Search & Social News snapshot of the past week

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No talk today, just links to some great articles from the last few days…

The Top 4 Best Facebook Practices
Facebook just posted a 40 percent increase in year-over-year traffic according to Hitwise. Here are the 4 best ways to leverage Facebook for your company.

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The joys of search

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So, like I guess a lot of people do from time to time, I decided to see what’s being said about me online that I did not know already.
There, at no. 2 on a Yahoo! search ( in CCN.com ) I found my name linked to a hunting safari company in Namibia. Never having hunted before, though I was invited to such an “outing” in Namibia 2 years ago, I was quite keen to see what my name was doing on that site.
Well, it turns out that there is in fact another Japie Swanepoel out there, or shall I say, there was another one out there. It seems that he has moved on to wilder pastures.
My problem however: I don’t hunt, in fact I don’t like or support the idea / concept at all.
Is it possible that Yahoo! might take note of this or should I email them and alert them to the fact…
You’re right, I have a better chance of convincing Telkom to drop their broadband rates than getting Yahoo! to remove a dead man’s name from their search results in favour of one that is actually still around.
Of course, I do have Alec Erwin on my side when it comes to the Telkom rates thing…

Big companies and search!

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It still amazes me to see how big international companies fail to take search engine optimisation seriously. This week while skyping with a friend of mine in Germany, he told me about his new Ford Galaxy. Of course not having seen one yet, I immediately went to the trusty ol’ Google and typed in Ford Galaxy. Great was my surprise when I did not find any Ford site in the top 20. All sites for reviews, car dealers, car news sites, etc. Having then clicked o one of those I found a model called Ford Galaxy 1.9 TDI.
Okay, now I was going to get directly to a Ford site I thought. Back I went to search and typed in Ford Galaxy 1.9 TDI. And yes, you guessed it…nothing but reviews, online dealerships and news in the top 20.
If anyone knows some-one working at Ford, preferably the marketing / sales department, please can you ask them to comment.