Life & Times of Tim Burrell

Google Instant Kills The Usefulness of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

2010-09-15T14:39:00.000+01:00

And other useful ways to create a controversial headline to get clicks!! I'm quite sure that Steve Rubel didn't really mean what he said in this blog but made a nice headline anyway.

Google Instant appears to me to be an admirable extension to the usability of Google Search.
Google Instant is a search predictor, essentially Google having a guess at your search phrase and letting you know before you've even had time to thing about what it may be.

As magic as this may seem, it seems to have disabled itself on any version of web browser I've tried today. Maybe they've turned it off, maybe I have turned it off on the search settings master switch on one of my many Google accounts, maybe Instant has a flaw that will effect its function for many users. We shall see.

Instant will not negatively impact the benefits of SEO. Google still needs to generate appropriate and relevant search suggestions. Where do these originate? From websites of course that may or may not have been optimised.
Essentially the Google index remains the same, search just gets quicker and more usable.

One issue I do have is the predicted result counting as an Impression. Not only will many people will not see this light grey suggestion because they are admiring their keys when they type but this single line of text cannot surely hold the same weight as a normal results entry. Impressions of course are not what we want from our AdWords or SEO campaigns - we want Click Through.

New Handpainted Ceiling Designer Lights From TayLighting

2010-07-15T11:15:00.000+01:00

Taylighting has released Zinnia White Modern Lights and Viola White Designer Lights both handmade from shimmering transparent fibre glass material and perfectly placed in modern and contemporary lighting settings.

A wider range of stunning designer lights is available from the taylighting.com shop.

Facebook's Data Privacy Issues

2010-05-06T14:32:00.001+01:00

Here's an article that caught my eye - the Top Ten Reason's You Should Quit Facebook. This article raises some important points about why users should be concerned about uploading personal data to Facebook. It's the vast number of global users that Facebook touches that make these issues even more important. Alexa reports that Facebook is the second most used website behind Google!

Blog writers protected from defamatory comments

2010-05-06T14:31:00.001+01:00

In the recent ruling Kaschke vs Gray (http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/QB/2010/690.html 29 March 2010) it seems that there is now a precedent set protecting blog writers from defamatory comments left on their blog posts.
When Google sites finally enable comments for public users, this may come in useful for me. For many personal blog writers who do not moderate their post comments this level of protection is essential. Who has the time to monitor and moderate comments on personal websites?

Google Webmaster Tools - Top Search Queries Update

2010-05-06T14:30:00.001+01:00

As a very frequent user of the ever evolving webmaster tools I was impressed to see an update today for the top search queries feature.
Previous to this latest update webmasters could simply view using a period of a week or month, what the average ranking relevant keyword phrases for a particular site and what the respective click though percentages were.

The new features reveal the proportion of the search results position and more importantly which page was shown in the index. The date range filter is now customisable by day rather than week or month, this will provide more refined data, particularly useful for comparing 2 date ranges.