Matt Inertia » Google

Google Consultant – Should this job title be allowed?

Matt Inertia — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:59:15 +0000

One thing that I keep seeing more and more of are industry professionals associating themselves (wrongly) with Google. Whether this is in the form of calling themselves Google consultants, representatives or even going as far as claiming they have “special relationships” with someone who works at Google!

It looks like a pretty good way to deceive people into hiring your services, just look at Google Re-Sell and the fuss they caused! When I was researching that post I found a lot of dissatisfied customers so chasing the Google brand is obviously an effective marketing strategy!

As an SEO who spends a lot of my time working with Google (in the sense of a third party) I’d consider myself to be pretty well informed on the latest goings on at Mountain View, but I’d never go as far as advertising myself as a Google consultant. To me that sounds like someone’s trying to big themselves up more than they should.

If you Google “Google consultant” you’ll see that there are plenty of websites out there that are actively pushing this keyword/job description. It would be perfectly understandable for somebody looking for an SEO to focus purely on Google rankings/traffic and Google such a keyword. But what would they be getting? They’d be hiring an SEO, but ~~half~~ not much of an SEO… what about all the other factors not associated with Google? What about all the other search engines?!

Do yourself a favour people… Search for an SEO, not a Google consultant! You cant polish a turd!

How Clever is Google?

Matt Inertia — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:10:22 +0000

Here’s a post i dropped at Seoers.org on the subject of how clever Google really is. If you believe some people they see all, know all. If you believe others they don’t know diddly squat about most things. When you look at the SERPs you can certainly see why as there are plenty of examples where spam sites are kicking arse.
The reason I asked this question was in response to this post from Danny Sullivan about helping your SEO efforts by buying up old domains. I don’t agree with some of the points he makes and I think most of it’s a case of hear say and speculation but it did prompt me to ask the question; how clever is Google really?

We all know the Google guidelines and the “dos and don’ts” of SEO and on-line marketing. But is Google actually as clever as it says at spotting violations or is it a case of smoke and mirrors? There are numerous examples of sites ranking that break these guidelines and there are also plenty of contradictions between SEOs ideas about how to gain top rankings.

Here it the fundamental question which all SEOs need to consider….
Q. How clever is Google?
A. Thick as pig sh*t
A. Not clever at all and what they say and recommend isn’t usually correct or worth considering.
A. They are more or less spot on with what they say and how they act.
A. They are cleverer than they make out but like to keep this from us.
A. They are light years beyond the public perception.

The reason i ask is based on the conflicting advice I hear from SEOs all the time. One SEO does not recommend something but another does and they generally fall into three categories white, grey and black. The white hat guys would call the black hat guys fools and vice versa.

Answers on a post card…

Matt Inertia Search Result

Matt Inertia — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 04:23:19 +0000

I did a search of my name (mattinertia search) on Google the other day and was shocked to see that my WebmasterWorld profile is number one for the search. The other site above me is some rapper guy?

So I checked out the WebmasterWorld profile page and it has a PR of two and a lot more the domain is bound to have more trust so yeah… It’s not that surprising. I added a link to this site from the page so it should resolve itself soon. Watch this space!

Don't forget your favicon!

Matt Inertia — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 04:00:10 +0000

One free tool that often gets over looked by webmasters is the Favicon [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon]. The Favicon is a great way to make your website stand out amongst the lists that social book marking sites (such as delicious) let you populate. I for one have huge lists of book marks and the Favicon has become the thing I look for to identify the link.

As well as book mark lists the Favicon is being implemented in other areas as well. Google have recently experimented with Favicons next to search results [http://www.marketingvox.com/google-tests-site-favicons-in-select-search-results-042938/]. I don’t see any reason for them not to implement this at some point so be prepared for Favicon fever as people explore the stats relating to how certain Favicons perform.

Or maybe not? Maybe the average searcher doesn’t give a damn about the Favicon and they base their decision entirely on the textual part of the listing? One thing is for sure, Google seems to be spending a bit of time considering the old Favicon! They’ve changed theirs again [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7839744.stm]. That coupled with the recent tests seems to show that Favicons are on an agenda somewhere. What a pity the Google logo has always been its name in the primary colour groups. There’s no way you’re going to fit that into a 16 by 16 pixel gap!

So what are the other Favicon options that Google could have explored? Well how about an animated Favicon? Something like this [http://www.couleur3.ch/] with the letters rotating would have been nice? Well that’s what I’d have gone for anyway!

There are some sites that don’t seem to be fussed about having a Favicon in place, or at least a unique one anyway! There are numerous forums programmed in the vb system that still have the standard forum logo ([http://www.webproworld.com/] and [http://www.seoworkers.net/] are two examples).

So if you want help creating a favicon it’s very easy. Check out this article:

[http://ma.tt/2003/11/how-to-create-a-favicon/]