Cuil hasn't had an easy start to life. First it was born with a silly name. As with many online startups, no one knows how to pronounce it correctly (it's meant to be pronounced "cool" in case you are wondering). Then came the spectacularly bad launch day. Despite Cuil’s own self-promotion as a would be Google killer, Cuil’s launch resulted in less-than-satisfactory search results, and was widely panned. Despite being initially overwhelmed by traffic, Cuil … read on »

If you’re new to the field of search engine optimisation, you may have never heard of the term “Black Hat SEO”. So what exactly is it? Basically, black hat SEO is about “tricking” the search engines to gain higher search rankings by using dubious and unethical techniques. Black hat SEO follows the simple ideology of “do anything to improve your rankings, regardless of how you go about it”. To use a … read on »

It doesn't take long for the average website owner to want to move away from a static HTML site to something that allows more functionality and complexity. Indeed today, most new webmasters would even start with a content management system straight out of the gate. Static HTML pages are great for simple brochure-ware type sites, but as soon as you want to add in any sort of interactivity (forms, commenting, … read on »

Probably a week doesn’t go by where I don’t get some sort of spammy email from a dubious online marketing or search engine optimization company promoting their virtues. As you’d expect from such companies, 90% of them offer – neigh” guarantee” – a top #1 ranking for any keywords you want. Considering these companies are resorting to spam, you can put about as much faith in their abilities as you can in collecting that million … read on »

If, like me, you’ve got a somewhat “out there” email address or two, you’ve probably received some of those annoying spam emails offering services to promote your website by submitting it to “thousands” of online search engines. For some icing on the cake, they may even “guarantee” a top 10 listing as a bonus. Or perhaps you’ve come across a website which offers – for a small fee – to do … read on »