Happy New Year

I’m working New Years Eve! Yep, working on my coin forum. I’m driving myself hard these days to bring my most successful sites, Coin Talk for example, to the next level of success. I haven’t set my goals for 2006 yet, but they will be set very high.

Thinking about doing some podcasting

I was listening to some podcasts my friend Patrick has recently done, and thinking this might be a nice idea for my popular community websites. I’ve been doing a bit of research on it, and really liked the ideas that this guy wrote about in his blog. One of my major concerns is the amount of bandwidth it would eat if I tried to host these myself, What Steve MacLellan suggested there might seriously reduce that problem. I also like how he gets the podcast away from being on a blank screen and puts it inline with a regular post to his blog.

Google, no longer pure?

This could be big. By now everyone has heard of the Google-AOL deal, right? Well, did you hear what Google gave up to AOL to make the deal happen? According to the New York Times, they gave up their soul. To quote the New York Times article, “Google, which prides itself on the purity of its search results, agreed to give favored placement to content from AOL throughout its site, something it has never done before.” What could be more sacred to Google than the purity of the search results?

Those (SEOs) who can, do, and those (SEOs) who can’t?

I’ve dedicated myself to learning about search engine optimisation out of a desire to make my own websites successful. I’ve read about people who’ve been very successful with SEO, but not in this capacity. They make others’ websites successful. I personally do enjoy sharing things that I’ve learned, I often will post tips in forums, write a short article here and there, but I’ve never really been attracted to working SEO for other people. There is a curiousity factor there with me, though. I’ve wondered what goes on at these SEO consulting companies. What methods are they using? How rewarding do people who own, and work at, these companies find their jobs? Rhetorical questions yes.

I think this is a very important question for people who are seeking consulting services from an SEO. Ask before you buy. Ask the SEO why they would be offering their services for a price when they might find it far more lucrative to SEO for their own websites. I’d like to hear the answers.