As the Technical Director at Coding Futures, I now have a day, night and weekend job, which simply takes the majority of my time. I wouldn’t change it for the world, but sadly, the blog has been the neglected child. That needs to change, so I’ve made some changes.

First, even though it’s been up a month: SURPRISE! The blog has had a theme makeover with the help of my friend Kat Neville, who designed the theme nearly 2 years ago. I just finally got around to getting it up and going.

Secondly, while I was offering consultancy through the site, I was never comfortable having advertisements on it. With consultancy gone, I’m going to introduce some advertising. It will also give me a good excuse to play with adApe (ooo I can do product placement to) before it launches. If you’re interested in advertising on the site, please do get in touch.

XKCD 870

As this is timnash.co.uk, advertising will be slightly different and experimental. Therefore, advertisers will have the ability to run mini retargetting campaigns on the site. If you are concerned about privacy, the good news is the retargetting will obey do-not-track headers. Over the next couple of months, expect new and interesting advertising experiments, which hopefully will be good exposure for advertisers and of interest to readers.

For me, the way to get back into blogging is to make timnash.co.uk exciting again (and force me to give it the time it deserves). I’m also interested in hearing what people want me to write about.

Here are some of the drafts I currently have. Which should I finish first?

• Long Landing Pages, Success a myth or a fact?
• Determining Connections within networks
• My Super Affiliates help me screw you!
• Who owns a site’s analytical data
• Digital Suppression a slippery slope to reputation management
• Identifying Users, no such thing as anonymous
• Expanding your retargetting methods
• Something completely different

Not all those posts will be published. Some are just a few words, while others almost finished. So, what appeals to you?

Remember, if your interested in advertising, take a look at what timnash.co.uk can offer.

The Seminar will cover:

• Identifying existing data sources within the E-Commerce system
• The importance of data collection in the checkout process
• Demographic Mining — what stores can do with existing data
• Discovering true costs of a sale
• Enhanced tips on advertisement based on demographic

The seminar will take place takes place in Aspect Court in Leeds and is a first come first served basis. The seminar costs £130 and includes:

• The seminar itself
• Refreshments including brunch
• Downloadable version of the seminar
• Follow up access

Places are very limited, so if you are interested please get in touch with me via my email tim@newmedias.co.uk or skype ventureskills.consulting

What: Data Mining for E-commerce seminar
When: 9.30am – 2pm 21st May 2010
Where: Aspect Court, Leeds, UK

Here is some feedback from a previous seminar:

This was a great seminar, with plenty of opportunities to pick Tim Nash’s giant brain. I came away with a stack of notes and a whirl of practical ideas for clients’ online strategies. Within the week, I had put some of those ideas into effect. See you at the next one.

Karyn Fleeting MD, Tinderbox Media

Thank you for running the seminar on Friday. I found it enjoyable and very informative, I took home lots of great actionable ideas for our sites.

Rob Cole, Which Bingo

Please note: I want to start by fully apologising for the potential harm I could have caused with my post regarding Park Hampers to GoPark.co.uk. I made a genuine mistake. The domain we are about to see had nothing to do with the one I had intended to write about, and I’d like to take this opportunity to say gopark.co.uk has nothing to do with Park Hampers.

History Of My GoPark Apology

Back in 2009, I wrote a post about the Park Hampers TV campaign and how they really hadn’t thought through their SEO campaign. I entitled it ‘Park Hampers SEO Sucks’, which obviously started ranking for Park Hamper related terms. Unfortunately, I also included gopark.co.uk within that article. Once again, this was a mistake but did result in…

As you can see, I’m ranking for gopark.co.uk. (Oh, and for the record: yes, I did mean GetPark.) Meanwhile, around the same time, Greg Rickford updated the whois record for gopark.co.uk as part of his plan to relaunch the site. As a result, I received the email below today, May 2010:

Greg Rickford (www.gopark.co.uk) wrote:
You cite one of my websites (www.gopark.co.uk) as having some connection with
Christmas hampers and other misrepresentations.
That is entirely wrong and libelous I would ask you to correct that posting at
once in such an absolutely clear way such that any future websearches will show
that you posted the information in error. Www.gopark.co.uk (currently being
rebuilt) is a site for booking discounted airport parking which I own. It has no
other connections or purpose.
Please let me know by email of the corrective action you have taken within 7
days. Kind regards.

I was a bit confused and it took me quite some time to find the problem. Then, I looked at the google search, the whois and thought ‘you are quite right. I did indeed reference the site incorrectly’.

Sadly, I don’t respond well to threats on a Sunday morning, especially to ones accusing libel over a typo! I mean, I could understand if I had accused them of something horrible, but all I had done was associate a website with the wrong company. More over, if the gopark.co.uk site was relaunched, I’m certain everyone would have realised that Park Hampers was not related to airport parking. Surely, the way to stop any reputation management issues is to be nice.

Well, let it never be said I’m not a nice person. I replied:

Hi Greg,
Obviously I take any errors seriously and correct them when notified.

So here is what I will do for you, I will append an update clearly
stating I appear to made a mistake with gopark.co.uk I’m guessing I
either made a typo and was looking at got or similar, or perhaps
misread a whois document either way I will make it very clear to my
readers this was a mistake. I will then link to my about page which
explains my policy on figures and numbers and a blog post, detailing
your original email and this email, to further clarify.

I hope that will be enough for you,

Cheers
Tim

So I want everyone to be in no doubt I have complied fully with ” would ask you to correct that posting at once in such an absolutely clear way such that any future websearches will show that you posted the information in error.”

What I would have done

I want this to be a learning exercise, so if I was having the same problem as Greg, I would have approached this slightly differently. To be honest, the post was doing no harm, and threatening libel over a typo is just going to get someone upset.

I would first look at the site. Ok, clearly I write about the web, I might have some influence. To his credit, Greg did look at a couple of pages beyond the Park Hampers, but sadly, not the about page… oh well. If he had, he should have gotten that I’m generally a nice guy, but probably wouldn’t respond well to threats.

I would have gone with…

Hi Tim,
I own GoPark.co.uk, in this post you reference our site, we have never been associated with Park Hampers, would you mind removing the reference as we are about to relaunch

I might have even linked to him. If I decided going heavy was the way to go, I would (and this is an important tip) contact a lawyer prior to threatening any action or accusing someone of said action. You will only hinder a successful case otherwise. As tempting as it is to use big scary words, the person on the other end is likely to call your bluff and/or his lawyer.

This is a nice friendly post. I’m sure gopark.co.uk will be a fantastic service and I hope they optimise their site, so I’m never writing Go Parks SEO sucks or similar posts. But, I can’t help but think that, had Greg approached me in a slightly different manner, this post might not exist but then again, he did say…

Tim,

Thanks for the quick response.

Your proposed correction will be fine.

Kind regards,
Greg

Screenshot: Post Reputation Management by GoPark.co.uk Screen Shot

I have made no secret of the fact I struggle to maintain a blog, I find writing for such a varied audience hard and while I’m motivated by new things and cool ideas ultimately I have nearly a 100 drafts! That’s almost more drafts then posts.

So what’s with this post?

Well I regularly get people commenting and complaining about the grammar on the blog. Strangely most of these people use fake details and ironically nearly all make grammar mistakes in their comments. The latest one was quite long and detailed so I decided to respond by email sadly I was greeted with.

Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:

djonorous2994@yahoo.com

Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 554 554 delivery error: dd This user doesn’t have a yahoo.com account (djonorous2994@yahoo.com) [0] – mta194.mail.ac4.yahoo.com (state 18).

In the email I reiterated the fact the blog is simply a place for my musing and thoughts and not a structured or edited. While writing the email I was chatting to Carolyn and between us (ok mainly her I was concentrating on not making mistakes) we came up with several ideas based around identifying such comments. However the whole incident has left me pondering the importance of grammar on this site and how it’s effecting peoples mental state.

What would you do?

So here is my question as many people know I’m prepping for v3 of timnash.co.uk it will still have the blog but perhaps the content on it may change. Basically I have 5 choices:

• Do nothing – Keep everything the way it is maybe add a disclaimer just to rewarn and ask people not to be an ass when commenting
• Make content purchase only – and use the money to pay an editor.
• Pay for an Editor – timnash.co.uk does not make money to pay for an editor would mean finding a way to pay for the editor or it comes out of my pocket, reducing the posts even more
• Stop Writing – It’s simple, I can’t offend if I don’t write
• Ask for donations for an editor – do you feel strongly enough that would put your hand in your pocket to help pay for an editor?

I have created a Google Page form http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDNfeG9IaUc1dGlrNHdTT2xiQmJicWc6MA

Please if you can spend 20 seconds answering the two questions it will help me make some choices. Also how would you handle the issue of grammar and spelling? Should I just take a chill pill!

Oh and the evil idea Carolyn came up with?

Every time some one comments and their comment has words like spelling, grammar or apostrophes they are taken to a screen asking if they are sure they want to post such a comment. It would also suggest they make a donation to the Dyslexic Research Group a charity I have been supporting for years.

The SEO blog of course died or should that diversified into a blog about “stuff” but it was a little over two years ago I accidentally got myself blacklisted by Google on my .me.uk domain name and moved the blog over to the .co.uk a move which I’m very pleased I made.

Some Interesting lessons in stuff from history

Well history of this site anyway!

• Use the best tool for the job, I remember the early days of using Drupal to run a blog never again, its WordPress all the way.
• Don’t be afraid to go where your passion is even at the expense of some audience, likewise blog because you have something to say not because you feel you have to
• Don’t get down when people don’t comment on your awesome piece
• Never use Sphinn or similar cess pits as the guage to public opinion (indeed add twitter to that)
• It’s your blog do what you want with it!
• If you opening Pandoras box have tissues and thick skin
• Comment spammers really will never stop
• Making things bold and in red does not mean people will read your polite notices
• Do not call your readers guinea pigs out loud!

My Favourite Posts from Tim Nash SEO Blog?

In no particular order here are some of the ones I’m most fond of

• Am I an advanced SEO?
• Link Worth (I spoke on this at Think Visibility 2)
• Flash SEO revisited
• So Long and thanks for all the fish
• Profiling Landing page Users

So what’s the future for Tim Nash the Stuff Specialist blog?

It’s evolving I keep meaning to add a mailing list and in doing so demonstrate a rather nice double opt in method for emailing comments to people. Expect the posts to become more technical and less SEO based covering more practical behaviour modelling rather then simply theory. Oh and I might even get a video camera out and try some of this video melarky out.

Am I going to monetise the site?
Strangely a question I get asked alot, at the moment their is the occasional affiliate link and some bits like my recommended reads (which are genuine suggestions not just random books) but no “direct” advertising I do have space for potential 8 advertisers on the site I just never considered selling ad space on this site. Also up until recently I felt any advertising of an SEO product would be a conflict of interest things have changed slightly so it could be a case of wait and see. If you want to advertise then drop me a line and we can discuss it.

How about for Tim?

In will continue my quest to educate people in stuff and hopefully will be able to engage more with the community both online and off. I will also be off to a few more conferences though none of them SEO related I suspect the first of which will be Paypal Innovate in San Francisco in early November will you be there?

What you want more? Seriously I mean what do I need to tell you?
I will be running a seminar on Profiling website users, looking at life cycles and a huge pile of tricks and ideas to get the most out of your users. Want to know if colour effects genders differently? Want to know how to estimate gender in website visitors?

Then you should be attending this seminar! What’s more its free well sort of, its actually free to Think Visibility attendees everyone else its £50 but of course what this really means is if you buy a Think Visibility ticket at £99 and use my discount Coupon TIMNASH the price will drop down to such a level that you got to ask yourself why not come to both

I’m afraid while this seminar will be filmed it will be only for internal use and not available for purchase, if it’s a success I might run a future seminar and film it.

If you are interested in improving your conversions, or even just curious as to what it is that I find more interesting then SEO (or if your into SEO why what we do is so much more then the normal) then come along for the afternoon it’s free, simply register to confirm your place at the behaviour modelling seminar.

• Several of the best SEOs in the country
• WordPress and CMS experts
• Social Media experts
• A true accessibility expert with hands on experience
• A guy who has been sued by well everyone!
• oh and me

Check out the full list of speakers and the schedule and if you haven’t already buy your ticket, using the discount coupon TIMNASH

Important – would you like a more indepth seminar the day before?

I’m seriously thinking about running a free or very very cheap seminar for attendees on the friday if their was a charge it would be to cover costs for hiring somewhere. If you would be intersted in attending this seminar which would be on the Friday afternoon then please let me know if there is enough interest then I will organise one.

What I would be covering, metrics, human behaviour modelling and identifying patterns (including some nifty ideas for SEOs out there) as I say nothing concrete but either use the comments here or email/contact/tweet me (yes I’m now using twitter @tnash)

This seminar would only be for Think Visibility Attendees basically I’m offering a £500 half day course for free if people want it.

Oh don’t forget to buy a ticket!

Why is timnash.co.uk changing now?

Well to be honest I have gotten bored of people pigeon holing me as an “SEO” its not a title I have ever been comfortable with and as far as I’m concerned there are less then a handful of true SEOs in the world the rest are failed web designers who need to convince people that rather than do a real job they should be paid to fix bad code mistakes and write crap to gain links. Don’t get me wrong many of these people are my friends and some are incredibly talented writers, programmers and developers but virtual none of them are “Search Engine optimisers” as an industry there is little or no understanding of what a search engine is, the mathematics or logistics behind large scale information retrieval or even the process of crawling, retrieving and indexing. This is not a problem for me and I think its on a whole a good thing certainly has been for our clients, while the industry sits in the mud throwing its own muck at each other a silent group have just been getting on with the job but I just don’t want to be associated with the mud slinging. Some say change should come from the inside but lets face it a quick look at SEO cesspools such as Sphinn will quickly show that it’s not going to change soon. Plus as my personal interests shift away from SEO to different aspects of information retrieval and data analysis I find it harder to be interested in the day to day politics and winging of the industry I have already stopped attending or speaking at SEO conferences with the exception of smaller ones such as Think Visibility and then I pick and choose based on what other things the conference is bringing.

Venture skills is a data analysis company

We really are and always have been! We act as a trouble shooting think tank, we collect, measure and report data sets making recommendations on how to proceed, be that on helping clients optimise their sites for search engines, improve conversion rates or predicting the spread of flu within a region. We work both online and off with a clients as diverse as the government through to high street stores to online businesses. Venture Skills will no doubt continue to brand itself as an Information Architecture firm we believe ultimately that is what we do, but we shall put a renewed emphasis of the IR and data analysis side of what we do. In part to help this we plan on introducing a new website though we will not be including a blog the current Venture Skills blog will remain live but not be updated after this week. The new site will introduce what we do and why hopefully will answer the age old question what exactly is “stuff” I’m sure we as a company will put some sort of press release like thing out as unlike certain organisations this is my personal blog and not a mouth piece for Venture Skills so until its announced officially this is just here say.

What is to become of timnash.co.uk?

It will evolve the SEO course, Q&A section will be taken down, the front page will no doubt have newer text and I am slowly introducing new ideas (such as the additional post notes which are in the side bar, you can see them being used in this article) to be honest the content probably won’t change to much. Recently I have been discussing profiling, metrics and analytics more then SEO and this will continue with my goal to make these more accessible and hopefully open peoples eyes to this fascinating aspect of data analysis. I will also be introducing some more programming and examples (even if I have to fake the data to protect clients privacy) what this blog will not become is a “how to make money online” blog tried that it’s boring! Occasional articles on how I have improved conversions on one of my own sites maybe but I’m not going down the internet marketing guru route.

Will you be offering SEO consulting services?

Nope timnash.co.uk will not offer dedicated SEO services, all the courses,Q&A pages will be removed though I will be introducing a “have Tim in the office for a day” option for companies that need a total boost and change of perspective. The idea comes from the original idea for Venture Skills, rather then money introducing Skills into a business and while the company never went down that route it’s something I have always thought was worth exploring. I still have to think about how best to implement the idea but more to come soon.

Will the new timnash.co.uk feature the old picture what about old features oh and the mannequins?

No to the photo since I have gone through age regression I feel no shame in updating the photo with the younger, beardless, hairless person I have um become In addition I have a few new idea, including a calendar I promise to keep up to date with which events I will be at and what I’m doing maybe even before I go to them! Finally while I will be updating the look the mannequins will be staying and may even become more prominent if anyone has any 3d skills and once to help me create some more then get in touch!

Tim Nash you said SEOs are crap I hate you!

cool, bye!
I no doubt I will loose a couple of subscribers but lets face it I have never been in the cool club, I was always the person you came to when everyone else had said they had no idea best go and ask the geeky ones in the corner. So if you feel where I’m taking the blog and hopefully you is not somewhere you want to come then farewell, I hope you found the previous posts useful and will still pop by occasionally. I doubt the move will bring in new subscribers going from a niche to a tiny niche but hey if I wanted subscribers I would write top 10 lists!

I don’t want this post to be overly negative or personal within the “SEO Industry” I have made some great friends and while my opinion of the industry is harsh that doesn’t mean I think any less of those people nor does it mean I have had a bad time I have enjoyed debating, testing and sometimes arguing with people and for that reason I want to say:

So long SEOs and thanks for all the fish!

For those still wanting to carry on this journey then you can always subscribe to the RSS feed and you can find me on Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter
Please note: if I don’t know you I’m not likely to accept a friend invite on Facebook and if I do and your attached as a limited profile don’t get to upset so are most people

This article is the opinion of Tim Nash not Venture Skills see footer for details

On the 3rd and 4th of October to be precise!

Myself and Dom “The Hodge” Hodgson are planning on inviting you to the first HackNorth, we have managed to convince the guys at AQL to lend us an amazing building for a weekend and we along with a team of volunteers will be on hand supplying food, drink and generally preventing total anarchy. For those unfamiliar with a hack day they are a 24 hour code/design marathon you turn up, team up and build something for the betterment of mankind or to make drinking beer that bit more fun your choice! Prices will be awarded in a range of categories by the judging panel of our “experts”.

Why run HackNorth?

Dom and I have been planning to run a hack event for sometime and while both of us have organised marshalled events (Bar camps, rock concerts, conferences) this will be the first time either of us has taken on a 24 hour event with such a large number of people it will no doubt stress us both out, potentially ruin our friendship all so you guys can have the best time possible. Oh did I mention it’s a free event

HackNorth Registration?

so get yourself over to the site and sign up to the mailing list to be notified of when tickets become available.

You can also follow myself, Dom and HackNorth on twitter should you feel so inclined.

Well now I have the solution I have developed an Age regression therapy, a simple clean method of returning you to the age you should be.

No Chemicals, No Pills, No fuss

For just a few dollars I will show you how you can take 10 no 20 year of your current age don’t believe me here is the proof…

Still not convinced here are just some of the things people have said about this amazing therapy results…

you look the same as you were at school Old School Friend

you look like a 12 year old that has just had his favourite toy confiscated. Al Carlton – Self Made Minds

The secrets of my amazing transformation are yours for just $200 yes $200!

ok so maybe not, this is after all not an april fools though you are welcome to donate as little or as much as you want to the Dyslexia Research Trust via my Just giving page.

For those who have not heard I went through with the chop yesterday, flu ridden I might add (so to the really nice hairdresser both apologises for not talking much and congrats on your award! and sorry for next week when my flu hits you) I just want to thank everyone including Caius, Karyn, Sean, Chris, Gary, Simon, Gaj, Melanie, Scott, Joanna, Al, James, Jack (you need a blog mate ) and to all the people without websites or who provided support and ridicule thank you all on the day £230 was raised but the page is still open if you want to donate.

The final thanks go to the two people who caused it to happen, you know who you are and bah boo sucks to you!

oh and I almost forgot -> The best conference organisers in the world <- yes Hodge thank you to and I can’t wait for the results of Bar Camp Bournemouth for revenge

The donation page is up till september so please feel free to donate now!

Update: Thanks Dave!
Update 2: Dom went and had his head shaved! Not only that but in true web spirit it was a crowdsourced Haircut