I’m going to be away for a chunk of time. We are all heading off to Leicester for the weekend to see Chantelle’s family, and then I have a day of on-site consultancy to do close to Leicester early next week, so we’ll be staying longer than normal.
Laters
Hah, I must be doing something right then 
A bit unoriginal, just a bit of old fashioned keyword based spam to an Italian domain promoting some pr0n, by the look of it. The comment spam, I mean, not the domain. I didn’t get to see ANY pr0n, not even a nipple. It seems SpamCop are already on the case, and the offending site is in the process of being pulled - following the provided link returned the follwing, in big, red letters :
This site will be closed in five days for a comment and e-mail spam. If you have suffered from actions of this site, please, fill this form below.
*sigh*, and I didn’t even get to look at pr0n with a legitimate excuse. Does that count as having “suffered from actions of this site” do you think?
I’ve been playing X-Men Legends 2 : Rise of Apocalypse quite a bit lately - XTreme powers are fun! Wolverine has a fairly useful one called Berserker Fury, which can do plenty of damage. When XTreme powers are used, you get a voice clip announcing the name of the power in deep, movie trailer tones.
Bloggers need a voiceover too, I think. When you post a certain number of items a day, you could get a “Posting Fury!” announcement. When you publish something purely for the controversy it will generate and the link love that follows, you could get a “Linkbait!” shout. When you post something that directly references someone elses post, you could get “Combo!” - extra damage AND experience for those
Just remember to have either Cyclops or Magneto in your team, or both if you are a greedy power leveler 
A fairly minor housekeeping task done : I’ve modified my blogroll from install defaults to something that actually some people might actually find useful. It’s hardly a comprehensive list, just the few people that asked to be on it, and a few other blogs that I read on a pretty regular basis.
I may well come back and update / expand this over time. If anyoness got any sparkling ideas for additions, please say so.
I saw a bizarre thing while searching on Yahoo today. After entering my query, I pressed the big ol’ “Web search” button… and got results for a totally different term, “Enter City Name”.
I *think* I can see what’s happened - there’s a Yahoo Travel box on the home page, prepopulated with “Enter City Name”… can you see where this is leading?
Lots of people spend lots of time trying to work out how search engines “work”. Most of the time they fail, not because they don’t understand the answers they get, but because they ask the wrong questions in the first place. Anyone with a scientific background knows that formulating the right question is a vital first step in getting a meaningful answer.
For a start, I see far too much discussion and “analysis” that is purely Google-centric. Granted, they have the greatest market share, but they aren’t the only game in town. Comparison of data from diverse sources can also bring additional insight into data from a single source, so when researching SE issues, remember that there are alternatives.
Partially inspired by DaveN’s request for SEO blogs, it’s time I amended my blogroll. Now, most of the links will be straight out of my own bookmarks, but I’m inviting suggestions from others as to good resources to point to. They don’t have to be straight SEO, but they do have to be of interest, however peripheral, to SEOs.
So, suggestions in the comments please - include a link, if you’d be so kind, rather than just leaving a cryptic clue… I’m not going to be adding hundreds and hundreds, but I would like a good selection - hey, it’s all for you
TrustRank has probably caused more heartache to more webmasters than any other single ranking parameter. It is the primary cause of the “sandbox” effect, or rather it’s lack is. It’s the reason you see old domains ranking for terms mentioned in passing, and why sub-domains can have such power.
For those who like incredibly complicated and abtruse mathematics, please see the TrustRank white paper. Even if you can’t handle the maths, read it anyway - it takes a little bit of sifting, but there’s good information in there.
It’s been a while - between Chantelle slicing herself up, and having some work to complete, I’ve been pretty busy. Still, the deck is clearing a bit, so I’m back to the grind here.
I’m also trying to write a “hire me” type site for SEOassassin. It looks increasingly as though I’ll be going be going full time as an SEO consultant, so I should have at least a basic site up for prospective customers to look at.
Anyway, I’ll be doing an actual, useful SEO type post later. Not decided finally what I’ll be covering yet, but it should be at least mildly interesting.
I *would* have written something last night… but Chantelle got a chunk of glass in her foot. Somehow, yesterday afternoon, there was a washing-up slide, which resulted in the demise of one of our dwindling stock of wine glasses. We thought we’d got all the bits. Obviously not…
Later, whilst standing in the kitchen, eating M+Ms’ (as you do), she felt a pain in her left sole. She went to brush the offending crumb off on the top of her right foot, and screamed.