Blog

Ok, so I don’t normally do this, but it’s a nice little tool so why not.

Basically what SpamFlag does is help with the link auditing process, which as anyone in the SEO field will know is the most soul crushingly dull task that our industry has to offer.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN GPWA MAGAZINE  – I’ve linked to the online version.

Manual, algorithmic, Penguin, Panda…You’ve probably heard one or two of these terms used in conjunction with ‘Google’ and ‘Penalty’ in recent times. In fact, there is currently so much confusion and misinformation about penalties – especially their diagnosis and removal – I thought it was high time I got to grips with the issue in these pages in the pages of GPWA.

So you think you have a penalty? What next? Unfortunately all penalties were not created equal, and understanding how your site has been affected and why is key to rectifying the problem.

This was originally published at http://www.igbaffiliate.com/magazine/continental-shift

Asia has been a market of significant interest for many in the iGaming sector for several years. With growing wealth, internet connectivity and a long time gambling culture it seems as though there is great potential for expansion. This is of course true in many ways; however there are a unique set of pitfalls and challenges to operating in these markets. This piece could be seen as something of a crash course in the market place and sets up for future more in depth looks at the individual markets.

Above is the slidedeck from the presentation I gave at the BAC, I will add some info on all of the slides at a later date.

Once again I’ll be frequenting the stage at the Barcelona Affiliate Conference. This is of course one of the better conference of the year for iGaming affiliates and a fantastic networking experience.

I’ll be talking about Yandex and how Read more

Whilst I realllllly hate the angle that this was filmed at (couldn’t possibly be less flattering, who looks good in profile from below after a days travelling and an iGaming party the night before to boot).

However as I’ve been really lazy when it comes to updating this blog lately and this is a nice piece of video content I thought I’d slap it up. So it’s basically me waffling on for a few minutes about Baidu and the Asian markets.

So I’ll be on the international search panel at SAScon, not really too much more to say about that.

http://www.sascon.co.uk/sascon-uk/about/speakers/mike-litson/

Other than SAScon is obviously a great event, long standing in the industry and I look forward to seeing Read more

Sooooo Mr Cutts has given us a “special spam report” probably because penguin 2.0 was essentially a steaming pile of cr*p which if anything made the search results worse.

So once again Google are asking us to do their job for you and this

Here’s a special spam report form: bit.ly/penguinspamrep… Please tell us about the spammy sites that Penguin missed.

— Matt Cutts (@mattcutts) May 23, 2013

is of course in no way open to abuse……

Oh wait what am I saying of course it is. So assuming they use this data and you just scraped through penguin not for long.

I’ve always been a bit of a sceptic and believed that really social is as much about branding and CRM as anything else. And you can be part of convincing customers to buy, but rarely a stand alone factor. However, today I signed up to Paddy Power and why? Because of channel management on Twitter!!

Shocking I know!

But here is the thread and what they did. I made a joking request, and they responded by actually adding in the betting option.

So I’ve been thinking for a while about why I got into search. And my answer much like everyone else I meet is I just sort of fell into it. And later decided that I actually liked what I did.

Now my story involves being drunk, an elevator, a pizza and a series of chance happenings that eventually resulted in me winding up at Blueclaw and specialising in gambling. There was no plan involved, just a series of seemingly random events culminating in a career in online marketing.

This is what’s wrong with Search Marketing. Maybe 1 in 1000 people get into it because they really want to, the guys in social do it because they want to, designers because they want to, us search guys…. Well it just sort of happens. I’ve been asking this question for years at every conference I go to, and to everyone I meet in search and only 1 person has ever answered “because I wanted to be an SEO” and I have my suspicions as to whether or not that was actually true.