Blog of Jon Wright

I was a delighted to hear on the radio that in a recent survey 3 out of 4 people in the UK would like to see a ban on smoking in public places. Although i wasn’t asked, I am one of those people.

I wasn’t sure who carried out the survey but I think a couple of Cancer groups were involved, because one of their “spokesperson’s” came on and give a politically correct reason why people are in favour.

Lets just get one thing straight here! It isn’t because 3 out of 4 people believe it’s bad for your health, which was the spin this spokesperson put on it. No the reason’s much simpler than that.

Putting the tar, formaldehyde, arsenic and cyanide issues aside for a moment, smoking is an outdated anti-social pastime that makes people’s breath smell like an ashtray, causes people’s eyes to water and swell up, renders your clothes unwearable and unwashable, gets in your hair and every other part of your anatomy you would care to mention and BLOODY STINKS!

and a Happy New Year!

I have always had a fascination with search engines including SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing). Never been any good at it, but I find myself fascinated by it none-the-less.

One day last week i was chatting to a friend who told me a little story about his website and some original content he wrote on it. Being aware of my interest with SE’s he asked me a question that to be honest I thought I knew the answer to.

The question he asked me is in the title of this post “When Is Your Original Content Not Your Own”? My immediate answer was “It’s always your own if you wrote it”.

Wrong answer apparently because his question had another twist to it.

Here’s his story and i’ll try to be brief.

One morning he turned on the TV and saw something that inspired him to write an article on his website. A couple of days later he started getting quite a few comments and emails from his blog, something he was not used to as he tends to write boring stuff (his own words).

After another day of comments he decided to ask one of his new readers how they found his blog. “Oh i went into Google and there you were” said his new email pal.

“Google? Am I on Google” he said scratching his head (apparently not all of us know or use Google). Forgetting to ask his new pal what he typed into Google, he assumed it was something to do with his latest brainstorming page that he wrote.

So he eventually found Google (I’m serious) and typed in a number of words and phrases and low and behold there he was, top of the results.

He thought this was so cool and continued to answer the emails and periodically checked Google to admire his results. Then he noticed his site slipping down the pages with other sites appearing above him and about his article. Eventually he disappeared so far back his comments stopped and the emails dried up.

This is when he called me and we had our chat.

Ah i said, what you did there was you wrote about something popular that was original and new. Because you were first to do this, your pages appeared high in the engines as there was little or no competition from anything else.

I continued to tell him that because his subject was on TV and about to get popular, people would go into Google and look for pages on that subject and that’s how they found you. Now he understood the power of Google.

“But why did i get pushed off the first page” he asked. This is where it gets complicated and so i talked him through how Google ranks sites etc….until his eyes were rolling in the back of his head.

“But I was first and it was my work” he said. “That’s ridiculous and unfair and Google need to do something about it” he continued. At this point I pulled the phone away from me and sniggered.

At that he swore never to use Google again, we got onto something else and he eventually put the phone down. Incidently his story and page still ranks high in Yahoo and MSN and I dare not ring him to tell him so.

This is where his story made me think about this whole battle between what Google calls “good SEO and bad SEO” or “White Hat or Black Hat” as it’s also known.

I constantly read about saintly SEO’s bleating on about writing your own material, keeping it original, topic of the day and following the Google guidelines and everything will work out fine.

My observation of the typical SEO is of someone who just doesn’t give up, a thick skinned optimist determined to climb the rankings until they either reach their goals or keel over at their desktops. Naturally some of the lesser ones turn over to the darkside until Google eventually slays them and they disappear. And it’s because of this constant slaying that my innocent buddies pages fell back into neverland.

I have told him he just has to do what he does, keep thinking of new stuff, stay on the good side and more importantly, keep it real. Google likes real sites i said…cough…eventually. One’s that grow naturally and organically. He thinks I have turned into David Bellamy now.

But his final words were the one’s that stuck in my mind. “If i was the first page in the rankings and what you say about Google and good SEO is true, why didn’t Google keep me there. Now other people are feeding off my work”.

That’s where i said in true diplomatic fashion: “I can’t answer that’.

So, when is your original content not your own? When Google decides to give it to somebody else.