Comments for Malcolm Coles

Comment on 10 more sites that stupidly try to ban you from linking to them by Gerry White

Gerry White — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 16:22:31 +0000

Wow - how this world has changed since this was published! Crazily now linking to a site can actually cause real damage ... Not even the BBC is immune!

Comment on Why you shouldn’t use Google’s keyword tool for SEO by Misato

Misato — Tue, 08 May 2012 08:17:23 +0000

What I find really odd is the Google keeps screwing it's Adwords advertisers ( in other words, their own customers ) and also those who SEO their webpages, and the excuse that is given is that Google is penalizing junk websites in favor of keyword relevant websites. Well, that's all it is, is an excuse, and it's total B.S.

There are many times I do a search on Google, and the top ranking websites that Google displays are no where near relevant to the search term I used.

A real good example of this is one time when I searched for anime related websites, and used 'anime' as part of my search term, one of the websites that showed up one the first page of results was about animal sex and beastiality.

I was like WTF??? No were in the search term did I use the word animal, sex, or beastiality, and this was even with a search setting of moderate. I've also noticed that totally off-the-wall and irrelevant websites are showing up more and more with Google searches.

This is gonna date me, but I remember when Yahoo was the most used search engine, and I don't recall ever getting the number of irrelevant websites that Google is and has been showing recently. Maybe we should all go back to Yahoo.

Comment on Why you shouldn’t use Google’s keyword tool for SEO by Haroun Kola

Haroun Kola — Mon, 07 May 2012 13:28:28 +0000

I was intrigued to find this post, just searching for the url to tool to send to a client, and my SERPs give me two articles slating it.

Rather than drumming up support for myself and my freelance business, I think I should go and pay some more attention to the seomoz tutorials too

Comment on EU cookie law: 4 examples of sites already implementing it by Steve Masters

Steve Masters — Wed, 02 May 2012 05:51:40 +0000

The poster child for implementation should be the Information Commissioner's website because they are the enforcers for the UK. They have actually reduced their message length and visitors are asked to tick a box.

It is woefully confusing though because it doesn't tell you what happens if you don't tick the box and continue to use the website, the privacy policy explains all the cookies in detail, even giving you links to privacy policies of third parties, but it doesn't let you selectively block cookies - only accept the cookies.

In other words, the website of the body that is supposed to be showing people how to make the use of cookies more transparent for users is actually proving how impossible it is to do that.

Comment on Event tyres review: buying tyres online by Massi

Massi — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 08:34:42 +0000

NOT a good experience this time...many things went wrong and I will no longer use Event Tyres.
I changed 2 tyres - booked online - the price and availability I cannot fault. I stated on the booking that I did not have the locking wheel nuts but the fitter came regardless and asked me to pay for the tyres even though they could not be fitted...
When the fitter returned (this time I had new 'nut keys') - he changed the front and rear tyres at my request (and charged £10 for it) - the car WOULD NOT MOVE after this - he did not know why but left the car and keys with my wife regardless!
After a complaint another fitter came and switched the wheels back. We had to pester Event to rectify the situation and finding time to go home from work each time they came was a great inconvenience.
The fitter offered a refund or discount verbally - "head office would be in contact" - despite this and several email from me - I have not heard a peep from them since.
It seems from other reviews that whereas once EVENT Tyres could do no wrong, now they are hit and miss.

I will not be useing them again.

Comment on Why you shouldn’t use Google’s keyword tool for SEO by Hippi

Hippi — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 10:23:04 +0000

Google keyword tool is really Google Adwords Keyword Tool and therefore is no accurate indication of natural searches whatsoever. Its interesting to see the shock of this even on a 2 year old post. why any self respecting SEO would tell a client there are 10k exact match monthly searches for their dull as ditchwater *insert own product or service here* is beyond me.

Comment on 10 ZX Spectrum games to play online by malcolm

malcolm — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:18:08 +0000

Ahh, that's really cheered me up! I may even write another blog post this year!

Comment on 10 ZX Spectrum games to play online by Adam Sherk

Adam Sherk — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:49:31 +0000

He's back! I've loyally kept your RSS feed in one of my daily reads folders just in case...

Comment on Why you shouldn’t use Google’s keyword tool for SEO by pemedia

pemedia — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 16:58:01 +0000

Hi Malcolm.

Some interesting points here. I have never really relied on Google's keyword tool and agree with Jackub that the results I see tend to differ significantly from the number of visits expected when on page 1.

I will continue to use Google keyword tool for long-tail keywords but after reading this I am going to make more of an effort to back up this research with additional testing.

Perhaps you could write a short article suggesting alternatives?

Thanks

Comment on … alternatively, the Adwords Keyword tool is spot on by Lee Kenny

Lee Kenny — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 15:14:23 +0000

hi, whether you are wrong or right doesn't really matter to me, what does matter is if you have an alternative website / keyword tool that is 100% reliable?