Philip John

  • 404s, 301s and a smidgen of common sense

    My guess is that the reason so many SEOs ask the wrong questions is because they don’t have a technical background. I’m not sure how good Barry Schwartz’ technical knowledge is, but today he’s asked, “404 or 301 Your Old Pages? Which is Best For SEO?” There are two questions here and there’s a fundamental […]

  • I have nothing to be worried about

    Tamar Weinberg of Search Roundtable today asked, “do search penalty discussions worry you?” Well, Tamar, I’d have to having something to worry about in order to be worried. The way I see it, unless you’ve been employing optimisation techniques aimed specifically at improving rankings, there’s nothing to worry about. In fact, no web master/marketer/business owner […]

  • Another reason to get on line

    Through WebProNews today I learn that on line advertising spend in the UK is now greater than television advertising. On line advertising spend reached £2.8 billion in 2007, an increase of 40%, with TV advertising registering £2.4 billion. The figures, from the latest annual Ofcom report into the communications industry, show just how important the […]

  • Block the rank monitoring tools!

    Via Search Roundtable I learn that a number of WebPosition Gold customers are finding the software is being blocked by Google. It’s got many worried especially as it seems to be affecting other rank checking tools. Has Google finally shut these tools down? If that is the case, so what? I can’t remember the last […]

  • How SEO will eventually die off

    I really enjoyed reading Ian Lurie’s take on the death of SEO. He gives us a few ideas as to how SEO will finally meet it’s demise. (Note I’m not questioning whether SEO will die or not!) I’m going to give you my own take on each of the three theories; The Slow Meltdown While […]

  • Algo chasing and SEOs generalisation

    One of the biggest things that annoys me about SEOs is how so many of them make generalisations. For example, a recent poll conducted by Search Roundtable asked SEOs and webmasters, “do you like blog links?” The poll was sparked off by suggestions by some SEOs that Google had started to de-value links from blogs. […]

  • Ethics and Corporation Tax

    One thing that really bugs me is tax avoidance. I used to think it was a great idea until one day, whilst having an inner groan at the constant lack of cash in public services I realised that avoiding tax is, in fact, incredibly unethical and irresponsible. Taxes, whether you like them or not, are […]

  • Yahoo is encouraging unethical practices in web development

    A big part of my ethical web philosophy is that site owners should build their sites with the visitors best interests at the forefront. For years it has been shown that surfers use the address bar to get their bearings and so clean, simple URLs are a must. Search engines have always had difficulty with […]

  • Common Sense Policing

    Yesterday I sent off my application to be a Special Constable for Staffordshire Police. I’m really excited about it but have been worried about how much pressure there is with all the paperwork that’s required so I was pleased to hear about this pilot scheme that is under way in four forces, including Staffordshire. It […]

  • Faceparty Activates Self Destruct

    Social networks are attractive in business because, like TV, they have a captive audience. A captive audience about who a lot is known. Age, gender, location, hobbies, interests, sexual preference, musical preference, favourite TV shows, films, books; you name it. So what do Faceparty do when faced with a bit of legislation? They cull hundreds […]