Caydel’s SEO Blog

In the last couple of weeks I have been paying more and more attention to the logs for this site, looking especially at my referrals. I have been noticing lately that MSN has my site listed in the #1 position in the MSN Images search for the keyword ‘Medusa’. The first image there is pointing to a post I wrote this summer titled, ‘MVC: Why Everybody Should Code With Rails at Least Once‘. In that article, I link to an external image on ny.com called ‘medusa.jpg’, with the anchor text ‘Medusa’s Hair‘.

I really do not know how MSN thinks my site is related to ‘Medusa’. If anything, they should think that the site I linked to with the ‘Medusa’ keyword would be a more legitimate source for information on the topic. Especially considering that that link is the only mention of the word ‘Medusa’ on the entire site.

I am not complaining, though. This is getting me as many as 20 unique visitors per day… I just wished I understood how an why MSN ranked me so highly for that term…

Share This

It appears that Microsoft is starting to get protective over their digital property rights. Recently, they have begun a new set of lawsuits against companies, and individuals who have registered large numbers of domains that may possibly infringe on Microsoft-owned Trademarks, such as WindowsLiveTutorial.com and HaloChamps.com.

Once again, a company getting retarded over digital rights. Don’t get me wrong - if someone had a website corresponding to a product name of mine, then I would push to get it back. In Microsoft’s case, I could understand if the were pushing for XBox.com, Windows.com, MSN.com or similar names. But bu targetting sites such as HaloChamps.com, they are shooting themselves in the foot.

While the vast majority of the sites which are being targetted in the lawsuits are merely parked domains which contain Microsoft trademarks, think about what Microsoft is accomplishing with this - in essence, they are killing of their communities.

How many community websites do you see which contain game or product names in the domain or title of the website? I can think of hundreds! By scaring people from using their trademarks, Microsoft is going to stink community support of their products. Who wants to open a website, if they have to be afraid of using certain names and titles in their site lest the Microsoft monkey jumps on their back?

Now, if someone was pretending a direct association with Microsoft ont their site, that would be another story alltogether. And I don’t think they are going after existing, growing community sites. Rather, they are targetting cybersquatters. Nevertheless, I think much of what I have said above with respect to community acceptance holds true.

I am tempted to purchase a Microsoft trademark-infringing domain, and see what type of a response I get - it could be fun to get a C & D notice. As it is, I wonder what will happen to IE7.com… In one of my favourite ironies of the year, some smartass registered it and placed an oversized Firefox banner on it, pointing to the Firefox website….

Share This

FOR THOSE COMING FROM REDDIT, READ THE EXPLANATION BELOW BEFORE YOU VISIT THE VIDEO:
If you look at the tags associated with Matt’s video here, you will see that someone has managed to get it associated with the Gay Porn tag. Is this a joke by an SEO or fellow Google Employee? Other attached tags include ‘Shoemoney was here’, ‘umpa umpa love’, ‘gilligan’ and more.

I think this is bloody hilarious. Obviously, someone has a great sense of humour, and couldn’t resist the opportunity to poke one at Matt. To whoever did this, great job!

Check out the

ShoeMoney has been playing around with MSN Adcenter and Firefox. MSN has been promising that they would have Adcenter supporting Firefox by August… It may happen, but why wouldn’t they write it to be compatible in the first place?

Never mind - we all know why. Same reason you can’t easily remove Internet Explorer from your Windows install…

Does this remind anyone else of the fiasco when people browsing with Netscape Navigator suddenly couldn’t enter ‘the  Zone’, Microsoft’s gaming site? I remember that. I also remember that you just had to modify the User Agent the browser sent to IE in order to gain access. Once you were in, it worked without a flaw…

The anti-competitive practices live on…

Share This