Google starts to show (not provided) in organic results

Yes - you heard correctly, a trial new version of Google, code-named Google Ninja, is going to start sharing organic results as "(not provided)." Already infamous amongst website owners, this latest move does little to help the growing unrest and anger directed towards the search engine, which is one of the biggest in the world.

A source at the company, a Google Search Quality Engineer, who couldn't be named for privacy reasons, had this to say:

"Google take privacy very seriously. After our very successful hiding of organic keywords, people reached out to tell us how important this is to their daily lives. Now, they don't need to be embarrassed about using Google to search for drugs, weapons and ideas for criminal mayhem. As such, all organic results will be shown as "(not provided)" and the links will be disabled. Naturally, Paid-ads will still show, as people are paying for that, so it would be kind of wrong not to"   -- (Not Provided)

Web store owners up and down the country are said to be left pulling their hair out in frustration with the search giant, rumoured to be smaller than Yahoo! in its search marketing share according to DomScore, the website that rates and scores Dominatrix Dungeon owners according to popularity and domination ability.

Google Chairman, Chris Muller-Lite said that the company were just trialling the idea and that (not provided) would only make up a tiny share of the organic search results and most people wouldn't even notice.

It really is a bit of a complete joke!

Funny thought about earned links and Negative SEO

The pain of looking through your own back links to see who is linking to you, the angst of wondering what Google thinks and what to do about them. Webmasters were right to worry about Negative SEO - its true and Google is already warning and penalising sites because it can't really determine "natural" and "unnatural" links.

Earned links are the most spurious, because they come from the lowest value. I'll write about them in more detail later on. This is a funnier thought from Skype:

I was talking to one of my colleagues and I was lamenting the earned links we have from seemingly low quality blogs (i.e. lower than ours, the vast sum of the web is build in a authority pyramid shape with high sites at the top built on bases of lower ranking sites). This isn't their fault. Nor is it ours.

But here's the summary of out thinking:

*A Brief history of SEO*

2003-20012 Helping people build quality, helpful links like "visit my finance blog here"
2013: Helping people delete helpful links and replace them with just click here and disavowing all the free links you got for writing great content

*The New Rule* Write good content but not _great_ content - otherwise people will link to you and you'll have to disavow them all !

#fun #seo #negativeseo #google

seoMoz reinvent themselves into twitter marketing

SeoMoz has been a clever little company since it's founding. Their tool and USP was their ability to spy on and record other people's links. It's all rather counter productive if you ask me

Well, for a link-obsessive product (let's face it, the other SEO stuff is fudge and guesswork) - link obsession doesn't work anymore. Copying links that anyone can get is, as you've probably guessed, just not worth it. Getting higher value links is and while you can find them, you may not have the real life relationship to get them created.

What now for seoMoz?
Well, they're a clever little lot and rather than argue with link building, it seems that they found a way to cater to the masses of bad SEO's and give them what they wanted. As people copied links, more links had to be found and the whole ponzi scheme got off to a great start....

But now, the main tool in seoMoz's kit, the Link Explorer, is somewhat past it's sell-by-date, so they recently acquired FollowerTwonk, which according to it's website provides Twitter Analytics. Now this could be quite useful

Social Media is the future for.....Moz (?) !
The erstwhile CEO may often be lampooned for his "Great content" quips but it turns out that not only could this be the saving grace for (seo)Moz but there are more Social Media consultants than there are SEO's - so this should be a fantastic page turner.

We'd like to wish all of the crew over at the new Moz all the best! Watch this spot

SEO is about putting content into context. Content is a vital component of online marketing - that's the point of online marketing - to drive visitors to content! But there's a growing myth that content = marketing and we want to balance that with some new thinking.

How does Google look at content - really, its from the users point of view. You might be writing for the user but you don't get to decide if you're the right content to read at that time. That's why users like Google and, unless you have your own channel, that's the game you have to play!

Seo context in online marketing from PrimaryPosition.com

Visitor Stats for Top US Sites

Do you know how many users are on .....  ?

We're constantly bombarded with the total number of visitors for the top ten platforms, and some are better known than others. But we think that opinions are always a poor substitute for facts...

So, thanks to the people at Experian, these are the biggest websites in the US by weekly visits up to last Friday, the 23rd of February 2013..

(http://www.experian.com/hitwise/online-trends.html)

How to manage Page Admins in Google+

It seems a little more complex than it needs to be but at least its probably not something you need to do every day. Here's a quick step-by-step guide to setting up admins for a Google+ page.

Step 1

Go to your new page and “Switch to” the page

Step 2

Click on the home Icon and then select "Settings" from the gear icon

Step 3

Select the "Managers" slider switch

Opinion: twitter and Google+, some thoughts

If you've been following me, you'll notice I'm finding more and more to play with on Google+. I didn't like Google+ at the start because it seemed much more deeper-dive than twitter and I love twitters ADHD style.

In 2008 (I know, I was late to the party), I joined twitter and also started blogging. Everyone told me, as if it was written on the wall, that twitter was nonsense, a fad and would never work. In 2012, I think its fair to say, twitter went mainstream. 200 million+ users. Every news and major corporation had embraced it. Twitter was even used in revolutions and wars.

Millions on twitter tell me that they know Google+ won't work. Its failed. Its a waste ground. Millions of them have never been - but they know, matter-of-factly, unquestionably know that Google+ doesn't work, won't work and could it just go away. Without a doubt.

That's Google+'s ace card. Twitter was better, IMHO, to small business in 2008 and 2009 because it was mostly early-mid stage adopters. You could talk to big company CxO's, scientists, and journalists. Thought leaders and provokers. Disruptor's. Everyone who had a place in real life and especially those who didn't - were welcomed with open arms in a sort of start-up type liberal, open minded disruptor.

But now its main stream and that's gone. But Google+ has this in spades. Don't come to Google+ to look for twitter - keep Hello! magazine over in twitter by all means please :)


I know very few people good at predicting the future of technology. Like a handful. And they aren't the masses that laughed at twitter and then 3 years later found themselves opening an account on it. No, people are afraid of having to have two accounts. And if twitter is Hello! magazine and Google+ is twitter from 2009 - I'm pretty happy with that.

Facebook and the $100 billion loan to small businesses

Facebook have just launched their Graph Search system. According to Mark Zuckerberg, this is the 'Third Pillar' in the Facebook Graph Platform. It will be based on 'Likes' and it will return results and this is different from Google, which is based on 'Links,' according to transcripts based on live blogging during the launch at their HQ today.

Dissecting the obvious straight line thinking 
There will be lots and lots of straight line comparisons. Because they mentioned Search, there will be lots of immediate comparisons to Web Search and Search engines. Specifically Google and Bing! (yawn). This will range from "not yet competitive" to "massive challenger to Google" to "at last, SocialSearch is here and SEO is dead."

Stepping away from the hype
Essentially, searching for things within your own network isn't true. LinkedIn do a great job. Twitter do a reasonable job. All three do awful jobs of searching across their databases. I'm not being unfair - most search functions are pretty basic. Google makes a very, very complicated tough job look easy. And what Facebook announced is a search based on their network, content and structure. This isn't web search.

No need for crystal balls
You can already measure how big Facebook Web Search is: Bing is directly connected to the search bar. Both Facebook search and Bing search are so truly awful that, despite Facebook's 1 billion users, Bing has less than 10% of the global search market, which we estimate to be about 3 billion people. That's according to search impressions. Actual traffic volume would suggest Bing is less than 3%.

Facebook fixed a bug or Facebook created a problem
Having a working search system that extends over and above keyword matching is one thing. But there's a problem. Facebook made a big loss for many years. Some nice guys in some stylish suits who live in some expensive offices gave them some cash. Lots of it. And then Facebook paid them back by withdrawing a huge loan that they took out from Wall street on behalf of Small, Medium and Large businesses everywhere. They took a bet that they could connect you with a billion people and it would simplify your advertising costs by putting all of your spend in one place...

Social Graph Search is based on Connections
Ah, clever Facebook - because they're not connecting you with 1,000 million people at all. Because that would be stupid. Instead the only people who can find you are the people already connected to you. That means you'll have to continue paying for likes. And now you be sure that that got even more expensive.

Hello Spam
Facebook are doing a terrible job at handling spam. We get messages like this monthly and Facebook doesn't delete the likes or the accounts that sell them. This is why we think Google has been so slow to build in Social Signals. That and what's the point of connecting to content you're already connected to?

There isn't any. Google is about finding new content. 18% of searches performed every day are brand new. Never before used. Here's an example: "Prince Harry Naked in Las Vegas" - before 2012, I bet you this was never ever searched for before.

Spam, keyword stuffing, fake likes, fake pages, duplicate pages will be on the up

Facebook promised free marketing and the bailiff is here to collect. That's a big loan and somebody has to pay up. Forgive me for being cynical, but I just am. Meanwhile, seoMoz are still in the quest for "Great Content." Well, anything that's emotional - because obviously that equates to great.

Is anything free anymore?
Every website in the world is indexed, catalogued and returned fair and square in Google. Businesses are listed by location, for free via Google Places (Google Local). Google+ is also free. So is YouTube. Go there - its free. Also, if you do decide to go for advertising - the conversion rates are epic.

Google+ in 2012 [Video]

Entertaining Google+ video capturing the many milestones and events that happened on the layer in 2012 - from live hangouts with musicians to the Space Station. 2012 was just the beginning :)

Interested in Google+ ? Join our Online Marketing Community and visit our Primary Position Google+ page

Is Google becoming too arrogant?

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely"
John Dalberg-Acton

This quote, which is a great observation, continues to prove itself. It's 2013 and we're still plagued with dictatorships and Mad Men struggling to stay in control, justified only by their ego and self value. 2012 was a bad year for a few - especially of the strangest and oldest. But they still stand. Sometimes we forget about them. Like Robert Mugabe, who continues to wreak havoc on the people who sought to liberate, not unlike Castro. But sometimes we just fail to recognise them.

Google is a tech company that I'm very familiar with. I'm often accused of being a Google fan boi. But I'm a fan of technology, not technology companies. Microsoft, Dell, Intel and Yahoo came before, not necessarily in that order but close. I've also worked for most of them in some shape or another.

Google is just the newest crush. But it's waning thin. They used to stand for the best. They had a dream. They delivered. They challenged. And now, seemingly without a challenger worthy in their own eyes, they've become a bit of an abuser of power.

I Googled "Google." And then I had to Google Pre-eminent. You couldn't make it up. I just grabbed the first result, as it was rather fitting.

Good Content
This is a dangerous PR stunt for Google to play. They've shifted the dislike for PageRank to the spammy SEO companies that tried to sell and buy their way into organic rankings. To say that it ranks site purely on content is a big PR gamble. Google cannot judge content and it has no intention because its context that determines the value of content. Not grammar. Or Style. Mostly, it's User Generated Content. Typically rushed, often breaking multiple Rules. Think Fora (forums?), Buy and Sell sites, Trip Advisor. That kind of thing. That's what Google means by "Good Content." Not Stephen King. Sorry PR and Copywriter people. Google and users just don't care.

Google still loves Meta data and even expanded it what it processes. It still cares about Server and folder/file architecture. Canons. PageRank. Penguin wasn't about good content - it was about going after people who use keyword stuffing and buy/sell links. That has nothing to do with content.

Taking on the world

The EU and FTC handed them a tiny slap on the wrist recently with their back track of an anti-trust investigation. Actually, it was a peck on the cheek. In fact,  if you were a senior VP or other executive, you'd be forgiven if you thought it was actually a ringing endorsement of everything they do. Except that the EU seem to be a little more determined - given Europe's history of favouring protectionism.

Google still play the scrappy start-up. They're challenging everybody. Video. Search. Online Marketing (via acquisitions and investments). Car makers. Sat Nav. Mobile phone OS. Mobile phone handset makers. Office productivity. Hosted E-Mail. Laptops. OS.

They're taking on giants like Apple, Microsoft, Nokia....etc. If it can connect to the Internet, Google wants a large slice of it. 80% or so should be fine.

Wake up Call
The problem is, that most of their products are just too basic. Not basic just from a clean, uncluttered point of view. But basic. Worse than Ryanair or no-frills - a  just "Doesn't work" basic. In the last month, updates to the Search product have seen Google Local and Google maps fail to work for searches in Europe.

Their Google Apps - so basic that you can rely on it when you have carrier pigeons to carry your TCP protocol - is now a "premium" product. I'm sorry - but Google Apps isn't worth paying for. I might use 50% of Microsoft Word features and Google might have 50% of the functions we use 50% of the time but its starting to take its own drugs if it believes that its a premium service.

Analytics is a dinosaur product that doesn't work properly. Its unreliable and its rubbish. Google hind behind "its a free product" as an excuse for doing something properly. You only have two alternatives - accept the unsupported failure product or fork out €50k a month for the premium version. For small businesses.

SiteProNews seem to be wondering the same thing, Is Google Becoming a Tyrant?

I'm sorry Google, but you're going to have to go back to the drawing board. To be a world leader, you ALWAYS have to deliver the best, not just the first time.

New! Internet Marketing Ireland Community on Google+

Are you working in Internet Marketing in Ireland or have an interest in it? Then you'll love our new Google+ group, which is also a great introduction to how Google+ is evolving and growing rapidly, with over 235 million active users.

Many marketers are reluctant to set up on Google+ as they seem to have an ever growing time demand from existing and other must-have platforms. But Google+ is growing faster than twitter, facebook and pinterest. It also doesn't require the same amount of time or intensity of use. The iphone and Android apps are also brilliantly fast and sleek.

You use and interact with Google+ from everywhere and anywhere, without having to go to your profiles:  Google Mail, Search, on-page on websites. Its integrating into all of Google's platforms and its really making the rest look a little clunky, which should have a positive impact for all users as the different networks compete and improve their offerings to compete and stay ahead.

Prospecting for Customers Online - how Internet Marketing works in Ireland

Internet and Online Marketing | SEO Ireland from PrimaryPosition.com

Understanding SEO: How Google searches and indexes data.

Lovely Infographic which explains what happens when you search Google and some of the statistics behind the amazing feats of engineering they've cobbled together to give split-second search results from a 100,000,000 GB database.

Most of Google's search results are based on Indices. Each Index is a list of keywords, locations and pages that they relate to. When you search using a keyword (keyword is plural in search lingo - and a keyword can be one or more keywords, also known as a keyphrase), Google returns the results of an index or the results of pages in the indices your phrases matches.

So in essence, the index is pre-built. Google just applies rank order and geo-location to filter the results. So in most cases, if you're searching from Ireland, pages from the same country are given higher priority. Results priority are given in the order that suits the query, not necessarily the site or page with the highest PageRank.

To assemble this index, Google stores all of the relevant data with the keyword and web address. This is what makes it tick so fast. It doesn't really have to search, most of the computational mathematics have already been performed.

When Google processes each page, it determines what keywords on each page are strong or relevant enough. It also looks to see how popular it is and then gives it a score. It also decides which countries that its relevant to.

Google also has to then do the same keyword matching with its AdWords database as well as its Google Local (Zagat/Places) database. It also pulls relevent data from its news feed (especially for QDF) and from YouTube and Images. This data is then compiled into the search results you see.

Cyber Monday

Cyber Monday is a marketing term to describe a day of discounted ecommerce trading, and comes after Thanksgiving Thursday and "Black Friday." Black Friday is one of the biggest consumer discount retail days in the US and is similar to post-Christmas Boxing day sales in the UK and St Stephens Day sales in Ireland. Coined in 2005 as a way to convince people to spend online, #CyberMonday is due to see a $1  billion splurge online.

Essentially, its a marketing gimmick - not unlike creating Valentines Day or De Beers' famous "A Diamond if forever campaign" - which created a market for diamonds that didn't previously exist!

This figure though is massively overshadowed by the recent news that Taobao, the online Chinese retailing behemoth, closed $3 billion in sales in one day!

If you haven't taken advantage of it - its probably too late. A quick Google search reveals that hundreds of online marketers already have a head start, which included securing EMD for cybermonday2012.

Hello Blogger - its an end to 2012 but not to Blogger!

I set up this blogger blog in 2008 and I've been an avid blogger ever since. As we saw the greatest expansion and growth in 2012, we decided to move the blog to our WordPress version on Primary Position, to consolidate our traffic and web infrastructure in one place.

This was a mistake. A big, big, big mistake.

This is the complexity of the times we live in. The right decision isn't always the best one. The correct decision can also be wrong. Blogger is free - much in the way are WordPress.com hosted sites. And with that, comes the inability to move away properly. You can ditch it. But you can't move it easily.

I picked Blogger, not because its free, but because its fast. And I found myself in a catch-22. First off, I'm a big fan of multiple domain name strategies and I always have. I have more domains than almost anyone I know, bar Michele Neylon for example,  and a few other serious domainers. I also have a number of websites. They act as backup plans, reputation managers and displacement ranking sites.

But backup mostly. You see, most companies have just one domain - and that's dangerous. What happens if your hosting goes down (for multiple reasons, which I'm not going into) or you accidentally ban yourself from Google (for example, by blocking your site in Robots.txt) or if you "steal" your own content.

When we wanted to move from here to there because we wanted to be on WordPress. There were lots of reasons, and they were good ones, and here are some:

• Better control of the theme
• Its our content on our domain
• It gets harder and harder to leave here
• More control over hosting, technical configuration
• We'd be all grown up and 'using' a 'proper' blog cms
• Traffic and SEO effect to our own domain would work harmoniously
• Except it didn't

I take full responsibility for the decisions and the support I got from our team was unanimous. It was the right decision and we all had a role to play.

Why I didn't want to move:

• The SEO authority in this blogger was legendary. We could rank for anything in seconds
• This is where we started, where people knew us
• Do you know how long it takes to build that many links and to build that much Kudos?
• Blogger gets better and better all the time
• I'm a Google Fanboi (but I own an iPhone and I still love Dell!)

So here's what we did

• We found a 'hack' to sort-of '301' this blog to our blog
• We found a way to import all of the content to our own
• We even got all of the comments and user data! Yay!
• It was epic

But Google doesn't really provide a way to move. You can stay, leave, abandon. But you cannot 'move'

Google does a lot of good stuff...and a lot of bad, dumb stuff that is the product of becoming the enormous giant that it is. Bureaucratic. Stuff like how it polices (or doesn't) AdWords and Brand name infringements, libel and flouts laws on Advertising and Trademark protections. Fair play to Australian courts for dragging Google to task. Fair play to Google for rolling out some of these worldwide.

Yes, Google gave a free tool. And Google believes, that it can provide limited support, warranty etc as a result. Except there's no pay-for option. And that's kind of sucky.  Because what happened next is exactly why I evangelise to people to move away from free services ASAP.

My reason for hosting on here wasn't because it was free. I couldn't care less. I spend 1000's on hosting, because I'm in the business. In fact, just 5 years ago, my total online hosting and domain ownership bill was in excess of €900 per month. We have a technical team of two engineers who spend all day every day managing sites we work on. The cost is frightfully negligible.

One of the things Google does, which is great in principle, is that it remembers. It remembers pages you put up and take down and it remembers them for a very, very long time. Months. Years even.

Many websites get taken down for a multitude of reasons. Missed billing. Wrong billing. Hacks. Forgetful webmasters. Malware. Try ticking the wrong box in your CMS (try the Privacy Option in WordPress if you're bored and hate getting free traffic from Google - it'll soon dry up)(actually please dont!). So Google doesn't drop pages automatically. In fact, getting it to do so ranges from tedious to downright annoying.

Well, moving our content AND using our 301 was a disaster and cause a multitude of problems that made it look like PrimaryPosition.com had copied (and it had) from Blogger - large scale. And that caused massive issues. Even though we set everything here to draft, there's no real way to move. There's canon settings and everything but ultimately, if Google thinks you're bad, you're done for until you fix it. And no, there's no helpline or support....!

So, if you're hosting here or WordPress.com, then stay or go. But if you're going to go, go soon :)

Google Now - available on iPhone and better than Apple's Siri!

Google Now

Google Now is a new type of everyday computer aid for those that struggle to disconnect from the web. It will tell you when to leave your house for your appointment and if you are going to meet traffic along the way. It will even give you a route to avoid traffic if necessary. Google Now is always one step ahead of you to make sure you don’t trip up.

At a new restaurant and can't decide what to eat?

Google Now is like having a personnel assistant round the clock in your pocket. One of its great features is that if you’re in a restaurant and Google has access to their menu, Google Now will help you choose what you want from preselected preferences. What makes it even better is as you wait for your meal to be cooked Google Now can keep you updated about your favourite sports teams in real time. I can imagine those functions being pretty handy when lost in Japan as the super bowl starts!

Google Now decides which is the most important or most relevant with regards to you location, the time or what your friends are up to. For example if you are in the subway Google Now will realise this and select the public transport card to appear first this way you will know what train is next and how long it will be. This new feature which was only released on the 29^Th of October has made it into another great technology that makes living so much easier.

Google Now has 3 different genres to select your cards from Manage your day, Stay connected and Be a local anywhere. Under each genre there are different cards you can choose from:

Manage your day:

1.       Next appointment

2.       Weather

3.       Traffic

4.       flights

5.       Hotels

6.       Restaurant reservations

7.       Events

8.       Packages

Stay connected

1.       Sports

2.       Movie Listings

3.       Concerts

4.       Stocks

5.       Public alerts

6.       Developing story and breaking news

Be a local anywhere with data on

1.       Public transit

2.       Places

3.       Nearby Attraction

4.       Nearby photo spots

5.       Translation

6.       Currency

7.       Time at home

With all these different cards to choose from you can almost guarantee that you will never be late, miss a train or go hungry. Like all the other Google products I presume the older it gets the more it will become integrated with other Google products and into our own lives.     

Somebody that I used to know: Gotye's YouTube hit by the numbers

Gotye is having a bit of a good time right now showing the value of virality and the power of producing really great content. It's created all kinds of value for him and I'm delighted for him, if a little jealous.

What his success cements in place is youtubes place as the number 2 search and discovery tool on the internet. Yes, it is a video platform, but a lot of content from slides to songs are being converted for the purpose.

Lets have a look at the current state of Australian (Belgian born) artist Gotye's massive viral hit. Here it is if you missed it.


Posted in July of last year there are now over 133 million views on the original official video.

Amazing! What a story, right? Only half the story really though.

Here's what else is happening form a quick glance at youtube and only counting videos that got over 500,000 views the song has spread around by another 117 million views via other users. Those extra views include covers, lyrics versions, parodies and live performances.

Here's the breakdown (Original song posted in July last year)
133 million views
117 million secondary views of the song
630 thousand likes on youtube
170 thousand comments on youtube
7 million likes on Facebook
185 thousand shares on Twitter
7 thousand Google +1's

Just using our very basic counting method that pushes Gotye's total viral spread to over 250 million on youtube. That is a vast reach and it cements youtube as top of the pops in a range of categories.

It's the second biggest search engine in the world after Google.
It's the winner in content sharing and virality across the entire social spectrum.
It's the winner in content discovery.
It had over 2 billion searches per day 2 years ago
Arguably the biggest music search engine with the music from the second largest video property VEVO syndicated into it's platform too.

Why is it the winner?
Not only is it the second largest search engine on it's own. It also integrates seamlessly with Googles universal search operating since 2009 so videos often end up on page one. In the social sphere it is almost unique in it's ability to not only use it's own network to spread content virally but also every other social network as well and drive that traffic back to itself or control the content viewing experience and the measurement thereof.

Seriously though, 133 Million views on a single video since last July is impressive right? But what if I told you that I could show you a story almost as impressive and immediately related.

Remember that 117 Million extra views for the song? What if I were to tell you that over 81 Million of them were for a cover version posted in January this year. What if I told you that over 3.5 Million of them were for a parody, not of the original song, but of the cover version and that the cover had triggered a series of parody versions that are all well into the hundreds of thousands in views and still growing? Interesting right.


Here's the breakdown (Remember this is a cover version posted in january)
81 million views
5 million secondary views of the song
760 thousand likes on youtube
135 thousand comments on youtube
4 million likes on Facebook
247 thousand shares on Twitter
12 thousand Google +1's

Some interesting take aways here
100 thousand more people actively liked the WOTE version on youtube.
100 thousand more people shared it on twitter.
5 thousand more people +1'd it. Almost twice as many.


It's clear to see from a distribution and reach perspective that this cover version of the original song added value to the original. It also added value for Walk Off The Earth but then value from content isn't a zero sum game.

It's also important to remember that none of this would be possible without youtube. Where's your content? Is it good enough to compete for your audience in this global market?

I do love Gotye's version but I actually prefer the WOTE cover version so I'm posting it here.




Oh and before I forget Here's that parody. Enjoy :)

Bees with Guns (and Electric Fences)

My post about shooting bears a few days ago has seen a pretty big response. And a few emails asking me to explain myself. So here goes..

Bees
Bees aren’t sexy and they aren’t big and powerful. A bee contributes. A bee is by default part of a community. A bee works hard to build supply and defend that community for his own sake and for the sake of others.

Bears
A bear is a solitary predator who looks out for himself and only has interactions with others when he wants something. Bears are only interested in what something can do for them. They are not interested in contributing or in building.

The contrast between these two is the most stark when you consider that honey is one of the things bears like most. They love it but they produce none of the honey they consume.

What if we rename ‘honey’ as ‘value’. Bees work hard in a community to build up all the value and a place to store it. Bears don’t contribute and they don’t build value. They not only take the value built up but have absolutely no problem in destroying the place that holds the value either.

I doubt that bees, if they were asked, are terribly enamored of bears.

Think about the market
A lot of traditional marketers and many business people are bears. Bears don’t understand contribution. Bears don’t understand concepts like giving value first, customer service and caring about things outside yourself.

Both these models work by the way. Bears and bees both survive well and will continue to. It’s worth remembering though, that bears can only continue to do this because the bees can't stop them and they can't warn the next hive.

With the interconnectedness of communities these days, does the same apply to your brand or business? Is being a bear sustainable for brands?

In the bad old days no one could stop the message, no-one could warn the next community or group to build an electric fence, now they can and do. Information about who you are as a digital citizen is available to everyone. As many big brands brands and companies are discovering, stealing one group's honey can lead to fences being built for you all over the digital landscape.

Of course being a big bear meant something once. It meant you didn't have to care what people thought. But when the bees have guns and electric fences, however tiny, it all starts to add up.

Reputation and it’s affect on the bottom line have become so important that no one is big enough to steal someone's value and get away with it any more?

Don't be a bear, bees are much harder to shoot...

Bonus Update: If you don't want to shoot the bear you could always take the advice of Dwight Schrute. :)

SEO in Dubai

Dubai Internet City - UAE

I'm over in Dubai in the UAE doing bits and pieces and also enjoying the amazing city landscapes, architecture and gorgeous food - and since the start of planning my trip, I can't stop thinking about how Dubai is marketing itself online.

Firstly, the properties are fantastic, and while prices for some things seem high, others are quite cheap.

You can book a 5-star hotel (apart from the resorts) with over 130 to choose from for between €50 and €100 a night (about 250-500 AED). We found that affiliate and visitor information sites (like http://www.tripadvisor.ie, http://www.tripadvisor.ie/, http://www.travelrepublic.co.uk/ and YouTube) were by far the best sources to determine our budget for hotels. The worst were the actual hotel websites.

Our first hotel, located in Bur Dubai, was really suitable for Business travellers and was close to the airport. When contacted directly, they quoted amounts about 4-5 times higher than the hotel comparison sites for the same hotel.

So, when approached by someone who eventually found their hotel online, and could have made a direct booking with no commission they chose to instead accept 75% less via a hotel reservations site and pay a commission. This makes no business sense to me at all.

The hotels we did book were based on what we could find out about them on Trip Advisor (discounting any blatantly "I've a bee in my bonnet" negative posts), but mostly on what we saw on YouTube. Good quality information, showing guests about what they offer, what they can do and where the hotel is located costs considerably less than handing over 75% of your projected turnover from internet-based sales.

It's a remarkable lesson for business owners - when you underinvest in your website and web assets (like your website, YouTube Channel, twitter, Facebook page) - then it will have a direct and potentially fatal cost to your business.

SEO adds value to your business by bringing the end customer with the product developer. Affiliates add less value and more cost to the transactional business.

Ultimately we found the best value via a travel agency in Kerry - who gave us the best advice and value on our second hotel, which was just unbelievable.

Some of the Global Companies in the DIC

Simple and Easy

Great ideas, great marketing and even greats music is usually (not always) simple.

Beautifully magnificently, awesomely simple.

There is a habit, in our lazy use of language, of confusing the idea of simple with the idea of easy.

Making a point in a long rambling discussion is easy. It requires knowledge but because you have an engaged (or captive) audience, it doesn't require hard work to deliver that knowledge. It might be "long" work but it's not hard, it's not difficult. Anyone can do it with enough time.

What if you don't have a captive audience? What if you don't have time? What if you need to grab them as they drive by, digitally or physically.

The message you see or hear is often simple. Trying to make it simple is the hard work.

Don't think it'll be easy, don't do long and don't do complex. Don't be lazy

Do the hard work to make things simple.

Inspired by the guys at the #imuroadshow today :)