Last week, I went to a really interesting session about hotels and bogging set up by Ciara Feely. Keith Bohanna was speaking to a group of hoteliers about promoting themselves via blogs / twitter.

I found it quite interesting that the first barrier for most of the hoteliers was the lack expertise to set up a branded hotel blog. With that in mind, I decided to come up with this offer.

For a limited time, I am offering a number of Irish hoteliers the chance to get a blog installed / customised* free of charge. To top that off.. If you are a small hotel / b&b , I will also give you a free one-to-one crash course on twitter.

If you are in the hotel space and looking for a blog I would love to hear from you. If you know anyone in the tourism space who might be interested please pass this ton to them.

*Customised, refers to making your new blog look and fit with your existing hotel branding / website.

I assumed that when I moved to a blacknight VPS about 6 months ago something went a bit AWOL. I had a look at the server for CPU usage, memory, write speed & mysql and everything seemed to be fine. The main issue turned out to be with wordpress or a WP plugin.

When I looked at my wordpress database tables and noticed that I had 14,000 rows in the wp_options table. The rows consisted of rss requests from magpie. After I cleared them out I have seen an instant boost. The mysql query to do this is

Delete from `wp_options` where `option_name` LIKE ‘rss_%’;

This got me thinking about how I can speed up the blog a bit more. First port of call was wp-supercache.

Second thing I looked at was moving all my static files over to a CDN (content delivery network). I already had an Amazon s3 account setup, so I set up a new bucket with a CNAME’ed sub domain. I kept the same directory structure and redirected all css, gif, jpg, png & js files over to the s3.

PS: S3 is not a true CDN .. see amazon cloudfront for a real CDN solution.

After all the tweaks I have reduced page load time from 15 seconds to 4/5 seconds.

Let me know if you spot any issues.

Many web sites are built around the concepts of features, benefits are often overlooked. Site owners/developers some times confuse features with benefits and this results in an array of complications for the end user.

Knowing what your customers/users want out of your product is essential. It is critical to do your homework before implementing any new feature on your website.

Features must be tested in a controlled way to understand the benefits for end users. Exploring features with qualified users can often bring new insights into how your features are perceived.

In the same way that multivariate testing helps to optimise conversions and improve sales, controlled testing can optimise the benefit to your users. Rapid prototyping methods help enhance the effectiveness of your testing as controlled sample groups can be exposed to a number of variations of the same feature.

Vodafone Example

Here is an interesting example of a feature from vodafone. The Current Vodafone Pay Monthly customers option on the Vodafone store.

This “feature” forces requires users to pass some tests before they upgrade their phone as seen below.

Needless to say .. a method to do this was quite lacking (for some time) .. see below.

However if this did work .. I would be informed that I was not eligible to give vodafone moeny buy a new phone. Some times features like this provide little benefit to the user (other than confusing them). In this example you need to ask yourself .. will this feature benefit you the customer?

Conclusion

Features are an easier sell to customers when the benefit has been clearly defined, tested and proven. Invest time into creating features with a measurable benefit before inflicting them upon your customer/end users.

Coworking Ireland has really taken off over the last month.

We now have 4 active bloggers contributing to the project. Pop over to coworking.ie and take a look at some of the interesting topics being discussed. Don’t forget to subscribe to the Coworking blog.

James Corbett (EirePreneur) reports on Business Class Network looking for locations.

The inside track on Adam Street – Private Members Club in London.

Paul Campbell, Reported from Citzen Space San Francisco!

Irish Independent also got a facelift!

A lot of work went in by the team to get the site up and running. The site migrated fairly smoothly from unison to independent. Personally I don’t see the guardian resemblance with the new indo design.

The layout is much better than the 7 year old design. The site is a lot more accessible and each section now has an RSS feed. Mandatory registration has been removed unlike some other papers.

With a fairly bold move for traditional media, public comments opened up on the site! Make sure to post your feedback on the We Have Changed page. Your opinion is very important, Bad or Good.

LoadzaJobs changed a bit too!

I’m not sure if anyone noticed but Loadzajobs also got some minor cosmetic changes on the front page. The site now has a clearer Featured Recruiters, Popular categories & locations, and a handy list of Industries / Categories down the bottom of the page. I have dug up a snapshot from April of last year to help you compare the changes, Before & After.

More to come next week!

I have been toying with the idea of coworking for some time. For anyone that hasn’t heard of coworking yet, the concept is fairly simple:

“Coworking is a movement to create a community of cafe-like collaboration spaces for developers, writers and independents”

The concept itself is nothing new. Freelancers and small business have always teamed up for office shares. What makes coworking any different to typical office share? In my mind the definition of an office share would be simple “A closed group of people spreading the cost of an office”. Whereas coworking is the next evolution of this model.

Think of it this way, what if you could not only spread the cost of your business, but quickly and easily pool resources with a larger community of likeminded individuals? Your office share is limited to a stagnant pool of talent that will rarely change. What if your community was more fluidic? How would that affect your business model?

This is the next revolution of business. Coworking allows seamless collaboration between companies and individuals who may never have met under other more static environments. Our new economy will be built on ideas and ideas need the right environment to grow. When creative minds are provided with an ideal environment and are supported by peer’s ideas with turn from good to ingenious.

Maybe this all sounds a bit too good to be true but every business stated off with one Individual who took a chance. Every company is only made up of the sum of the individuals who work for them. A fluidic structure means that individuals can join forces and all work for individual goals. At the same time they can also leverage the power of the many to help make those goals happen. This is my definition of the future of coworking.

Before we get ahead of ourselves, we need a way to make this all happen. This is where I came up with the idea for Coworking.IE. The goal of the site is to promote coworking in ireland, to provide a community space for coworkers to team up and to serve as a guide to people who are looking to go out on their own. The project is community driven and completely non profit. Everyone is encouraged to contribute to the project in whatever way they can.

To make coworking in Ireland a reality we need to make people aware of the benefits of coworking as a whole. Coworking.ie will provide space for people to team up and contribute to this process. If you are interested in this topic and would like to contribute please contact me on Jason@jason-roe.com .. If you are feeling a bit more passive, you can help by spreading the word.

Also a big thanks to James Corbett from EirePreneur.com to help start the ball rolling.

It seems that I was nominated for Best Designed Blog!! Thanks guys!

Voting will close at 5pm on Friday February 16th. A shortlist will be announced soon after and judging will decide the winner of each category. Winners will be announced at the Irish Blog Awards 2007 event in Dublin on March 3rd in the Alexander hotel. You may be contacted via your email address to verify your votes.

Keep an eye on my blog for more info!

PS: I would appreciate your votes under Best Designed Blog – “Jason Roe’s Blog”!

Full List of nominations:

Best Blog
Alive in Limerick
An Irish Craftworkers Good Life
An Spailpin Fanach
An tImeall
Arse End of Ireland
ArseBlog
Backseat Drivers
Barbara’s bleeuugh!
Beaut.ie
BifSniff
Biz Growth News
Blogorrah
Bock the Robber
ElBlogador.com- The Voice of Irish Nationalism
Fustar
Head Rambles
I Take Photees
Ireland 16 Days
IrishElection.com
Letter to America
Manuel Stimulation
Mcawilliams.com
Mine’s A Jack Daniels
Nialler9
Pygment
RedMum’s Blog
Skinflicks
Snackboxdiaries
StigOnline
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
The Community At Large
The InFactah Blog
The Limerick Blogger
Tir na Blog
Twenty Major
Womans Aid

Best Blog Post- Sponsored by Hosting365
Ach go hairithe – We love Irish we do, but if we want our signs in English
An Cainteoir Dochais – Ag toraiocht na ndilseoiri i mBaile Ã?tha Cliath
andcurve – Cock-blocking beats
Annie Rhiannon – Three years too late
Arse End of Ireland – Where do you get your smoke from?
Arse End of Ireland – The Bertles
Balrog – McDowell should walk over Rape crisis
Bifsniff – Should You Be Laughing At This?
Blather.net Snackbox Diaries – Introducing AbuseOS
Blogorrah – Rochegate: Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?
Bock the Robber – Haughey
Conor’s Bandon Blog – You may feel a small prick
Cruiskeen Eile – Boys will be Boys
Cruiskeen Eile – Phwoarr. How to Report on the Troubles While Getting
David McWilliams – The Dundrum Paradox – Don’t be Paddy Last!
Dervala.net – The Passion-Industrial Complex
Earth and Universe – The day I quit as an Altar Boy.
Earth and Universe – The legend of Uncle Tom and the Bubble Car
ElBlogador – Bloody Sunday In Pictures
ElBlogador – Peter Robinson
Empire State View – Barry Egan, Journalist of the Year
From Bath to Cork with baby Grace – After traffic in Cork
Fustar – David Sque Interview Part 1.
Fustar – Chess with balls
Graham Ó Maonaigh – Ending Gun crime
iQblog – Irish kitchen sink usability
Irelands Few – Corruption WithIn Unionism?
IrishEyes – Richard Waghorne has a closed mind
Letter to America – Drama – Thy Name is Pong
Life is a Journal – Self Help and Personal Development for Lazy People
Madspoon – Sheep 34 Banana
Maman Poulet – 35 going on 13
Minesajackdaniels’ Blog – Pompoms and bottle tops.
Old Bitter Balls – Keeling Time
Political Quote – Bertie Ahern does a ‘Nixon’ over money scandal
Red Cardinal – Golden Spiders – Are These Really Ireland’s Best Websites?
Redfly Marketting – DMOZ Submission Guide
Ricks Breakfast Blog – A Religious Experience…
Ricks Breakfast Blog – Most Extraordinary Day of my Life
Skin Flicks – The JC Skinner guide to drinking
Stig Online – The most painful 12 miles of my life (and the other 14 were hardly easy)
The Adventures of Truculent Horse – Culture Shock III – The Language Barrier
The Dossing Times – The Riots and the consequences.
The Dossing Times – Riots in Dublin
The Great Wee Azoo – Awfully Awfully at Castleward Book Fair
The Midnight Court – Paper Round Exclusive!
The torture garden – the best songs of 2006
Twenty Major – A thousand words
Twenty Major – Countdown to the next election
Young Unionists – Ignoring the Big Issues
Young Unionists – In defence of the Act of Settlement

Most Humorous Post – Sponsored by Beecher Networks
Ach go hairithe – Reasons Behind Australian Rough-House Tactics In International Rules Series (Exclusive)
andcurve – Cock-blocking beats
Arse End of Ireland – Berties Perspiration
Arse End of Ireland – Won’t Somebody think of the children
Backseat Drivers – Sex – Breakfast of Champions
BifSniff – Dry White Seasoning
BifSniff – Spyware
Blogorrah – The Twink Tapes
Blogorrah – Why can’t we all just get along?
Captain Purplehead – Ah Tis All Too Much
Chetwynde Downs – The Naile Raye Quintet
Dublin Opinion – Property Market Causes Ireland to shit its brain
Earth and Universe – Legend of Uncle Tom and the Bubble Car
ElBlogador – DUP In Gay Marriage Shocker
ElBlogador – These are a few of my favourite things
Fustar – Dis-courtesy Call
Fustar – Manky Toy Monday: League of the Transformable
Gingerpixel – Garda Prank Call
Green Ink – Beep Beep Beep
Head Rambles – Giving Up Smoking
Head Rambles – Translation Help Needed
In Fact Ah – The Occasional Diary Entries of German Director Werner Herzog (Removed at request of owner)
Irish KC – A Kansas City Phone Call To An Irish Mother
Irish KC – Irish Conversations
Kav’s Blog – Westside Story Bud
Letter to America – Drama – Thy Name is Pong
Life’s a bastard – Scientists – I’m against them
Manuel Stimulation – From Bad to More Bad
Manuel Stimulation – Victory to Moroccan Imperialism
Old Bitter Balls – Or was this just a dream?
Political Quote – PDs new Spin Doctor
Pure Cork Boy – Music: The Roaring Forties
RedMum – Guilty Pleasures
Rick O’Shea – Ketchup… Catsup..
Rinceoir – Cry Havoc
Skinflicks – Babys called Bad Bad thing
Snackbox – AbuseOS from TwinkSoft
Snackbox – The Story of Jimbob (Remove on request)
The Great Wee Azoo – Awfully awfully
Twenty Major – Countdown to Next Election
Twenty Major – Post Secret
Wayne Ordinary American – Wayne loves you one and all

Best Photo Blog – Sponsored by Pixenate.com – The online photo editor
Caitriona.net
Capture Capture
Dancing Shades of Light
Derek Knight Photography
Donal’s blog
Focus Pocus
Gingerpixel
Glassey Alley
Headphoneland
How your mama now?
I Take Photees
Iced Coffee
I’m never gonna dance again
In Photos
Ireland from a Polish perspective
Kind I Like
Leigh ar mo T-leine e
Letter to America
Mcawilliams
North Atlantic Skyline
PAD – Photo a Day
Photographe à Dublin
Pygment
RedMum
Rymus.net
Seth Wheeler
Snoother
This is Diopter

Best Arts and Culture Blog – Sponsored by Poetry Ireland
Alan in Belfast
BifSniff
Blather.net
Contemporary Arts Review
Dead Beat
Empirestate View
Fustar
Georgiasam
Green Ink
In Fact Ah
KC Irish Fest
Letter to America
Maguires Movies
PaddyC Movie Reviews
Poet Blogg
Sinead Gleeson
Soundtracks for Them
Stunned
The Cat Flap
The Dreaming Arm
The Harlot’s Progress
The Torture Garden

Best Political Blog – Sponsored by Technofutures
1169 and Counting
A Tangled Web
An Caomhach
An Saol
An Spailpin Fanach
Balrog
Best of Both Worlds
Bock the Robber
Damien Blake
Daniel K. Sullivan
Dominic Hanngian’s blog
ElBlogador.com- The Voice of Irish Nationalism
Extra Extra
Graham O’Maonaigh
Green Ink
Harry McGee’s blog
ie-Politics by Gerry O’Quigley
Ireland – The Voice Of The Nation
IrishElection.com
Maman Poulet
Richard Delevan’s blog
Seamus Ryan’s blog
Semper Idem
Sicilian Notes – Richard Waghorne
Skinflicks
Slugger O’Toole
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
The Dossing Times
The Tuppenceworth Blog
The United Irelander Blog
The Young Unionists

Best Group Blog – Sponsored by PutPlace.com
ArseBlog (Removed at request of owner)
Backseat Drivers
Balrog
BifSniff
Blather
Blogorrah
Howth Coastguard Blog
In Fact Ah
Ireland 16 Days
IrishElection.com
Links Heaven
Old Rotten Hat
One Breast Less
Sligo Camera Club
Sligo Rugby Football Club
Team Geared Up
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
The Community At Large
The Dublin Blog
The Limerick Blogger
Tuppenceworth
UCD Science Librarians
Womens Aid Blog
Wow Blog

Best Personal Blog – Sponsored by Interactions – Creative Strategies for Business
Annie Rhiannon
Barbara’s bleeuugh!
Conor O’Neill
Dec’s Rambling
FatMammyCat
From Bath to Cork with Baby Grace
Gerry Gainford
Gingerpixel
Hangar Queen
Head Rambles
Kav’s Blog
Mine’s a Jack Daniels
RedMum
The Newbrowne Blog
The Rambling Man
The Waiting Game
Una Rocks
Wayne Ordinary American
Winds and Breezes

Best Use of the Irish Language in a Blog – Sponsored by Edgecast Media
Ach go hairithe
An Saol
An Spailpin Fanach
Arm Runda na Gaeilge
Blag Shomhairle
Chetwynde Downs
Hilary NY
Leigh ar mo T-leine e!
MH Wombat
nobyegarawn
Roinnt Smaointe
Seo Panu ag labhairt
Smaointe Fanacha Aonghusa

Best Contribution to the Irish Bloggersphere – Sponsored by FirstPartners.net
Bernie Goldbach
Cian and Simon for Irish Election
Conn O Muineachain
Donncha O’Caoimh
Gavin Joyce for Kick.ie
Macdara in the Leb
Michele Neylon for IrishBlogs.info
Rick O’Shea
Sarah Carey
Simon McGarr
Tom Raftery

Best Technology Blog/Blogger – Sponsored by Bitbuzz
5Pieces.com
Aidan Finn
Bernie Goldbach
Clare Dillon
Conor O’Neill
Creative Imagination – Ken McGuire
Donncha O’Caoimh
EdenWeb Blog
Firstpartners.net
Francis Shanahan
Ina O’Murchu
IQ Content Blog
James Corbett – Eirepreneur
John Collins
John Naughton
Justin Mason
Michele Neylon for IrishBlogs.info
Mobileblogr.com
Pat Phelan
Red Cardinal Blog
Robert Burke
Tom Raftery
What Will you see next?
Your Tech Stuff – Adrian Weckler

Best Designed Blog – Sponsored by Equisoft
5 Pieces
Ach go hairithe
Beaut.ie
BifSniff
Clamnuts
Creative Imagination – Ken McGuire
ElBlogador.com- The Voice of Irish Nationalism
From Ireland to Kansas City
Fustar
Ginger Pixel
Inside the mind of an idiot.
IrishElection.com
Jason Roe’s blog
John Handerlaar’s Blog
Kind I Like – Things that look like people
Leigh ar mo T-leine e!
Letter to America
Magooo
Nialler9
Pretty Cunning
RedFly Marketing
Soundtracks for Them
Spoilt.ie
Stunned.org
Team Geared Up
The InFactah Blog
The IQ Content Blog
Twenty Major
UnLaoised

Best Sport & Recreation Blog – Sponsored by Boards.ie
ArseBlog
Billy Lyons
Fustar’s World Cup
In Fact Ah
Irish Go blog
Laois Talk
Liverpool Access
On the Ditch
PaddyC Movie Reviews
Piranha Triathlon Club
Rebel BMX
Sligo Rugby Football Clun
SportCrazy.net
Team Geared Up
The Kop Blog
Tom’s Sporting Almanac
Wiffy Blog

Best News/Current Affairs Blog – Sponsored the Sunday Tribune
Adam Maguire
Alive in Limerick
An Spailpin Fanach
Best of Both Worlds
Dublin Opinion
IrishElection.com
Public Inquiry
Road Deaths.ie
Sarah Carey
Skinflicks
Stephen Spillane
The Limerick Blogger
The NewsWire
The Story

Best Specialist Blog – Sponsored by iQ Content Ltd
4Basra
An Irish Craftworker’s Good Life
Ask Direc
Ball*istic
Beaut.ie
Bibliocook
Burma Review
Clear of Cloud
Clerical Whispers
Graham O’Maonaigh
Green Ink
Howth Coastguard
Ice Cream Ireland
Ireland 16 Days
Irish Go blog
Irish KC
KC Irish Fest
Lean Healthcare Services Blog
Lexferenda
McGarr Solicitors
Munster Pubs
Myers Watch
One Breast Less
PR Matters
Random Grub
Siopa Eile
SSIA Watch
The Good Life
The Waiting Game
Wearie
Whois Ireland
World Debate Website

Best Newcomer – Sponsored by Edelman
4Basra
Alan in Belfast
An Irish Craftworker’s Good Life
An Saol
Arse End of Ireland
Beaut.ie
Betty the Sheep
Blogorrah
Bock the Robber
Dario Sanchez’s Angry Dome
Elly Babes
Fastlad
Harry McGee
Head Rambles
Ireland 16 Day
Ireland from a Polish perspective
Kav’s Blog
Lexferenda
Linkmap
Michael Flangan
Notes on the Front
Peppermint Tea
Skinflicks
Style Treaty
The Cedar Lounge Revolution
The Great Wee Azoo
The Midnight Court
The News Wire
The Waiting Game
What will you see next?
Where’s the Salt?
Womens Aid

Best Business Blog – Sponsored by logic+intuition
Allagi Blog
Argolon
Ask Direct
ATP Blog
Barry Walsh
BH Consulting Blog
Biz Growth News
Bubble Brothers
First Partners
ForestHill Blog
Ice Cream Ireland
ImageFile Blog
Inter-Actions
James Corbett – Eirepreneur
Keith Bohanna
Kevin Kelly Unlimited
McGarr Solicitors
Michele Neylon
Piaras Kelly
RedCardinal
Roam4Free Blog
Voicesage Blog

Best Music Blog – Sponsored by Clubbing.ie
Cumann Carad na Gaeilge
Faoi dhein an dorais
House is a Feeling
In Fact Ah
Kilkenny Music Blog
Magoo
Mp3Hugger
Nialler9
Sinead Gleeson
Soundtracks for Them
Spudshow
The Torture Garden
Una Rocks
Wearie

Best Podcaster – Sponsored by Microsoft
2 Irish Geeks and a TV
An Lionra (Removed on Request)
An Saol
ArseBlog
Cumann Carad na Gaeilge
Doop Podcasting
EdgeCast (Conn O Muineachain)
Faoi dhein an dorais
Kevin Kelly
Letter to America
Okey Doke Football
Oldbones
Open Source Podcas
Podcasting.ie
Podleaders
Richard Delevan
The Persuaders
Twenty Major
Wargeek.net

Best Podcast – Sponsored by Newsletter.ie
An Lionra – 06 12 06
Arseblog – Episode 1
Arseblog – Episode 10
Arseblog – Episode 12
Cumann Carad na Gaeilge – Podchraoladh Caoga a Naoi
IT@Cork – Eddie Hobbs
Letter to America – Chapter 29 – The Lift 2.0
Letter to America – Chapter 43 – The Date
Letter to America – The Irish Blog Awards Podcast
Oldbones – The Favour
Podleaders – Dan Bricklin
Twenty Major – Pizza Delivery
Twenty Major – Scientology

Best Videocast – Sponsored by Cork Internet eXchange
Aine Chambers Dooney Rock, Sligo
Allyn Quigley – DWIC – X-mas No#1
Allyn Quigley – Size Matters
Brody Sweeney on why he decided on politics
Disappear by JP Pagano
Minister to Nowhere – Simon McGarr
PD Election Video
Technolotics #44 – Flying Naked
Technolotics #29 – ZZ Fops
Uisce In New Hampshire
You pay taxes so we don’t have to

If anyone wants to buy me a drink, It would be more than welcomed!

More information can be found over at the Barcamp Wiki and Blog.

To quote the hackers wordpress blog:

Anyways, I just started the first hacking cruzade… The easy targets (WordPress blogs with register_globals=on) using a custom PHP script based on this code

Quick fix is to disable trackback & rename the wp-trackback.php file until the patch is patch has been issued by wordpress (More info on how to upgrade). This is kinda similar to my other post about wordpress security. You can find a graphic design service in dublin, it turs out that they use Corporate Chauffeur Services!
See pick below:

Your blog meta data includes all of the e-mail address of every registered user & also ever person who has commented on your blog (if public registration is enabled). This has a potential to cause huge privacy concerns relating to email addresses. A Smart email spammer could latch onto this exploit and spider your blog and all of your users email accounts.

After doing a bit of Google magic I found over 819 Irish blogs and over 292,000 other blogs with the potential to be affected by this problem. Out of the 5 high-profile Irish blogs that I tested, all of them seemed to be vulnerable.

So how do I fix this problem?

There are some blogs that don’t seem to be included in this group. All of them have public registration disabled. So a quick fix would be to disable registration and jump over to Ticket #3142 and get the patch ASAP.
DIGG THIS STORY NOW!

According to a post over on boards.ie Webmaster/Flash forum, Irishdev.com has been hammering dole.ie with requests for its search RSS feed. As a result dole.ie was forced to shutdown temporarily for about 12/24 hours until a solution could be found.

The interesting fact behind this saga is that irishdev.com seems to have passed all of the content off as its own, with no reference to Dole. Ok come on you steal their content … hammer their box … then pass the content off as your own! Cop on lads!

On the bright side .. IrishDev now say that they will only grab the content once every 3 hours. How nice of them! No mention of credit for the RSS or content.

The experiment itself was simple, take the keywords that I was receiving from the first post and apply it to a second post to get maximum exposure. The first post that was made on Saturday was ranking well on the SERPS by Monday. When I say ranking well, the post wasn’t #1 in any way shape or form but it did show up in the top #10.

The second post was made on Monday and included some (but not all) of the keywords that I had seen. If I had to do it all over again the title would have been more like “Funda Ireland launch, Wasaki Dublin Coastal Development“?. I noticed redcardinal targeting the term “Funda Ireland“? so it probably wouldn’t have been as much fun to target that second term.

On Tuesday the first post had dropped from the SERPS and was replaced by lots of traffic from irishblogs.ie. I can only guess that this was a mixture of me adding other posts “New Template!“?, “RateMyGoat Gets Smutty!“? and the second experimental post getting added. This was the first Yo-Yo that I had seen. The second post was ranking well on Wednesday / Thursday (I was ranking #1 for the targeted term). Domain age & linkbacks helped me achieve this speedy result. The influx of searches also got me some direct link-backs from forums and the like.

Today (Friday) I had noticed something strange. The second post had completely dropped from the SERPS. The weird thing is the post had been #2 for the targeted term this morning (8 am) and then suddenly vanished. This was the second Yo-Yo that I had seen. The only thing that had changed in the post was the comments made by my readers (this may have changed the keyword density slightly). I’m sure there where many other factors in play however these where the most noteworthy. The page seems to be fighting to get back in, dropping and appearing at what seems to be random intervals. I’m sure that after this post gets indexed the second post will completely drop from the SERPS.

Before you ask the targeted term was “dublin coastal development“?.

I would be interested to find out if anyone else has seen this kind of yo-yo with their blog within the last week?

Some information via Spoilt:

Chemistry conceived the idea. They commissioned The Farm for the video piece, and Spline Design was contracted for the website.

I would be interested to find out what you think of the whole “viral” campaign. Please leave your comments below.

http://www.irishsites.com/

http://www.kilcooledirectory.ie/

http://www.purplepages.ie/site/content/default.asp
http://www.itdirectory.ie/
http://www.irishabroad.com/Directory/
http://www.tipperarydirectory.ie/htmlsite/directory.asp
http://www.fashion.ie/directory/
http://www.gaire.com/dir/
http://www.queer.ie/directory/

http://www.gaycork.com/directory/

http://www.irishbuildingindustry.ie/
http://kildare.ie/business/
http://www.mayodirectory.com/
http://www.letterkennyonline.com/

http://musicdirectory.dfloor.net/directory/

http://www.galwayec.ie/schoolsdirectory.html
http://www.sustainable.ie/directory/index.php
http://www.hotspots.ie/

http://www.progressivetrance.net/directory/

http://www.isearch.ie/

http://www.longford.ie/business/directory.asp
http://www.furniture.ie/directory/
http://www.adlib.ie/directory.asp
http://www.ballyfermot.ie/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=43
http://www.youth.ie/arts/directory/
http://www.dun-laoghaire.com/directory.html
http://www.longford.ie/community/directory.asp http://www.carrickonshannon.ie/carrick_local_business_directory/index.php
http://www.braydirectory.ie/

http://www.weddingsireland.com/directory/

So what’s a link on my site worth? Text link ads produced a cool ill calculator. The tool works out how much you could get depending on what kind of site you have. To be honest if my site was gambling related my links would be worth $69, that’s over twice the price of my current links. So go over to text link ads sign up and start making money!

Also a big hello to iWorld one of our text link advertisers, it seems that you can Buy iPod and iPod Accessories at their site. Some of them look fairly cool too. Please note the nofollow link.. Have to keep them keen after all.

At the moment search engines seem to be ranking sites fairly well that have pages with relevant inbound links. This is not the only factor involved to rank well, however it seem to have a lot of weight behind it. The search engines have also got smatter about identifying people who are playing the system to their advantage.

Link exchanges are no longer as effective as the where in the past and many people have got banned or caught up in a bad neighbourhood by using them. In an ideal world, if everyone followed the rules link exchanges would work perfectly, but this is the real world! Quality is more important than anything else. I found a chart that approximately shows how many links are needed to achieve a certain PR from pages with a particular PR.

“…the meaning of a link has been transformed from a reference to a vote.�
Bill Slawski, from his interview with Aaron.

Link building takes time. I would compare link building to building the foundations of a home. The foundations have to be strong and must withstand the test of time. Everyone has there own theories about the best ways to build links, you need to take time and work out your own linking strategies. I found a great article over on search engine watch regarding linking strategies. “101 (Legitimate) Link Building Strategies�

How long does it take? I found an interesting post over at Link Building Blog that mentioned a “time line� of sorts:

Established Domains (domains that are over 1+ year old or are already ranking for many terms)
*build links -> 10-12 weeks later see results.

New Domains (domains under 1 year old and are showing no strong ranking results) *build links -> 12 weeks to 16 months later see results.

Feed the monster

Start adding news content to your site and make sure to set up an RSS feed immediately. This can be done via a blog, content management systems or custom script. The advantage of a feed over a standard news section is that feed will be picked up and aggregated by many sites. A standard news section will only be read and indexed by major search engines. News is produced to be read, not just to fill up a page on your website.

Bloggers have realised for a long time that Feeds are they way to go. Your news will be out and all over the web in less than 24 – 48 hours. RSS is being picked up and read and indexed by most of the search engines. Most aggregators will also give you link backs thus boosting your rankings.

Make sure that you ping every aggregator site that you can. Many blog tools already have pinging tools build in as standard, make sure to add in all the aggregators that you can find to your list.

Don’t get lost!

Black hats have many ways to help you get removed from search engine indexes. Be careful to watch out for malicious server side includes, comments sections or reviews with direct links without nofollows and link spammers (with irrelevant keywords). There are many more ways to get removed, banned and penalised they just break the rules!
Most of the time there isn’t much you can do regarding external attacks. Try contact the major search engines, describe what is happening and plead that they won’t remove you from the index.

GET /robots.txt HTTP/1.0
GET /misc/google/planting.gif HTTP/1.0
GET /misc/google/rakegirl.gif HTTP/1.0
GET /misc/xml.png HTTP/1.0
GET /misc/google/lilybasket.gif HTTP/1.0
GET /misc/gear/13.jpg HTTP/1.0
GET /misc/google/egg.gif HTTP/1.0

All requests where made from 65.55.246.48 around 06/Jun/ 10:03:06 +0100

I have had a look around on the web but I can’t find anything related. Has anyone seen this kind of pattern before?

The one major problem that I have seen with a lot of Irish companies and websites is that they are hosting their website outside of Ireland. Why would this be a problem? Most of the modern search engines over the last few years have implemented geo targeted results. Geo targeted means that the search engine find pages that a most relevant to you by showing you local results first.

The long and the short of this is, If you’re an Irish based company looking for Irish traffic it is better to host in Ireland. In the same respect if you are a UK based company looking to target UK customers then host in the UK or on UK IP space within Ireland (Ask your hosting providers!). Hosting in Ireland won’t guarantee that you will shoot up the SERP’s on the major search engines, however it can help you along the way.

Avoid Duplicate Content

It is well known that the best way to help your rankings is to always have a fresh supply of content. This is why blogs and the like have sky rocketed in the last few years, the search engines love them. However with the adoption of RSS by webmaster has come a plague of duplicate content issues. Duplicate content is an exact copy or a close copy of content from other websites. Search engines frown upon too much duplicate content on a page.

A prime example of duplicate content is news feeds on pages, if your “news section� is made up entirely of this kind of duplicated or aggregated content it won’t help you one bit on your rankings. Most of the major search engines can easily identify duplicated content and if your page is found to have too much it, the page just won’t rank at all or get dropped into the supplemental results. Many webmasters now re-write content feeds by replacing words, terms and by using LSI (latent semantic indexing) theories.

There are some rare cases where this may not be the case. We have all heard stories of 100% duplicated content ranking well, however in many cases these sites have used other methods to help their cause.

Help Spiders do their job

Spiders are automated bots design by search engines to crawl your website. Over time a spider will index your pages many times. The bots are designed to help identify and classify sites so that the search engine can return these results in the SERP’S. There are many theories about how to help these bots along the way.

1. I always suggest that a site should always have text based navigation somewhere on the page. This text based navigation can be placed anywhere on the page, the header, the footer or in the body. A text based navigation is beneficial because the search engines can obtain extra information from the link text. Image based navigation can also use this theory by using image descriptions, however many seem to believe that this kind of navigation is not as effective as a traditional text based link. In many cases a text based navigation can also be used in conjunction with a image based Nav.
2. Don’t use the same title on every page, your title shout be customised to the content on a specific page and should relate to your keyword density. In many cases your page titles should look something like this“Page Name, Company Name – Keyword1, Keyword2, Keyword3, Keyword4, Keyword5�
3. Place your content as high as possible within your pages. Try to place your content above your navigation, the spiders will read this information first and will not get cluttered up with other possibly irrelevant information. In many cases this can be achieved by using a right hand side navigation or by positioning the navigation with CSS.
4. NoFollow all un-trusted links or external links that you are not in control of. You can’t control what a webmaster on an external site may or may not do with their site. If they happen to “Break the rulesâ€? in a search engines eyes you may be left in a situation where you are now unknowingly linking to a “Bad Neighbourhood â€?. So why risk it? Give the link love to sites that you think deserve it. A NoFollow link is a standard link with the attribute rel=”nofollow” added to it . This attribute signifies to search engines that you would not like to take the responsibility of being associated with a site.

O’Reilly trademarks “Web 2.0″ and sets lawyers on IT@Cork!

IT@Cork is a not-for-profit networking organisation for IT professionals. IT@Cork organises regular information and networking events which are free for its members.

One of these events – the upcoming Web 2.0 half-day conference is the target of a cease and desist letter (below) from the legal team of O’Reilly publishers. Basically O’Reilly are claiming to have applied for a trademark for the term “Web 2.0″ and therefore IT@Cork can’t use the term for its conference. Apparantly use of the term “Web 2.0″ is a “flagrant violationâ€? of their trademark rights!

The interface is really easy to use, however it only accessible via Internet Explorer. There is also a requirement for a €5 euro credit card verification fee to verify your credit card.

I found some of the tools quite interesting, the site allows you to Import or export ads via csv. This allows you to quickly update your campaigns. The Keyword research tools allow you to see Traffic Trends, Age and Gender, Wealth Index, Lifestyle, Geography. The only problems I can see about this feature is that it’s not location specific so you get a lot of US generic information.

As far as I can see the adverts themselves are only available on msn.com and not yet available on the localised search engines such as msn.ie. If you want to check adCenter out yourself surf over to http://adcenter.msn.com/

The guys over at SeoRockstars gave a prime example where over 50,000 pages got dumped into the supplemental results. They also stated that this has been confirmed by a source within Google. On the plus side this also means Adsense publishers might have an advantage over normal website as new content might be picked up and indexed sooner.

Listen to the SeoRockstars podcast:

So with all these new fandangle mediums banging about how do you know what one is for you? After working on a re-development of an Irish site called Irish ISP Test I realised how powerful google adsense was for a publisher. Without going into specifics of the project, I realised quite quickly that google adsense advertisements could have paid for the entire re-development costs within less than one month. This could be down to the colossal amount of traffic received every month, or the fact that it was also a useful tool who knows?

The adsense experiences made me think in great depth about this whole advertising situation. From a publisher point of view the “adsense way� seems to be the ideal way to make money, however I feel that the advertiser are getting the raw end of the stick in some respects. Sure the advertisers are getting buckets of traffic that’s targeted, segmented, poked and prodded and then finally delivered but they are also missing out on other opportunities.

Lets go back to basics for a second to an old tradition called link swapping, this was a phenomenon that went on for years and still does to this date, blogs being a prime example of this. Not only does it advertise your site it also boosts your rankings and increases your PR, in some cases its not as targeted but never the less it works. So where am I going with this? I stumbled upon a service called TextLinkAds, I’m sure it’s not completely unique however it uses this kind of link swapping ideology.

TextLinkAds seems to be an interesting alternative to adsense, in some respects it resembles the “Advertise on this site� feature offered by adsense. What makes it different is the fact that TextLinkAds provides you with a full directory of publisher sites. This directory gives you relevant information that can help you choose where you would like to advertise. The advantage of this system is that you pay a flat fee per month (no pay per click) for each site you advertise on, for this fee you get a direct link on the website meaning that not only are you advertising you are also boosting your organic search engine rankings.

So to conclude there are many options for advertiser and publishers alike its best to shop around and get the best all round deal. Try new things explore new services and pick the ones that suit you. Id welcome peoples comments on online marketing and advertising services.

With all this in mind I went about constructing a basic layout. I tried two possible layouts which are fairly simple, one design with a left sided navigation and another with a right sided. Although this normally seems like a very small detail it really affects the way content is read and perceived. The final layout looks something like the image shown on the right.

The simple design means everything is only one click away from the main page. Creating a simple navigational flow helps users to navigate and find your relevant information quickly. Interlinking related pages such as linking the services page with specific products you will improve the quality of the information because its is much more acessable. This kind of infomation can often be missed by users while browsing.

This lead me to start exploring how I can get my website working for me, in the hope of bring in new sales or enquires. I decided that I had to start practicing what I have been preaching for so long. The concept seems simple enough however there are many complications in the design/development process.

Before I started designing or implementing my new web strategy I had to work out what exactly I wanted to achieve and how I wanted to be perceived by the outside world. At first I thought this would be simple enough, as I have done this countless times with first time clients, however I found it quite challenging to say the least.

When I started looking at what I do in detail it became quite obvious to me why my old website had not enticed people into doing business with me. The website lacked a lot of vital information and had no clear definition of who I was, what I did and what I can do for you. This was something that I felt had to be resolved.

This is what I came up with:

Some of the customers that I have worked with in the past have opted not to make this investment because of the initial cost of implantation, however in the long run it has cost them a small fortune in both in-house or external maintenance contracts. I always try to outline these benefits to customers before they sign any contract.

A good development company should always try to make life easier for their customers. However some companies seem to ignore this principal, they deem this ongoing work as their “bread and butter� money. Even a reasonably designed content management system should have an easy to use html editor built in these days.

So the moral of the story is choose your development company wisely and always make the extra initial investment as it might just save you’re a small fortune down the road.