Spent the last weekend at the fantastic Thinkvisibility conference. It was great to catch up with a few people and great to meet some more new friends.

As a conference I think @thehodge has got it just about right, its a great mix of the social and the useful. Not too big an event and enough time and opportunity to meet nearly everyone.

Some people I met: -

Yoast
Name checked me as the guy who drew his avatar for him, resulting in everyone turning round and looking at me even though I was hungover enough to chuck my guts up at any second.

Photo from Caius

Great presentation as ever though and id like to thank Yoast for the cufflinks he brought me.

Jay Butler
Great to catch up, now permanently fixed as my Rum and Wasabi partner

Judith Lewis
Great to catch up with Judith and she delivered a very polished presentation as ever.

AlCarlton
Creator of the awesome Conference Calendar as well as a bunch of other sites. I like Al, he fits with my long history of having and being friends with people who enjoy an ‘adventure’

Chris Garrett
Finally got to chat

Bony Toad
Stephen is a great chap, always has been. He actually made me snort when, sat next to me, he posted this twitpic

Kieron Donoghue
Great to meet at last, keep up the good work with Share my playlists and keep on nagging me to stop tweeting whilst we drink.

Tim Nash – A great session on profiling (Which I am doing a separate post on Tim and thats why I havent written this bit until now sigh )
Hobo Seo – great to chat Shaun
Mr Scott Jones and Ian – probably as drunk as I was
Anthony from Bronco
And Lindop – as ever good to see you mate

Everyone else I have forgotten as im an Idiot

And of course Dom and Mrs Dom (soon enough) for putting on a great conference.

How Gumtree spam nearly made me a TV star

A Year in Adsense Stats - Some statistics from one batch

Post from: SEOidiot

#thinkvisibility was great

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With SES London fast approaching I thought I would share some quick tips on what to do and what to avoid when using Twitter at the conference: -

1. Dont tweet everything
Seriously we dont need to know your every movement (literally)

2. Use Twitter to meet people
When your at the event make sure people know where you are at set times so you can meet up. Its great to be able to tweet “hey anyone at SES meeting for a drink tonight?” and hey presto you have people to drink with!

3. Try to avoid tweeting too much drunk
Its very funny for everyone else but tweeting every part of the evening once you have had that 10th pint is probably a bad idea overall.

4. Follow the speakers of sessions you attend
Its great to be able to attend a session and then afterwards ask the speaker the odd question about their presentation. Most people are helpful and in my opinion you can never know enough clever people.

5. Dont fake it
I know of quite a few people who have left the conference or didnt even go and yet pretend they are attending by following the chatter on twitter and chipping in with fake tweets.
Kinda sad and afterall if you arent making connections at the event why the hell are you bothering?

Hope they help – Anyone think of any more?

Post from: SEOidiot

5 Twitter Tips for SES

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Conferences arent really my thing, I prefer to go to the less formal small meets where you can really get to know people easier. Having said that I did really enjoy SES last year and have booked myself in to go again.

It takes place on Feb 17-20th at The Business Design Centre in Islington
Good venue, same as last year (I get to watch the traders shouting at each other in one of the offices – very entertaining stuff)

Looking forward to catching up with people I havent seen for a while and looking through the agenda there looks to be a great line up again.

Last year really enjoyed many of the sessions (Dixon for example always comes up with the goods for me) and whilst many of the sessions would suit those learning SEO for the first time there were enough to keep us old people happy to.

Video and podcast SEO – Some great stuff last year
Most of the Social stuff was really good too

If you have the time and want to learn and connect with people in the industry let me know youll be there!

Post from: SEOidiot

SES London 2009

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DaveN has announced his SEOdays SEO training events. The events will be run by Dave, Jennifer Slegg (Jenstar) and Greg Boser – thats an impressive line up in anyones book!

The events will be aimed at those companies who need the combined expertise of both technical experienced organic SEO’s and highly experienced PPC input from Jenstar.

The day events will initially take place in London, Manchester and other key cities around the UK. The intention is to then take the events to the US.

At a cost of £1000 a day for a website health check to the more involved 2 day conferences access to the combined knowledge of some of the best people in the industry is well worth the cost for the value.

So if you have a need to be top of the serps (and who doesnt) the investment in SEOdays is a no brainer.

Post from: SEOidiot

SEOdays

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Ok so I have now receieved a response to my ‘appeal’ (Its in quotes for good reason…) and heres the response verbatim: -

“Hello Paul,
Thank you for your appeal.
After receiving your response, we re-reviewed your account data thoroughly. We have reconfirmed that invalid clicks were generated on the ads on your site in violation of our Terms and Conditions and programme policies.
https://www.google.com/adsense/terms
https://www.google.com/adsense/policies
We have implemented these policies to help ensure the effectiveness of Google ads for our publishers as well as our advertisers. According to our policy on this matter, we are unable to reinstate you into the programme. Please bear in mind that subsequent or duplicate appeals may not be considered and you may not receive any further communication from us.
We appreciate your understanding.
Sincerely,
The Google AdSense Team”

So….. I can now safely tell you what i really think….

The original email i recieved was obvioulsy autogenerated by their system after I had tripped it through a detection of multiple invalid clicks. Despite asking for confirmation of which site and what clicks I have been banned… They have absolutely no burden of proof on them to prove anything. I HAVE NEVER clicked on my own ads and like the majority of adsense publishers i am powerless to prevent a clickbombing attack (Even those of us with some protection based on IP cant stop a proxy hopping clickbot)

“In the event the Agreement is terminated, Google shall pay Your earned balance to You within approximately ninety (90) days after the end of the calendar month in which the Agreement is terminated by You (following Google’s receipt of Your written request, including by email, to terminate the Agreement) or by Google. In no event, however, shall Google make payments for any earned balance less than $10. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Google shall not be liable for any payment based on: (a) any amounts which result from invalid queries, invalid Referral Events, or invalid clicks or impressions on Ads generated by any person, bot, automated program or similar device, as reasonably determined by Google, including without limitation through any clicks or impressions (i) originating from Your IP addresses or computers under Your control, (ii) solicited by payment of money, false representation, or request for end users to click on Ads, or (iii) solicited by payment of money, false representation, or any illegal or otherwise invalid request for end users to complete Referral Events; (b) Ads or Referral Buttons delivered to end users whose browsers have JavaScript disabled; (c) Ads benefiting charitable organizations and other placeholder or transparent Ads that Google may deliver; (d) Google advertisements for its own products and/or services (excluding payments based on completed Referral Events); or (e) clicks co-mingled with a significant number of invalid clicks described in (a) above, or as a result of any breach of this Agreement by You for any applicable pay period. Google reserves the right to withhold payment or charge back Your account due to any of the foregoing or any breach of this Agreement by You, pending Google’s reasonable investigation of any of the foregoing or any breach of this Agreement by You, or in the event that an advertiser whose Ads are displayed in connection with Your Site(s) defaults on payment for such Ads to Google. In addition, if You are past due on any payment to Google in connection with any Google program (including without limitation the Google AdWords program), Google reserves the right to withhold payment until all outstanding payments have been made or to offset amounts owed to You in connection with the Program by amounts owed by You to Google”

Bits to note in here are that they say that they will only pay for valid clicks… fair enough so would I, however they have taken the entire balance of my account which inplies that all my clicks were invalid…. This is simple theft in my opinion, they have not proven any invalid clicks to me directly and I have never had any reason to think that I have been targetted by someone malicious before.

So it seems that Google can terminate you and withold your money without having to give any valid proof of wrongdoing and that all of us are at the mercy of Googles computerised detection system. It seems that even if you provide them with all your stats and information about your account all it takes is someone with a evil streak and a twitchy mouse clicking finger to rob you of your rightul earnings.

I shall be less friendly towards the Big G as a result and im afraid that the content eminating from me in their index will now be less subtle till I regain what I have lost…

Just to say it for the last time I HAVE NEVER CLICKED ON MY OWN ADS and I HAVE NO REASON TO BELIEVE ANYONE HAS ANY REASON TO WRONGLY CLICK ON MY ADS EITHER.

Ps Matt…. You asked on Threadwatch who you will be tackling next? The answer is your unlikely to be winning in the next episode….

Its ok… lesson learnt – morals reduced…. build pending…..

Post from: SEOidiot

Banned…..

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