So let's see, still in the sandbox.
Added links from:
- Trusted article sources
- Wikipedia
- A number of local search sites
- Social (micro-blogging and ugc)
Additional site content added:
- Added a Blog (up to 10 entries right now)
- Added +100 words of additional rich content to a number of subpages
Still nothing, ranking 140 for the main keyword, top 50 for second tier keywords and top 10 for third tier keywords. This is what really sucks, my site has better content and links than my competitors but Google is taking a while to figure it all out. I did find one really good link opportunity that I think will be the shove that pushes my site over the edge and into relevant ranking land but I'll let you know how that turns out.
Read the introduction
Today's update:
I spent most of tonight filling out and verifying local business profiles. I already had the site listed in Google Local / Places so hopefully the additional listings will help the site rank on local and maybe un-sandbox my site because Google will realize the business is listed on a bunch of legitimate sites.
I am trying to see whether the Google Sandbox is a myth and only exists because people don't know how to build links or whether it is a legitimate phenomenon. If it does exist? What does it take to get out? Here is where I am as of 5/15/2010.
Site: Brand new domain, live on 3/1, 15 to 20 competitive sites for the keywords I'm targetting, main keywords are in the domain name, .com tld
- Confirmed in Webmaster tools, domain registered until 2013
Link Building:
Blogs - Two blogroll links on relevant sites (150 links total)
Directories - Yahoo Directory
Articles - 10 articles on 5 different services using varied anchor text
Press Releases - 1
Social Media - Twitter account, Identi.ca account, Facebook fan page
Others - Aboutus.org (nofollow not the dofollow paid service)
For the top tier keywords, the site ranks around 150 to 200, for second tier keywords 20 to 40, and for third tier keywords first page and in some cases first overall.
This week I have tentatively planned for 10 new articles, one or two directory submissions and some social bookmarking. Let's see what happens.
If you're thinking of killing yourself and need one good reason to keep on living, I suggest putting the gun down, undoing the rope or pulling the car out of the garage and checking out Slim Thug's Twitter account.
Yes I am joining the late train on this one (Chris told me about it) but after a week of following his words, I can tell you this much, its the most entertaining thing on the internet.
Take some of the following words of wisdom from Houston's finest:
"Ok I quit I was bored back to the game #whatmendo but fathers pls spend time with yo kids they could become stans or boyz who like boyz smfh"
"Hey @TayGoHard4Ciara HOMO I wasn't hating on Ciara I said she's fine and I wanna have sex with her now u and yo faggotfriends go buttfuck"
"No I said u need a face transplant and a body transplant 2 RT @iSTANFORSUPERCI: Lmfaooooo. @slimthugga said I need a face lift. Ahhhhhhh!"
"Somebody tell Ciara I want her to ride my beat"
"I just hit the weed for the first time since December I dnt even miss that shit" this was followed by "#fuckdrugs" (this is also the name of a new song)
Regarding #teamnatural "Rules no sunglasses to cover up rings around the eyes no bras to push up sagging tits no heels to help u get a ass no make up. #teamNatural"
"But I'm not saying everychick need a big ass and titties some are sexy without it"
"Ok I quit tryna help yall ass stay yo lonely ass in the house with yo toys.. And be single forever with yo high expectations #doyou"
"Cause some niggalaos bitches@SammieLovesU: So why do some guys call females hoes when they do fuck on the first nite if its ok? @slimthugga"
"Nobody wanna fuck yo fat ugly ass anyway RT @lulucakess: @slimthugga ass be having sum ole bullshit ass tweets #killyoself BIG TIME!!!"
"And 2 all girls who already had sex be4 but still wanna make u wait its a 3 date limit Oprah even said it It only makes us fuckother girls"
I was thinking the other day about a new problem for American businesses, people who have been turned down for jobs yet are solicited to use that same company's services.
Let me give an example ... a few months ago my mom applied to work at a phone bank for Geico. According to Geico, a woman who has sacrificed much of her adult life (two jobs, long hours ...) to provide for my well being while earning insultingly less than her male counterparts for the same work isn't qualified to work at their prestigious phone bank.
That really sucks because, well, phone banks hire anyone. Drug problems? You're hired. Trouble with English? You're hired. 2nd grade dropout? You're hired. Mental instability? You're hired. Felonies ... well as long as you didn't hurt anyone, you're hired. You get the point.
All my mom wanted to do was take daily abuse over the phone in exchange for a few bucks more than minimum wage but apparently Geico thinks she wouldn't do well (umm ... she raised me by herself, that deserves a medal).
As you can tell, my mom isn't happy with Geico. She's worked hard her entire life, never asking anyone for anything and she can't even get a job with a phone bank. Yes, my mom is nearly 60 but she's smarter and more dependable than her younger counterparts. People like my mom get shit done because unlike me they don't have Twitter, Facebook or other random shit to check throughout the day. Plus since she isn't in the party-hard phase of her life, showing up at 9am isn't a challenge.
You'd think Geico would have a computer program to audit their mailing list and say "Okay we declined to hire this person for a job they are completely overqualified for ... let's not add insult to injury by sending a bunch of junk mail asking them to buy our insurance." Nope. Every week the little green gecko shows up in her mail asking her to switch her car insurance. It makes my mom angry and understandably so ... she's constantly ignored / rejected for everything she applies for (due to age) and has a lot to worry about. The last thing she needs is a reminder of how invisible the 55+ crowd really is in our current economy.
Geico, I hope you understand that your weekly postcards aren't ads, they're corporate America's little way of saying fuck you to the unsung and unemployed heroes whose corporate service has been forgotten as they're lumped into the old age pool.
A few months ago my mom saw a long sleeve shirt on sale at JC Pennys and bought it for me because it looks like "what other people wear." The shirt is a generic ripoff of the whole Affliction / Tapout MMA tough guy clothing people are wearing and is the only shirt of that style that I own.
I decided to wear it downtown on Saturday because it was a little bit cold and it yielded some interesting results.
Late into the night, I got a text from a friend asking me to meet up with him at a bar. I walked in and couldn't immediately find my friend, however in the back there was a girl that I know and I went over to say hi. She happens to be very good looking and there were two guys talking to her, each was maybe an inch or two shorter than me (I'm 5'9) and when I walked up she recognized me and asked how I was doing.
Almost immediately the guys who had been talking to her started apologizing to me. One guy said he didn't know we were together and thought he recognized her from an RTF class. I tried to explain to him that we weren't together and that I wasn't trying to do anything (I have a beard right now, guys with beards don't fight people) but he kept apologizing and then both of them walked away.
That's the power of wearing an Affliction shirt.
Internet service has been out at my apartment since the middle of March but this isn't a story about a landlord not listening to its tenants. In fact the building owner, 512Realty sent a company to fix the problem shortly after the connection went out.
The problem ... the company has been working full days since then trying to 'fix' the problem and I think that given the amount of time they have spent, they are ripping off my landlord and even worse, making money at the expense of me having to go to a local coffee shop just to check email.
In the month since the internet died, they have managed to:
- Switch ISPs
- Install new antennas
- Install new hardware
- and still are at step 1 when it comes to the problem
In fact the hardware worked perfectly fine, I can connect to the router, in fact I wouldn't be surprised if the solution was something really simple. However this company has decided that ripping people off and forcing residents to deal with the inconvenience is the proper way to deal with the issue. The company won't even give me a progress report to at least explain what the hell they're doing.
I'd love to name the company in this blog post so that any property manager in the Austin area can be sure to avoid them but I think they were a past client of a company I am associated with and I don't want that to be an issue. If you are an Austin area property manager, email me will.gallahue [at] gmail.com and I will let you know the company name.
Whether you say really intelligent things on Twitter or whether you're a bot that tells people where to find torrents and mortgage advice, you're going to be archived for all eternity by the Library of Congress. Today Twitter CEO Evan Williams announced that the LoC will begin archiving the 55 million daily tweets in an unprecedented validation of social media as a culturally relevant item.
The LoC already stores 167 Terabytes of web site information and works to preserve and collect significant digital content (not to be confused with Archive.org which is completely separate). Since 1800 the Library has collected 32 million book along millions of maps, recordings and films. Somehow archiving anything ever said by @willgallahue or the hundreds of thousands of ghost repeater / bot accounts seems a bit much but I guess Twitter is an important cultural institution.
Twitter CEO Evan Williams noted that DMs will not be archived but those "@mom stop nagging" messages will be visible to scholars working on dissertations years from now.
- Perfect Pants, the band I work with has now completed their album and they will be doing a cd release on 4/15 at The Ghost Room. We're working on getting digital distribution and merch all squared away.
- Went to Dallas last week and attempted to sell some web services but instead ended up eating a lot of good Mexican food.
- My friend Brittney now has a blog, According to Lady A
- I still have yet to get my Toyota fixed but the more I read about the sudden acceleration stories, the more I question how many people experienced legitimate product failures and how many people just can't drive. Toyota's "black box" has been able to refute some of these accounts and the guy in California ... something about that whole story doesn't seem right.
- My wrist is still healing.
- I still don't use Akismet when I really should. You'd be surprised ... for every 1 legitimate comment, I get 100 spam comments. The fun is digging through the haystack to find the needle.
Geico fail: We won’t hire you but please buy our insurance
I was thinking the other day about a new problem for American businesses, people who have been turned down for jobs yet are solicited to use that same company's services.
Let me give an example ... a few months ago my mom applied to work at a phone bank for Geico. According to Geico, a woman who has sacrificed much of her adult life (two jobs, long hours ...) to provide for my well being while earning insultingly less than her male counterparts for the same work isn't qualified to work at their prestigious phone bank.
That really sucks because, well, phone banks hire anyone. Drug problems? You're hired. Trouble with English? You're hired. 2nd grade dropout? You're hired. Mental instability? You're hired. Felonies ... well as long as you didn't hurt anyone, you're hired. You get the point.
All my mom wanted to do was take daily abuse over the phone in exchange for a few bucks more than minimum wage but apparently Geico thinks she wouldn't do well (umm ... she raised me by herself, that deserves a medal).
As you can tell, my mom isn't happy with Geico. She's worked hard her entire life, never asking anyone for anything and she can't even get a job with a phone bank. Yes, my mom is nearly 60 but she's smarter and more dependable than her younger counterparts. People like my mom get shit done because unlike me they don't have Twitter, Facebook or other random shit to check throughout the day. Plus since she isn't in the party-hard phase of her life, showing up at 9am isn't a challenge.
You'd think Geico would have a computer program to audit their mailing list and say "Okay we declined to hire this person for a job they are completely overqualified for ... let's not add insult to injury by sending a bunch of junk mail asking them to buy our insurance." Nope. Every week the little green gecko shows up in her mail asking her to switch her car insurance. It makes my mom angry and understandably so ... she's constantly ignored / rejected for everything she applies for (due to age) and has a lot to worry about. The last thing she needs is a reminder of how invisible the 55+ crowd really is in our current economy.
Geico, I hope you understand that your weekly postcards aren't ads, they're corporate America's little way of saying fuck you to the unsung and unemployed heroes whose corporate service has been forgotten as they're lumped into the old age pool.