Today, just one month later, the once promising community has become useless to me. It’s just another proverbial flash in the pan on Google’s stove-top.

The only difference is that more than 25 million users have tried their hand at Google+. While impressive in their acceleration towards this scale – there’s little else to celebrate.

One month ago today I decided to bring my blog back from more than a two year hiatus. The reason I brought it back was quite clear — Google+ had created enough momentum that I couldn’t ignore it. My opinions began to form and I felt compelled enough to publish them for the purpose of initiating some discussions.

My posts then have been pretty direct. I started by sharing Tom Anderson’s words on Facebook’s inherent advantages in the social space. I then followed up by wondering aloud — How would Google+ be monetized? Then, as I forced myself to use Google+ more and more I realized that there were some serious issues.

I then made a (strong) case for Google+ Stream Modifiers and later proved how “power plussers” are killing the vibe.

After all that writing, thought, analysis and discussion, you’d think I’d check in on Google+ regularly, right?

Wrong.

I have to set a calendar item to remind me to check Google+ Notifications.

Ridiculous, right?

This is the monster that Google has created with Google+. It’s almost a perfect clone of Facebook. That alone is laughable considering Google has cried “foul” accusing Microsoft of stealing their search results. The only thing that Google+ hasn’t figured out that Facebook has nailed? Users. Community engagement. Branding. Games. Discussions. Hell, even noisy chatter.

What they have done is alienated early adopters time and time again.

The icing on the cake for me is that Google has gone out of their way not to integrate Google+ with their paying Apps for Domain customers. Rather, they have required those customers to go out and create separate accounts to continue using the Google+ service. So now, rather than getting instant notifications on updates, users have to juggle multiple logins or rely on the annoying amount of email notifications just to stay connected with Google+.

I know I’m not the only one annoyed by all this. I’ve seen many ranting and raving on the issue and Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz has shared his displeasure directly on Google+.

On top of all that the core community and experience in Google+ hasn’t changed at all. The Brogans, Pirillos and Scobles of the world still dominate Streams for all of their followers. Everything “social” about it has become old, stale and cumbersome.

With that in mind, the ball is squarely in Google’s court. What they do from here on out is up to them.

I was reminded of how passionate I can become when I was speaking Monday night. I said a few things that in may have rubbed people the wrong way. While my first inclination was to apologize – I opted not to.

That’s because ethical practices are becoming more important to me. There’s no excuse for search marketers to continually trick, game or mislead resources in the industry for the sake of being successful.

You either know your shit, or you don’t.

I will admit that I don’t know much. I wield findings, opinions and assumptions based on my 9 years in the space when challenged and often hope to be countered. I love that conversation because it’s engaging, fruitful and in many cases, eye opening.

We’re all learning. We’re all trying to be innovative. It’s that drive to become better that creates the competitiveness and passion that we all find inside of us. I just tend to be really, really competitive.

Sadly though, criticism often gets tossed aside in fear of it really being constructive. That’s what happened Monday night. We as early adopters of this marketing vertical need to get past that. We all deserve to be in the mindset where we can share thoughts and opinions constructively.

In the situation I mentioned above, an attendee of the event said that he and colleagues were frequently adding multiple, positive reviews to their clients’ businesses in Google Local, Yelp and other resources.

Seriously… What the fuck are you thinking? Local search and the integration of socially contributed information is the foundation for enhanced listings. Maps, images, videos and alternative media are all being served up because it improves the user experience of those performing a search query.

But for your clients, it matters more that they benefit from bogus reviews in an effort to beat out competing sites – even if their products and services are inferior. Please.

Rather than have a conversation in the moment though, this person opted for a defensive track. It’s unfortunate because with the size of the group, we really could’ve had a great time with the topic. I’m not saying that review driven sites can’t be used as part of a marketing plan… Just learn how to do things ethically.

Motivate your client to encourage honest reviews. Help them to become more engaged in online conversations. Don’t take it upon yourself to pollute the legitimate reviews in a vertical or niche because it’s convenient and you can profit from it. It’s just pathetic. You should know better. And it reminds me yet again as to why this industry needs some sort of standards.

The key to this whole thing is innovation. No one in the space will innovate on their own. It takes time, effort and being open minded to truly break through to the next big thing.  But being innovative doesn’t mean you have to game the system with risky or shady practices.

I mean… If you have to cheat the game to compete… Maybe it’s time to play a different game.

Not knowing what I wanted though, I went to check their menu online.

Do a search for Taco Bell on Google. Here’s what you’ll see:

Yes, their title tag is “tacobell.com”. Once I saw that, hunger subsided and I immediately began critiquing their web site’s SEO. Or, lack thereof.

Here’s what I didn’t like…

META Keywords: I have to start with this because they actually took the time to edit their META keywords tag, but not their title tag. Some of my favorite phrases in their keywords tag include:

• Taco fu
• kung fu
• games
• fun games
• action games
• food fight
• outside
• locations
• drive thru
• yum
• bowls
• food square
• big box
• bun
• Official site

That’s an unfair start since keyword tags are completely useless… But I had to. Anyone thinking that their site is being optimized for “yum” or “taco fu” needs to be acknowledged.

On Page Content
Non existent. In the eyes of the search engines anyway. Here’s the actual on page text that is available:

Get Flash
logo
Taco Bell requires Flash
It appears that the Flash plugin has not been installed on your computer. This site makes extensive use of this plugin and is required for viewing.
Please download the free plugin by clicking here.
If you feel you have reached this page in error, please click here to continue to the site.
Get Flash
logo
Flash Plugin Not Found
It appears that the Flash plugin has not been installed on your computer. This site makes extensive use of this plugin and is required for viewing.
Please download the free plugin by clicking here.
If you feel you have reached this page in error, please click here to continue to the

If you’re going to use Flash to deliver the majority of your content, include some useful HTML or alternative content. It’s only fair.

They could easily put the value of this homepage to use considering the depth of the site that’s inaccessible to spiders…

• Pages Indexed at Google: 104
• Pages Indexed at Yahoo!: 424
• Pages Indexed at MSN: 212

Many of their internal pages are decent, too. At least in the sense that they’re better than the homepage. A great example of that can be found here.

Robots.txt
There isn’t one. See here: http://www.tacobell.com/robots.txt

Omniture Analytics & XML Files
The entire site is obviously tagged with Omniture despite not taking much advantage of the sProps or eVars. Not really an SEO element, but still worth noting.

There’s an abundance of XML files indexed too though and I think they’re not supposed to be.  Here are some examples:

• http://www.tacobell.com/_lib/of.xml
• http://www.tacobell.com/_lib/tunes.xml
• http://www.tacobell.com/_lib/pr.xml
• http://www.tacobell.com/_lib/touts.xml
• http://www.tacobell.com/_lib/qa.xml
• http://www.tacobell.com/_lib/oc.xml
• http://www.tacobell.com/_lib/packets.xml
• http://www.tacobell.com/_lib/nutritionguide.xml
• http://www.tacobell.com/_lib/menu.xml
• http://www.tacobell.com/_lib/ng.xml

Anyway, just some annoyances I ran across while trying to find some food. Enough with freebie advice.

Talk about proactive brand management, right?

I can’t steal any credit here. I spoke with Scott Polk earlier today as he prepared to have a phone call with Derek Ball, CEO of Tynt. Derek was interested in what Scott had to say, and based on the research and efforts that Scott (as well as many others) provided – Derek and Tynt were prepared to respond thoroughly.

Before diving in too far, I’d like to draw your attention to a few resources, cited accordingly:

• Derek’s comment on my first blog post (available here)

Hi Eric and crew. Eric, you’ve put a lot of energy and concern in your posting and I want you to know that we are listening and not trying to be a huge thorn in your side. We’ve been thinking through many of the points that you (and others) have raised to our attention. I’ve written a more detailed response on our blog for those who are interested at http://tynt.wordpress.com/ . From your comments I fear that Tynt in its beta effort has already registered so deeply negative in your mind that I do not know if we can win you back, but I do want to let you know that we want to be valuable and useful members of this community and would welcome input on how you believe we can do this.

• Derek Ball’s comment to the Sphinn Community

Hey everyone.  We’ve put some of our thoughts from Tynt on our blog.  If you are interested, please check out http://tynt.wordpress.com/

• And of course, Derek’s complete response to the SEO community. In the interest of space, please read Derek’s full post on their blog. Click here to open it up in a new window and not lose your place. :)

First, A Note of Thanks & Appreciation

First off, I need to thank everyone who read and weighed in on this issue. My approach was rushed as more information became available – and I know that it was not a great representation of me or my full take on Tynt’s intentions.

I apologize for that.

Reputation Management in Action

In our little niche industry, “reputation management” typically refers to pushing out some negative listings and promoting positive information. That’s skewed because of our professional background though and I want to recognize Derek and others at Tynt for being proactive. They not only responded quickly, but they were willing to listen to what we had to say.

Tynt may still cause concern for many content owners, but the fact that they’re willing to listen and provide resources for us to accomplish what we’re after is commendable.

I think it’s great that Derek not only commented here on my blog, on Sphinn and on the Tynt Blog; he actually took time out on extremely short notice to work with Scott and schedule a call where concerns could be aired.

A Review of My Core Issues with Tynt

Tynt replicates your site and does so in order to allow it’s users to markup your page visually.  Whether users add notes or clipart-like graphics, or simply cover things up… It’s all fair game.  Since they’re actually visiting tynted.net when they do this, it doesn’t affect the general visitor to my domain.  I get that.

Unfortunately, search engines do not.  Or at least have not.  Not yet, anyway.

In my original post I referenced a Google Search for “site:tynted.net” (quotes removed). At the time I mentioned that there were results being served up from Apple Insider in those search results, too. If you click on the screenshot I provided you’ll notice that in addition to being indexed, the pages on www.appleinsider.com.tynted.net also had their content cached.

And that’s a problem for me and other site owners.

When a user accesses a domain on tynted.net, they’re effectively having the visual overlay of Tynt appear over the page they’re browsing. The content on the sourced domain is still being served up by the fully qualified domain being viewed.

If you review Google’s Cache of pages indexed though (such as this one from Apple Insider) you will see that the text from the sourced page is now, in the eyes of Google, owned by Tynted.net.

This creates opportunities for confusion, as site owners now have to battle tynted.net as original soruces of content and information. I know that it’s unlikely that a site as large as Apple Insider would be effected, but that doesn’t create any less of a risk for them or other, more vulnerable content publishers.

Now, Derek speaks a bit to this point in the post on Tynt’s Blog:

…we have been very publicly accused of being ‘content-thieves’ and scraping content from other sites, storing it in our own systems, and serving it up for our own benefit and revenue. When the Tynt plug-in is used, we only ever visit the original site and all Tynt content is simply layered on top of the existing site…

That is incorrect. Once the text cached Google believes the content is indeed that of tynted.net subdomains. While Derek may not have realized it, Google is absorbing the content as if it were served up by Tynt as the cached version of pages show.

It’s worth noting too that last night images, css files, robots.txt files (thanks to Rae for pointing this out) and even webmaster’s sitemaps (ex: domain.com/sitemap.xml) were all able to be served up through Tynt.

Michael Gray Weighs in on Copyrights, incrediBILL Takes a Stand

Everyone in the search marketing space knows Michael Gray. I found one of his Twitter updates earlier this evening to be quite telling:

heh @tynt points for reaching out and trying to fix things http://is.gd/2vCh but I think you are wrong

My personal stance on Tynt is still a bit undecided as I can see the pros and cons of the service. Michael however carries a lot of influence and his opinions are not only respected – but also believed in by many unwilling to form judgment of their own.

Michael continues with two more updates (one in response to muunkky who disliked my approach in my previous post):

Update #2 — if there are any copyright lawyers following get in touch w me I actually have a full legal copyright on some sites be fun 2 see what happen

Update #3 — @muunkky showing copyrighted material without permission on a domain they own

His argument is simple and powerful. If site content is held under copyright, what legal abilities exist for Tynt to replicate that and permit markup on their own site?

If you’re familiar with Brett Tabke‘s WebmasterWorld you are likely familiar with incrediBill (Twitter, WMW Profile), the moderator of the Search Engine Spider Identification Forum and Cloaking Forum. Bill published a post on his blog called Exploring The Tynted Web which featured statements including the following…

Many webmasters take their livelihoods and reputations very seriously and don’t like being [expletive] with so there needs to be a way to detect the use of Tynt and or a way to opt-out of Tynt before this happens or it could get very ugly.

All very telling of his stance.

I remain surprised that Search Engine Roundtable, Search Engine Land and others have not discussed this topic yet.

What I Believe Tynt Needs to Do

There are many folks out there who are unwavering in their criticisms and concerns of Tynt. I applaud those people for holding onto their values and defending their stance.

For Tynt though, the time is now. As an emerging brand, company and service – Tynt will forever be challenged by this in a socially driven space.

It’s up to Derek and others at Tyne to make the right decisions moving forward.  The key for Tynt is to move on with this same approach by being proactive, responsive and willing to listen.  Assuming they do this with the same open mindset demonstrated in the past 24 hours, I’m confident they will find more success.

They will need to get the right people involved though.  Also, there’s a risk/reward with being engaged with critics and industry representatives. Being all of those things can take an incredible amount of time, money and planning.

I hope that Tynt understands this.  Based on some personal emails exchanged with Derek Bell, again, I will say that I am confident in their abilities.

My Opinion of the Response?

I openly applaud Derek and Tynt for being responsive to the concerns and criticisms at hand.  At the same time, I applaud Michael Gray, Edward Lewis, Scott Polk, incrediBILL, Rae Hoffman and everyone else who has weighed in on this discussion in the past 24 hours.

But, I simply cannot form any immediate opinion of Derek’s response. To do so now would be taking things out of context. Tynt, to their credit, is a BETA service at this time and restricted to a particular number of users for testing purposes. I will observe, quite closely, everything Tynt is up to.

But to further form an opinion now (as I did last night) would be unfair.

Follow The Tynt Twitter Discussions

Here’s a list of the people I have seen weigh in on the Tynt conversations on Twitter:

• brianrutledge
• derekball
• ericlander
• graywolf
• iancheung
• incrediBILL
• jonkelly
• kristyann
• martinbowling
• melaniephung
• mosquitohawk
• muunkky
• netmeg
• pageoneresults
• scottpolk
• sugarrae
• toddmintz
• todomallorca
• tonyadam
• tynt
• visualfuture

Apologies if I missed anyone.

You can always use Summize to search for tynt, but keep in mind that protected feeds like mine will not appear in those results.

The trouble is, Tynt is a straight up invasion of site owner content.  They’re re-purposing all of your hard work and letting anyone – yes, ANYONE – go in there and mark things up as they’d like.

Like many others concerned about Tynt, I’m testing out various ways to block them in their quest to steal your content, photos and media.

Block Tynt on an Apache Server

With many thanks to incrediBILL, Scott Polk and Edward Lewis, there is an IP range that you can block to help protect your site from being Tynt’d. You’ll need to add the following to your .htaccess file, as David Burke provides:

RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^204\.244\.109\.(2(4[0-7]))$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{REMOTE_ADDR} ^204\.244\.120\.(1(7[6-9]|8[0-3]))$
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ [F]

The above effectively kills any access Tynt’s IP range has to your site. Pretty nifty, and certainly more comprehensive than some of the original blocks I was performing. The blocks I had were all based on referral string and/or specific IP addresses. The gentlemen listed above researched things further to arrive at a complete range to block.

SEO Consultants Gets Creative in Blocking Tynt

If you want to see how far you can take things, Edward Lewis has opted to protect www.seoconsultants.com. Just take a look at the 404 page he’s serving up to anyone trying to index www.seoconsultants.com.tynted.net

Tynt is on Twitter

If you’re interested in trying out tynt, I’d suggest you check out nothing further than tynt’s profile on Twitter.  In a rich case of layering on some BS, here’s tynt’s justification / claim to fame:

Tynt lets you put contextual relevance and dialog on web pages for sharing and interaction.

“Contextual relevance” ? I may be on a series of rants here with my blog, but you have to be kidding me.  Look what I can do to the tynt homepage if I’d like!

Tynt’s Questionable Example of Tynt in Action

Thanks to Jon Kelly for posting this and making me realize just how poorly represented the value of Tynt is.  If you check out the page on Tynt.com called “What is It?” you’ll see the following screenshot (click to enlarge).

Screenshot of the What is Tynt? Page on Tynt.com. Click for larger version.

Tynted.net URLs Being Indexed

If you’re working for Apple Insider, I’m sorry – because you’re getting royally screwed right now with all the content tynted.net is stealing.  Take a look at this search results for site: tynted.net on Google.

For reference, there are now 146 results for “appleinsider.com.tynted.net” too.

Tynt and Tynted.net Refuse to Be Blocked

What can I tell you now? You can’t use an .htaccess to block your site from being served up through tynted.net.  They’re using a dynamic range of IPs, so any IP blocks you use is temporary at best.  Likewise, you cannot block the referral source as that too has been bypassed.

And, since Tynt and Tynted.net are not spiders, they’re not actively listening to anything you place in your robots.txt file as well.

Sorry Tynt, I’m not Going Out of My Way

On Twitter, Jeremy Luebke [@JeremyLuebke] provided a possible fix as a Twitter reply to me:

@EricLander Also do a search for proxy hijack solution. THere is one where you cloak a noindex tag to everyone but SEs

(Thanks for permission to republish, as well as for the reply!)

While that could be one possible solution, I believe that most site owners are not going to be prepared or skilled enough to implement such a fix. There needs to be a clear opt-out of this service for *any* webmaster not wishing to have their sites tynt’d.

Are You With Tynt?

If so, please read everything here and correct me if I’m wrong. I hate what you’re doing and you deserve to be up front with webmasters regarding their content and protection. Please contact me if I’m wrong with the above. I’d like to give you an open opportunity to say your piece on this, too.

For reference, here are the folks listed on the Tynt About Us Page:

• Derek Ball (CEO)
• Dayton Foster (COO)
• Kerri Knull (VP Business Development)
• Allan Mackenzie (Executive Chairman, Board of Directors)
• Brian Craig (Director, Board of Directors)
• Guy Kawasaki
• Dr. Steven Woods
• Chris Brahm
• Mark Silva
• Paul Perez
• Kelly Graves
• Serge Klimoff

Hopefully someone from the above list is tracking their Google Alerts and can respond back to us…

Additional thanks to Edward Lewis and Scott Polk for their time in researching this matter further.

Pure bullshit.

Google is hurting what they once were. Small businesses and startups alike are being penalized every day because Google cares more about profits than they do relevancy.  More about impressions than they do accuracy. And more about stock shares and than they do their legacy.

Google is exactly what they attacked one decade ago with a quality idea – a search engine that gathered the world’s information and presented it to users based on a query.  Simple stuff really, but they have strayed from their original passion.  And that complicates the issue.

All the Money in the World Can’t Buy Happiness
Umm, wrong. Just ask GOOG shareholders. They have forced the company to forget about quality and focus on profits. It’s not a bad idea, but Googlers are still out there touting their “holier than thou” approach to life.  Newsflash Google, you are not who you thought you were.

So now Google has become the search industry’s Microsoft of the 00′s, but worse.  Their grip on the search and online advertising industry is easily comparable to Microsoft’s hold on the PC market – except for one problem – there’s no competitors left to stand in their way.  I mean, the Yahoo! AdWords agreement is like Sarah Palin sleeping with Barack Obama for some minority votes. It’s just… wrong.

And now the Department of Justice is poised to attack.  About time.

Why it Pisses Me Off
As more client emails come across my desktop asking me to evaluate their needs for online reputation management.  I can’t help but think of how weird the world we live in is. There are hundreds of thousands of businesses out there who want to do right for their clients.  They still have their passion to serve clients. They still understand that morals can be more valuable than coin. Yet, they continue suffer at the hands of Google daily.

And Google turns away seeming to ignore the issue.

Just as Wikipedia dominates general SERPs, RipOffReport, ComplaintsBoard, PissedConsumer and the like continue to litter branded search results for unsuspecting companies.  And half the time the “reviews” posted are unfactual claims and speculated rubbish.

I’ve recently been involved in few studies that have proven negative commentary and reviews to be false.  In other words, Google is out there promoting inaccurate information distributed with nothing more than commercial or biased intentions.

In one case an ex-employee tried to get payback on his employer, so he played every card he could to attack them.  In another case a competitor hired social media personalities to negatively influence rating and review sites before uleashing them on the above mentioned “consumer advocacy sites”.

What About Google’s Reputation?
So I’m curious Google… When are you going to begin to watch your own back?  If the Department of Justice lays the hurt down on you, I’d applaud them.  And then I’d keep an eye on you like a massive train wreck being played out in slow motion in beautiful high definition right before my eyes.

I don’t want to see you hurt.  I just want to see your brand damaged.  Tarnished a bit.  I want to see your $425 per share stock drop into the $300′s.  I want to see people get uncomfortable, uneasy and scared.  I want all of this because I believe it is time for you to react.

I love what you’ve done for the search industry. I also love the impact you’ve had on my life both personally and professionally.  There are times though when your levels of hypocrisy and inaccuracies ruin it all for me. You’re the hot girl at the high school dance that you somehow score a dance with – only to have her reek like tequila and vomit once up close.

While you’ve been successful, you’re all grown up.  It’s time to take some responsibility, don’t you think?  An engine that is now more than 10 years old cannot be out there making so many assumptions about the materials you index and provide to unsuspecting or ignorant users.

You’re in a position where you are being trusted to provide *factual* results and information to your users based on their search behaviors.  And lately, all you care about is making that click and earning that ad revenue.  I find myself going back to read: Google’s riches rely on ads, algorithms, and worldwide confusion; ‘Please ignore the cash machine behind the curtain’ By Cade Metz who quoted my good friend Adam:

“You’re kind of at the mercy of Google,” says Adam Audette, founder of AudetteMedia, a boutique search marketing shop out of Bend, Oregon. “They make everything as intuitive and as easy as possible right out of the gate – and that’s a nice bonus for people who don’t know have a lot of experience with Adwords. But on the flip side, hiding the complexities of AdWords makes Google the most money. There’s at least the potential for a conflict of interest.”

I can’t fault you for making money. I can however ask you to take a step back and look at yourself in the mirror for a change. At what point do you cross the line, create an indelible conflict of interest and eventually implode under the pressures of the investigative eye?

You’re on shaky ground, Google. Billions of dollars won’t change that.

It’s All About the Response
What would happen if we all posted our negative experiences Google on the leading sites for consumers?  Well, it seems like people already have done that – and they’re not getting any response from Google.

• Google Adwords – Unauthorized charges – overdraft fees, buyer BEWARE!
• Matt Cutts Rips Off Honest Hardworking Webmasters; does much evil
• BUYER BEWARE of Google Adwords!! Your just a number!
• Google Inc. reviews – GOVERNMENT
• Google Adword Complaint
• Google@PissedConsumer
• Google Adwords @ PissedConsumer

Not exactly surprising, but in a world where your reputation change change in an instant online, you’d think that the folks who took the time to post the above problems would at least get a response from Google.  Even if they’re simply ignorant to the advertising systems and TOS.

But really… Who am I kidding? Most Googlers are just filling out more deposit slips and sell orders, right?

[Hat nod to Dr. Pete from usereffect for typo notification after post went live.]

I had lunch today with Jesse Friedman and we got into a conversation about the differences between friends and acquaintances. The discussion highlighted a few particular people in our lives who may have been under the misconception that they’re friends with us.  The reality is that they’re just acquaintances.

And sometimes even that’s a stretch bordering on being a bit too nice for their sake.

Working in technology may warp my perspective here, but I won’t use that to excuse for those I’d consider to be among my former friends.  I firmly believe with all the tools out there like email, instant messages, Twitter, FriendFeed and – god forbid – phone calls… You could at least show an effort.  Like, once a calendar year.

Hat tip to Chris Winfield who just started asking about friends on Twitter and how often you communicate. It created a strange mental transition for me back to this conversation, and thus inspired this post.

Here’s a pretty solid rule of thumb: If I haven’t heard from you in months (or years) don’t pretend we’re friends.  Don’t pretend I owe you anything. Don’t pretend I should actually give a shit about what you say… Because you’ve pretty much branded yourself as an equus asinus.  See above.

A couple months later in October, I really felt for Tamar when her Grandpa David passed away. I read her blog post and immediately connected with the wonderful thoughts she shared on him as I thought about the many years I have spent with my grandmother — then fighting for her life with esophageal cancer.

I’ll be honest. My blog is a mix of posts, many bad and a few good ones. Because of that, I don’t see it as an outlet for my thoughts on personal issues. I suppose that I’m either too worried about what others will think, or, I’m just afraid to share too many personal details with my readers.

This is not one of those times.

Yesterday was Monday February 4, 2008 — an absolutely ordinary day on the surface. While many people I know were mourning the loss of the Patriots’ perfect season — I frankly could not have cared less. At 3:50AM on Monday February 4, 2008, my family lost the single most influential woman — my grandmother Mary.

Online, there is an obituary available:

Mary C. Howes, 80

Dateline: Norton, MA

Mary C. (Henricks) Howes, 80, of Norton formerly of Taunton died on Monday February 4, 2008 at Longmeadow of Taunton. She was the beloved wife of the late Everson H. Howes who passed away on Dec. 30, 2000. They were wed on August 30, 1952.

Born in Taunton, MA on April 14, 1927 she was a daughter of the late John and Mary (Enos) Henricks.

She grew up in Taunton and was educated in Taunton public schools. A dedicated homemaker to her loving family, Mrs. Howes had worked for the former Whittenton Garment Co. in Taunton when she was younger.

A communicant of St. Mary’s Church in Norton, Mary enjoyed spending time with her loving family and will always be remembered for her cooking skills. She had lived in Norton for the past 46 years and was formerly of Taunton.

She is survived by her devoted daughters; Donna L. McDuff and her husband John, Sr. of Norton and Diane M. Lander of Attleboro, her brother Alfred Henricks of Taunton, her cherished grandchildren; Richard Paulhus of Randolph, Robert Paulhus of Norton, Craig Lander of Attleboro, Eric Lander of Manville, R.I., John McDuff, Jr. of Fall River and Michael McDuff of Norton, also survived by her dear great grandchildren; Brandon and Amanda Paulhus, Camden Lander and twins Bailey and Brian McDuff.

Her funeral, to which relatives and friends are cordially invited to attend, will be held on Thursday February 7th at 9:00 A.M. from the Norton Memorial Funeral Home 19 Clapp St. (Off Route 140, Taunton Ave.) Norton followed by a Mass of Christian burial celebrated at 10:00 A.M. in St. Mary’s Church, South Worcester St., Norton. Burial will follow in the Timothy Plain Cemetery, Norton.

Visiting hours will be held on Wednesday February 6th from 5-8 P.M. at the Norton Memorial Funeral Home

To say that she was a wonderful woman would be an injustice to her. She was simply the most thoughtful and selfless person I have ever known.

On hot summer days, she would carefully wrap up ice cold cans of soda in tin foil and hide them in her mailbox for the mail man and trash collectors to enjoy. I’m pretty sure the foil did nothing to keep the soda cold, but if it’s the thought counts — she never lost.

Even in the past few years, every single greeting card she would send had the most detailed and personalized notes on them. It was uncommon for her not to have to use the very back of the card, writing around barcodes to fit in everything she wanted to say.

Today, I’m left with endless memories and few outlets for them.

My appreciation for my grandmother took on a new life when my wife and I welcomed our son Camden last February. The worst part about this is that I only had a small window of time to realize just how much my grandmother would forever impact my son’s life.

In 11 short months, my life was changed as I took on the role of a father. I didn’t see my grandmother enough when she was home and fighting cancer. I could’ve made a stronger effort, but failed to do so. I can’t change the past, but learning from that is a message worth repeating… So make sure that you make every moment count for you.

Thankfully, my son Camden is ready to realize what it’s like to have a wonderful grandmother.

My mother is one of the hardest working people that I know. She has somehow managed to keep an entirely offline travel agency alive and well in one of the most trying times. Persavering through the days of online travel, she manages not only her business — but also to take a day off each week to spend with Camden.

In everything my mother does, I now see my grandmother shining. From the little gifts to constant flow of greeting cards and warm phone calls… We’re absolutely blessed to have wonderful and caring people in our lives.

I can’t help but think that my mother simply took over the only way she learned how — by following in her mother’s footsteps.

On Thursday, my son Camden will turn one year old. It was supposed to be an incredible day for my wife and I, taking him into Boston, visiting the aquarium, and just celebrating his big day. Your first child only turns one once, right? We thought we’d use that day to go all out and make the most of it with him.

Our plans have since changed though as my grandmother’s funeral will be held at 10AM Thursday morning.

Call me crazy, but I’m still going to celebrate. For all of the wonderful memories I have about my grandmother, I have just one bad memory — and that’s the pain, discomfort and problems that cancer had caused her since last April.

On Thursday, I’m sure I’ll get choked up. I’m sure I’ll cry. But I also know in my heart that the one woman who has meant the most to my family is now in a better place, looking down, happy to see us all supporting one another.

Everything that we say, act and do as a family is based on the traditions and lessons that she has shared with us throughout the past 80 years.

I can’t be too down about that… Especially knowing that she’s in a better place. Sorry for the rambling post — but it needed to be typed.

I’m a big fan of Navneet Kaushal and the Unofficial SEO Blog – but today, they let me down. Admittedly, it’s the first time in months of reading, and I still love the site — but a letdown is still a letdown.

See… In the world of SEM, I’m an organic search guy. That’s not to say that I dislike paid search or don’t know it — but organic is my little love. If I come across stats that help back it up, I’m all about spamming everyone in my address book to let them know just how important I am. what I do is for them.

Today, I wanted to send this out:
PPC Ads Are Ignored 88.5% Of The Time!

But right up there, above the fold is a bold statement that is flawed. I’m sure that Kaushal knows what he meant to say, but if I were to send this off to any pretentious contacts (which I have many of, but you are not one… don’t worry), they’d jump on my shit for this comment:

“For as much as 88.5% of the time people don’t pay attention to PPC adverts, which means that the click through rate is just 11.5% overall.”

Paying attention to sponsored links does not mean that you’ve clicked on them. It simply means that you’ve been paying attention to them. That would be the same as saying that the other 88.5% always clicked one of the organic results.

Navneet — please don’t think I’m nit-picking or hating! I love your blog, but this particular post prompted me to use you as an example to make a point.

Enough with Rand though… and even the industry. It’s time to give props to Rebecca Kelley. Not because she’s cute. Not because she knows her shit… and certainly not because she’s a fan of The Office.

It’s because she’s got the mind set you’ve got to have in this industry if you expect to make it.

Rebecca has been helping out Shoe a bit by being one of a few guest authors filling in for him while he’s attending Techcrunch40. Well, today I caught a post that I needed to see for no other reason than for validation.

The following is from Want to Succeed? Then Get Off Your Ass and Work:

Every time I see this question I get pissed off. It’s like a flabby person saying “I want abs and big muscles by tomorrow” as he shoves another Twinkie in his mouth. Not. Going. To. Happen.

I think people see successful folks like Shoe and think “Hey, he makes it look so easy. I want to have a ton of money too!” Come on. You see the end result, the exposure and the fat checks he holds up, but you didn’t see the process and the path he took to get there. Shoe told me that he busted his ass and learned all he could about Adwords and PPC so he could make money from it. This shit doesn’t come easy, or else we’d all be rolling in the dough.

And with that, Rebecca hits the proverbial nail on the head with a crushing blow.

If I had a buck for every time Justin, Matt, or myself come across a lazy bastard in our daily grind, I’d be a fucking millionaire.

The worst part is, it’s contagious.

There are particular people that drive me insane with their lazyness. Unless you’re truly driven to make the most of this infant of an industry, you’re screwed. The next big idea isn’t falling into place. That promotion you keep thinking about is not going to land in your lap. The “project” you’ve been sitting on for the past six months is NEVER going to be a success.

In short, if you’re being lazy… Your success in SEO can be summed up simply. Not. Going. To. Happen.