Google likes to name updates to their algorithm. Last year was a large change known as Panda, which targeted ‘thin’ affiliate sites, with minimal added value – typically MFA (made-for-adsense) sites with lots of ads. There were various mini-releases/refinements to the Panda updates almost each month since then.

Then Google announced Penguin – http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/another-step-to-reward-high-quality.html. This is being interpreted as Google finally reinforcing all the recommendations they’ve made in their Webmaster Guidelines over the years – build sites with lots of content for people – rather than sites with every link and tag optimised for search engines. Basically people are being punished for over-optimising their sites. It’s a fine line to walk.

The best posts I’ve seen so far are from
the lazy marketer and
seo revolution.

I’m on the lazy marketer’s list and have bought the odd product from him, cos he just does things efficiently.

I liked the seorevolution for its succinct summary of the most common characteristics of hit sites:
- far too high on-page keyword density
- uneven anchor text distribution
- low quality links
- internal duplicate content
- duplicate title tags
- slow site speed
- high number of internal 404s

The net result for most people being that they have to clean up their sites.

I logged onto Google Analytics for one of my sites and found that I was ranking (and receiving traffic) for teen porn, courtesy of some spam posts in one of my forums. Talk about a let-down for the people who clicked on that link – there’s nothing suss on my sites, when they’re clean.

So for the next few weeks, I’m recommending that you clean up your sites, paying particular attention to any tips from Google in Webmaster Tools. It’s boring and time-consuming, but every site should have a spring cleaning each year anyway.

cheers

Just testing the Google Analytics reporting that is provided by permanent URL redirects. I’ll post results when I’ve finished.

• Christmas redirect
• Lingerie redirect

The above two links are each redirects.

The first redirect is a 301 (permanent) redirect sending traffic to www.christmas-australia.com
via the short URL gkmum.com/christmas.

The second redirect is a 301 redirect sending traffic to http://www.loverlylingerie.com/?utm_source=MyShortURL&utm_medium=Website&utm_campaign=Experiments
via the short URL gkmum.com/lingerie

Note that the second URL has added Campaign Tracking, using the format suggested by the
Google URL builder

Officially (http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1009614) the redirecting page becomes the landing page’s referrer. Google says that it doesn’t pass the referrer information across a redirect. So according to Google, if you search with a keyword, then click on a link that is redirected, the traffic source will be a redirect from the intermediate URL, not the keyword search.

eg Source A -> RedirectURL B -> Target C

So in theory Google won’t let you know about Source A.
But that’s not what happened.

The actual pageview recorded was for the Target C.
The traffic source for link one came through as a referral from geekmum.com.au – Source A.
And the traffic source for link two came through as a Campaign using my URL Builder details:
Source=MyShortURL, medium=Website, Campaign=Experiments. ie, the traffic source I defined.

None of my traffic was recorded as having a traffic source of gkmum.com – the Redirect URL (B).

If I had bought gkmum.com as a vanity URL that I wanted people to remember, I would have been miffed.
Although it did it’s job, redirecting traffic to my landing page, and being shorter.
But most people use vanity URLs so they can track traffic from a different source.

Is Google in the middle of changing their reporting information, or am I misinterpreting something?

I thought I would be happy with 13 inches. But it wasn’t enough.

At work I have the big 17 inch quad core Dell Precision. For the first year and a half I took it home each night. I ended up with a sore back and friendly chiropractor. So I decided to buy a second laptop, purely for home.

Everyone at work seemed to be converting to Macs. And I had long lusted after Garageband – one day I swear I’ll write a song. At a minimum I want to create some backing music for videos so that YouTube and Facebook stop deleting our dance performances for copyright reasons (even though the studio pays ARIA licensing fees, that doesn’t stop YouTube and Facebook).

And at work, a couple of guys have MacBooks with small screens, and a second large monitor attached. So it seemed practical to get a nice little 13 inch MacBook Pro to use at home.

I went halfway, and set it up with Bootcamp so I could run it primarily as a Windows machine, with all my favourite programs.

But it never really felt right. There was a feeling that it wasn’t permanent – just a brief flirtation. After 9 months I still hadn’t played with Garageband at all. I got annoyed at the difference in scrolling – an remembering which combination of keys was PrintScreen.

But it was the size. 13 inches, if you’re using it as your only screen, just isn’t enough.

I had the cheap fling with the 15 inch Toshiba for three days before returning the faulty thing, and replacing it with a Samsung RF511. Still an impulsive purchase – at JB Hifi the requirements were simply – gimme something with grunt that works – 8GB RAM, strong Wifi and capable of handling ColdFusion, PHP, MySQL, full Office and Adobe Master Collection, and dedicated volume keys. (Is there anything worse than soft volume keys – it’s like having a car with small cup holders – it just ain’t good enough.)

I like my new Samsung 15.6 inch screen. Not too big, not too small. It’s just right.

We used to be a Toshiba family. Not ever again.

I bought a Toshiba laptop for Scott in October. In March he complained that the HDMI port was no longer working, so as we had paid for the extended warranty at Dick Smith, we took it in.

We demonstrated the problem to the lovely guys at my local Dick Smith – I’m a very very regular customer – and they sent it off to Toshiba Repairs on 10 March. Actually that’s what the repair receipt says – I really dropped it off a few days earlier before I went overseas on the 9th. But anyway.

At the end of March we followed up with Dick Smith. Apparently Toshiba had sent it back to the store saying there wasn’t a problem. The guys at Dick Smith actually took a video demonstrating that there was in fact a problem – the HDMI port definitely didn’t work. They sent it back to Toshiba.

Every 2-3 days we went in to Dick Smith to ask how things are going. They checked online. The manager rang them. But it’s still at Toshiba.

I went in today (20 April). It’s still listed as being at the store. THAT’S SIX WEEKS TOSHIBA!

AND NOW, I just got home after work, and there was a letter from Dick Smith saying that the laptop could not be repaired under warranty because the fault is not covered. The reason from Toshiba was CRACKED LCD.

WTF TOSHIBA? It’s a broken HDMI port. The screen was NOT cracked. The receipt said everything else apart from the HDMI port was fine. If you are trying to cover up a screen that you broke, you’ve got another thing coming to you.

The letter also said:
‘The cost of this repair estimate is $438.90 to replace the LCD.
You may wish to reject the estimate, if you do so, a rejection fee may be charged from the repairer and the unit will be returned to you unrepaired.’

You’re going to charge me NOT to repair a documented problem?

No response on the phone – it’s after 5.30pm on Friday.

And that’s not our only Toshiba Repair experience.

A couple of years ago Scott had another laptop, bought from Myer. Can’t remember whether it was actually a Toshiba laptop, but the warranty meant it had to go to Toshiba Repairs. This stupid laptop ended up having a broken motherboard, broken hard drive, broken power pack on three separate occasions. Eventually we got it declared a lemon by Myer, and got a replacement. I think Scott ended up having the laptop 3 months out of the 8 we owned it. Our opinion of Toshiba Repairs was pretty bad then.

Last Sunday I bought a new laptop for myself. A Toshiba from JB-Hifi. They didn’t have the model I wanted in stock, so I accepted the floor demonstration model, with an extra 4GB RAM added by JB-Hifi staff. I took it home, downloaded Bitdefender, XAMPP. Then tried to install Adobe Master Collection from DVD. The drive was kind of noisy – no, make that very noisy. Wouldn’t kick off the installation. So I gave up and downloaded the official Adobe Suite – didn’t really care about the bandwidth. The installation got to 30% and hung. And hung. I went out, then 3 hrs later cancelled it. It was so slow I had a look at the system info – it wasn’t recognising the additional RAM. The wireless strength was so poor it wouldn’t reach from the bedroom to the lounge room. I rang JB-Hifi and they said that as it was only 3 days old and obviously faulty, they would replace it. I upgraded to the beeoootiful Samsung I am typing this post on.

Will I ever buy another Toshiba product again in my life? NO.
Am I a big technology shopper? YES.
Will I tell everyone about my horrible experience with Toshiba Repairs? YES.

I am so pissed off it’s not funny.

Screw the Toshiba. When it comes back we’ll use it as a spare. A learning tool.

Tomorrow Scott and I are going shopping. (Scott – I’m serious about that Maths practice twice a week, and 90% in IT).
Alienware or Samsung, here we come.

Good riddance Toshiba.

Last week was lovely. A bus driver made it that way.

On Tuesday just as I walked out the office door, the bus I wanted to catch went by. (The 230).

I paused for a second, then decided to chase it. Pulled out my hairband and combs, started running at top speed for a block and a half, dodging people left and centre, hair flying wild, but it pulled away before I got there.

I must be getting slow in my old age as another bus got there before me. The second-best bus pulled in – it goes three-quarters of the trip – and I had to dodge a few more people to catch that one.

I sat down, stuck my head out front to see if there was any chance of catching up with the bus in front (sometimes they leap frog each other along Military Rd), but it was so far in front I sat back and started reading the latest blog posts on my tablet. Intently.

Unbeknownst to me, when we arrived at Spit Junction, we had caught up. The bus driver recognised me from the 230 bus in the morning, and leaned around and said ‘hey – we caught up. Would you like to catch the bus in front?’.

He beeped the bus in front, who stopped and waited for me to hop off and on to the front bus.

Doesn’t that restore your faith in Sydney bus drivers?