Some actual incoming search hits, as reported by my stats
“all people are stupid in their own way” - I agree, but what did you expect an SE to tell you?
“work as an assassin for the uk” - Even if the UK intelligence services maintain a group of expert assassins, I’m fairly sure they wouldn’t advertise any open positions on the WWW, E-government initiatives or not
“how to get teletubbies to swear” - What can I say? I mean, really, what can I say?
No, I’m not giving away an uber-tactic (sorry, but I generally want to get paid for that). I’ve just seen John Andrews’ SEO Secret, a pastiche of Postsecret.
10/10, I’m jealous. I think the SEO / SEM community could fill it as fast as Postsecret too
“I started a relationship with a Google algo engineer, just to get more insight. I’ve done filthy things”
“I pretended to have cancer just to get better material to write PPC ad copy”
“Online, I live as a 17 - 25 year old girl to manipulate social media sites. I’m actually 42, balding, and overweight”
It just goes on, doesn’t it?
Not you, obviously. The mere fact that you are reading here demonstrates your immense intelligence and sensitivity and immediately elevates you into the vanishingly small percentage of the population with taste, style etc. Whatever.
Now we’ve established that we aren’t talking about YOU, let’s move on. Do people believe what is true, or what they find most comfortable to believe? The latter, of course. Why would anyone wish to expend thought and effort on anything so peripheral and insubstantial as their beliefs? What about an example, I hear you cry (go on, cry it). OK, here goes.
Well, my parents have finally joined the Interweb Superhighway and got broadband (mostly because Dad works for BT, and got a top package free), so I spent a fair chunk of Sunday assisting with various techy tasks.
First on the list was acquiring a new machine. Dad’s a Mac fan, but they decided that a PC was really necessary, because Mum wants to use apps that are Windoze only, and I can act as first-line support etc, etc. So, due to the relatively short notice, we headed off to PC World. It pains me to do so, but where else do you get a laptop on a Sunday afternoon? You can save a few quid buying online, but being able to actually SEE the thing before buying to check out the screen quality was also important.
It’s something I’ve said to more than one client : “Your log files are your best source of data”. Well, it’s true of the logs here too. I will never want for a list of currently popular spam keywords (just don’t clear down Akismet for about 20 minutes). I will never want for the footprints of the latest spam campaigns (…/BLOG/ guy, and multiple-URLs-in-the-referrer-field-because-you-can’t-delimit-a-database guy, keyword–[prescription drug brandname]–[payday loans]-1.blospot.com guy and even Japanese BBS guy - I’M TALKING TO YOU!). I will never want for the faked email addresses of the truly staggering number of registered users I’ve acquired. I will never want for a huge list of proxy IPs to try out. I will never want for a source of spam again.
Very Zen, that. I like it.
Recently, I was talking via email to a high-profile SEO type, and it occured to me that although there are lots of people working in and around SEO, I run into the same faces again and again. I’m sure other people see the same effect, although the specific faces can vary from person to person, depending on which groups you belong to.
That sparked a whimsical thought - what does the world look like if you are an SE engineer? You work all day with a well-informed, savvy, highly intelligent group of people. You go to the top conferences, and do the prime sessions, after which you are surrounded by A-list SEOs, and adoring throngs of lesser mortals. Occasionally, you will be contacted by the press to dispense a pearl of wisdom on some burning search issue of the day.
On very few occasions will you have to do a 3-hour presentation for a room full of corporate numpties who will judge you more by your PowerPoint skills than anything you say. Rarely will you have to explain to a client why outbound links don’t “leak PageRank” like holes in a jerry can for the fifth time. How infrequent are the hour-long pleading phone calls asking a client not to submit their site to x0,000 search engines, for just $19.99! / replace all your carefully crafted title tags with the company name / get a redesign done in Flash / sack you in favour of their nephew “who knows all about SEO. He learned it at college”
I would love to take an SE engineer out on a real client pitch occasionally, to let them see some of the pain us front-line types have to put up on occasion. I can guarantee there would be a more meaningful dialogue afterwards. Step out of your talent bubbles, guys, come and see how we live…