In his post “Why Bother with an SEO Company?“, Brent Yorzinski makes the point that “People hire SEO companies for the same reasons they hire attorneys”. The more I think about it, the more think he might be on to something. There are definitely several parallels that can be drawn against the services provided by SEOs and lawyers.

So without further ado, here’s my top 10 reasons SEOs are like lawyers.

1. You don’t get one until you realise how screwed you are without one.
2. You judge them based on their success rate with previous clients.
3. You pay the best regardless of if you win or lose. The “No Win, No Fee” type tend to be bottom feeders.
4. If the service is any good, the provider will make it look easy. It wasn’t.
5. It’s not always true that “the more you pay, the better you’ll get”. Many of the best known and highest charging agencies are also the busiest, and you are unlikely to get the same attention as you might from a smaller vendor.
6. Equally, if you insist on going for the cheapest you can find, you shouldn’t be surprised if you find yourself locked up (or in Google’s case, locked out)
7. Imagine that your site is the case your lawyer (your SEO) has to present to the judge (Google). Do you have a good case? Do you have a trustworthy history? Plenty of good references? What’s to keep the judge from sending you down?
8. Choose carefully, because whatever happens, it’s your nuts on the line. If you choose a crappy service because you didn’t do your homework, don’t expect them to come to the rescue once the judgement is passed, they’ll as likely bail out with your cash and leave you in the clink. A good service will see you through and do everything in it’s power to get you out of there.
9. No matter what we say or do, at the end of the day, the judge has the final say. We might not agree with the judge’s decisions, we might even think he’s being a hypocritical idiot from time to time, but what he decides is what matters, and we’ve all just got to deal with it. You might have a chance at a lengthy appeals process once the judgement has been passed, but don’t expect anything to happen quickly (unless you happen to be BMW or bigmouthmedia).
10. As Brent puts it himself “People hire SEO companies often for the same reasons they hire attorneys. They need a trusted advisor who is engrossed in the industry on a daily basis. If something changes on the search engine landscape they want to know about it. Therefore I conclude the many times a firm is hired partly for an increased level of comfort and partially for the added expertise that can be derived from a company or person experienced in search engine optimization.”

I’ve been watching, bewildered, for a while now as Twitter continues to grow in popularity. I signed up a few months ago, even bothering to add the Tweet box to the side of this blog, but watching the way it was used, I decided straight away that I didn’t want to be part of the community until I at least knew some Twitter users in “real life”. As it happens, I have still yet to meet a single person outside of the SEM circle that even knew what it was, let alone used it on a regular basis.

However, amongst the SEM regulars, it seems to have become huge. And still it sucks, due to the sheer inanity of 99.99999999999999% of updates posted. I just don’t understand where you people are finding the time. Even after reading articles explaining the virtues of Twitter and about how it can be modified to “spice it up“, I’m still convinced it’s really only good for a) low-grade advertising and b) talking shite.

Speaking with Neil from Lucidite, I realised perhaps I’m not the only one thinking this way. Here’s the top 21 reasons why we’re thinking Twitter Is Bullshit.

1. I honestly couldn’t care less what you had for your tea, or how that sensitive medical problem is going. Neither do most of your followers, really.
2. The most followed ‘tweeters’ already have well establised blogs that they post on daily. However, not content with expressing a daily opinion on these blogs, now we’ve got to follow them minute by minute. They are that important and interesting.
3. Some ‘tweeters’ are ‘tweeting’ everyday hoping to ‘get in’ to the z-list Celeb list, then passive aggressively whining about it when it doesn’t happen.
4. “We feel that Twitter keeps us on the ‘cutting edge’ of the web marketing sphere - shit, where’s the past 2 hours gone…”
5. Asking to ‘follow’ someone is rather like a request to stalk them, especially if you’ve never met.
6. It is instant messaging for voyeurs and exhibitionists.
7. Spending over $200 on texting ‘tweets’ does not make you cool.
8. Just because you’ve got 30 ‘followers’, doesn’t mean you’ve got 30 friends.
9. When I do exactly the same thing on Facebook, my real friends get to read it.
10. Even though you’ve got nothing to say, 140 characters never seems enough to say it.
11. Just because you feel like you’re hanging out with A-list bloggers, doesn’t mean they’re aware you exist. Chances are they can’t even read your replies.
12. Even if they can read your replies, it doesn’t mean they will.
13. And for that matter, why do you care so much about what is going on in their minute to minute life?
14. In real life, it’s usually considered impolite to start banging on to relative strangers about how your day was before they’ve even asked. Why is this so different on the internet?
15. The size of your penis is inversely proportional to the number of people you follow. Jason Calacanis follows over 22,500 people. I follow none.
16. Most of your followers are fickle sycophants basking in your reflected internet-glory. You might be feeling the love right now, but you know eventually someone better will come along. Then you’ll be left ‘tweeting’ into the ether.
17. Just ‘cos you work on the internet, and Twitter happens to be on the internet, does not mean Twitter is work.
18. It’s a DOS version of the Matrix.
19. Using Twitter effectively can be a quick route to becoming an ‘Internet Rockstar’. Being an ‘Internet Rockstar’ as rather like being a regular rockstar minus a few important aspects, namely a) the talent, b) the money and c) the sex.
20. If people spoke in real life the way they write their ‘tweets’, the world would be a bland and inoffensive place indeed.
21. No matter how much you love it right now, face it, you’ll have forgotten all about Twitter just as soon as something better comes along. Following current trends, I can only assume that this will be some sort of wireless application to stream your innermost thoughts directly from your brainspace. Come on, admit it, you’d love that, wouldn’t you?

I’ve just stumbled across a page that confirms something I’ve suspected for a long time - many of the best songs of the past century were actually written over 200 years ago. You know when you hear a new song that feels strangely touching and familiar? When you can guess how the next chord will sound before you’ve ever heard it? Well, chances are that song is based on a classical piece that has been subconciously drummed into your head without you even realising. And chances are, that song is Pachelbel’s Canon.

SO many modern songs are based on the chord progression that this piece develops from, many of them abosutely shameless. Have a listen to the following tracks to see what I mean;

“All together now” by The Farm
“Basket Case” by Green Day
“I should be so lucky” by Kylie Minogue
“Ladies and gentlemen we are floating in space” by Spritiualized
“Let it be” by The Beatles
“No woman, No cry” by Bob Marley
“Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia
“With or without you” by U2

There’s a fuller list (which I took these examples from) here; though I’m pretty sure that even this isn’t 100% comprehensive, as Coolio’s “C U When U Get There” isn’t included, though it actually uses the exact melody for it’s middle eight. I’m also pretty sure “Fools Rush In” by Elvis (and famously covered by brummy cod-reggae stars UB40) is at least partially based on Canon… Spirtualised segued quite nicely into it to finish “Ladie’s and Gentlemen…” at last year’s Summer Sundae.

I’ve been aware of this for a while now (I think I first picked up on it while listening to “Basket Case”), and it’s obviously not a new phenomenon, but I was surprised to see just how many songs, many of which are now considered ‘classics’ in their own right, are based upon the same tune. I’d be interested in finding out how many other popular songs are really adaptations of popular classical music - Air On The G String would seem suitably melodic, for example.

Rob Paravonians sums it all up in the popular YouTube vid below, and gets a few good laughs at the same time.

Can you think of any other examples on songs based on Canon?

I’m not sure if this problem has been around a while, but it is one that I have just picked up on this week. Google is failing to show some pages when the exact URL is entered, even if that page is in the index.

An example;

A search for http://www.demonplates.com/plates/ford-number-plates.php in Google gives

“Your search -

http://www.demonplates.com/plates/ford-number-plates.php - did not match any documents.”

However, a quick check of Google’s index of www.demonplates.com shows the page in question.

Also, a search for “ford number plates” in Google shows the page on the front page (.co.uk and .com).

I used to use this method as a quick way of checking if new pages had been indexed, but if this keeps up I think I’ll sacrifice a little more time and use the site:[url] feature from now on - it certainly seems more reliable.

Has anyone else noticed this happening more?

Just been shown this little treat, The SEO Rapper. It’s like Biggie Smalls does Online Marketing.

My favourite has to be Design Coding

“If you have animation, please use in moderation, ‘cos search engines can’t index the information”.

…just lazy.

For those of you that have been stopping by over the past month only to be crushed to discover I’ve not added anything for a while, sorry guys! I have been pretty busy recently, but I’ve not given up on this place - whenever something catches my eye while I’m crossing the webs for research and link building, I’ll be posting it here, along with the occasional rant.

The SEO world is a crazy place of best guesses - sometimes educated, often wild - and with SO MANY bloggers writing daily about SEO, it can be difficult to get on the bleeding edge of a particular story or method, and if you catch it more than a few hours after the news breaks there’s really no point in posting, lest you be accused of copying someone else’s work. So if the SEO-related posts seem a little sporadic it’s because a) I was busy working & missed it until every man and his SEO dog has blogged about it, or b) SEOMoz has already said it, then repeated it in 6 more  blog posts, far more eloquently than I’m likely to manage.

I do plan on picking up the pace on my music blogs - when I get the chance  I’ll tell you why I’m looking forward to this year’s Leicester Summer Sundae so much, for example.

For now I give you one of my new favourite sites - The Internet, Now In Handy Book Form. Enjoy Crackbook and Porn By Girls For Girls and more.

Back soon!

When I say the words “web predators” to you, what do you think of first?

This sort of thing

or

an SEO company?

It’s definitely an interesting choice of name.

EARTHQUAKE!

So did everyone enjoy last night’s act of god?

I was just drifting off at 1am this morning when my bed started shaking. Sadly I was alone last night, so it’s not as much fun as it sounds. Oh no, I, along with much of the UK, was in the middle of a fairly major (for us) earthquake. Crazy stuff!

Even crazier than that, however… I’ve just been invited to join “THE EARTHQUAKE AT 1AM IN THE UK!!!” Facebook group. It’s like we’ve actually come to the point where an event just isn’t worth talking about unless there’s a group on facebook in which to do it. It’s the same for causes and charities… I just don’t understand these “cure cancer now” groups sprouting up, like the disease is slightly more threatened now that there’s a social networking site dedicated to it’s eradication. Watch out diabetes, Facebook is on your case next!

Anyway, must be off, I have to set up the “MATT BLOGGED ON SEOTUNES, 3.30PM IN THE UK” Facebook Group.

So Google have diffused the bomb, have they? Apparently not!

Last year Google announced that they had ended the Googlebomb “phenomenon” which had George Bush’s Whitehouse page rank top for the term ‘miserable failure’ for about two years. It now looks like that announcement was premature, to say the least - since then “internet terrorists” Anonymous managed to get the homepage of the Scientology “religion” to rank for the term ‘dangerous cult’ for a short while, and it now emerges that some jokers have got George Dubya’s homepage back up there, this time for the phrase ‘who is a failure‘.

So it appears that the Googlebomb is far from diffused, it just seems that Google have started to pay more attention to the problem, given that it exposes a glaring issue within the algorithm, when external factors can be manipulated to force a page to rank for a totally irrelevant (or so some would say) term.

So Google, nice try, but you fail!

P.S Remember in the film “Swingers”, where Vince Vaughn is asking Jon Favreau “who’s the big winner here, huh? That’s right, Mikey’s the big winner! Mikey wins!”.

Seriously, how much would you like to go up and deliver that line to GWB, just replacing the word “winner” with “loser”. I guess that’s kind of what these guys have done. Nice work!