facesærch blog

interesting. when you try to verify a site via the great google webmaster tools you get three requests.

1. GET /noexist_aa78573zbb9821c2f.html
2. GET /
3. GET /aa78573zbb9821c2f.html

if the first one returns an HTTP 200 you can’t verify. it must be an HTTP 404.
think the second one must not be an HTTP 4xx. (it can be an HTTP 3xx)
the third one must be an HTTP 200.

so basically you can work around the “you can’t verify your site because you do not return any 404 statuses” if you just roll out a “/noexist_yourwebmastertoolskey.html” file, too. but nonetheless HTTPs 404 are a great tool. better fix your server first.

as i’m now working together with the tripwolf travel guide i learned a few things about the travel space:

1. damn it’s competitive
2. people use london if they want information about london, without any prefixes or additional words.
3. unique content is a must, there is so much replicated content around in the travel space, it looks a little bit like amazon.
4. think big wins, forget the niche (and then: make a collection of niches)
5. get your call to actions right

the last update was 11th of Aug 2008. no news since? the deep fall into the blogging canyon (the moment when companies realize that keeping a blog is actual work)? the stock exchange crisis? even though that i think that they are grossly overfinanced with the $43.6M they should not stop now. did i miss something?

an outside view of the stack widget adoption rate: still very slow - google only shows about 135 stacks in the index.

well, because success is so simple. simple changes, a twist here, a twist there, a few thousand visits per day. but i also know the downside: from 20.000 visits per day to 10. so, i don’t care pretty much about the big peaks and spikes any more (i have seen them to often) . i just care about sustainable traffic. why? you can’t sell peaks as well as sustainable growth.

on the other hand: hey, yeah, currently face search is quite popular!

call to action - essentials

1. a CTA is never pointless
2. a CTA must always be worth reading
3. a CTA must always include an action for the user to take (that’s why it is called “call to action”)

low hanging fruits index =

(search demand per keyword / per month (via via Google Adwords Keyword tool) * 0.001 - search referrals per keyword (via Google Analytics Keyword stats)

* (1+((1-Google Adwords Competition)*10))

so simple!!!!

Google AdPlanner is a great tool from Google’s DoubleClick acquisition. A look at the facesaerch.com United States metrics (where most of my users come from, with Japan as a close second).

26 K Unique Visitors per month. Yeah, that’s about it -currently - quite accurate.

About 70% male. Well, I’m OK with it. Pretty much, I don’t care.

Age 35 plus with some college and most users with more than 75.000 $. Cool.

it was fun for a while, being the SEO Manager of “the world market leader in sports betting, poker, casino, games” working in 22 languages in 30+ markets. decisions with millions at stake, innovative projects, an army of IT people with three armies of marketing people. an unbelievable powerful brand, tens of thousand of inlinks, partners sites like real madrid, ac milan, ….

and even thought that it is great to be part of an avalanche (the avalanche always wins)

i choose

maybe i fail, maybe i fall, maybe i succeed (well, ok, i’m sure i succeed, as always), but well, the future is wide open, and i really love new challenges.

more details about the new challenge tomorrow.

and hey, i can only recommend my old workplace, great people, great products, good team spirit.

 Download Google Chrome Comic ebook (PDF)

Yeah, Google is starting a new browser war (it was about time). And it starts with a comic by the great Scott McLoud, sadly the comics is in a crappy JS sideshow, so i offer it here in PDF format, perfect to print out and read (like every good comic) in the bathtub. - Digg

 
 
 
 

Great, facesaerch (with ae) has new sitelinks, not only for the generic “correct” written term “facesearch” (see old post)

note “facesearch” is suggested to be corrected as “fotosearch” … why?

now my brand brand “facesaerch” (ae) has the sitelinks, too

facesaerch, now is recognized as the best target for his own brand brand plus the “Did you mean:” is gone. Making it officially, facesaerch is not a misspelling, but a brand brand in it’s own right.