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I always find Allyn Hane’s posts to be amusing and informative (always a good combo). Right now he’s doing a series on backlinks and that series is a part of a larger series on SEO in general.

His most recent post How To Get Links by Darren Rowse and I Agree is about, well, how to get links! Basically, this post focuses on 301 redirects and the “family of brands” concept (yanno, where you go on a site and at the bottom they have links to all their related sites). Very good post with good information, but I’d recommend checking out the rest of his posts on backlinks since there’s a lot more to quality link juice than just what’s in this post!

Anyway, the point of this post is that he said something that struck me as rather funny in his Darren Rowse backlinks post.

…I call this “content pruning” and it is based on John Chapter 15 of the Bible believe it or not. I will do a full posting on this in the future as it is very important when you want to build and sell a site for $30,000.

Emphasis mine.

This cracked me up that anyone would base any element of SEO on a portion of the New Testment. However, the devotional that I’ve been reading ironically (is that the right word?) had John 15:1-8 as that day’s reading. Oh yes, God is a joker.

OK, so what is John 15 about? Well, the first part of the chapter is the “I am the vine, you are the branches bit. If you’re not familiar with the Bible, the exact words of verses 1 and 2 are:

¹ “I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. ² Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away;^[a] and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.

Bwahahahaha! Seriously! Who knew the Bible could teach you SEO? (For those who aren’t into making money online, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization and it just means a way of making your content attractive to Google.)

In other words- if you have a crappy site that isn’t pulling its own weight, cut it off. Sell it, let the domain run out, scrap it and start over. If you have a site that IS doing well, edit the content, change the anchor links, edit tags, and so on, so that your site will perform better.

Ok, so I’m amused by the dumbest things.

Now, I also wanted to send out some linky love to another great internet marketer. She wrote a review of Brian Clark’s Scribe SEO uh… for lack of a better word, plug in. While she doesn’t call it a scam, she does declare it a waste of time and money. The product is aimed at SEO newbies, yet the price starts at $27 a month, for what amounts to a digital post it note. SEO newbies aren’t going to be making enough money to cover the cost of the plug in, and the plug in is totally unnecessary for anyone who knows enough about SEO to make back the monthly fees.

Still, I’d recommend going over and reading her review, because Brian Clark shows up and makes a total pig’s snout out of himself in the comments. It’s quite amusing. Bad publicity, but funny.

Hunting for a house, that is.

Hubs and I are sick of renting. Sick of having to call in the maintenance guy to fix the crappy equipment that comes with the place, sick of the horribly drafty doors and windows, the literally hollow baseboards and trim (I kid you not, what wethought was solid wood was in fact rotted out leaving the form of the original wood in the paint so that it looked totally normal until we accidentally pushed too hard on it and it caved in), the mysterious leak from somewhere around the tub that leaks through the ceiling in the kitchen and INTO the ceiling light’s cover. The kitchen faucet that can only be turned off by pushing down on the center of the thing rather than the actual handle, and now we just had to have a part replaced in one of the toilets to stop the jackhammer noise that woke me from a dead sleep 2 hours after I went to bed after a long day. I’ve already talked (at length) about the neighbors, and now the CO2 alarm goes off every time I make chicken or turkey broth.  I’d mention more, but I don’t like to complain. (insert tongue into cheek here)

So hubs and I found a cute little end of unit townhome in an awesome location. New community, immaculate exterior and yard, ditto for all the neighbors. Only problem is that it was a 2 bedroom 1 bath, and for all of its shortcomings, our current home is 3 bedroom, 1 1/2 bath plus an additional toilet (weird set up). So, we sat on it for a few days, unsure whether we should apply for a mortgage, set up a viewing, etc. A few days later, we looked at the listing again and it was under agreement.

No big deal. We really liked the house from the outside, but really? were we ready?

We’re still not sure. But after this weekend’s incident with the jackhammering toilet, we’re a little more ready than we were. My friend wrote a post on waterproofing basement walls which is a good reminder that not all is rosy in the home owning world. I would hope that a home we buy would be in better condition than this place, but at least the fix is free when you rent!

In the meantime, my internet marketing income as well as the posts like the one just before this is starting to creep up. It’s not enough to make the difference between home ownership and renting yet, but it’s getting closer. I just need to keep hammering away at my sites, and eventually we should be able to start looking at homes that are in the slums and actually have all the amenities we require. I hope.

Recently, I’ve had a few friends put up posts that I think should be among the first results seen when people search for similar information.

In one case, my favorite MMO blogger posted his first video ever- and it so happens to be his 7 year old daughter (cute) hand feeding a red fox. Apparently they made the mistake of feeding a wolf once, and ended up with one as a pet for 15 years, and still haven’t learned their lesson. And since my married name ends in “Fox”, I’ve been a little obsessive about them for the past few years. And this one is beautiful- fluffy, gorgeous fur, and barely even skittish! The video is a bit long, but if you like foxes as much as I do, it’s worth watching. And if you don’t like foxes as much as I do, it’s still pretty cool to see a fox eat right out of a little girl’s hand! So, if you’ve ever wondered what do foxes eat, follow the link to watch the video. It looks like a hamburger patty to me.

Secondly, a good friend of mine who lives in Toronto (I just realized that 2 of the 3 people I’m posting about here are Canadians… Hm… maybe I should consider moving up north?) just had a horrific time with a local business (Crystal Bath at 2839 Kingston Road, Toronto) over her order for a bathroom vanity (Toronto). This is downright horrible customer service, and apparently the company did a lousy job on the remodel as well. Follow either link for more information on this story.

And lastly, Allyn Hanes’ beer review blog is live! He talks about beer in an entertaining way, doesn’t get all snooty about it (in fact, the regular joke is about people who sniff beer before drinking it- he’ll often sniff his and then say “smells like beer!”), and really describes the beer in a way that someone who isn’t already a connoisseur can understand. I don’t even drink beer, but I love watching his review videos, because not only is he fun to watch, but his background in landscaping gives him tons of info to pull from when describing a flavor. For example, in his review of Moylander’s India Pale Ale (he reviews several IPA beers), he mentions how people refer to a “piney” flavor. Since he’s a landscaper by trade, he was able to explain that what people were tasting was actually kind of a cedar mulch and arborvitae in the beer.

Since I’m no fan of hops, IPA’s are definitely not down my alley, but I was fascinated to find out that flavors in beer can be as complex as they are in a good wine. And Allyn presents it all as the next door neighbor chatting over the fence and offering you a cold one. (BTW, a good friend of mine modified Allyn’s theme- so if you love it and want to hire him, he comments there as “Forest” or you can ask me for his info).