This I find interesting. You can see on the right (hopefully) the link to my MySpace page using the anchor text "internet idiocy". Just checked it an low & behold, my MySpace page comes up number 2 on Google for that search keyword. That's "achieved" (and bare in mind I don't give a monkeys wheer my awful MySpace page is in SERPS) a number two result for what I don't think is an unreasonable serach query. The only thing that's beating it is the internetidiocy.com domain and I don't fancy trying to beat that - a lot of work and no real benefit.

Some people have suggested anchor text isn't as important as it once was. Here's the proof of the pudding - I can tell you the destination page doesn't contain either word, so that ONE link using that anchor text achieved the page one Google result all by itself. This whole SEO thing is starting to get interesting (at least, I think so). Check my previous post on a page one result (nothing to do with anchor text) here:

http://www.tomcatuk.net/2007/04/ive-never-really-believed-use-of-h1-tag.html

Er, seems the CSS I used for the blog interferes with Google a bit. Click on the "cached" link on any Google result I come up for and the graphics I'm using for borders overlays all the Google data. A bit annoying as I'd like to see when Googlebot last visited. He's a fareweather friend at best!

If you want to try this out, you ought to get a page one Google result for the tomcatuk.net domain with my name - "Andy Fletcher". Click the "cached" link beneath the result.

Bought a Sumavision (no, I've never heard of them either) hard disk caddy that includes a digital video player chip and can plug right into the TV for playing AVI's & ripped DVDs. Stuffed a spare hard disk in it, copied a load of AVI files that have been eating away at the hard disk space on my PC and pluddeg it into the telly.

Works an absolute treat. No mre burning DVDs just to have Nero chirpily tell me "burn process failed at 98%". Oh no. Just plug it into the PC, copy the file(s), plug back into the TV and away you go. The kids aren't hassling me to watch something they like that I happen to have downloaded anymore.

I'm going to get another one very soon!

My beloved Logitech MX1000 finally died. Some wouldcurse and suggest that it can't have been so great a quality mouse, but I know the amount of abuse it got and the pleasure it was to use for two years represented value for money. As luck would have it, one of my wifes' friends managed to spill an entire glass of wine over my keyboard on the same weekend the MX1000 finally gave up the ghost, so it was time to replace both.

We all make mistakes, but I've never made a mistake by buying something with a Logitech badge on it. Until now....

Enter the MX3200 keyboard & mouse combo. It looked like an ideal choice and I was desperate enough not to have the patience and buy mail order/internet to save money and rushed right down to PC World to pick one up.

Firstly, the mouse. It's good, although nothing like as good as the MX1000. Works fine but feels a bit cheap.

THE KEYBOARD. My God, the keyboard. The keys feel like something you'd expect on a $5 purchase. I could forgive that, but Logitech have (as far as I'm concerned) made a fatal design flaw in this keyboard. You cannot press down the "W", "A" and spacebar keys simultaneously. This will mean nothing to some, but for anyone playing FPS games (Quake for me) it renders the keyboard useless. A total waste of money. Sadly I've read some reviews of this keyboard and hardware sites are "recommending" it, including recommending it to gamers. Don't be fooled - it's rubbish!

The Inquirer is running an interesting story today on a 15 year old boy who fooled YouTube into taking down videos for alleged copyright infringement. The laughable part being that the copyright holder not only knew YouTube were hosting some of their content, but was actually pleased to have it there as it gave them free exposure.

This, for me at least, highlights a worrying possibility. It seems almost anyone, regardless of their ability to prove who they are, can have content removed from major sites. Today it's videos on YouTube. Tomorrow it'll be some kid in Romania getting your site barred from Google using similar tactics. It would have to be the ultimate SEO tactic. Just get all your competition delisted.

LOST - despite the dropping ratings I'm still one of the ones following Lost and obviously since the first episode I've been trying to understand what the blazes is going on. This weeks episode (I believe) has exposed the core "truth". This weeks episode answered so many questions that I'm now just waiting for my conclusions to be confirmed.

The "others" are a collection of scientists (this won't surprise anyone watching). My conclusion is that they're working on the idea of a utopian dream on the Island with a view that OFF the Island mankind is doomed (for whatever reason - I damn well hope it's not going to be carbon emissions since that particular debacle has been shown for the fallacy it is). They've been trying to understand the Island's seemingly magical properties, but ran into a major snag when it turned out the Island won't allow conception of children to take place within It's boundaries. Hence the need for Juliana to join them to "fix" the conception issue. They "replaced" the Dharma corporation who left the island having "run out of money" (more support for capitalism).

The "others" have been stealing children as a reaction to the fact they cannot conceive safely (or more importantly, effectively).

The "others" cannot tolerate the plane crash victims because they are not "perfect". IE the plane crash crowd contains psychotics, killers, criminals, conmen etc. In a brave new world these characters are removed from society, hence the "others" intolerence of them. The "irony" being that the "others" by necessicty have to become killers themselves in order to protect their dream of utopia and in that process become that which they most despise.

The conclusion is going to be a pretty good endorsement of capitalism. The utopian dream will fail (utopia is not part of the ideals of capitalism - capitalism is about the few controlling the many, whereas in a Utopia democracy really exists - despite what the supporters of capitalism may say - a capitalist, like the "others" will tell you what they want you to hear). Not only that, but the opposer's of the dream will also fail. The winner will be the company that funds the scientists on the island. Corporate power is shown to be the true and lasting strength in the modern world (let's not forget ABC is a corporation!). In the end we will be given a typical "American" response extolling the virtues of "Freedom" and "Tolerance" whereby the likes of James (the conman), Kate (the murderer) and Said (the torturer) are shown to have a good side and ultimately the ability to contribute to Society. The tongue in cheek aspect being that the corporations that control America outwardly support such ideals, while in practise have little or no interest in them.

Just as a footnote, no, I am not a Communist. I'm certainly not a Capitalist. If you understand the term Socialist as being someone who believes we all make society the way it is, and have a responsibility to understand that our own actions to affect the lives of others, then by all means label me as such.

I've never really believed the use of the H1 tag could really reap any rewards with a search engine like Google. Surely their algorythm is much too complex for something so simple to have a dramatic effect. Now I do believe it, and found out purely by chance.

This week my daughter said she wanted her own website, so not really having the time or inclination to do a whole design for something she'd probably get bored of in about five minutes, I set her up a Blogger account, set it up on a subdomain and put it live.

Now, obviously her full name isn't a competetive, or even desirable keyword to rank highly for, but experimenting with high ranking,high paying keywords is arduous and working out how Google is responding to your efforts is nigh on impossible. Working on a non competitive keyword seems to give a clearer unbiased look at how the engines view them.

Just THREE days later out of curiosity I Googled her name. Number TWO on Google out of 300,000 supposed results. Since there is only one link to it (from my blog of course) and it's not using her full name as anchor text, the position can only be down to the fact that her name is the H1 tag of her page. Now that's fast. Time to get some H1 tags inserted into my Taekwondo site methinks.