Now, while his story is a modern morality tale, his words – taken out of context and with a sly wink – apply powerfully to SEO.

Lunch is for wimps

Google never sleeps. Round the clock, the algorithm works, finding new flaws and opening up new loopholes. Knowledge is out of date faster than an overripe banana. If you’re not checking your rankings every day, if you’re not reading the latest thoughts

It’s a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses.

In SEO, there is only one #1 position. From #2 on down, you’re picking up the crumbs from someone else’s table. Those crumbs can be enough to make a living – but you should always, always be driving for that #1 slot. If that means someone else gets hurt, who cares?

Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.

Always want more. If you have a million organic visits a month, you have to be greedy for 2 million. Without that drive, you find yourself sliding back without even noticing it. If you’re not hungry enough, you can be certain that someone else is – and unless you want them to eat your lunch, it’s better to eat it yourself first. Even if you’re not hungry.

What’s worth doing is worth doing for money.

If you’ve got a talent – for building links, driving traffic or getting better rankings – it’s worth money. If you can’t find someone to pay your commercial worth, go create your own value. Every day, billions of queries run through Google alone  – every one of them can be monetised if you’re smart. Find a niche and dominate it. Your time and knowledge is money – treat it accordingly.

The most valuable commodity I know of is information.

Data. Data. Data. It’s the lifeblood of SEO. If you don’t what links the competition have got, how they got them and what they’re worth, then you’ve got nothing. You need to know how websites work – from the front end, through the back end, and through to the very infrastructure on which they run. You need to know how and why Google do what they do. Research, test and discuss: there is no other way.

Sheep get slaughtered.

If your only strategy is to follow the competition, you’ll lose. You get no prizes for finding the same loophole that your competitor found last week. By that time, he’s cleaned up and you’re just chasing his tail.

It’s all about bucks, kid. The rest is conversation.

A number one ranking is great for bragging rights. But if that isn’t creating money, who cares? Ranking is only a means of getting traffic. And traffic is only a means of getting money. If all you’ve got is a ranking, then you’ve really got nothing. Turning that into cold, hard cash is the name of the game.

A new bill was passed, called the Postal Services bill and a majority of 81 MP’s approved it. The attraction of the situation was that it was felt that this would encourage new investment in the company which needed modernising. They also felt that it was the only way that the business could continue providing the service that it was set-up to do and to keep its universal service obligation. The bill still has to be approved by the House of Lords, so it may not go ahead if they do not agree with it.

If the bill does go ahead then employees are likely to be given 10% of the shares in the company and it is possible that the rest of the shares could pass into foreign hands.

The Post Office, is a separate business and will continue to be publically owned. However, some MP’s were worried that this would cause a problem as there is no ruling that the Royal Mail would have to use the Post Offices services. They therefore proposed an amendment to the bill which would force the Royal Mail to use the Post Office for ten years, but their proposal was defeated. However, there has been a previous amendment to the legislation to ensure that the Queen’s head remains on stamps.

The government have increased the VAT so that they collect more money that they can use to pay off the national debt. However, it is likely that rather than them being able to collect more money through VAT, they may actually end up collecting less because people may be more cautious in their spending, buy less and therefore overall end up paying less in VAT. On cheaper items the difference is very small, but as people increasingly get worried about the economy, they may begin to just save more money and people generally also struggle with maths and more than likely think that everything will be considerably more expensive in the coming months.

The government say that it is a fairer tax because it is on everyone. This means that everyone can choose whether or not they pay it, buy nothing, and pay nothing. However, we all needs things and so we will all be paying some part of the tax. Also those with a higher income will spend more money and so they will end up paying more in the same way that they would if it was an income tax.

With jobs scarce and many people losing their jobs at the moment, a lot of people are worried about what the future holds. This means that they are taking more care when spending, putting off big purchases and buying cheaper alternatives where ever possible. It may be that the economy shrinks as a result of this VAT increase, rather than growing which is what the government wants it to do in order to try and reduce the deficit.

It is hard to predict the long term though. Once people get comfortable with the VAT increase, they are likely to begin spending again; they will not want to do without things forever. Once spending increases, there will be more job opportunities and therefore the economy will start to grow, but this is likely to take a long time as many people are behaving in an extremely cautious manner at the moment.

So there are many reasons for the VAT increase being bad, the main one being that prices will go up and we will be able to afford fewer things.

They have had Google’s backing on this and it will not include organic search results unless they are to be used in any marketing content. It could be confusing to therefore work out exactly what is included in this. Examples could be if Google has a search result with an incorrect price in it, due that price recently changing. This could be a big problem if the price has increased but the ASA would consider it to Googles responsibility to check the details and therefore there would be no action taken.

However, the type of things they are interested in is if there are paid links which are undisclosed. An example of this would be an SEO company buying a link from a blogger in order to increase their rankings in search engines and directories. They will not be banning this type of thing but want to make sure that people using the blog would easily know that it was a paid link.

This has consequences in that it is unlikely that SEO companies would want bloggers to reveal that their link is a paid one. In fact many SEO companies that buy blog posts and links at the moment specifically ask, in their guidelines, that the fact it is a paid link should be kept quiet. We all like them to be well hidden within an article or list of links and look like a genuine part of the blog.

It is obvious why we need to do this, but with other advertising, it does have to be clearly labelled. Such as an advertising feature in a magazine or a television advertisement that runs for longer than you would expect and is in a documentary type style. It is easy to see why they think that the Internet should not be managed in a similar way.

This will mean that certain links that don’t current fit Google’s guidelines will not be acceptable by the ASA’s standards and vice versa.

Many people complain about the way Google operates especially with regards to the way they do not take action against larger brands. Although they claim that they do, it is most likely that the ASA will do so as they risk no financial loss in doing so.

The impact this investigation is going to have is not easy to predict, there are already companies such as the Office of Fair Trading who take action to ensure disclaimers are appropriately used. For example many companies that currently pay bloggers for posting have a rule that the blogger must state in the terms and conditions that some of their posts are sponsored. However, this may not be enough to satisfy the ASA.

If the ASA do start acting and forcing these changes then more people are likely to highlight the problems to them and it is likely that they will be more influential than Google in these matters.

The bottom line is – this could potentially hurt SEO a lot!

Dating Profile and Sign Up

You can just sign up to the site with an email and a username, but your profile will only be visible in the site by completing all of the sections. Sign-up is painless, and it’s reassuring to see that they promise not to share your data with any other sites or advertisers. There are two ways to create a profile. The Profile Wizard is the quick and painless way and good for starters – you choose from a series of word clouds, and a templated profile is created for you. Alternatively you can write it yourself (in my experience, you get a much better response if your write something personal).

Search and Contacting

You can search by several different criteria on IllicitEncounters.com (gender, location, photos etc.). Results are displayed in an easy-to-read list, with a photo and decent description. There were hundreds of female members in my area, who seemed of a much higher quality than I’ve seen on similar sites.

Contacting other members is only possible if you upgrade, but free membership thankfully gives you a very good idea of what you’re going to get if you do. Once upgraded, contact is simple (message or chat), and IE has the added option of showing your full conversation threads with other members meaning that you don’t have to sift through your inbox looking for earlier correspondence!

Special Features

Not so much a ‘feature’, but the site’s members just seem of a completely different league to most sites; intelligent, genuine, and refreshingly honest about what they’re looking for. Profile are well-written and heartfelt, and the response rate to messages is very good. Also, IE is unique in that it is policed by a human admin team, meaning that scammers and escorts are nowhere to be seen. The site are so confident that you won’t find any ‘professionals’ that they offer members free membership packages if they find one. If you have any problems, you can just pick up the phone and call them – a world away from the White Label sites that make it impossible for you to contact them. I also like the ‘Panic’ button which instantly takes you to an innocuous site such as Google should your other half inadvertently enter the room whilst you’re surfing Illicit Encounters.

It also bears repeating that you can try out 95% of the site without even signing up. It’s nice to know that the site trust their success enough to invite possible members in to try it out for themselves without paying a penny.

Conclusion

IllicitEncounters.com is one of the more expensive dating sites out there, but you pay for what you get – a real quality service and access to thousands of genuine, like-minded individuals. Most definitely the wisest choice for UK spouses looking for a bit of extramarital fun.

Last Thursday, the controversial bill was passed by the House of Commons and sparked massive protests which caused clashes with the police, violence and criminal damage.

A particular case is being investigated by police internally as a protester claims he was treated extremely unfairly. Jody McIntyre has cerebral palsy and joined the protesters in his wheelchair. He claims he has video evidence showing him being pulled from his wheelchair by police and being dragged on to the street. The video can now be seen on YouTube. He explained that a police office ran over to him, tipped him out of his wheelchair in to the middle of the road and then dragged him to the side of the road. He was confused as to their behaviour as could not imagine how they would see him as a potential threat when he was sitting and doing nothing. The case is being investigated by the Directorate of Professional Standards.

The vote at the House of Lords will need a lot of support to block the decision by the government. There is a coalition majority of 40 people and so labour will have to convince that many people to vote against their own party.

If they do disagree with the plans then the government will be delayed and will have to have a public consultation and issue a white paper.

Baroness Royall who is the Lord’s leader for Labour stated that Labour would be voting against the policy and feels that they will have a difficult time in doing so. They do aim to work hard in trying to have a better result than they did in the house of commons last week.

There are fears that protests could be problematic again, especially if the vote goes in favour of the coalition. The Metropolitan police are ready and have even been looking in to the use of water cannons but so far the government has not allowed it to be used for crowd control.

The Home Secretary has explained that the police are putting together a report about the attack on the Prince of Wales and the Duchess on Cornwall made by protesters. This should be released on Friday with more details about what happened when the Rolls-Royce they were travelling in was covered in pain and had a window smashed.

The protests caused 43 injuries one of which was very serious where a student of just 20 years old, Alfie Meadows, needed brain surgery when he was allegedly hit on the head and rendered unconscious by a police baton. 30 police officers were also injured, six of which had to be taken to hospital.

Thirty five people have been arrested so far as a result of the protests but no figures as to how many have actually been charged have yet been released.

Call of Duty is a game set in a warzone and can be played on a personal computer. The game features the voice of actor Kiefer Sutherland. The game can be set to single player mode but there is a multi player mode as well as a co-operative mode. Players tend to compete against each on line, trying to get the highest scores that they possibly can.

The attack on the game made it impossible for a selection of people to play the game online and the Metropolitan police were responding to a report made to them in September when the attack happened. Many people reported problems with the connection not working and the company who

A denial of service attack is normally made towards a particular website in order to stop it being used by anyone. It can be extremely detrimental, not only to users but also to the website owners. This particular attack used a program called Phenom Booter. The Phenom Booter program has been found to be on sale on a web forum. The web forum explained how by disabling other players it would allow you to score more points while playing the Call of Duty game and this was possibly the motive for the attack, although police have not yet reported their findings.

The attack did not completely disable the game but ensured that a large amount of people were affected and could not play it. This inconvenienced a lot of players as well as the game company, who had to fix the error. This is why the problem was reported to the police, as it is illegal to attack any online company with anything which causes a denial of service, meaning anything which stops the website working properly.

Police firstly found out that the Phenom Booter program was being run from a UK based server and then eventually traced it to Manchester and specifically the Greater Manchester Area. This allowed them to identify the teenager they feel was responsible. He was arrested under the offences under the Computer Misuse act and is in custody while he is questioned and evidence is gathered.

A police spokesman explained how online gaming is very popular and a lot of sales are made at this time of the year. Anything, which disrupts these games, has an impact of sales as well as on people who currently play the game. They can also tarnish the reputation of the companies who sell the games, making it seem like their games are possibly not worth buying because of this sort of thing happening.  He also explained that this sort of crime can lead to further online crime and so it is important to make sure that it is dealt with properly.

However, now taking the step to increase tuition fees massively means that students are now expected to come up with much more money. They can still have a loan, but it will probably take a life time to pay off rather than the ten years or whatever the original loan scheme would take.

This in itself will create a great deal of problems and it does make you wonder whether the government have really thought through the long term consequences of doing this.

Firstly there will be less students. Obviously a lot of school leavers will be put off by the expense of university courses. This means that they will be applying for jobs rather than courses and the job market will start to become more saturated. They will also be doing lower paid jobs than they would if they were at university. This in itself will mean that there will be less money in the economy and will not help it to expand. There will also be less jobs available so there will be more people unemployed, which will not only cost the government money in unemployment benefits but also will mean there will be lower spending in the economy from those people whose jobs are being done by those who would have been students.

The next problem is with those who do decide to go on to higher education and bear the cost. They will leave university with a huge loan. The way things stand at the moment, the amount you have to pay off is determined by your income. This could mean that graduates will be tempted to take a job with less money or not have a job a t all so their repayments will be lower.

They will also be leaving university with a big debt. This means that even if they get a well paid job, some of their income will be spent on loan repayments and they will not be able to afford to buy so much and therefore less money will be going in to the economy. There is the chance that they may go in to further debt as well.

By making it seem perfectly acceptable for students to go in to debt, they may just feel that all debt is fine and we may be miseducating a generation in to thinking that they should be spending money they borrow rather than just money that they earn.

Of course, there is also now a class problem with education. It will be those from more well off families that are more likely to go to university. This means that it is no longer a case of education for all, but just education for the rich, which is something which happen years ago and got eliminated by the grants scheme.

With less people being able to afford to go to university, it will mean that universities will no longer be able to afford so many staff, to be able to run so many courses and quite are few are likely to be forced to close down completely. This will mean more job losses and less opportunities in higher education.

In conclusion it seems that by increasing university fees, the government will save themselves money. However, the long term effects of this are likely to lead to more people in debt and more people on lower salaries meaning that the economy will slow down and there will a smaller money supply. There is also likely to be more unemployed and lower inflation and it is likely that this will cause the value of the pound to reduce. This will mean that imports will be more expensive and so anything we buy form abroad will go up in price and as we rely heavily on these sorts of products this could cause big problems.

Maybe the government want this to happen to the economy or maybe they have not thought it all through. Who knows, but only time will demonstrate the long term effects of their decision.

My opinion is based on a couple of local key phrases I’ve been working on which were always organically positioned at number 1, but drowned out by the traditional Google Local listings and map. The change is (again) in my opinion an update to the algorithm.

My trail of thought:

• My organic result which was positioned number 1 organically got merged with my Google Local listing, therefore the site is now Position 1, without a map above it. I.e. we are now being seen an awful lot more which is awesome.
• The people who had optimised for Google Local are still on page 1, if they have a website. Which tends to make me think the ranking factors used in Google Locals top 10 map listings are now part of Googles main algorithm. Thus a local company would stand a better chance of ranking locally because of these new “credits” Google is giving local companies for there target phrases.
• However what this also means (and is being observed) is national companies which have strong pages can build past the new merged local results.

I could be wrong, but I actually think this is a beneficial change which will benefit SEO’s as Local SERPs are now open for play again within Google’s main algorithm and most importantly the top slots which were previously dominated by Map listings have now gone.

Why would they do that?

You may be wondering, well to me it seems obvious. The map listings alone without the rest of the Google algorithm were extremely easy to gain/weak. A lot of affiliates were cloaking the crap out of it for terms such as “Dating in London” which would should channel you off to Adult Friend Finder .. Dirty Affiliates.

So to incorporate Local as a “bonus” to local companies within the main Organic Results seems like an obvious solution.

Of course I haven’t tested it nearly enough to confirm this, but I know if I were Google, this is what I would do.

My immediate thinking is that this is some kind of cover up, put on by the publicly paid BBC (no doubt they were the first to release it as a Gaffe). They probably do have nuclear weapons, Cameron is probably very aware of them but we weren’t suppose to know.

End of thought..