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We have a Facebook post going where people with Facebook Business Pages are adding a comment and pasting the link of their business page to get a few likes.

Feel free to join in, go through and like each persons page, then hopefully plenty of people will do the same in return. I'll the Facebook post pinned to the top until after Small Business Saturday (5 Dec)

Add your Facebook Business Page

Pretty worrying stats from a recent Deloitte survey.

"Just under half of respondents said they often felt they were being targeted by cyber-criminals.

Just under 40% had had personal data stolen or deleted because of a computer virus or malware, up from 26% in 2013."

Source: BBC News

As we move into a digital culture, I suppose it's inevitable that cyber crime will boom, but you would think there would be more protection. Or is it more of a case of better education? Most of these exploits and scams people fall for are pretty basic and easily defeated by ignoring or not opening attachments, clicking links you are suspicious of.

I suspect it's people currently in their late 40's onwards who are unlikely to have grown up with computers or have little interaction with them in the work place, or silver surfers taking their first foray into the online world, who are most at risk. Lacking a bit of cyber streetwise, that you naturally learn in the real world.

I can't see youngsters being so gullible or falling for online scams or phishing attacks as they have grown up in a digital world. At least hopefully! 

No doubt cyber crime will get more and more sophisticated that we will all have to end up hiring cyber security to protect us 

Do you worry about cyber crime? Are you one of the 40%? Do you worry about older family members?

I missed this one last week. Google has officially released it's internal search quality rating guidelines.

This is a document that is used by Googles army of international testers. These are people that randomly sample results from the Google search results, and see if they meet the quality guidelines. Or your site may be flagged for a manual review if something has tripped a filter or maybe generated complaints.

In the worst cases, failing to meet the search quality guidelines can see your site given a manual penalty to push it further down the rankings, or in extreme cases, removed altogether.

This document has long been coveted as the holy grail by the SEO community, and it has been leaked into the public domain a few times over the years. But this is the first time it has actually publicly released by Google themselves.

Here is a link to the Google blog that announces it, and you can also download the or open the guidelines from the below link. Be warned though, it's 8MB in size, so make sure you have a decent internet connection!

Read Google Official Search Guidelines

Sorry John, Hi-jacked your thread reminiscing about wagons!  Must be really frustrating these days with so much more traffic, and like you say, middle lane road hogs.

Good idea to make it an offence, but being realistic, with Police forces getting stretched, budgets slashed, this just seems like another unenforceable law, like smoking in cars.

ahh memories

Speedo that goes from left to right, no power steering and a 4 speed box! Rebuilt and re-engined about 4 times and some are still in service today outliving their replacements

Agree completely! In my former life as a military driver (HGV1 and PSV) we were actually taught Motorway driving after our basic car test, then after our HGV 3 test (remember them!?!) and after our coaches test, as the rules are different and it builds confidence. Rather than passing a pretty straightforward test then let loose on the countrys motorway network with cargo or passengers.

Never understood why it was never part of the normal driving sylabus.

It's coming up to that time of year again, Small Business Saturday, a chance for the small businesses of the UK to get some exposure and media coverage.

You can actively get involved by visiting www.smallbusinesssaturdayuk.com

I will post and pin this to Facebook, and see if anyone wants to swap likes to give some small business pages a little boost.

Is anyone getting involved this year, or have you done anything in the past?

If you haven't seen it, then click away as I don't want to spoil it for you 

So the latest film in the Bond franchise, Spectre is doing the rounds, and other than some bizarre publicity about Daniel Craig wanting to slash his wrists rather than do another Bond, I hadn't really got into the hype of this Bond. Unlike it's predecessor Skyfall which seemed to be everywhere, and was a superb film.

So I went with the missus, looking forward to a Skyfall quality Bond film, and when the opening sequence started, I wasn't disappointed! Very impressive, things blowing, fights in helicopters over crowded streets, all good stuff.

Then the starting credits, then after that, for me it went pear shaped  I've got to be honest, as a lover of Bond films through the ages, I thought it was awful. It just seemed flat and disappointing.

I was expecting big things with the return of the notorious Spectre organisation, but it all seemed an anti climax. M had the best line in the film, in response to his boss pointing an unloaded gun at him "now you know what C stands for", which got the expected laugh from the cinema. Then it was followed up by a sanitised explanation, "carelessness" which spoilt the moment.

I read a review somewhere after I saw it, to see if it was just me, but the review said it was overwritten and over produced which sums it up for me. 

The missus also a big Bond fan felt the same way. So genuinely gutted and won't even bother getting this one on DVD

I do wonder if things happened behind the scenes which cause some tension and affected the screenplay, script or acting? Which might explain his outbursts rather his normal full on publicity mode, which he's paid to do.

What about anyone else, did I miss something, did everyone else enjoy it? Was it better than Skyfall? Do you think Craig will do another in light of his comments of he would only do it for the money and doesn't give a **** who replaces him 

Finally after punishing lots of web site owners, and confusing countless more, Googles famous/notorious Penguin update is about to become a real-time algorithm.

Penguin is a name given to a Google algorithm that specifically analyses links pointing to your website and gauges the quality. If you are deemed to have an "un-natural" or shady linking profile, then your website can get penalised in Googles search results.

Shady Practices

Examples of shady practices are over eager and low quality SEO practices such as lots of spammy unmoderated forum posts, blog comments and lots of questionable anchor text such as link text with dubious names.

Do really people link to your website with a link text of:

"The best widget/product/service in the world" 

Unlikely, they are more likely to link as either your web link, www.widget.co.uk or your brand name: Bobs Widgets.

The good news

When this algorithm goes live reportedly in December 2015, you will know pretty quickly if your recent linking efforts have been worth it or not, or if it's time to sack your SEO expert. Unlike previous infrequent Penguin Algorithm rollouts, if Google deems you unworthy and punishes your website with a drop in rankings and traffic, as this update is supposedly real time, as soon as you have fixed the problem, in theory any algorithm penalty will be lifted straight away.

Previously, you could wait 12 months for another Penguin update to see if any linking clean up or repair work actually did the job, and regained any lost traffic or opportunities.

Be Prepared

According to Search Engine Land, Google has given a clear signal when this will go live, which looks to be December. So now is the time to have a look at your linking profile and make sure you haven't got any ropey skeletons in the cupboard!

How to check your back links would cover about 10 forum threads! My personal favourite at the moment is ahrefs.com which has a free trial period.

moz.com/researchtools/ose is another good tool and gives you lots of functionality for free. 

Googles own Webmaster Tools is another good place to analyse your links, although it can be notoriously slow to update your linking profile. But it is 100% free, and you should already be using it to monitor your websites health.

If you aren't using any tools, then just Google free backlink checkers and have a play. Lots of tools let you try them out for free or give you 30 days access.

Information source: Search Engine Land

Do you worry about things like the Google updates, or do you have any particular favourite tools you use to check out your backlinks?

Glad you have got it sorted John