Archive for October, 2005
As a single guy with an eCommerce site, Waldo* feels unloved. He certainly is no Wallmart, what with his niche selection of power tools, but he just doesn’t qualify as a “Mom and Pop” store either, leaving him often feeling left out.
Our man Waldo** |
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“I really don’t want to have kids just to get a bit of attention and sympathy”, Waldo said. “Kids are a serious thing, and I would never take it lightly. However, when your site suffers in search engines, everyone rallies behind the Mom and Pop banner, but us singles get no love. No one ever says ‘what Google did to small, single people sites is appalling’. No one ever goes in to bat for us. Don’t we have feelings? Don’t we matter? Is our blood not the same? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you take away our free search engine traffic, do our businesses not suffer? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that.”
Waldo also claims that it is toughest for single Guys, with PageRank biased against them in particular. “There are parents networks, there are networks designed to help women, where are the networks for single guys? How do I promote my business through Men’s clubs? And anyway, aren’t ‘Men’s Clubs” just strip joints? So while my married and single woman friends get all the links and all the rankings, I sit here and suffer. PageRank is an absolute joke, IMHO, because it is just flat out biased against single men.”
Despite the gloom and doom, it isn’t all bad. Waldo mentioned as distinct single guy advantages the cash flow benefits of living at home, having clothes washed and food prepared, as well as the low overheads associated with paying minimal board and “sharing” mum’s ISP account.
“But even with that, it is tough to do well when you can’t get freebie links like everyone else”, Waldo whinged.
Waldo’s mum, Mrs Waldo***, is also upset. “It just breaks my heart to see that dear boy work so hard and get nowhere. He is in his room all day everyday, working so hard. I have never met a boy with more dedication. He is so dedicated he even locks the door to keep me out cause he gets distracted when I come in and try to clean up a bit. Really, I want to just ask Mr Brin and Mr Page to please help small sites like Waldo’s out. The boy deserves a break, and it just isn’t right that Google won’t give him one. His site is just so very excellent. I don’t use the Internet much, but his site is clearly the best one I have ever seen.”
Waldo has recently begun a network for living at home men, which he plans to call LAHM. “I know it isn’t a funny acronym like UPONG, or that clairvoyant one, but sometimes the humour isn’t in a silly acronym, but the inevitable consequence of a well thought out and executed idea.
“And I just want to give single guys a chance to get links, and SAHM is the only way I could think of. Plus it is a bit of a tax thingy as well, just quietly.”
Waldo said he expects to have the organisation up and running some time in the new year, and promises to keep all ISoS readers informed. “This really is the only Blog that gives people like me a chance to have a say. That Joe Searcher article was really insightful, and really connected with me. I had me one of them Oprah light bulb moments when I was reading that. It read so much like my own life it was frightening.
“So yeh, I will keep ISoS readers informed of my progress with LAHM, and I’ll even reciprocal links with you if you like…”
*not his real name
**not his real face
***also not her real name
October 20th, 2005
Recently, ISoS has come under heavy criticism in some parts for our style, our content and our goals… or lack thereof, depending upon your perspective. People have even gone so far as to call this a “stupid blog”.
At first, we thought it was some new slang saying what the kids use to describe stuff they really like. You know, like dope, sick or “F&^%ed Up”. We thought “totally stupid” was the new “fully sick”. Alas, after heavily Googling “stupid” and calling a niece in the suspect demographic, we were informed that, alas, stupid is indeed an insult 
See, the thing is, it just isn’t our fault. Both Scottie and Michael have been really distracted this week by their own personal tragedies. Scottie has like this broken nail, and a paper cut as well. Yeh, a real bad, nasty one… On the same finger as the broken nail! Makes typing super hard.
And Michael has, like, this really bad case of “hair band caught in ponytail”itis. REAL bad. It is like a war zone in there. You don’t know where hair ends and hair band begins!!!!! He took it to a hairdresser and the poor girl broke down in tears crying “I can’t save it, I just can’t” before storming out all flustered.
So, what with the sore fingers and the bad hair and the effort to extricate said hair band from hair, we can’t be held accountable for the quality of posts. I mean, when you have to worry about a twisted hair band or a sore typing finger, you can’t be expected to be on top of everything, and the odd mistake creeps in.
Heck, Scottie hasn’t typed an “s” in days, and you just try writing an article about SEO without using the letter “S”.
We would have posted something funny and informative about this earlier, but we have just been distracted, and every time we started, our problems just got worse and worse.
Again, ISoS are getting better, and we hope, once this round of tragedies is over, that we can post better stuff.
October 20th, 2005
Mary-Jane “White-hat” Jones-Jenkins and Bob “Black-Hat” Jones Announce Birth of Their Son: Jimmy “Greyhat” Jones-Jenkins-Jones.
After many years of dating, the birth of little Jimmy Jones-Jenkins-Jones, or Grey QuadJ as his parents call him, is the first birth of an SEO grey hat so far.
“With one black hat and one white hat parent, he really had no choice”, QuadJ’s Mother, Mary-Jane said.
But it almost didn’t happen. The classic cyber-tale of bad boy from the wrong C-class of the Internet meets good girl on a white list almost went terribly wrong, with many trying in vain to tear them apart.
“It was a long drawn out love affair”, Mary revealed to ISoS. “At first, I couldn’t get past the fact his hat was so black. Luckily, his heart isn’t.”
“Awwwww”, was the sickening reply of Bob upon hearing this. “Isn’t she the cutest? I may have a black hat, and I may own 50 Porn sites, but I have a big heart and plenty of love to give. I come home to Mary-Jane every night, and she is the cutest damn woman a spammer like me ever lucked out with. And thankfully, I get cheap Viagra online delivered free!”
Bob also openned up to ISoS about how they met online. “It was through a dating site, I am not ashamed to admit. I was running the numbers and noticed that profiles moved regularly, and I thought to myself, ‘If these sad caes can get a date, and stay offline for an average of 2.62 months, a sad, pathetic, lonely single guy living in my mum’s basement like me has a chance’.
“So I put up a profile, it was well funny, as it had like all these quotes from Star Trek Voyager like ‘Will you be Janeaway to my Chakotay? Must prefer Piccard to Kirk. No Klingons’ and the chicks dug it. I got literally reponses. Anyway, one response stuck out like dog’s balls: Mary-Jane’s. I was THRILLED when her email included a keyword rich link, and my first date in 8 years was all systems go.”
Mary-Jane was equally excited. “At first, I was nervous, then excited, then nervous again, before coming full circle and being excited. I was worried about the SEO part, as I wasn’t sure Bob would even know what it was. Luckily, the first night we really hit it off, and when Bob said “Ask Jeeves is way beter than Google”, my heart melted, and I almost broke down and wept.”
It wasn’t all plain sailing though, as Mary-Jane struggled with the guilt of secretly dating a spammer.
“I was scared”, Mary-Jane said, “of what my friends would say. Would I lose my white hat? Would sleeping with the enemy cost me everything? My friends even arranged an MSN messenger Group Chat Intervention. I broke it off with Bob that day.
“But it didn’t last. In the end, love conquers all, and I just didn’t care. As Alexander Pope said: “O type it not, my hand — the name appears
Already typed — wash it out, my tears!
In vain lost Mary-Jane weeps and prays,
Her heart still dictates, and her keyboard obeys.”
“I was a fool for Bob the instant I met him, and Whitehatistan and all the White hat interventions couldn’t convince me otherwise. ”
It was happy days from then, and with the birth of their first son, both have mellowed, and the fights and anger at home have subsided, as both leave behind deep seated views about Search, and move onto more important things.
“In the end”, Mary-Jane said, “it is just a hat. I respect Bob for all the hard work he does creating auto filler pages, time, and time again as they are banned…”
“And I respect Mary-Jane for all the work she does making a better Net and dealing with Clients. I could never do that. We really just agree to disagree, and argue about more important things…”
“Like which Star Trek is better”, Mary-Jane reponds, adding “And how to live long and prosper.” To which Bob and Mary-Jane end up ROFLing.
October 18th, 2005
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