Bramblog

Sorry for the slow load & lack of narrative on the last one. The video can still be found here (but be patient with it.) Here’s a pictorial of what’s going on:

#1 – Go to www.seattleweekly.com

#2 – Click on Classifieds > Real Estate For Sale

#3 – It takes you to Trulia’s Seattle Weekly Partner Page http://seattleweekly.trulia.com/WA/Seattle

#4 – Using the user agent switcher for FF, change your user agent to Googlebot

#5 – Refresh the page. It now reloads as the page Trulia optimizes for (currently #3 for “Seattle Real Estate) www.trulia.com/WA/Seattle

What are the implications of this? Basically that Trulia isn’t playing it as clean as their PR guys would tell you. They’re intentionally screwing their partners (they’re doing this to Parade, as well) out of links back, and they’re picking up some nice one-way sitewides as a result. The results they’re getting probably aren’t worth the risk of a cloaked 301, but they’re sure doing it. Oh…they’re also doing a pretty stupid, easily detectable cloak.

I swear, I’m not just using this blog to brag. I don’t have that much stuff to brag about. Nevertheless, I was really happy to check for and see that my buddy hit #1 for Austin welder. He’s getting business out of it, and there’s not a better Austin welder, or a nicer guy that deserves the biz. Regardless, it’s not that competitive of a term, but it’s definitely helping my boy stack the cheddar!

Google has recently acquired 25k sq ft of office space in downtown Austin’s Scarbrough Building.  They are expected to employ 125-150 engineers & other employees.  You know what this means….easier to meet one at a bar, drop ‘em a roofy, and get all the secrets!

Alright…I’m in not an affiliate of inmotionhosting, and I’m popping this logo in below because I’m a big believer in a photo on every blog. *edit* Now it’s an affiliate link for my buddy Terry, who turned me onto this.

Anyways….we’re now sitting on the bomb-diggity-proof server…guaranteed. We have 1gb of RAM bursting to 3gb, and can handle as many inquiries as can be thrown at us. It’s a VPS, but if we go over our allocated share of system resources, they automatically reallocate, and set up a call within 30 days to talk about possible upgrades.

Inmotion was the only hosting company I talked to that was familiar with the digg effect, and their customer support has been absolutely awesome thus far.

And there are problems….obviously.  I have someone working on it the next couple of days.  Should be back up soon.

Apparently, Google’s propagating a PR update right now.  I only checked a couple of pages, and didn’t see any movement on them, but it’s confirmed by good sources that it’s happening.  Always fun to whip ‘em out & measure!

I found this on digg, and thought it was hilarious. Check it out:

We were out last night for my fiancee’s friend’s 30th birthday and got a table at Speakeasy.  Speakeasy’s not really a “fancy” bar…it’s the type of place that has 80’s cover bands, which they had that night.  I don’t remember the band’s name, but they rawcked.  They all had awesome 80’s hair, and the guitarist looked exactly like Stephen Adler from GnR.

Anyways, I’ve noticed this before, but I really noticed last night that bottle service makes tons of sense if you don’t know how to do simple math.  There were around 8 of us, and a couple of people wanted to order a bottle.  I made it very clear that I prefer to drink what I want, and like having a bartender mix my drinks.  Here’s what went on in my head:

• 1 Bottle of Grey Goose via bottle service = $275
• There are 22 drinks in a bottle (at 1.5 oz pours)
• $275/22 = just over $13/drink
• The bar sells a grey goose drink for $7

Smart people who buy bottle service pay just under twice what the drinks would typically cost.  Actually, they pay more than that because the bartenders will typically pour a 2 oz drink if you’re nice to them.  So, bottle service makes lots of sense under the following scenarios:

1. You get pleasure out of wasting money.
2. You want others to think that you have so much money that you don’t pay attention to what you buy.
3. You need a tax write off (not very efficient, though, b/c you can only write off 50% of entertainment expenses – you’re better off buying a new computer and throwing it out the window immediately.)
4. You’re overwhelmed by decisions and don’t want options.
5. You REALLY like making your own drinks.
6. The ONLY way you’ll get a table is to buy a bottle, and you REALLY want a table (think Vegas.)

I’m not adamantly against bottle service in all situations.  #6 is really the only scenario that would apply to me, and probably only a couple of times in my life.  I guess if you really want to celebrate something, and you hate champagne and shots, bottle service could also make sense.  I guess.

Over the weekend! We’re also popping for 200+ long-tails. BTW – this is my tanning lotion project, TanTans.com. Partnering w/ 2 friends from college – one owns a tanning salon, and one is a web/graphic designer.

One of my buddies is a welder & did a killer job for me on the custom rails in my house.  So…we got to talking, and it turns out Lane is a maritime master electrician – he’s rated to work on pretty much anything on the sea.  My girlfriend’s house was built in the early 50’s, and the electrical was jacked.  I had someone put together a website for Lane as a “thank you” for taking care of my rails (and doing it for a great price.)  We started talking about the electrical work we needed at Ali’s house, and bartered some SEO work on Lane’s site for him to take care of the electrical problems.  So…I’m going to get him ranked for terms like Austin welder & Austin welding.  I’ve never worked on anything this non-competitive before, so I’m really excited to see how easy it will be to get rankings.  Based on the competition, I think I should be able to do it with some minimal linking – the on-site is basic enough that I’m not really worried about it.  Regardless, I’ll blog later once we’ve hit top 5.