Monkeys

Sorry I haven’t written much of late, been going hard at it on work and on personal projects in my own time – meaning very little time to write. For those of you waiting for part 2 of The New Science of Inbound Linking it will be up this week I promise (this is probably only going to make any kind of difference to one of you anyway).

Recently been talking to a fair number of people about the direction that SEO is going to be heading in over the next five years or so as compared to the last five. Like me many people seem to think that there are going to be some major changes very shortly. Some are even worried that there will be no more SEO, engines will completely manage to dispense with the need for it and those who put it into practise.

I’m not too worried myself, as long as there is an internet, people will be trying to call attention to themselves. In fact as long as there are people, they’ll be doing that – so if the industry does end – everyone will be dead. Excellent.

This doesn’t mean that we don’t need to be expanding skillsets, learning new techniques and increasing our range all the time. There seem to be those around who are all too happy relying on the same old tricks – which over the years are increasingly seen as black hat. So I for one am pleased that Wikipedia have nofollowed all their outbound links, it should have stayed that way the last time.

Myself I’m putting a lot of work into semantics, video and rich media formats to keep up with the curve, as well as reading every blog and technical journal I can get my hands on. As well as that, I spend a lot of time working on personal projects that often never see the light of day when the industry takes a different turn – but just having them in my portfolio shows breadth and a willingness to keep learning that every developer needs, and should be passionate about.

In short, keep creating.

The New Science of Inbound Linking : Part I

You know those articles that get routinely Digged to the front page with a headline something akin to : “AMAZING: 10 ways to promote your blog” ? Well this is one of those articles. But this time, I’m actually going to give you useful information that chances are you won’t have seen all of, and most probably not in the same place.

Semantic Technology: A New Context

Semantic search is actually just one facet of what’s possible using semantic technology. There are many more uses and implementations that are generally not discussed and frequently passed over altogether.

This doesn’t mean that they are any less valid, it’s just that the companies that are developing these technologies for the most part are primarily search engine companies looking to apply it to on line applications over gargantuan databases of millions if not billions of websites.

So let’s have a look at some other practical uses of the technology that think slightly further out of the box.

Happy Monday!

I just thought i’d drop you a message here on this lovely Monday. First off – hello to all the new readers, many of you from reddit and stumbleupon, and thanks for reading.

Secondly, I’m working on two new articles at the moment:

• The New Science of Inbound Linking
• Practical Implementations of Semantic Technology

The first is looking at the new ways to generate links to your content and create interest in the wave of social networking that is Web 2.0 (at least that’s what they’re calling it, buzzword: synergy), and the second is talking about other ways to use semantic technology with the web other than just creating yet another search engine.

I may not necessarily release them in that order, and they may be released in multiple parts as I’m trying to work on getting things out in more readable bitesize chunks that won’t rot the very important neural pathways of my users. Apologies to the families of those now looking after vegetative ex-readers :/

Finally, I’m working on putting together a video podcast of a type. It’s mostly going to be me talking arse about tech (which I love and can talk arse about for a very long time) but there may be an occasional nugget in there where I get drunk and talk about technologies I really shouldn’t yet. The flat’s kitted with an HD camera and mics now so at least the picture will be clear even when I’m not.

Anyway, the fresh content will start to appear tonight/tomorrow so keep checking back. Have a good week all!

Semantic search isn’t easy : An understanding

I’ve done a lot of work on improving and adding semantic search to engines, and let me tell you something, it’s one of the most difficult concepts to get your head around as a SEA (search engine author). The complexity of trying to teach a machine to learn for itself what a word actually means is high and will drive you insane if you forget your meds.

I found that when I was searching for information on how semantic search works, there were very few papers on the subject online and those that were present were in a word: Crap. Once you understand what’s going on though – the development is actually the simple bit. Here’s some of my research notes (unfortunately minus the solution, hopefully you’ll be inspired enough when you grasp it to create your own).

Rise of the Robots!

Stompy robots are great, they stomp, in the case of Asimo they fall right over down some stairs.

Anyway, it seems we’ve hit our 5 yearly statement that we’ll all have a robot in our homes in the next 10 years doing the dishes, cleaning carpets, shampooing cats and delousing small children. Check out the BBC article from CES.

“Mankind has long been fascinated with robots. Perhaps Isaac Asimov knew the impact his short story collection I, Robot would have on the world when he wrote the nine tales making up the book.“

read more | digg story

The Search Target

Filtered personal searching is a growth area, allowing users to download their own search indexes based around topics of interest to them.