model number. I was eventually obliged to take apart a substantial part of the engine in order to see the little model number on the side of the block. Satisfied I inputted this number into the dashboard once I’d put the engine back together and started off on my first Sunday drive with my brand new Linux car.

After going to the supermarket which my linux car did more faster and more securely than any car i’ve been in I decided to drive to the football game. When I got within 3 miles of the stadium the car started to shake stalled out and said “Football games cannot be visited in this car.”

So I checked the manual and sure enough the linux car will not go within 3 miles of any baseball football basketball or hockey game . . . but you can take it to a lawn dart tournament or to compatible bowling alleys. Sigh . . . well that sucks.

Finally when I found out my car wasn’t compatible with my iPod I put the fucking thing up on cinderblocks in my front yard and decided to just take the bus.

The bus sucks true but you know what? It’s a no-brainer.

I put the reddit button up cuz this is a reddit type of post. Problem is I don’t think many of you use reddit yet. Give it a try if you haven’t - there’s some great stuff on there it’s way faster than Digg and you’ll see a different set of what’s popular on the web.

This little bit of geek humor is because of Pubcon/ light SEO news and a /. comment - hat tip to cheesburger brown. The comment was open source - right?

Posted by rebecca

I ignore the top paid listings for now and focus on the first four. Understandably Apple is the number one result but Amazon.co.uk is right below Apple at #2. Hmmm that title tag for Amazon is pretty ugly-looking and the description is even worse. Apple's title tag however is exactly what I'm looking for--an iPod nano. The description is perfect so I click on that result.

The home page looks promising--it's sleek looks cool and offers exactly what I want:

I get excited about making my purchase and scan for the price. But wait a minute:

Dollar signs? Bloody hell! The prices are totally U.S.-centric! Lee Fresh Egg's SEO director agreed; other than hearing Madonna's crap faux-British accent nothing turns a Brit off more than seeing a site offer only American pricing. As if that's not bad check out the customer service phone number:

Customers in the UK will have to pay to use that number because it's a 1-800 number and not 0-800. Apple you've just lost a sale. I hit the back button and re-examine the search results.

The two results listed underneath Amazon's are advertising iPod accessories which isn't what I want. It looks like Amazon.co.uk will be my best bet so even though it was a less attractive-looking result than Apple's the fact that they're on a UK domain probably means that they specifically cater to UK users and thus they earn my trust.

You're probably thinking "Oi Rebecca! But Apple had a paid listing at at the top of the page that pointed to apple.com/ukstore!" That's true but how many users are blind to the top and right-hand side of the screen because of the fact that they're paid ads? Probably a lot. "Okay" you're thinking "but why doesn't Apple just create apple.co.uk and optimize (optimise hehe) that?" Well that's a good idea. The only problem is that apple.co.uk is already registered to Apple Agency an illustrating company.

So what should Apple do? Probably serve its UK page to the appropriate IP addresses. Until then it's doing a bang up job of losing out on potential sales.

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