Matt Inertia

Google Consultant – Should this job title be allowed?

admin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:59:15 +0000

One thing that I keep seeing more and more of are industry professionals associating themselves (wrongly) with Google. Whether this is in the form of calling themselves Google consultants, representatives or even going as far as claiming they have “special relationships” with someone who works at Google!

It looks like a pretty good way to deceive people into hiring your services, just look at Google Re-Sell and the fuss they caused! When I was researching that post I found a lot of dissatisfied customers so chasing the Google brand is obviously an effective marketing strategy!

As an SEO who spends a lot of my time working with Google (in the sense of a third party) I’d consider myself to be pretty well informed on the latest goings on at Mountain View, but I’d never go as far as advertising myself as a Google consultant. To me that sounds like someone’s trying to big themselves up more than they should.

If you Google “Google consultant” you’ll see that there are plenty of websites out there that are actively pushing this keyword/job description. It would be perfectly understandable for somebody looking for an SEO to focus purely on Google rankings/traffic and Google such a keyword. But what would they be getting? They’d be hiring an SEO, but ~~half~~ not much of an SEO… what about all the other factors not associated with Google? What about all the other search engines?!

Do yourself a favour people… Search for an SEO, not a Google consultant! You cant polish a turd!

Watch Out For Google Re-Sell!

admin — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 14:16:17 +0000

Here’s a quick post which i felt was nessecary. The post relates to a company called Google-Resell and an expose published on the Mirror website this week. I’ve taken the liberty of highlighting the important bits below:

If a sales rep from an outfit called Google Re-sell calls and offers to improve your website’s Google traffic, you’d be forgiven for thinking the caller might actually be from Google.

You’d be wrong. Google Re-sell is a name used by a firm called Sphere Marketing run by habitual conman Graeme Ross.

He first featured in this column in 2001 with an advertising scam that preyed on hard-working firms. Now he’s got a team of coldcallers who spout a line about how they can help more clients find your business website.

Some of their clients had this to say:

“They said that we would be listed at the top of page one on Google initially and then be guaranteed a place on the first page for the next three months,”

“I was contacted by someone who implied she worked for Google,” said Park Hall’s Trish Ford. “She explained this offer was only available to the first three companies that signed up for each specific key phrase being offered by Google.”

“I was contacted by a man who introduced himself as from the Google marketing team.”

“We paid £940 in 2008 for a Google AdWords campaign, and paid by telephone quoting our company credit card. It did sound too good to be true, but we thought they had a special relationship with Google. Imagine the shock to have another 7 transactions totalling £9,450 taken in January 2009 without authorisation, it was quite sickening.”

“We too were taken in, are now in the process of taking legal action against these people, and have reported them to Trading Standars. I have contacted some of the people mentioned in the article, and compared notes. I don’t know how this mob sleep at night - I wish them all a very pleasant stay at Her Majesty’s Pleasure in the very near future.”

Google Re-Sell didnt have much to say on that matter and responded with:

“There is a lot more to the situation than you are being told. It is very easy to blame Sphere Marketing for the problems. We are, however, looking into the situation.”

And Google, the all mighty one said:

“Our lawyers will investigate.”

Exciting stuff as ever from the big man! Google Re-Sell are very local to me and they are conning small business owners out of their hard earned and conducting themselves in a way that is completeley illegal. This really aggrevates me for two reasons. One, it makes it harder for genuine SEOs and Online Marketers to pick up new work and two, it makes it harder to keep hold of existing clients. I’ve had to deal with a few clients recently who have been contacted by bogus seo firms offering to sell them dirt cheap SEO packages that guarantee top page rankings. It’s difficult to field these sort of questions at the best of times but in the current economic climates business owners are watching every penny and these sort of deals look all the more attractive to them.

Educate your clients and you’ll avoid this situation most of the time. But my advice would be to send them the article link, or the link to this post :-)! That way you get in first!

How Clever is Google?

admin — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:10:22 +0000

Here’s a post i dropped at Seoers.org on the subject of how clever Google really is. If you believe some people they see all, know all. If you believe others they don’t know diddly squat about most things. When you look at the SERPs you can certainly see why as there are plenty of examples where spam sites are kicking arse.
The reason I asked this question was in response to this post from Danny Sullivan about helping your SEO efforts by buying up old domains. I don’t agree with some of the points he makes and I think most of it’s a case of hear say and speculation but it did prompt me to ask the question; how clever is Google really?

We all know the Google guidelines and the “dos and don’ts” of SEO and on-line marketing. But is Google actually as clever as it says at spotting violations or is it a case of smoke and mirrors? There are numerous examples of sites ranking that break these guidelines and there are also plenty of contradictions between SEOs ideas about how to gain top rankings.

Here it the fundamental question which all SEOs need to consider….
Q. How clever is Google?
A. Thick as pig sh*t
A. Not clever at all and what they say and recommend isn’t usually correct or worth considering.
A. They are more or less spot on with what they say and how they act.
A. They are cleverer than they make out but like to keep this from us.
A. They are light years beyond the public perception.

The reason i ask is based on the conflicting advice I hear from SEOs all the time. One SEO does not recommend something but another does and they generally fall into three categories white, grey and black. The white hat guys would call the black hat guys fools and vice versa.

Answers on a post card…

Google versus the UK Music Industry?

admin — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 21:02:04 +0000

If any of you listen to music on YouTube then you may have noticed a reoccurring problem in the last few days. YouTube were forced to remove all music videos from the view of UK audiences by yesterday, in compliance with PRS (Performing Rights Society) requirements. YouTube have been unable to come to an arrangement with PRS, who collect royalties on behalf of UK artists, regarding the renewal of their current PRS licence; which ended on Tuesday.

This time around PRS are demanding far more from YouTube than they ever have which has led to a stalemate situation with YouTube unwilling to pay. A post from their UK blog reveals why:

Our previous license from PRS for Music has expired, and we’ve been unable so far to come to an agreement to renew it on terms that are economically sustainable for us.

But why can’t YouTube just pay? Isn’t it about time artists starting earning more money from all the plays that their creations are receiving? And YouTube certainly aren’t struggling? They’ve found themselves in the position of the World’s number one music search engine.

But YouTube try have tried to justify their actions with this statement:

We value the creativity of musicians and songwriters and have worked hard with rights-holders to generate significant online revenue for them and to respect copyright. But PRS is now asking us to pay many, many times more for our license than before. The costs are simply prohibitive for us — under PRS’s proposed terms we would lose significant amounts of money with every playback. In addition, PRS is unwilling to tell us what songs are included in the license they can provide so that we can identify those works on YouTube

OK, so maybe PRS have something to say for themselves as well? Maybe YouTube (a.k.a. Google) aren’t being too nasty? So I went over to their website press section and read this:

PRS for Music is outraged on behalf of consumers and songwriters that Google has chosen to close down access to music videos on YouTube in the UK.
Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing.

This action has been taken without any consultation with PRS for Music and in the middle of negotiations between the two parties. PRS for Music has not requested Google to do this and urges them to reconsider their decision as a matter of urgency.

Google had revenues of $5.7bn in the last quarter of 2008.

Ha! So it’s Google! Their just being tight fisted b*st*rds!? That would certainly make sense and it seems to be the way. Steve Porter CEO of “PRS for Music” went on to say:

We were shocked and disappointed to receive a call late this afternoon informing us of Google’s drastic action which we believe only punishes British consumers and the songwriters whose interests we protect and represent.

So who do you think is on our side, the good music loving people of the United Kingdom? Who protects our people, the musicians!? Not the fat cats at Google HQ who are running a business for the money… It’s the musicians out there who are skint but still making music that I’m with and that’s who PRS are supposed to serve.

On the 10th of March PRS released this statement:

Talks between “PRS for Music” and Google took place today to discuss the licensing of YouTube following Google’s sudden decision to block premium video content on the service in the UK.

The meeting was positive. We are committed to ensuring our 60,000 songwriter and composers members receive a fair deal and that UK consumers continue to enjoy music videos on YouTube.

And today we have music videos again! So I can go back to compiling playlists of all those tunes that I’ve lost over the years! But one thing rings true. There could be stormy times ahead for Google as struggling musicians try to claw back some of their lost earnings. Good for them I say!

Neil McCormick did a really good article about the issue which appeared on the Daily Telegraph website. I read it after towards the end of the piece but you’d be forgiven for thinking I hadn’t! His take on the issue is that this is simply another step in YouTube’s inevitable demise:

YouTube has already fallen out with Warner Music, leading to the muting of all Warner content. I suggested this might be the beginning of the end of the video site and the rapid escalation of this dispute does little to persuade me otherwise.

I don’t think it is. I don’t think it can be! I think the potential for YouTube as a source of revenue, so desperately needed by UK artists, is too big to be missed and what we could be witnessing here is a landmark moment in the history of online music. The arrangement that Google and PRS arrive at will most likely set the benchmark for all other video sites and if we see more cash for artists because of it then hurray! But one thing’s for sure, the gloves are on!

Music on YouTube, the Joy of Playlists and the Death of Music Ownership

admin — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:03:51 +0000

For a while now I’ve been spending a lot of time using YouTube to find music that I don’t own, or even tracks that I just can’t find anywhere else! In fact, for a while now most of the music I play is coming straight from an on-line source; whether this be YouTube, MySpace, Last.fm, Beatport, FaceBook, The BBC etc… You get the point anyway!

But one thing I’d always struggled with is the lack of continuity in what I’m listening to, especially with YouTube as I always had to flick to the next track. The solution was staring me in the face. It was a simple feature of YouTube that I’d been missing, the playlist [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpFDzBOKp34]! YouTube regulars will probably be cursing me now and labelling me a pebble for such an over sight!

Here’s a playlist I did just for you!

The Variety of Music Available

I often get a tune in my head for some reason and if I don’t own that tune I’ll fire my machine up type site:youtube.com “name of tune” and it’s usually first. If I don’t know the name I might have to search for a few of the lyrics I know and 99% of the time I can figure it out.

The wealth of music that’s featured on YouTube is huge and it is, for me, the main music search engine. There have been a few reports recently on the relationships that YouTube (a.k.a. Google) has with the major record labels, most noticeably the arrangements with Sony and Warner [http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKTRE51C0NR20090213]. So it would appear that YouTube is perfectly placed to seize control of the current on-line music industry from iTunes.

Is this the future of Music?

So is this the next stage in the development of the music industry? Have we gone from 12inch records to CDs to MP3s to not even owning any physical copy of the music we listen to? Is our entire CD collection going to be in the cloud? Let’s face it this could be an easier way for the record industry to take back some control of what we pay to listen to music. Last.fm charges a subscription and members get to listen to as much as they want so why couldn’t the same principal be applied to a fee for unlimited access to EMI’s entire back catalogue which we can playlist as we wish?

The only draw back could be the mobile music market. iPods still rule the roost in that market and mobile connectivity isn’t quite good enough to reliably stream music. So in the meantime downloads will have to continue but there’s nothing to say that it wont be possible to stream music from almost any location soon enough – making the download obsolete.

One thing’s for sure, as with most technical industries, the online music industry is changing so rapidly it’s nearly impossible to predict what will happen. Fashions change as well, so who knows?! In 20 years time we might all be sat there listening to vinyl on a gramophone claiming that listening to poor quality digital sound is a crime against music!