Google, Adsense and all things SEO

Posted on February 11, 2010 by

The Google, Adsense and general SEO merry-go-round has started again!

A long time ago I ran another website for a community of gamers who were playing City of Heroes.  It was a great game and they were great people.  I have no complaints.

The group was quite large, over 300 characters, and partly due to this we decided that a forum would be useful for us to keep in touch and generally abuse each other (mostly in a nice way).  As the site was costing me real world cash to host, I decided that rather than come to resent the site for what it was costing me, I would use advertising in the form of Google’s Adsense program to support it.

The process of installing the ad code and generally running a website was totally new to me, but I was taking a web design course at the time and so I struggled on.  The final site was decent, but the ad revenue was, to be honest, pathetic.

The problem, I now understand, is that social sites just don’t generate search engine traffic (people looking for something).  Rather you tend to get the same visitors over and over.  If you are unlucky this could even get you kicked out of the Adsense program altogether as it would be the same IPs clicking the same ads over and over …

I was “lucky” and the gamers using the site were either “ad blind” or using ad blockers.  Of course, this didn’t help with paying for the server, etc.

This led me to try and optimise the site for external traffic in an effort to make it pay for itself.  It turned out that searching for facts about SEO while gaming, studying and committing general debauchery was far from fruitful and the site never really got anywhere income-wise.  Indeed it actually became a distraction from the real purpose of why I opened the site in the first place.

Recently my pursuit of a valid Adsense account and all the things that come with it have been getting in the way of my regular posting here.  Although it is true the merry-go-round is indeed starting again, this time I hope for a much better ride!

Dave Felton

Posted in Internet | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Google, Adsense and all things SEO

Endgame Chess T-Shirts (part one)

Posted on February 10, 2010 by

My order for the Endgame chess t-shirts arrived today.  Well, at least two of them did, along with a nice hand written comment from the John (owner of Endgame).  Since I only ordered on the 5th of February, this is pretty good for a delivery to the UK from the US.  I guess the other two t-shirts will arrive tomorrow.

The two t-shirts that arrived were:

Pieces Fall

Wandering King

Wandering King

I am impressed by the quality of the printing on the t-shirts.  The material is lighter than I expected (my fault) but is not flimsy, so I have high hopes for the future durability of them.  It is also a good sign that the chest area is one piece and not two, so they won’t twist out of shape when washed.

They are both XXL as I was concerned about finding a t-shirt that would be long enough as I am 6’5 and quite long in the body.

In case you are wondering, they fit great!

It will be great to wear something that looks good and has a chess theme.  Many people see chess as “geeky” and so it is nice to have a t-shirt that definitely is “cool”.  It is a shame that the first person to see them will probably be my doctor!

As only two of the t-shirts have currently arrived I will cut this post short and will post more when the rest get here.

Dave

Posted in Chess | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Endgame Chess T-Shirts (part one)

Blood Clots – how to protect your health and maybe save your life

Posted on February 9, 2010 by

Blood clots kill more people each year than cancer and HIV/AIDS combined.  I therefore find it amazing that in the UK there is almost zero publicity relating to the issue, especially given that we have a freely available health service (NHS) whose job it is to attend to the nation’s health and that treatment and prevention of them is so simple and straightforward.

blood clot diagram, embolism

Image courtesy of Wikipedia.com

Perhaps reading this assertion over the severity of the effects of blood clots you think I exaggerate.  Maybe you are more familiar with reading about strokes (a blood clot in the brain), or heart attacks (many of which are caused by blood clots in the arteries supplying blood to the heart).  The type of blood clot I suffered, a Pulmonary Embolism (PE), is fatal in roughly one third of cases yet is easily preventable.

Indeed it is a fact that almost all blood clots are easily preventable and the costs of prevention far outweigh the price of curing the after effects of having one, assuming you survive that is.

Preventative drugs, such as Heparin and Warfarin, are relatively cheap when compared to many newer drugs, yet are frequently not employed, at least in the UK.  If you are diagnosed with a clot, or at high risk of one, I would encourage you contact your GP and attempt to ensure that you are not passed over for what is a simple and cheap preventative measure.  Doing so could save your life.

Some people believe that blood clots only happen to the elderly and to some extent that belief is justified however it is not the whole story.  There are a number of risk factors that can increase your risk of having a blood clot, but even if you have none of these risk factors one may still occur – as happened in my own case.

Only yesterday a Premiership footballer, Bolton’s Gary Cahill, was diagnosed with a blood clot.  You don’t get much younger or fitter than this.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/b/bolton_wanderers/8503800.stm

So now that I have shown you that anyone can get a blood clot, that they are serious enough to be life threatening and hopefully you are motivated enough to care…now what?

Well, if you get a pain in a limb accompanied by swelling hopefully you will take it more seriously than I did – only going to the doctor after three days of being unable to walk due to what I thought was merely a bad cramp or muscle pull in my calf muscle.  An early trip to the doctor could save your life, or at the least help you avoid a lot of pain and inconvenience.

Another thing you should do is consider visiting:

http://www.stoptheclot.org/

It is a great site for expanding knowledge of this subject and exploding a few myths.

Stay healthy.

Best wishes as ever.

Dave Felton.

Posted in Medical, Science | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Blood Clots – how to protect your health and maybe save your life