Piggynap’s Blog

After emailing Jeff a little while ago, and since those “I’m a PC” adverts are still on tv all the time, I thought I’d email Sean. One again I got a reply quickly, but it wasn’t quite so fun:

Hi. I got your email. Well, not really. A server that receives and stores emails sent to this address got your email. I, however, don’t so much check it anymore. It was fun to get to connect with many people for a while. Thanks.

Sean

In fact, it’s not fun at all. Sean is no longer on my “favourite Windows people” list

The current housing slump has already seen lots of estate agents lose their jobs, and the Telegraph reports that there could be a lot more on the horizon. Now, at the risk of sounding heartless I’m not exactly disappointed at the disappearance of this particular breed and I’m sure a lot of people would feel the same. Estate agents stretch the truth about properties (or just downright lie), they pester you to raise your bid, they charge extortionate fees whether you’re buying, selling or renting and they don’t seem to do very much for the money. What I mean by that is that nowadays all their properties are advertised on websites - you don’t really need to go into the shop anymore to browse (and why would you anyway…then you’d have to talk to one of them!). Like traffic wardens, it would be great if we could just get rid of estate agents in one fell swoop.

Well, soon we can.

Already websites like Rightmove and Fish4homes offer platforms for property search. There are also sites aimed at private sellers that are tapping into this growing demand but all of them have downsides. You might still have to go through an estate agent once you’ve found a house you’re interested in. You might have to pay to advertise your property. The website might be, quite frankly, crap.

Bethemiddleman is different. It’s a site aimed at private sellers and anyone who doesn’t want to go through an estate agent. So if you’re looking to buy, rent, let or even find a roommate it’s for you. Due to launch in 2009 it will be free to use so not only could you save thousands by selling your house through it, you’ve got nothing whatsoever to lose by giving it a try.

At the moment you can sign up to be notified of launch and you can follow its progress on Twitter. The housing slump is the death knell for estate agents and from the ashes, Bethemiddleman will be born!

You enrolled in lots of link exchange schemes a long time ago. You’ve got about a dozen link pages on your website all linking out to random places, and your link profile is mainly low quality directories and keyword-rich-domain websites - you know the type, garden-furniture-sales-direct.com!

Google is discounting low quality links such as directories more and more, and they don’t like it when you link out to spammy websites. So what would happen if you removed all your link exchange pages?

No really…what? Leaving them there won’t hurt, but will removing them damage your rankings? Answers by pigeon post please!

This email really made me laugh, so I thought I’d share it with you

Ok, I cracked and emailed jeff@windows.com from that PC advert. Because I’m a massive geek.

I got a reply!

Hi –
Thanks for your email. I apologize if I can’t send you a more personalized response than this auto-reply – I’m super busy these days trying to optimize my code & squeeze out that last drop of performance. Or sleeping off a caffeine crash
In case you were wondering (you did email me, right?), I’m a software engineer working on Windows Networking technologies. (Networking, like, wireless internet and all that}.

OK. I really need to get back to work now, so bye & thanks again for your email.
–Jeff

So is Jeff real? I think so, but I bet after that advert he had to change his email address

The subdomain problem is a big one for Google and Webmasters alike. Google don’t want their search results to be dominated by lots of subdomains all owned by the same person, but Webmasters might have a legitimate reason for using a subdomain and they worry it’ll get ignored.

The last I heard, Google were linking subdomains with their - what would you call them? Canonical domains? So that if www.piggynap.com ranked for monkey toes, monkeytoes.piggynap.com wouldn’t rank separately. It would be indented and counted as one result and not two. This means that relevant subdomains still have a chance of ranking for a key term, (the main domain might even play the role of the indented result) but several subdomains couldn’t dominate the page.

I also thought that subdomains would find it a little harder to rank - given the choice Google would rather place a proper domain first. Obviously this isn’t the case with domains like wordpress.com where separate blogs are owned by different people - presumably Google make an exception for hosting solutions like these. They still have to be careful however and avoid showing many results from the same site so I thought that in general they held subdomains at arms length.

So where am I going with all this? Well, I first noticed that Google were ranking their own subdomain in the form of books.google.com. It seemed that Google had made an exception for themselves. Then I noticed that a lot of the results were subdomains, whether or not the parent site was an authority.

I know this is all a bit subjective, but I just wonder if Google have started to allow subdomains more power. If I had my tinfoil hat on I’d say that they’ve changed their tune since deciding to put books.google.com into the results. But I’ve got no evidence, just some observations and a wild imagination. In the Webmaster Guidelines they say “Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content” so who knows. Maybe that line will disappear just like the advice they used to have about buying a listing in the Yahoo! Directory.

If you’ve noticed anything weird going on with subdomains, leave a comment. Let’s be confused together.

The 11th of November marks Armistice Day, the end of the Great War that devastated much of Europe and decimated the male population of many countries. Each year since then the day has been marked by remembering those who sacrificed their lives in battle. Almost everyone in the UK has an ancestor who fought in the war so Remembrance Day is poignant for young and old alike.

We wear a poppy on Remembrance day because of a poem written by Canadian John McCrae:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

9.7 million soldiers are thought to have died in World War One. Some of them lie in Flanders, Ypres and some of them lie in unknown soil, with unmarked graves.

If you’ve visited the BBC website in the past few minutes you may have noticed it looks a bit retro. They seem to be experiencing some ‘technical difficulties’ so are showing a simplified version of the site:

I hope their web company’s onto it!

Piggynap’s mum has written a book! Here it is in all its badly-photographed glory: Volume One of Aberford Church of England School.

This first volume deals with the early years - how the school came into being and the adventures of the early headmasters. There’s some stuff about the village in there too and some people might find old ancestors being mentioned.

The book costs £6 to buy and all proceeds go to the school, so it’s for a good cause!

If you’d like a copy (and I hope you do) you can get in touch either with me, by leaving a comment here, or with my mum whose email address is ruthpi1412 at-hotmail-dot-com.

She can take payment by cash if you want to go round her house, or cheque if you live further afield and want to post it

Many thanks Piggynap readers!