SEO BLOG

I could hardly believe my eyes this morning when I read that there was a new article on SearchEngineLand discussing that old SEO chesnut – does Google prefer hyphens or underscores…

Years and years ago folks seemed to agree that a hyphen separated the words and the confusion came with people who used the underscore. It made sense to me to code all my sites with hyphens, which I did and never had any problems.

It’s easy folks – use hyphens

I’ve been reading over at Cnet that Google is testing their new product, Google Music.

Apparently employees at the company’s Silicon Valley headquarters have been testing the service internally in preparation for its full release.

Hat tip to Ian Cowley for this.

Full story here

We are looking for an experienced search engine optimiser:

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I read in the papers today that concern is mounting for Wael Ghonim, Google’s Marketing chief for the Middle East and North Africa. Mr Ghonim is seen on video being grabbed and taken away by secret police during the demonstrations in Tahrir Square, Cairo.

Google issued the following statement: “The safety of our employees is very important to Google, so if anyone has any information please call the following UK number: +44 20 7031 3008.”

I find it ironic that, following the decline of support for President Mubarak, America has declared it’s support for the newly appointed Egyptian Vice President Omar Suleiman.

Omar Suleiman is head of Egypt’s security and secret police force, well known for their brutality, torture and murder. In fact, it is said that the CIA used Egypt as somewhere that allowed them to torture suspected terrorists.

Bush – Obama
Mubarak – Suleiman

Meet the new boss?

Didn’t see this one coming – but I’m not surprised. Schmidt was always a cold fish that didn’t fit into Google’s image as far as I’m concerned, although he ran the company competently, he didn’t have the vitality that oozed from the ‘plex.

As far as Larry Page goes, I have an open mind. Whilst he has the advantage of being in it from the very beginning when it was young fresh and exciting, when “Don’t be evil” was the company motto, how will he shape up as CEO of a massive multinational?

We’ll see.

Once again a country is trying to get Google to censor it’s results.

This time it’s Spain, and according to the Inquirer website, “Spain’s data protection authority has ordered to remove almost 100 online articles from its search listings.”

Google’s defence is that it only acts as an intermediary and is not responsible for content put on other websites.

Anyway – they meet in court in Madrid on the 19th of January.

Full story here

Finally got a page together on Facebook

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With the advent of Google’s new preview facility, web designers must take note when it comes to using Flash movies in their page layouts.

As an example I have made a screenshot of Google’s results page for the word Armani. As you can see when one clicks the Preview icon this is what the searcher sees:

This may not be a problem for Armani as they have a world famous brand and people would just click on the regular link. But what would happen if your site was just one of ten displayed at Google when searching for your particular keyword? You could find all the other nine results displayed at their best whilst a design with Flash movies on the page just show up as white spaces. This is hardly going to draw the customers’ click.

Bear that in mind if you want your clients’ site to look good under all circumstances.

My opinion of most online resources is generally low – and usually a post by me is a pop at some incompetent fool – but today I choose to sing the praises of Nominet.

From time to time I have had to deal with clients who get themselves into all sorts of scrapes with their online adventures – things like expired domains, domains in dispute, other Nominet tag holders going on the missing list, etc, etc.

In the past 15 years I have had dealings with some of the great websites of the world, including Google, the BBC, various domain name registrars and hosting companies, but none of these can hold a light to the quality of customer service provided by Nominet.

Like many of my clients, I am no source of all knowledge on the web, I struggle sometimes with IP problems, DNS issues, etc – but when it comes to .co.uk domain names I look upon it with great pleasure knowing that I can sort it easily with the help of the staff at Nominet.

No question is too silly, no problem too hard to sort for these consummate experts. They are a real pleasure to deal with and have never given me anything but the best information, advice and hands-on help.

If only the other large organisations and companies had a tenth of the expertise and efficiency as the customer-facing staff at Nominet, the internet would be a much better place.