Archive for March, 2012

Guest Blogging and Duplicate Content

Wednesday, March 21st, 2012

Something made me chuckle this morning so I thought I would share it on here. Guest blog posting is a great way of building back links to strengthen the SEO of your website, the benefits of that are not up for dispute. Like most things though, there are always some people who just don’t get it.

It’s kind of ironic that the article from this morning was one of the many “anti SEO”, “people try to trick people with SEO”, “rank one in Google blah blah…” type of articles. I read a few lines of this particular article and after seeing how long it was, I got the urge to copy and paste the first paragraph to see how many other sites it would appear on.

Duplicate Content – Exhibit A

Duplicate Content Exhibit A

Duplicate Content – Exhibit B

Duplicate Content Exhibit B

Duplicate Content – Exhibit C

Duplicate Content Exhibit C

If you are going to have guest blog posts on your website then it would certainly be worth checking to see how unique the article is – even if it is from a “good friend”. Duplicate content should always be avoided, it does your site no favours and when done like this is could start to have a negative effect, ie incur a penalty from Google.

Also, while we are on the subject… if you are going to do guest blog posts, two words: anchor text. This is even more lazy than copy and pasting the same articles across numerous websites:

It’s good that Google is slowly starting to de-index more blogs and article websites… they rarely add any value and are generally pointless.

What Should I Do With My Broken Black Apple MacBook?

Friday, March 16th, 2012

This seems like an odd blog post.. but I would like to know how much my broken MacBook might be worth so I can work out what to do with it. I have had the laptop for around 5 years, which seems like a long time, but it has had very, very little use. It’s in great condition for it’s age (apart from being broken), I have seem other peoples MacBooks that look like they have been dragged through a forest and back but still work fine.

Why is it broken?

I’m not completely sure, but a few different “apple experts” have looked at it and they think it’s the logic board. I’ve been through forums online and tried a multitide of keyboard combinations but it still won’t turn on. Also, in my wisdom I put a Snow Leopard disk in it, so this is now stuck in the drive – stuck as in won’t eject, not stuck as in crunch time.

Here are a few pictures:

MacBook Outside

MacBook Open

MacBook Keyboard

If anyone wants bigger or better pictures please let me know.

What should I do with it?

If you could let me know what you think I can do something with it. I have had quotes for a new logic board and they have ranged between £400 to £1000.

Thanks in advance…