SEO-Browser Updated!

We've updated the SEO-Browser!

You can now use it to visit sites from the US or Canada, which is very helpful for multi-country sites. More countries will be added later, as the demand grows.

Canada: ca.seo-browser.com
USA: us.seo-browser.com

In order to add this functionality, we had to put in a FREE one time signup. Don't worry, we don't share emails with anyone.

You can still use it in simple mode without a signup, but the advanced mode is starting to get too difficult to program without assigning users and sessions, hence the login.

Eventually, the advanced mode will add things like ranking reports, etc - all of which require user/password combinations for privacy and data storage purposes, so this is preparation for that.

Open Office VS Bing

It seems that MS Bing is either really bad at search, or is allowing it's results to be unduly influenced by either money or corporate policy. I'm leaning towards the censorship version of the story, myself.

Do a search for open office in Google. Now do the same one in Bing. You'll notice the complete absence of openoffice.org in Bing. They send you almost everywhere but to the right site.

Think that's odd? Or maybe just a coincidence? Try searching for "openoffice.org". Nuff said.

Here is the real kicker - Bing's automated recommendations and suggestions all clearly show people are searching for openoffice.org, but I guess that's just too bad.

For shame, Microsoft.

UPDATE:

Matt and Vanessa did some checking, and found it was a technical glitch, and not an evil conspiracy. Although I'm happy the net result is positive for searchers, I'm annoyed at myself for not checking deeper into other possible explanations.

Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window

M$ (automatically) killed my Outlook 2007 last night on my Windows Vista 64 system. It was one of those "Windows Update is finished so we restarted your computer for you even though you didn't say we could" issues, followed by the usual Microsoft screw-up of hosing the system they were supposed to be fixing and protecting.

I'd be a little more patient with them if this wasn't caused directly by following their RECOMMENDED procedures. Yeah, I could disable updates, etc, but that rather defeats the purpose of updates in the first place. No, this is totally on M$. Their recommendations, their update, their software, their restart, their screwup.

They don't get off the hook for me not disabling updates any more than rapists don't get off the hook because their victims don't wear chastity belts. (Well, that might be an extreme analogy, but you get the drift. The bad guy is at fault, period).

But, of course, it's still MY problem.*

The error is simple. Office works fine, but any attempt to launch Outlook results in this error: "Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. Cannot open the Outlook window".

If you ask Microsoft, their answer is to use the system restore. Don't get me started on their answer being for me to undo their screw-ups. One guy was told to wipe his system!

Anyway, a much better answer by a user called Dayneb in the new (to me) Microsoft Answers forum was something far simpler:

Start->run..then type the following -> Outlook.exe /resetnavpane

In some cases, you have to make sure you are in the Office Directory on your hard drive for this to work, but work it does. Instantly and easily. Thanks Dayneb!

I'd thank MS for the Answers Forum, but that just feels wrong, since I should not have needed the answer in the first place...

Ian

----
*Serves me right for not switching to Gmail. I'll do that as soon as I can be anywhere in the world, including airplanes and ships, and still be connected. Hopefully that will come sooner than later. I travel too much now to rely on GMail for anything other than a backup system and spam catcher.

Google International PPC Ad Targeting Twist

After some testing and a confirmation from Google, I've discovered a new (to me, anyway) twist to Google's PPC Ad targeting for international sites.

In SEO, Googe decides on the country your site is relevant for first by ccTLD (Country Code Top Level Domain - like .ca, .uk, .mx, and so on) and then by IP and other methods.

Turns out this thinking also applies to PPC.

If you target a specific country, like in my case, Mexico, Google will only show ads to surfers within Mexico, right?

Wrong. They show ads to surfers in Mexico, yes. But they also show ads on Mexican tagged sites, such as sites with a Mexican IP address or sites that use the ccTLD of .mx, even if they are hosted in the US, etc.

It makes sense if you think about it. Of course, you may be thinking that this would only apply if you have chosen to advertise on the content network. You'd be wrong.

See, even if you don't advertise on the content network, there is a site that is a .mx and is not on the content network - www.google.com.mx

That's right. Even if you target only Mexico, your ads can show up to anyone anywhere in the world who happens to use google.com.mx. Anyone who needs to look at or verify geo-targeted ads knows it's sometimes hit-and-miss, but they do show up.

I first really put it all together when I was looking at traffic patterns for my Mexican campaign and noticed a bunch of traffic from the US and even India. This is normal, and is not necessarily an issue, as long as you are aware of it.

But let's say you really don't like it. There is a fix.

Instead of targeting Mexico (or wherever) you simply target physical locations within Mexico, such as cities, and lat/long areas. This forces a geolocation check and gets rid of your Japanese traffic.

Just remember that the traffic from Japan may be traveling Mexican business-people, since they would have to be using google.com.mx, and you are now excluding them.

But if that's what you need to do, then that's how you do it.

Ian

Tip: Take control of your reputation

It's not uncommon for people to "google"you before hiring you, renting to you or even dating you. So you might want to do some damage control regarding that crazy weekend in Vegas you were hoping no one ever posted pictures of online...

Social Media Reputation Management is a whole art and science by itself, but you can start today by filling out a Google Profile.

Then you can at least try to tell people that the other person with your name and face that keeps showing up in all those crazy photos is really your evil twin, because clearly the person in your Google profile would never do *that*. At least not in public. It's on Google, so it's official, right?

Hey, it's worth a shot. It's that or stay unemployed, homeless and dateless.

Ian

Bing! Microsofts New Search Engine (Brand).

Microsoft has just announced that the new name for it's "Live" search engine (which everyone disliked) is called "Bing" which everyone will also probably dislike, but at least isn't as confusing.

The other candidate was "Kumo", which I admit I would have disliked more. Poor Microsoft, I'm pretty sure no matter what they chose it would have been wrong.

You can give it a test drive and find out more here: http://discoverbing.com/behindbing/

Ian

Robots.txt Syntax Checker

I was checking the robots.txt file of a client today, and it was far more complicated than normal, so I went looking for an automated syntax checker.

I found this one from Motoricerca, (an Italian SEO company) and can recommend it: Robots.txt Syntax Checker (it's in English).

I like it so much I'm adding a link to it from my robots.txt generator.

Ian

Interesting Antispam Tactic: Bot Bomb

My son Tas plays an online game called Mabinogi and today mentioned to me a new feature in the game, which had been overrun by something called bots.

Bots are basically programs that control player characters within the games, taking over for the person who is supposed to be doing it. There are many types of bots, including ones that do repetitive tasks so they player doesn't have to, and the worst, spam bots.

These basically stand in the middle of places where people congregate and shout out advertising (typically game money that in turn was gained by bots, sold for real world money). This is against the game rules and makes it no fun for players who are actually trying to play the game.

In order to combat this (which was ruining this and many other online games) the creators of the game did all they could from a game security perspective, but it was simply too difficult to keep up with and detect the spammers, which went to great lengths to simulate human behavior well enough to fool a computer.

But not a human. Experienced human players can detect bots (and spam) almost instinctively.

The game designers finally decided to try something different: using humans to detect bots. Within the game, they created something called a "bot bomb" which can be thrown at a suspected bot. The "bot bomb" then asks a very simple question, that any human player would be able to answer with no difficulty. Essentially a reverse Turing test, like a CAPTCHA.

If the bot fails, it's logged out and the account flagged. Time limits are in place to prevent humans from being "bot bombed" by being hit with so many that they can't respond properly.

Why is this on my blog? Because game theory is a very important aspect to how the modern web functions. There are more similarities to dealing with search and SEO as an online "game" than with offline human to human behavior, to the ongoing annoyance of search engines.

It occurs to me that a method that accurately and easily harnesses humans as spam detectors, while not overloading the system with unmanageable amounts of spam reports (and fake spam reports) is something that can be learned from by website owners and search engines alike.

Use humans to detect the spam, but use the system to verify it independently, in order to minimize false or malicious reports.

Interesting.

Ian

Happy Lunar New Year 2009 - The Year of the Ox

It's the Lunar New Year (aka Chinese New Year) again. Many people call it Chinese New Year but of course the Chinese are not the only ones who celebrate it, so Lunar New Year is more correct. This year (2009) is the Year of the Ox. Specifically, the Earth Ox. If you were born in 1961, 1973 or 1985, you are an Ox, as well.

The expected characteristics for this year are that success will come only through hard work, and that this is a year where reliability and honestly are even more critical than normal. The Ox is associated with building to last and slow but sure action. In this time of worldwide recession, interpret that how you will.

If you do any business in or with China, you can forget about getting anything done during this period - it's like a combination of Christmas, New Years, Summer Holidays and your Birthday, all rolled into one. It's also often the only vacation many Chinese get all year. As a result, don't expect any emails getting answered (unless they are about where the nearest party is...)

Some facts about Chinese New Year

As usual, here are some interesting facts about Chinese (Lunar) New Year.

The beginning of Chinese New Year started with the fight against a mythical beast called the Nian or "Year" in Chinese. Nian would come on the first day of New Year to devour livestock, crops, and even villagers, especially children. To protect themselves, the villagers would put food in front of their doors at the beginning of every year. It was believed that after the Nian ate the food they prepared, it wouldn’t attack any more people. One time, people saw that the Nian was scared away by a little child wearing red. The villagers then understood that the Nian was afraid of the color red. Hence, every time when the New Year was about to come, the villagers would hang red lanterns and red spring scrolls on windows and doors. People also used firecrackers to frighten away the Nian. From then on, the Nian never came to the village again.

Because of this story, fireworks are traditional because the loud noises and red colors are said to scare away evil. Plus, it's fun!

The Dragon Dance is also common, and in the East dragons are considered good luck. If you look closely at most dragon dances, you will see people throwing cabbage to feed it - yes, that's part of the ceremony - most westerners miss it.

The most popular tradition is gift giving, of course, and it's usually little red envelopes with money in them.

Happy New Year - Gung Hei Fat Choi

Many people don't say "Happy New Year" (新年快乐 - Sun nin fai lok), but rather say "Congratulations and be Prosperous" (恭喜发财 - Gung hei fat choi). If you have to remember one, I'd choose "Gung hei fat choi." (A close English pronunciation for US and Canada: "Gung Hay Fat Choy").

I always think of it as the Chinese equivalent of "Live long and Prosper", but then I'm a geek...

Update: Google Releases Google Branded IE7

This is a followup on a previous post complaining about my beloved Google Toolbar being lost during the upgrade to IE7 and Googles own Chrome not even allowing me the option.

I guess Google gave up on getting their toolbar to install on IE7, so they appear to have used the Admin Kit provided by MS to create a version of IE7 that has the toolbar included.

http://www.google.com/toolbar/ie7/

Works for me.

Search Engine Share 2008

I just made these for a presentation, based on the latest information I have for this year. Enjoy.

Organic Search Engine Share 2008 for North America

PPC (Pay Per Click) Search Engine Share 2008 for North America

New Browsers and Google Toolbar

I like the Google toolbar. There, I said it.

Today, I decided to take a chance and upgrade my IE 7 to IE 8 Beta. I use Firefox for SEO purposes and IE for normal browsing, so this was a big deal for me, since I use IE a lot.

Upon installation, IE 8 promptly informed me that the Google Toolbar isn't compatible with it. A quick check on the web showed that it can cause all sorts of freezing and problems. Darn. Otherwise, it's a really, really nice browser. I was very pleased. Except for my Google Toolbar. I use this for checking my spelling. I spel reel bad. Eye knead ah spel chequer...

However, in a coincidence, I heard several people talking about the new Google Chrome browser. HAH! If anything should work with the Google Toolbar, it should be the Google browser, right? So I installed it, and went to the Google Toolbar page.

In it's infinite wisdom, Googles toolbar page detected IT'S OWN BROWSER wrongly as Firefox, but then informed me that to use the Google Toolbar I needed to download Firefox!!




Huh? That's a marketing and branding nightmare if I ever saw one. I think there needs to be a leeeetle more communication over at the 'plex. And maybe some testing, too...

Just dumb, guys.

Ian

Cuil Added to Robots.txt Generator

As many of you know, I run one of the most popular robots.txt generators on the web. Some time ago, I sent an email to up and coming search engine "Cuil" for information so I could add their crawler to the tool.

Once they came out of stealth mode, I was sent an email with the information (which I've been procrastinating on) and just today discovered that Victor mentioned my tool in his blog.

Well, I could not procrastinate any more after that! So now, the robots.txt generator now fully supports Cuil and it's special features (ie crawl-delay).

If you haven't tried Cuil, you should. It's growing very rapidly and currently has the largest index of sites of all the search engines. It's pretty good at finding hard to locate information.

Ian

Spam King Kills Family

--Begin Rant--

Eddie Davidson, the so-called "Spam King", just murdered most of his family after escaping from jail. I have not the words to adequately describe my feelings towards this scumbag, but I assure you none of them are nice or polite. My feelings of sympathy are only with his family, not him.

I realize that not all spammers are child killing cowards, but they do tend to share his "looking for the easy way to make money fast while avoiding personal responsibility or caring about the effects on others" outlook on life, and tend, IMO, towards criminal behaviour as a result. Eddie is just the poster boy.

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_9996209

He tricked his family into going with him into the countryside, then killed them - his teenage daughter barely escaped to tell the story:

Davidson got out of the driver's side and pointed the gun at Amy. She tried to
grab the gun and he fired, hitting her in the head.

He then turned the gun on the teen in the backseat, and fired, hitting her in the neck as she ducked.

She believes Davidson thought she was dead, but she watched as he shot and
killed 3-year-old baby, still strapped in the car.

The teen then opened the door, kicked off her shoes and ran about a quarter mile until she reached the home of an off-duty Denver Police officer and told him what had happened.

The little girl never even got to tell daddy about her kindergarten report card she had with her.

I really think that spammers should be treated somewhat like people who torture animals for fun as children - as people who are probably disturbed and potentially criminals. People who need watching, and medical help.

Going too far in the heat of the moment? Maybe. But spamming is sociopathic behaviour, IMO. I realize that not all sociopaths become criminals (many/most just end up being that person who is making your life hell at work) but they certainly don't make the world a better place. Quite the opposite. The fact that many spammers are superficially charming just clarifies my opinion that many/most are sociopaths. I use the "many/most" phrasing because my personal experience indicates "most", but I realize one persons experiences are not scientifically accurate.

I know most spammers don't go on to do the things that Davidson did, but they do tend to be far more likely to become criminals than the average person (usually fraud), IMO - witness the owner of Traffic Power, as an example.

--End Rant--

My Opinion,

Ian

On Vacation Jun 28-July 5 + Seo-Browser

Hi all,

I'm going on a family vacation to see relatives in the Toronto and Ottawa area for the next little while, so unlike my normal travel ties I won't be as accessible as normal. As a matter of fact, unless you are currently on my "To Do" list, I probably won't respond unless it's clearly an emergency or I said I would.

The good news is that I *will* be working on my "To Do" list (which currently has 73 items on it) whenever I can, as well as hopefully getting some work done on my upcoming book on International SEO. That means that if I've been slow to get back to you, but have promised to do so - I finally will. Once I'm completely caught up, I'll be getting some admin staff to help me so I won't have another issue like this again.

So it's a bit of a working vacation, but it *will* be a vacation, and I'm not going to apologise for that. I'm really looking forward to seeing my family again, and introducing my kids for the first time to their cousins, who I'm sure they will get along with really well.

One industry note before I go: SEOMoz had a post this week regarding a site that was, as it turned out, being a little naughty. Stupidly, ineffectively naughty, but naughty nonetheless. Rand mentioned at one point that there are somethings that tools like seo-browser can't do, like check for this type of cloaking.

I definitely appreciate the shout out, (SEOMoz's SEO Tools are really good themselves, so I take the recommendation as informed and all the more valuable as a result), but I just consider that kind of statement, true as it may be, as a challenge.

Further down in the comments, the ever-quoted Matt Cutts mentioned his favorite tool for detecting this type of thing: telneting to port 80 for a totally raw dump.

Hmmm, a problem (seo-browser can't show raw dumps) and a solution (telnet can). As a result, very shortly you will be seeing expanded functionality in the seo-browser where the http header capture grabs raw data using telnet-like behaviour, and can even report itself as various user-agents, including Googlebot, in the process.

Additionally, we'll be rolling out non-English language support - I do international SEO, so being able to view a site in seo-browser properly in Chinese or Russian is important to me :)

Cheers,

Ian

SMX Advanced Notes, Part 1

One of the problems with having been doing this (SEO and SEM) for a while and with having a head for search trivia like me is that I have found myself increasingly disinterested in most search conference sessions.

If I have to sit through one more "Links are important" session I'll scream. At this point, my interest in the conferences is meeting up with old and new friends, networking, and learning little nuggets of info after hours over a beer.

But SMX Advanced is different. For the first time in more than 3 years, I've actually attended sessions because I felt they were interesting and I could learn something. It's a wonderful feeling. I'm a natural student by nature, and I love learning new things.

Some interesting things I learned today:

• I've been doing PPC on the content network wrong. HUGE kudos to David Szetela of Clix Marketing for giving me a "lightbulb moment" that I can't believe I'd missed. Insight: The keywords for the content network need to be different from the keywords in a search campaign. You need to choose keywords that would appear on the types of pages that you want the ad to show up on, not the search terms people looking for your products would type in. If you sell trucks, on the search network, you would target "trucks" and related terms, but for the content network you are targeting the buyer in a more general sense (ie an outdoorsy guy, for example), so you would on things like "hunting", "offroading", etc. Totally makes sense, and I totally missed it.
• Part of the Quality score is the CTR. One interesting strategy is to bid high (even on the content network) in order to get a high CTR. Then when you get a high resulting QS, you can lower your bids and still keep the same position. Think of it as a QS jumpstart. Cool.
• The term "dotscale" (.scale), referring to sites/technologies that naturally get better as they get bigger and used more. Social media like Facebook is a good example of this. It's useless unless your friends are all on it, too.
• MS is beta testing a new offline tool for PPC (like the Adwords Editor). Nice.
• Google now recommends the "First Click Free" approach to membership content.
• A cool idea that I can use for one of my clients: use javascript to append tracking on URLs (if you really must do this), which will leave them clean for bots.

Ian

Google Rolls out New Invoice System, and Immediately Bills Wrong People!

So, I have a client, all nice and tidy in my AdWords Pro Account. This client has a very large spend (500K+) and frankly, my credit cards simply don't have the space on them. So I set up invoicing with Google.

Google, to their credit, work quickly and are very helpful. Even so, there are delays involved simply due to processing times, etc. During this period, which is rather nerve-racking, I actually have to take out a second mortgage on my home in order to pay Google. The second mortgage also takes time to put into place, so in the meantime, I'm frantically paying Google by rotating through every credit card I have, and I even borrow a card from my brother in law.

Eventually, everything gets straightened out, invoicing kicks in, my client pays their bills, the credit cards are paid off, and my company is now stronger for the experience. All told, although it almost gave me a nervous breakdown, it was an overall positive thing.

(The reason I couldn't bill the client up front and pre-pay is another story, related to contracts and government regulations. Suffice to say that if it had been an option, I would have used it, but it wasn't).

But for now, everything is going fine. Once per month, I'm sent a snail-mail version of the invoice, but since I'm in Canada and the invoice is coming from the US, it arrives later than I'd like. Instead, I log into AdWords, download a PDF of my invoice and pay it. No problem.

Now For The Problem

At this point, life is good, I get paid, Google gets paid and everyone is happy. Until yesterday.

Yesterday, Google sends an email version of the invoice. Sounds good, right? Much faster than snail mail.

Except:

1. The invoice was sent to my client's email address, not mine. Big mistake number one. I'm surprised it even got through their spam filters, much less got forwarded to me. They certainly had no idea what to do with it.
2. The invoice was billed to my brother in law. You know, the guy who loaned me his credit card once on this account. He's certainly not going to pay it, and my client had no idea who this guy was.
3. The invoice was sent yesterday - not at the time when the invoices should have been sent. By this point, I had not only received the proper invoice (when I download them, they are billed properly to my company, not to my brother in law), but I had paid it already. Why the invoice was sent AFTER THE DUE DATE and after being paid is totally beyond me.
4. Finally, it was sent on behalf of Google Collections Canada. Now, we don't work with Google Canada due to some very bad service we had received last year. When I contacted the person listed in the email, she said that her name had been added automatically and she had not directly sent the email. So the email was sent FROM the wrong person (and wrong country)!

So, Google invoiced the proper amount, but did so:

• To the wrong email address
• To the wrong billing contact
• At the wrong time
• After it had been paid
• From the wrong country and collections department

Not exactly a stellar start to the new system. If you are an AdWords customer, be very, very careful about this new system, and I strongly recommend you check everything. Twice.

Just like Google should have.

Ian

Yahoo (YSM) Mexico Upgraded to Panama

I just received an email today from Yahoo informing me that Mexico is now on the new Panama PPC system.

This is good news for international SEM's like myself, since the old Yahoo kinda sucked. Worse, it was really, really hard to integrate into PPC software like Omniture Search Center.

I haven't played with it yet, but I'll keep you updated.

Ian

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original Email (translated into English with personal info removed, I apologize in advance for my bad Spanish):

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Advertiser, Congratulations!

The new Yahoo! Search Marketing has been activated. Our system has new and advanced features that are very easy to use and that will help you connect better with the vast and valuable audience of Yahoo! and sites associated with Yahoo! Search Marketing.

Your new Sponsored Results account

Your new user name is' XXX '. Before you can access your account, you will be asked to reestablish your password. After this, you receive an email with instructions.

After you reset your password, you can access your account at https://login.marketingsolutions.yahoo.com/es_MX. If you cannot click on the link, please copy and paste it into your Internet browser.

To help you have a successful start, we suggest you become familiar with your new account by logging in today at https://login.marketingsolutions.yahoo.com/es_MX. Please be sure to have a full campaign and add your billing information. We suggest that you add the page to access your account in your favorites for a easy access in the future.

The new Sponsored Results account structure

The interface of your account is as follows:

Administration - Manage your account information, including information payment and billing. In addition, allocate your daily spending limit, user privileges, and other options.

Please note that all information in your account, including the balance and budget, have been transferred to your new account with Sponsored Results of an account number again. However, we will continue accepting pesos as payment. The amount will simply become the equivalent amount of US dollars according to the current exchange rate.

Control Panel - See a list of all your campaigns, a summary of performance and alerts that require your attention.

Campaigns - Here is where you make the most of managing your account. You can see all your campaigns, ad group, ads and keywords. You can also create or edit campaigns, accessing the auctions and forecasting tools.

Reports - Access to numerous reports of performance to monitor the success of the campaigns, including: impressions, clicks, conversions and costs.

Access to its previous account

You still have access to their previous account (for consultation reporting only), which will be available the next six months, but you may not make any changes.

We are very pleased to have you as an advertiser and we thank you for trusting Yahoo! for your business. If you need assistance, please contact our customer service team at:

Mexico (+52 55) 3003 - 1909 or the interior at no cost to 01800 to 123 - 8593 Argentina (+54 11) 4837 - 8108 Or by email: latam-cs-ysm@cc.yahoo-inc.com

Sincerely,

Yahoo! Search Marketing and it's Partners

What I Learned in China Last Week

Here is a mostly unsorted list of what I learned in China last week - the lessons will also tell the story...

FYI: what was supposed to happen was that I leave Canada on May 12, stay 3 days in Shanghai (and see the famous water town - China's Venice), then take a train to Nanjing to speak at a conference, then fly to Xi'an to see the terracotta warriors, then fly home.

Lessons Learned:

1. Even if you are an experienced, old-china-hand, been-there-done-that kind of person, you can still do something really stupid like show up in time to board a flight to Beijing with everything ready and in hand EXCEPT A STUPID ENTRY VISA. It's OK to feel like a moron - you are. Slap self silly and run down to the Consulate to see if you can get an emergency Visa in time for tomorrows flight.

2. Earthquakes have a way of messing up travel plans, especially if you have already started off on the wrong foot. Finding out about them while standing in line to go to that country can cause you to doubt your sanity. It also makes your friends and family doubt your sanity (if there was any doubt before, there no longer is)

3. You can get a Visa in the Chinese consulate in less than 2 hours if: a) you've been to China several times before without misbehaving, b) are staying at pre-booked hotels, c) have return tickets already purchased, and d) are willing to pay extra for same-day service.

4. Upgrade certificates to First Class are cool. Air Canada's new "Star Trek" seats are a gadget junkies dream. There are more options to recline and the seat than I thought could exist. I can't justify a business case for first class for my normal travel, but with upgrade certificates, I wouldn't miss it.

5. Beijing's new airport is BIG. No, you don't understand - it makes Heathrow look malnourished and you could combine LAX, Denver and LaGuardia together and they would still fit inside it. Pay attention to where you are going, because if you get lost you'll need a GPS unit, a good map, and a Sherpa guide to find your way out. As long as you don't get lost, it's actually pretty nice. They actually check your baggage tags, so don't lose it.

6. China Spree, my travel agent, booked a really nice hotel in Shanghai that just opened up (the Shanghai Skyway Landis). I liked it a lot. Note to self - choose this hotel for CSMT.

7. My friend Susan Li took me to the watertown (Zhujiajiao) and it was very cool. But the best part was just sitting in a nice tea house talking with an old friend for a few hours. The biggest mistake travellers make is to not allow time for things like this.

The Water Town (Zhujiajiao)

Chinese Soldiers Practicing Search and Rescue
(I assume before deployment to the earthquake zone)

8. Next Lesson: Train stations are designed for pedestrians, not international travellers with heavy suitcases. Lots of stairs, no elevators, ramps or anything useful for moving with luggage. Note to self: never, ever, ever take the train from Shanghai to Nanjing again. Ever.

9. Reading newspaper reports about the earthquake survivor stories can make you cry. Try not to do it in public.

10. The rule of thumb for a presentation is one slide per minute. 20 minute presentation, 20 slides, plus or minus. Forgetting that if an interpreter is translating everything because you are the only English speaker at the conference, it will effectively double the length of your presentation, is just dumb. Racking up a lot of points on the ol' "Ian is losing it" side of the score board here...

11. Lightning CAN strike twice, as long as someone up there is either holding a grudge or the recipient brings it upon themself. Although no one will every believe you, it's possible for you to look at a line that says your plane is taking off at 8:30 AM and somehow manage to read the line above it, that says that a plane is taking off at 10:50AM, thus causing you to miss the flight and the girl at the counter to giggle at you as you are banging your head on the wall.

12. When you have no one to blame but yourself, it's best to just shut up, deal with the new situation and pay the price.

13. My guide, Neil, in Xi'an is a very understanding fellow, especially since he had to wait at the airport all day for me. The Xi'an Shangri-La is a very nice hotel, and the Business Development Manager is very good at straightening out minor luggage issues. This is also the only place in China I've ever stayed in that actually served good coffee (with the exception of Starbucks). A miracle!

14. China has an interesting view on religion. In general, they consider religions to be interesting and colorful, if somewhat outdated. However, if said religion does anything political (like hold a rally, protest, etc) then it will be treated like an organized political opponent and dealt with accordingly. I'm a firm believer in separating religion and politics, but the Chinese take it to an extreme.

15. Xi'an has a very cool Muslim temple dating back at least a thousand years. Tourists can go most places, but only male Muslims can work there or enter into the prayer areas.

You can see the prayer rugs facing Mecca.

16. People care.

All flags flew at half mast for 3 days

Every Hotel I was in Collected Donations
(Naturally I gave - who wouldn't?)

During the 3 minutes of Rememberance at 2:28PM

This guard had tears in his eyes at the end of the 3 minutes

17. The terracotta warriors are cool and should be seen. Apparently, almost none are intact and have to be rebuilt. Between looting, fires, flooding and earthquakes, they have taken a beating. Wait... did you say "earthquake"?

18. Apparently, Xi'An is just north on the same fault-line as Sichuan. Lovely. That night, everyone in China with a cell phone (which is almost everyone) received a text message from the government warning about another potential very large earthquake. This caused some concern. In the old days, the government would not have sent this warning for fear of unrest due to panic - things are changing. And there was no unrest, just a bunch of people who decided that it was safer to stay outside of their apartments for the night. Tons of them. Lesson for the Chinese government: the Chinese people can handle being told bad news. Lesson for the Chinese people: the government is beginning to act like it trusts you. This is a good trend on both sides.

People sleeping outside in Xi'an after second earthquake warning.

19. Blogger is still blocker from inside China. {sigh}

20. It's good to be home.

Ian

Bad Month

This has been a very, very bad month.

Most depressing, my 19 year old niece Samantha was killed in a car accident. RIP Sam. :(

That would have been bad enough, but of course, that's not all.

The timeline:

1. My largest client had cash flow issues stemming from a contract problem we had both missed. The net result was that I had to take out a second mortgage on my own home and max out every credit card I have just to cover the Google Adwords bill.

2. While that was going on, we received word that Sam had been in an accident and that it was bad. Later that night we found out that she was brain dead.

3. The next day, I had to leave for SMX West. The event itself went well, though I was obviously distracted. It would be nice if something came about from the SEO Industry Ethics debate I participated in. Like maybe some ethics for our industry. During this time, I fell far behind on several proposals and a ton of work.

4. I cut the trip short in order to attend Sam's funeral on Friday, which was very moving and incredibly sad.

5. I then had to fly to Salt Lake City to attend the Omniture Summit. Omniture did an amazing job, and it was one of the best organized events I've ever been to. I even learned a bunch and met some potential clients. Unfortunately, the terrible cell phone reception caused problems with my ability to communicate with any of them. As a result I'm even furher behind.

6. Nicole and I discussed it, and in spite of our best efforts and Inway and Winston doing everything they could, we had to postpone the China Search Marketing Tour, possibly until next year. The timing of New York SES simply prevented many people from even considering it. We've been working on this for months, so it was a big disappointment.

7. On the last day, we went skiing - which I haven't done for almost 25 years. Result: It turns out I remember how to ski, but I'm in far worse shape than I used to be, and my left knee was twisted. I'm now in crutches. I had to fly out that afternoon, and due to some strange circumstances, had to abandon my shoes at the resort (hopefully Daniel remembered to grab them) and buy new ones so I had *something* to put on my feet. My left leg is so swollen I can't wear normal pants.

8. The very next morning, we had to go to Edmonton for a soccer tournament for my son, Isaac. The good news is that they got a silver medal, the bad news was that between my bum knee and my daughters recently-caught flu, it wasn't that enjoyable of a trip, and we cut it short.

9. Last night, we got home to find out that BOTH my father and his wife (Sams grandparents) have been hospitalized with chest pains. They are both under a lot of stress, as you can imagine.

10. This morning, my son woke us up with the news that our children's beloved hamster ("Hammy") has somehow climbed out of his cage and into a large bottle of water nearby. Now Hammy's dead and my son's are in tears. My daughter Kestra is still sleeping as I type this and I'm not looking forward to giving her the news, especially since she is still very ill.

11. I'm scheduled for the latest round of eye surgery in a couple of hours. That will leave me mostly blind for the next few days. Between that and my knee, I'm pretty much out of commission.

To make a long story short. for the next few days or so, I'm not going to be posting much (if at all), and will instead just mostly lie in bed and try to recuperate, both physically and mentally.

Ian