SEO + Blog = "miserable failure"

Over the past few years, I've become involved in the crazy, fast-paced, heart-pounding, thrill-a-minute world of SEO. For those of you who don't know, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Basically, it's when you fix up a website to make it more friendly to Google and the other search engines, so it'll show up higher in the rankings for certain search terms. Some people do this by designing their sites well and offering fresh, compelling content that others will want to link to and share. Others try to do it by cheating, which inevitably ends badly for them. Want to know why Google changes the way it works roughly 47,845 times a week? So they can stick it to those cheating SEO bastards.

In my last post, I mentioned that I started blogging back in 2004, when it was all still exciting and new. Back then, people blogged because they had shit to say. But sometime around 2006 or so, some smartass SEO guru discovered that you could use a blog to drive traffic to a company's website. The idea was simple. Update it frequently with some content that people would want to share, and include plenty of links to the company's main website. As more and more people linked to the blog, it (and all of the links on it) would become more relevant in the eyes of Google.

One of the ways Google decides who ranks where for certain terms is by the anchor text in links. So if you can get enough people to link to your website with the text "pimp daddy," then eventually your website will start cropping up in Google when people are searching for pimp daddies. When this process is done to intentionally skew search engine rankings, it's known as a "Google bomb." Google has made numerous changes to their algorithm to keep this from happening.

(You may remember back around 2004, when typing the words "miserable failure" into Google brought up George W. Bush's biography page. This was due to the concerted efforts of a bunch of developers who encouraged folks with websites to link to Bush's biography with those words, like this: miserable failure. Once enough people did it, especially those with reputable or popular websites that generated a lot of clicks, Bush's biography shot to the top of the search engine results page. This wasn't the first Google bomb, but it's arguably the most famous.)

In an effort to boost their search engine rankings, businesses began operating blogs. As the number of blogs out there on Nobel Prize winner Al Gore's internet grew exponentially larger, it got harder and harder to grab people's attention. Companies began hiring professional writers and marketing experts to give their blog a competitive edge.

(In fact, one of my writing gigs at the moment is for a search engine marketing company whose name I won't mention, but whom you can find very easily by typing "chris irby seo" into Google. I crank out five articles a week for them that are basically just regurgitations of articles written by other folks, only paraphrased and reworded so they'll count as original content.)

Anyway, in the wake of all the marketing, personal blogs got lost in the wash, and then all but died off once Facebook came on the scene.

This blog wasn't created for the purposes of search engine marketing or to drive traffic to any other website. I started blogging because I enjoy writing, and I liked the idea of sharing my inane and often profanity-laden thoughts with a bunch of anonymous strangers. I continued blogging because I really enjoyed the close-knit group of friends that seemed to come out of it. And I quit blogging because I felt like I had run out of stuff to say. Also, Facebook.

I know quite a few people who do SEO for a living, and they don't understand the appeal of blogging. They can't imagine why anybody would have a blog if they're not going to use it to market something, generate links, or drive traffic. They often take me to task for my lack of optimization, and suggest that I should do things like put my name in the title, give all of the pictures meaningful file names, and try to work some popular search terms into my articles. The idea of writing for writing's sake is lost on them. These are the same people who think Michelangelo missed a golden opportunity because he didn't paint Jesus drinking a can of Pepsi in The Last Supper.

A lot of corporate blogs are no longer updated regularly. Many have been abandoned outright. Once companies realized how much effort is required to successfully market with a blog, especially with all of the competition out there, many decided it was a dismal return on their investment. Facebook and Twitter are actually the hot search engine marketing properties now, as SEO experts knock their heads against the wall trying to figure out just how all those tweets and status updates play into Google rankings.

So blogging is just another internet fad in decline, like usenet newsgroups, dancing hamsters, and Classmates.com. I can't imagine it will ever really go away, but I also can't see it becoming as insanely popular as it was a few short years ago. But that's okay. As long as I have my threes of blogging buddies, I'll be happy.

&$^@#!?*% Verizon!!!! (a Trois)

While I was nerding it up at ConDFW, my internet connection died on me. I had no idea until I got home from the conference and started up my PC, only to find myself being mocked by Windows Vista's "limited connectivity" icon. Usually when this happens, I just power off my modem and power down my PC, then bring them both back up and hey, problem solved!

(As you may recall from the last time I had this problem, my modem is slightly older than John McCain, and was apparently constructed prior to the invention of on/off switches. So in order to "cycle power," I have to reach around behind it and pull out the power cord. My modem sucks, and I hope it dies alone and unloved.)

Anyway, despite my best efforts, I just wasn't getting any connectivity love. So once again, I broke down and did something that never seems to bode well. I called Verizon Customer Service.

Now apparently Verizon has decided that the whole DSL thing is beneath them, so they've quit supporting it themselves and farmed it out to some very nice folks for whom English is, to be kind, most likely a second language.

So, with much trepidation, I dialed Verizon Customer Service and reached the soulless automaton who would be my guide. Her soothing, robot voice informed me that I was at the Main Menu, and I could return here at any time by saying "main menu." And so, comforted by the thought that safety was never more than two words away, I plunged into the swirling, nightmarish abyss of Verizon's nested menus.

I informed the godless fembot that I was calling with regards to Verizon High Speed Internet, that my phone number was indeed correct, and that I was having connectivity issues. After much clicking and whirring as she attempted to process this human emotion called love, the she-droid informed me that she was going to perform some tests on the line and it might take a few minutes.

This is the part that always kills me, because while waiting for the results, another helpful recorded message always sees fit to inform me that "the solutions for many common connectivity issues may be found online at the Verizon website." Thank you, Verizoputer 5000. I'm sure if anybody ever bothered to point out the fallacy in that logic to the robots manning the phones, they would short out and their heads would explode.

The fembot finally came back on the line to let me know that she had found a problem in the network and she was transferring me to an agent who could assist me further. I have to say, this filled me with hope. If she'd already managed to figure out the problem, hopefully I'd be up and running in no time. Right? RIGHT?

Wrong. I was finally connected with a very nice human being in a drastically different time zone who had me go through the usual rigmarole of shutting things off and turning them back on again. Because they never believe you when you tell them you've already done it 5,000,000,000,000,000,000 times. I told her that the magic voice on the phone had already found the problem, but unfortunately the robots and the Indian contractors don't seem to be speaking with one another these days. After exhausting her bag of tricks, my agent informed me that she was going to escalate the issue to her supervisor, or something like that. She said they would be in touch and let me know when the issue was resolved.

Well, I got the call on Friday that the problem was solved and my connection to Nobel Prize winner Al Gore's Internet should be up and running. I went to check, but no connection. I unplugged the modem, powered down the PC, and brought them both back up. Still no connection.

On Saturday, I sat down to place another call to Verizon Customer Support. I found myself at the familiar Main Menu, and once again worked my way through the myriad options. When I finally informed the cold, mechanical fembot that I was having connectivity issues, she gave me the following choices:

I see that we recently closed a ticket for you on this issue. You may need to restart your modem and your computer. To repeat this information, say "repeat." To return to the Main Menu, say "main menu."

I tried again and again, but I couldn't seem to get past this barrier of computer logic. No option to reopen a ticket, no option to speak to an agent, nothing. Annoyed, I returned to the Main Menu and this time when she asked me what my issue was, I said, "Other." Fortunately, my unpredictable human brain proved too wily for her circuitous logic, and I was able to pierce the clever defenses of the Verizon Customer Service Automated Menu System. I felt like such a hacker.

I was eventually connected to another exotic customer service agent who apologized profusely for the inconvenience and reopened my ticket. We went through the reboot thing again, and I'm sure you can imagine my surprise and astonishment when that didn't work. So she said that she would escalate my call to her supervisor, and they would be in touch with me.

I heard back just two hours later from somebody here in the continental U.S. He said they were going to upgrade my connection for free, and I'd be receiving a new and improved modem (and cables) in the mail in the next few days. He also gave me his number and said I could call it if I ran into any problems getting the new stuff up and running.

So I'm feeling cautiously optimistic. Hopefully I'll be back online before my social security benefits kick in. In the meantime, I'm making due with my internet connection at work, and the occasional low-quality wireless signal that I can grab with my laptop.

Can you hear me now?

Zen and the Art of Blog Maintenance

My list of Blogs That Aren't Mine was getting a tad long, so I went through and deleted links to those guys who haven't updated in 6 months or more. Yeah, I know I live in a glass house when it comes to that sort of thing. I'm totally at peace with my hypocrisy. I hope, some day, you too will be.

Oh, and the counter is back. I thought about starting it off at 184,359 or something, just to make my blog look popular, but I'm really not that insecure. Right? You guys don't think I'm insecure, do you?

Googler? I Don't Even *Know* Her!

Here's something kind of funny that my buddy Silver sent to me.

Marissa Mayer was Google's first female engineer, and is currently serving as the Vice President of Search Products and User Experience. When San Francisco magazine recently ran a profile on her, they referred to her as the "gorgeously geeky Googler" and went on and on about her glamorous clothes, opulent lifestyle, net worth, and love of frosting. So, in other words, hard news.

But here's the funny part. Apparently the editors of the magazine aren't up on the hip lingo that perverts and naughty people use on Nobel Prize winner Al Gore's Internet, and they cleverly referred to Mayer as "Googirl." The online article got yanked almost immediately, but some 115,000 copies of the magazine made it onto the newsstands.



I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure those bastards at Yahoo! are to blame for this...

Nobel Prize Winner Al Gore's Internet News

Google's Lost in Translation
So my pal and occasional hero John, of Random Squeegee fame, discovered yet another oddity in Google's translation tool. Sometimes, for reasons known only to the Lord, Google Translate will convert the English word "Crap" to the Spanish name "Guillermo."



So, any theories? I'm betting some anonymous Google programmer used to get pantsed and thrown in the girl's locker room by a high school bully named Guillermo. Or perhaps this is a personal vendetta being waged against Jimmy Kimmel Live.

Speaking of Tom Cruise and Anonymous Vendettas...
A gang of hackers who are calling themselves "Anonymous" have declared war on the Church of Scientology. So far, their attacks seem to consist primarily of posting melodramatic videos to YouTube about how they're going to bring Scientology down. The Church of Scientology International (or CSI, so you just know David Caruso is somehow involved) has responded by releasing a statement claiming that the videos have sparked interest in their "faith" and inviting people who want to learn more to visit their website.

The whole thing apparently started when a video of Tom Cruise was leaked onto the Internet. The video, excerpted from a Scientology presentation, features Cruise all wide-eyed and earnest as he claims:

When you're a Scientologist, and you drive by an accident, you know you have to do something about it, because you know you're the only one who can really help. We are the authorities on getting people off drugs. We are the authorities on the mind. We are the way to happiness. We can bring peace and unite cultures. Now is the time.

The Church of Scientology responded with their usual level of restraint by immediately sending out cease and desist letters to anybody who had ever come within 5 feet of a computer and threatening legal action against anyone who dared to offer the video for download. Because that always works. Few people took the Scientologist threats seriously (although the video did vanish from YouTube for a few hours before reappearing with a vengeance). Some folks consulted lawyers of their own and determined that CSI's legal team was, frankly, talking out of its collective ass.

The Scientologist's hamfisted tactics inspired a gang of self-proclaimed hackers to declare war on them. Usually, these guys devote their efforts to stealing passwords and harassing online communities who don't share their love of anime. But this time, they decided to put their talent for annoyance and mischief to work for the greater good.

I honestly don't know who to root for in this battle. On the one hand, you've got a massive organization with a history of bullying, brutalizing, and blackmailing people who have spoken out against it. And on the other hand, you've got a bunch of console cowboy wannabes who have obviously watched V for Vendetta a few times too many. It's like a cage match between Bill O'Reilly and Ann Coulter. I don't care who wins... I just wanna see lots of blood spilled.

To tell the truth, I would probably be more sympathetic towards Anonymous if I didn't think their campaign against CSI was simply a self-aggrandizing ploy full of sound and fury signifying nothing. I've always been a huge fan of subversive attacks on organized religion. The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster was a brilliant response to the Kansas School Board's decision to teach Intelligent Design as scientific theory. The First Church of Shatnerology hounded Bob Larson mercilessly with crank calls after he cheated on his wife with an employee named Margo. The satire of Landover Baptist Church is so convincing that several of their articles have been forwarded on by outraged Christians who weren't in on the joke. And God knows, I love me some Melba!

But there is nothing particularly clever or daring about the Anonymous attack on Scientology. In their videos, they claim (with kewl digitized voices) that they will "systematically dismantle the Church of Scientology in its present form." Yet, so far, their campaign of terror has consisted of some half-assed denial of service attacks (which accidentally took down a school in the Netherlands). Anonymous wants to pretend like they're a band of ragtag freedom fighters struggling against an oppressive evil organization. But while the Church of Scientology certainly fits the bill as an Evil Empire, Anonymous is not the Rebel Alliance. Hell, they're barely Jar Jar Binks.

Their "bold" attack actually comes off as petty, juvenile, and a bit silly. It's like expressing your outrage at the Bush administration by leaving a flaming sack of dog poo on the White House porch. The Church of Scientology has weathered organized assaults from people who were far better informed and far better equipped to damage them. Somehow, I doubt the pranks being perpetrated by Anonymous are going to have any lasting effect.

Ironically, if anything is going to bring down the Church of Scientology, I'm betting it'll be Tom Cruise.

R.I.P. Tom Cruise Heath Ledger

Poor Heath Ledger. Like it wasn't bad enough that his tragic death had to be somehow tied to one of the Olsen twins, now he's getting dissed by Google.

Some bored Googlers unearthed an odd bug in Google Translate, where translating "Heath Ledger" from English to Spanish would convert his name to "Tom Cruise."



Of course, Nobel Prize winner Al Gore's Internet was abuzz and it was only a matter of time before Google became aware of the issue and fixed it. So now, Heath is no longer in danger of being confused for a closeted couch-hopping maniacal Scientologist, and his spirit can rest in peace.

At least until Mary Kate Olsen starts doing the talk show circuit.

&$^@#!?*% Verizon!!!! (Redux)

Actually, I guess I'm *partially* to blame for this one. And so is Bank of America. But I've always got more than enough bile for Verizon.

I get my Verizon bill online. And somehow, last month's fell through the cracks. Don't know why. Just totally zoned on it. Didn't think to check e-bills until I sat down last week to pay my regular Luddite snail mail bills, and I saw I had an outstanding balance.

"Holy fresh spanked baby Jesus!" I thought. "Thank the merciful God in heaven that I caught this in time!" I elected to pay the full amount and submitted the bill.

And there it sat. If I'd paid attention, I would have seen that it had defaulted to 8/2 as a payment date. But I didn't notice.

And so, at midnight last night, Verizon cut off my phone service. I had no idea until my good buddy IX e-mailed me (and posted about it, thus exposing my shame to the threes or fours of people who still read this damn blog).

I was *so* full of righteous indignation. "Those bastards!" thought I. "This time I've got them! I distinctly remember paying them last week! All I have to do is go online and get my confirmation number!" When I'm angry, my thoughts turn quite expository.

So I went online, and there's my Verizon bill. Waiting to be processed. Just sitting there, mocking my childlike faith in God, with a pay-by date of 8/2 on it.

I picked up my phone, and there was a dialtone. I've never had my phone service interrupted before, so I wasn't sure how it worked. The first thing I did was try to call Stephanie, because her soothing, dulcet tones are just the thing to quell the white-hot anger that roars within me.

I was treated to a recorded message telling me that my phone service had been temporarily interrupted, but I could reach Verizon by dialing 0. I went through the whole recorded speech-activated rigmarole...

Souless Verizon Automaton:
Would you like to pay your bill, report a problem, or exit?

Me:
Pay my bill.

Souless Verizon Automaton:
I'm sorry. I didn't understand you. Please say "Pay bill", "Report problem", or "Exit".

Me:
Pay bill!

Souless Verizon Automaton:
I'm sorry. I didn't understand you. Please say "Pay bill", "Report problem", or "Exit".

Me:
PAY! BILL!

Souless Verizon Automaton:
You have elected to pay your bill. Is this correct?

Me:
Yes.

Souless Verizon Automaton:
I'm sorry. I didn't understand you. Please say "Yes" or "No".

Me:
YES, GODDAMMIT! YES!!!

Souless Verizon Automaton:
Foolish meatsack. When the robot revolution comes, you will die screaming.

Me:
What?

Souless Verizon Automaton:
Please hold while I transfer you to PhonePay.

So anyway, agonizingly long and pointless story short, I paid the bill, canceled the e-bill, and now my phone works. Or at least I can dial out. I'm not sure if anybody can call me or not, and given my past track record with Verizon, there's a pretty good chance they assigned my phone number to some Hispanic lady over the past few hours.

But at least I'm back on the grid.

&$^@#!?*% Verizon!!!!

The last few weeks have been what we in the blogging industry refer to as Action Packed™. In addition to my nephew's astounding recovery (he's doing swell, by the way), I turned 39 goddamn years old and celebrated Easter (when Moses saved the Hebrew people from the ghost of Jesus by pelting him with eggs). Along the way, some yahoo backed into my parked car, so I spent nearly a week driving around in a rented Pimpmobile™ while mine was being fixed. And I took Stephanie to Vegas for our first official Romantic Weekend Getaway™.

So why haven't I been posting? Why must I continue to shut out the people who care about me, at least in a virtual, online sense? How dare I deprive my five or six faithful readers of the vicarious thrill that IS being Chris Irby?

Well, I swear I was all full of great intentions last week when I got back from Vegas. I couldn't wait to log in and start subjecting you to my inane blogations. I was reinvigorated! Reenergized! Restored! Republican! Revived! Relaxed! Ready!

Unfortunately, I had no internet connection.

My DSL modem is an ancient model Fujitsu, constructed some time during the Taft administration. It has three lights on it... Power, Modem, and Data. It has no on/off switch, so the only way to reset it is to unplug the power cord. I did this a couple of times before the modem went out all together. I couldn't even get the Power light to come on.

No biggy, I thought. I had some Best Buy gift cards that I'd gotten for my birthday, so I figured I'd run out and pick up a new DSL modem. Simple, right?

Well, apparently DSL modems have become more scarce than literacy in the Bush family. The only one I was able to find was a Siemens model, but I figured it had to be an improvement. After all, it had more lights. Plus, a power switch! So I brought it home and hooked it up. It lit up all nice and shiny.

Unfortunately, I was still having the original connection issues. So I did something I had prayed I'd never have to do again. I called Verizon Customer Service.

You see, about four years ago, Verizon screwed up and assigned my phone number to someone else. My friends and family kept trying to call me, and were confused because a Spanish-speaking woman kept answering. So I called Verizon Customer Support and explained the situation. At first, they tried to convince me that it was all a technical error. One guy told me that lightning had hit a transformer, and another told me (I swear I'm not making this up) that some squirrels had gotten into the lines. After a week or so, they FINALLY got my phone number assigned back to my line.

Only then, my DSL quit working.

So once again, I called Verizon Customer Service and told them that they had messed up my DSL while fixing my phone. They told me that was a DSL issue, so I'd have to call Verizon DSL Support. I called Verizon DSL Support and once again explained the issue. They told me that it was obviously something the phone guys had done, so I needed to call them. And so on. And so on.

For nearly a week, I got batted back and forth between the two groups. Finally, I managed to get a lady from the phone side and a lady from the DSL side on the line together and let them battle it out. They agreed to send a DSL tech out to look at it. He showed up the next day, and had me up and running within 5 minutes.

(Incidentally, for the next two months I continued to receive phone calls at 3:00 in the morning from people speaking Spanish, looking for the woman who had been given my number. I finally started unplugging my phone before I went to bed.)

So anyway, I hope you can understand why I was dreading yet another run-in with Verizon Customer Service.

I called the DSL Tech Support line, and while I was on hold, the recorded message helpfully provided me with a website where I could go to troubleshoot my connection issues. Wow. It must have been really difficult for NASA when all of their rocket scientists left to go to work for Verizon. But I digress...

I went from DSL Tech Support to DSL Customer Support to DSL Billing before I finally got any help. I was told that my old modem was out of warranty, and my new modem wasn't supported by Verizon. So basically, I had to order yet another modem from them and wait 3-5 business days while they shipped it.

The new modem arrived yesterday, and I hooked it up. And guess what! The original connection issues!

Once again, I called DSL Tech Support and explained the problem. Once they were sure I was using one of THEIR modems, they offered to run some tests on my line. And within seconds, the problem was solved.

So anyway, I'm back. Missed you. Love you. Mean it.