Sergey Brin Google co-founder with Larry Page, uses his Mac using VMware to run Google Chrome and says in this interview it’s embarrassing (4.25) that there is no Google Chrome for Mac download available yet. (more…)

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Jeff Quipp on Tips for Improving Search Rankings

It can be difficult sometimes as a business owner, separating the wheat from the chaff, and knowing what is a real opportunity and what is not.

SEO is often posed as one of these predicaments for many business owners.

So, how is a small business person with a limited budget realistically supposed to experience the benefits of SEO. Sure, some jump in with both feet, but others are obviously much more skeptical.

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Well, it appears there isn’t a Google Chrome download for the Apple Mac OS X yet. Boo! They are apparently embarrassed about lack of a Mac Download.

If you have one of those crap Windows PC then you can get a free web browser from Google;

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So, here we go again sports fans. Another scintillating, nail biting, nerve shredding, palm sweating, action packed week of X Box Friday. An unpredictable, emotional roller coaster ride, if there ever was one!

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4 Steps to a Successful Start in Social Media

The difference between the web of a few years ago and the web today is Social Media.

Social Media is basically communication online. That doesn’t sound too complicated, huh? But for many beginners it can be. There are many different forms of Social Media…. many different ways of communicating online.

Getting involved in Social Media can be intimidating. So much so that you might not know where to even begin. There is Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Plurk, Mixx, Digg. There are blogs, forums, wikis, photo sharing, vlogging (video blogging), and others. They are all different, so which do you devote your time to?

In this post I’m going to get back to the very beginning….I’m going to explain the very basics of how to get Started with Social Media. (more…)

Here’s some quick ways to test how accessible your website is for people with ‘disabilities’.

We’re currently re-evaluating all the sites with our name on it including this one - perhaps you might want to test your site? (more…)

After a busy pre-season the new season is eventually upon us.

This time round, obviously through the recent sponsership deals and TV money, the league has expanded to 12 Teams. Once again the teams were drawn fairly out of a hat and here is a run down of who’s who

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SEO TIPSOK So that’s the end of July, and the end of our sort-of-beginners-guide to on-site and on-page seo FAQ. Is there more?

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WK 4 Final Results - Marty is the Champ

Into the final week of the HoboWeb XBox Friday league and it comes to a fantastic end.

After last weeks standings, France (Allan) was still in with a 2nd place finish. But he crashed out this week with a 0-0 draw against Holland (Rodger). Leaving him in 3rd overall. Germany (Jim), however, saved the day. With a 1-0 win the over Michael’s Spanish team, holding him back from any more points.

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WK 3 Results

I know you have all been anxiously waiting for the update on how our internal pro evo league on the X-Box 360 was going so here it is… today will decide things Here’s how things stand….

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Looks like the Google API (which allows you to query the search engine up to 1000 times in a day to determine where you rank for specific keywords) is, well, screwing the results at the Digital Point Tool and WP Gold. (more…)

Use RSS to learn more about SEO & Accessible Website Design from Hobo, like nearly 1,000 others, via a FREE RSS reader available from, for example: (more…)

SEO Tips For Cuil

Just looking at some of the results on the new search engine Cuil and it’s clear how to optimise for this search engine already (in the local space)! (more…)

TIP 24I’ve mentioned this before. Onsite, one of the most important things you can do, is link to important pages often. I used a ‘links-are-lasers‘ analogy last year which I still use today. (more…)

TIP 23One of the more interesting discussions in the seo community of late has been trying to determine which links Google counts as links on pages on your site. Some say the link Google finds higher in the code, is the link Google will ‘count’, if there are two links on a page going to the same page. (more…)

TIP 22Adding rel=”nofollow” to a link effectively stops a link being a link, as far as Google is concerned. This means the link does not count as a vote, does not pass page rank, nor topical relevance(!). For instance, most blog comments are nofollow links, unlike this blog;
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TIP 21What is a xml sitemap and do I need one to ’seo’ my site for Google? (more…)

I don’t pretend to understand the math of Page Rank (I spent too much time at the back of the class drawing) but I think I can visualise it adequately enough to heat up a website. Is PR the ‘trick’ to make sure your pages are in the main Google results index and have forums got what it takes these days? (more…)

New Google PageRank Update - 26 July 2008 (more…)

I’ve been wanting to ask the few that read this blog to introduce themselves and tell me what you think of this site, whether you are a seo or not.

Do you have a view? (more…)

If I didn’t have a clue how to launch my site and didn’t know my arse from my elbow in social media, here is how I would launch a site today; (more…)

Weeks 1 & 2 Results

Fridays in between seo and web design responsibilities we have X-Box Friday. We have a league going and some of the boys in the office have a team. Here’s the results after the first couple of weeks. (more…)

OK so that’s most of the on-page seo I consider dealt with. There’s not that much to it. You can control on-page seo, but I would think Google is looking for flags to demote a website or page, not promote it. So know the issues - know that people spam the hell on site. Try and stand apart while keeping it as simple as you possibly can.

ADD - The more I write this the more I don’t want to spread misinformation. This isn’t a crusade - I am just blogging here - if you have a comment to make about anything I have written, or even better a different point of view, please let me know in the comments on any of the posts. I’m always looking to hear about other people’s observations. I’ve been slapped before and Sebastian is a pal now

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TIP 20The best piece of advice I ever read about creating a website / optimising a website was years ago: (more…)

A stupid test to see if online casino spam can rank me or get me traffic - from any place. (more…)

As of today I am going to be a lot more careful how I link to people. It’s a pet hate when you see somebody talking about you on a blog and not linking to you properly, or at all, just ask linkbait coach and pal Lyndon Antcliff.

I’m going to make an effort to make every link count.

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Warning - Major Rambling Works Ahead - Wanted A break from the onpage seo tips serial.

I once said to my boss (who was a dick) I wanted full access to the internet and fully paid home internet access. I was heavily abusing Napster & Limewire at the time. I also wanted a mobile phone as I was handling clients on a pay as you go. He nearly spat his coffee over his face onto his desk over the presentation he’d been working on all week. That sorta thing used to happen with me and him in the advertising agency I worked in.

I also told him at the same meeting I wanted to bring my dog to work and start and finish whenever I wanted. I’m an animal lover. Either that or I was off to do the business plan I came up with on my own (OK with a mate).

And so, after I won the only award the agency won that year (the same day the MD tried to sack me) Hobo was born. Thank f*ck!

I work on the internet. I would not work for a company that stopped me going on the internet whenever I wanted to. To do anything legal I wanted to do.

Caveat - I ‘work’ about 18-20 hours a day.

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TIP 19I am always on the look for duplicate content issues. I think I have seen -50 positions for nothing more than a lot of duplicate content although I am looking into other possible issues. Generally speaking, Google will identify the best pages on your site if you have a decent on-site architecture. It’s usually pretty decent at this but it totally depends on where you are linkbuilding to within the site and how your site navigation is put together. (more…)

TIP 18I’ve not got any proof this actually happens, but I do it. Rather than tell Google via a 404 or some other command that this page isn’t here any more, I have no problem permanently redirecting a page to a relatively similar page to pool any link power that page might have, or even redirect it server side to the home page. (more…)

TIP 17Does Google rank a page higher because of valid code? The short answer is no, even though I tested it on a small scale test with different results. (more…)

TIP 16Google hates everything Microsoft does so avoid ASP lol (more…)

TIP 15Another one to forget about. Sometimes I use directories and sometimes I use files. I have not been able to determine if there is any actual benefit to using either. (more…)

TIP 14This is another one of those areas in SEO or website development that you shouldn’t be concerned about. My advice would be to keep it consistent. (more…)

TIP 13As I mentioned in the ALT Tag seo tip, some seo proclaim putting your keywords in bold or putting your keywords in italics is a benefit in terms of search engine optimizing a page - as if they are working their way through a check list. (more…)

TIP 12Clean URLS (or search engine friendly urls) are just that - easy to read, simple. You do not need clean urls in a site architecture for Google to spider a site successfully, although I do use clean urls as a default these days, and have done so for years.

Is there a massive difference in Google when you use clean urls? (more…)

TIP 11Ah the ALT tag. An essential part of that on-page quality score seo crow about lol

• Keyword in the Title Tag - Check
• Keyword in the Page Content - Check
• Keyword in the meta description - Check
• Keyword in the ALT Tag?

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TIP 10I can’t even say this word properly - Canonicalization. Does your site have canonicalization problems?

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TIP 9Sticking firmly in on page seo territory, I regularly link out to other quality relevant pages on other websites where possible and where a human would find it valuable. (more…)

TIP 8I’ll lay down my thoughts on internal link optimisation later in this seo tutorial, but onpage, I link internal to relevant pages in my site all the time. (more…)

TIP 7The short answer to this is - no. There is no one-size-fits-all keyword density, no optimal percentage, and I think I have the longest page on the internet debunking keyword density. (more…)

TIP 6I get asked this all the time - how much text do you put on a page to rank for a certain keyword? Well, as in so much of SEO theory and strategy, there is no optimal amount of text per page. (more…)

TIP 5I can’t find any definitive proof online that says you need to use Heading Tags (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6) or that they improve rankings in Google, and I have seen pages do well in Google without them - but I do use them, especially the H1 tag on the page. For me it’s another piece of a perfect page, in the traditional sense, and I try to build a site for Google and humans. (more…)

TIP 4OK - So I’ve theorised about the Title Element, the Meta Description Tag and the pointless (IMO) Meta Keywords tag.

The only other Meta Tag I am interested in, generally, is when I am trying to control which pages (at a page level) are indexed, or which external links are to be counted by Google as links - useful to stay within their guidelines in some cases. The Robots Meta Tag;

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TIP 3Like the title element and unlike the meta keywords tag, this one is important, both from a human and search engine perspective. (more…)

TIP 2Ahh, a bastian of crap and unethical seo companies - the meta-keywords tag! How many crap seo companies mention cleaning and optimising this tag in their presentations? Companies that waste time on these waste clients money. (more…)

TIP 1I’m keeping these 1 A Day SEO Tips in July quick and simple - and again, this is just my preference, backed up with observations I’ve made over the last few years I’ve been learning / practicing seo. This is the stuff people ask me on a daily basis at my seo company - What Is The Best Title Tag For Google? (more…)

SEO TIPS I thought it would be cool to post an on-site seo tip a day (weekdays of course ) over the course of July, so the first one will be posted later today, with a new one posted every day after until the end of July. (more…)

I’m just now getting back into the swing of things after a fantastic 3 days spent at Edinburgh SEO Class 2008 with Jim Boykin, Chuck and Matt from US internet marketing firm We Build Pages and some Internet Marketing Ninjas. (more…)

SEO Class Edinburgh, Scotland

• Monday, June 23, 2008
• Tuesday, June 24, 2008

I will be presenting a seo workshop at the two-day session SEO Class Edinburgh, now run by Jim Boykin’s We Build Pages and Internet Marketing Ninjas. Guaranteed, if you’re looking to attend the best seo training classes in Scotland this year, this will be it.

In a great lineup you’ll also hear;

• Ammon Johns (Black Knight) independent marketing consultant and search marketing expert (currently at Fresh Egg).
• Barry Lloyd, founder and CEO of MakeMeTop, and search marketing expert.
• Brian Turner (iBrian) Director of Britecorp, Ltd., and search engine optimization expert.
• Jim Boykin, President and CEO of We Build Pages and link building expert.
• Lyndon Antcliff of Cornwall SEO and expert linkbaiter
• and QuadsZilla, of SEO Black Hat

These presentations will feature as part of Jim’s Internet Marketing Ninja program. (more…)

The irony of obsessively searching for what’s the best way to do something often leads to the same conclusion; (more…)