Category: Recent Posts

Am beginning to think my indexing problems are related to the need to redirect urls to the https version.

I have ‘forced’ a redirect on The Food Route for all domains and requested that the outstanding post as well as England and Channel Island pages are indexed.

You don’t want to be the next Amazon or Facebook or Tik Tok infuencer. Too much pressure. Too much hype, double speak. Far more sensible simply to be you. Free of the burden that comes with being ‘responsible’.

There are too few, who understand that the internet is nothing more than a handy tool that has been left lying around, waiting for someone to use. There are too few, who understand that the key to using the net, is understanding, the importance of a sense of community.

Tick off those two boxes and you will be opening doors in no time

 

Somethings never change.

What was  obvious to Sergey Brin and Larry Page when they started tinkering about in their Garage, was as true then as it is today. The need to communicate; information, experience and knowledge.

The ability to ask questions and get answers. The search for answers.

Targeted quality traffic. The ultimate key needed to open doors to the opportunities that are waiting on the net.

What was not so blindingly obvious though, was how what they were doing would change the way everything gets done. How it would evolve and vest such enormous power and responsibility in the hands of so few.

But  at the same time changes which have also given all of us, almost free access, to every tool we might ever need. Tools to challenge and compete. The means and the ability to influence  everything we do, what we buy and what we think.

So if things are not quite what we would like them to be, we being who we are, are the ones responsible or who are supposed to be responsible, only have ourselves to blame. We can, we should be doing more. Building virtual word of mouth information hubs to share our experience. Where we facilitate the exchange of skills and know how and to do that, the first step is to start sharpening those tools.

To demonstrate that we can change whatever can be changed.

Twenty years ago I sold a company that was grown from scratch.  A responsibility for four hundred staff and God only knows, how many clients. Something that I have had to remind myself, on more than one occasion,  that was not fun.

Never to be repeated.

At the time I swore I would not employ another person for as long as I live and off I went; to fish on the net.

But like most fisherman, the tales I have, are about the ones that got away.

There are no shortcuts. Most ideas have already been tried and very few ever succeed. Despite this, over the years, I have gained a wealth of experience and built a hobby into a  small home run business..

Experience I have to share.

It is the way the internet works. The story of the Greek Fisherman and the American Tourist.

 

 

Traditional boerewors – Index pages appear to getting indexed rather than regional lists

Scotland (not indexed) – Removed menu links in the footer (no change 7/5). No Index 7/5

Northern Ireland (indexed) – Removed menu links in the footer and no indexed ‘Recommendations’ (no change 7/5)

South East England (indexed) – Removed menu links in the footer and no indexed ‘Recommendations’ (no change 7/5) Hampshire indexed and has a footer link to SE but so does West Sussex which is not indexed. No index South East England 7/5

East England (indexed 7/5) – Links in place  x1 post indexed x2 adjacent posts de-indexed (Previous and Next links? No pagination for canonical pages swoitched off?) Otherwise no clue

 

Indexing is a cat and mouse game.

Google is continually changing it’s algorithim to try and stay away one step ahead of the multitude of keyboard fanatics that are doing whatever they can to get into the top rankings. Originally Google came up with the idea of Page Rank. This to try and keep them happy. To give them something to obsess about which had nothing to do with anything.

However as the noise reached fever pitch Google had no option other than to quietly drop it. The grift became an embarassment and the metric became an ethical hadache for a corporation that started with the lofty ideal of ‘do no evil.

Nothing has changed however. Such is the mass appeal for disinformation and the need to mask the simplicity of what is a tool that should be accessable to all.

The latest hurdle that has been introduced is a duplicate content filter and god only knows how the brilliant minds at Google have figured this one out. Post gets indexed one month and de-indexed the next. Frustrating……,..