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It's an interesting business too.

Optical Express is a "luxury" business because wearing specs or contact lenses sorts out most sight corrections and is the much cheaper solution.

It's also a "niche" business because most people wouldn't risk an eye operation as elective surgery.

A couple of nil-cost "image-protecting" suggestions ...

Try to make your "business address" sound like a business address and not a private home (eg 23 Smith St sounds OK as a business address but Dun Roaming, Smith St doesn't.

You might be able to "tweak" your address a bit (eg call your home Byte House, Smith St). The postie will still be able to find you thanks to your post code but make sure you have a nice big house name up declaring the new name (otherwise you'll baffle any "holiday cover" posties).

It's mandatory, I think, to have a notice up on the front of the house giving your registered company address anyway (MLF legal eagles please confirm) but that can be a much smaller, more discreet sign.

Second suggestion is - remove your house from street view in GoogleMaps. Google give instructions on how you can do this.

Hi Steve

So some anchor text is still OK ... Any advice please (from anybody!) on the proportions of anchor text to non-anchor text we should now be aiming for?

Nice to hear from you again, Lina ...

Thanks for info about Quora.

It sounds as if it might be helpful for businesses like mine where lots of people want advice, often don't know where to find it and may want a paid-for service after getting some free help.

There's a MyBuilder.com trades site that seems to operate on similar (?) principles. I know I warmed to the trades "advisors" on it after receiving help with a technical window problem. I'll be going back to the site to ask what type of contractors I need to sort out another project - and the "advisors" may well be asked to quote!

Can any of you suggest plse any suppliers that might meet the bill (and keep the bills low!)?

All I need is a supplier that's easy to deal with and a basic, cheap telecoms and broadband service - "free" anytime landline phone calls and internet access. There's not much difference between my requirements and that of purely domestic use.

It might be sensible for the new supplier to provide a replacement modem thingummyjig (I've had mine since 2009) - you know, the thing with flashing lights.

Any suggestions plse ? I'm paying

Most people - in most situations - are fairly good at knowing themselves and perceiving their own behaviour. There've been studies investigating whether individual test-takers can pick out their own personality profile from a selection of fairly similar personality profiles - the answer is usually "YES". People who know those test-takers well can also pick out the right personality profile for them from a pile of broadly similar profiles.

There are some situations, though, when you look at behaviour and you look at the test results and they don't quite tally! That's sometimes because of the person's environment or situation and sometimes because of a uniquely personal issue.

You might be a tough, self-assertive person happiest in positions of influence, for example, but if your job and your family's well-being depend on you never stepping out of line at work then you're likely to behave in a very subdued, docile way while your boss and colleagues are around. You'll probably pay the price (eg depression) for denying your natural instincts but at least you'll be able to pay the mortgage.

One of the reasons why I find psychometrics so interesting is that you can often make good guesses about what's happening in a person's life from the profile. When it's a career counselling appointment you can talk about these issues with the client and work out together no risk / minimal risk ways of improving the situation.

There's a technical manual to accompany every (reputable) psychometric test. This explains how the test was developed, how it performs (eg how valid and reliable it is - from memory there are about 16 different ways to test validity), the "norms" for different groups of test-takers (eg men, women, UK citizens, American citizens etc) and so on.

The technical manual for the main personality test I use (the 16PF) explains the research done to check how people tried to cheat the test; other tests' technical manuals can be expected to contain similar material.

The 16PF research specifically investigated how "candidates" applying for desirable jobs cheated - ie which questions did they answer in a particular way when they wanted to present a rosy view of themselves? When the researchers discovered exactly how people cheated they were able to design "trip" questions that were particularly effective in identifying the amount of "positive image creation" going on ... and formulae to use for correcting it!

Psychologists have put lots of research effort into making sure psychometric tests actually do what they say they do - so you can imagine just how furious I feel when DWP produces a shoddy little "quiz" thumbsdown(giving the same "report" to test-takers irrespective of their answers) and misleads everyone into thinking it's a psychometric test. It's also a breach of psychology's ethical code to force anyone to take a psychometric test (as was done to the JSA claimants).

If test-takers try to cheat the psychometric tests (eg because they want to fool the recruiter they're the next Richard Branson), there's quite often a nifty little formula hidden in the test itself that'll identify just how much cheating is going on and correct for it.

It's quite possible to tell the difference between deliberate cheating and test results that are "off key" for some other reason.

It's part of the research done before tests are published to examine how well each question on the test predicts behaviour. As regards a sales test, for example, you might compare what answers a test-taker gives with his / her relative success rates in achieving various sales performance targets.

I don't think it's made any difference to me either ...

I suppose one benefit of these updates is to act as a reminder to monitor how our sites are doing ...

Same from me!