In this page, hit Control+F to search for “in”. If you hit enter a few times, you should be pulled down the page as you find new search entries. What happens if you miss one?

While still in the find window, hold down Shift, and hit Enter. Magically, you’re teleported back up the page to a previous match. It’s just like previous finding in vim!

Obtaining satisfactory search results is a multifaceted, ongoing process that requires persistence, patience, and my personal all-time favorite, RESEARCH!

In this little post, I’ll cover some of the basics (in no particular order) in a very explicit, laid back, easy-to-read, non-pretentious fashion.

Page Titles and Meta-tags, Muthafuckas!

I know, I know. All the bullshit you’ve researched on the internetz tells you that search engines pay no attention to these minor little details, right? Well, think again, pal. Google gives a shit about your page titles (and your meta-tags), so quit disregarding them as useless tactics. Granted, they don’t carry the weight they did, say, ten years ago, but they can still be effective in assisting you to gain search visibility.

Backlinks, Bitches!

I always try to think of SEO as one big-ass resume. If high-quality references are indicative of a top-notch job candidate, wouldn’t the same logic apply for search results? Well, it does. The more white-hat references your site has, the higher your search results will be. Industry-specific directories, blogs, forums, rss feeds and even press releases can all attribute to higher search standings through the assistance of backlinking. To maximize this tactic, you must also keep in mind where your users are (specific forums, news outlets) and the terms they’re utilizing during the search process.

Content!

That’s right. No alliterative insult this time around. Maybe next time. Anyway, good SEO is LARGELY driven by quality (and abundant) site content. So, for example, let’s say you decide to start a news website that reports on market conditions of the food industry, more specifically, the pizza industry. Then, let’s say you post one article a week for two months. At the end of this two-month period, you may notice some lackluster search results. Why? NO CONTENT! Now, after a twelve-month period, you may notice that your search standings are beginning to rise. This will be directly attributed to two main factors: site content and search terms.

A good practice when generating site content is to keep in mind key search terms that your prospective users may be utilizing. So, for example, if you’re writing a feature article on the rising cost of cheese for Q4 in 2010, you may want to include a title that says something like, “Cheese Prices Rise in Q4 of 2010.” You’ll also find that using key search terms in the body of the article will be quite effective, as well.

So, in short: More Site Content + Intelligent Copywriting = Better Search Results.

Learn It and Earn It!

Although this is a short list that re-iterates lots of the same tactics you’ve read a thousand times before (and some of things you haven’t), it may have FINALLY become apparent that SEO is a full-time job. It’s a process that requires the cooperation of every team member (editors, designers, programmers, copywriters, marketing, etc.) involved in content generation. Successful search results come from constant research, trial and error, white-hat target marketing, high-quality, persistent and abundant content, as well as intelligent copywriting.

Now, go put on your party shoes and dance!

In a deep manly voice, “Hello, is this Mrs. —–”… big sigh because I just know it is going to be the local charity organizations hitting me up for money again… “Yes” I say. In response the man on the other end starts, “This is —- and I am a representative for the —- party backing your governor. Are you familiar with your governor?” Loaded question this poor soul just asked me… “The governor is male, if that is what you are asking. What else would you like me to know? His religion? His favorite color? His slogan?”

I was surprised to have gotten a small chuckle from the gentleman on the other end. He then followed up with “OK. So Mrs. —- , would you consider yourself a Democrat, Republican, or an Independent?” Yet again, another loaded question all for me. Yeah! Without hesitation I respond with “None of the above. The three choices are not adequate; each one has way too many flaws and ridiculous views, therefore, I choose not to associate myself with any.” This response must have thrown the poor man for a loop because the only thing I heard then was “Wow”.

I am now sitting in anticipation waiting for the next scripted question and after the “Wow” and brief pause… guess he was regrouping… he then asks “What can your governor do for you?” I hit the jackpot with this one!! So I begin… “The governor can do nothing for me. Each election we hear empty promises for better schools, lower taxes, and a better community but these are just ways to bullshit into the position. Just like with any job interview the individuals running for office also ‘fluff’ their resume. So, unless the governor is going to pay my mortgage, buy me a car, or offer my daughter a free ride to college there isn’t anything he can do for ME.”

Needless to say the gentleman on the other end of the phone sat in silence for a bit, gave me a sigh, and said “Thank you Mrs. —-, but I have no further questions.” I said “You sure…. remember you called me wanting to know if I knew my governor.”

“No, ma’am, I believe we are done here”. My response, “Yes, yes we are.”

Another person, albeit jokingly, said “You shouldn’t say things like that!” We all had a nice laugh, as not 20 minutes earlier another person had been given grief by their manager because another person had complained.

I proceeded to suggest that I hoped anyone that had a problem with either my language or anything else around the office, that they’d come directly to me and talk about it. Not necessarily give me grief about it, but telling me that they’d prefer not to hear words (or whatever else) that I’m using.

I’m cool with that. I’d rather not have to involve management on any level. I hate to say it, but they tend to just make things more complicated. I’ve had cool managers all my working life. Most of them would just tell me that I need to watch what I say around certain people. And I’m cool with that, too.

But I’d still hope that people are OK enough with me in a work environment to talk to me personally.

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Dick jokes are hilarious. Jehova’s witnesses aren’t so funny…especially when they ring your fucking doorbell at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning when you’re trying to sleep off a hangover.

Dogs are the shit. Cats are for target practice and for testing the integrity of your vehicle’s suspension.

Asian people all look the same to me.

Obama’s healthcare bill (and the rest of his approved government spending) is no different than welfare. He’s still spending white people’s money.

Rainman was a really fucking good movie. Good. Very…very good. 34983858230483. *twitch*

Women that claim men don’t know the pain of child birth have never tried taking a shit after eating an entire block of cheese and a dozen habanero chicken wings.

The thought of menstrual blood makes me want to vomit, but I fucking love Bloody Marys.

Heineken smells like shitty marijuana. On second thought, it also tastes like licking a skunk’s asshole.

PENIS!

Think about it this way. Your prayer is a UDP transmission. You have now way to verify that its been received. You go on “faith” that the daemon process on the other end is running, listening, etc.

Even if the daemon process is running, it’s sending a UDP packet back to you. The “server” has no way of letting you know that a response is coming; nor can you even expect one (as you don’t know if your packet got there).

Then, there’s the problem of latency. Even if you could guarantee your message arriving (TCP packets and all), there’s no telling how long it will take to receive a response. This causes timeouts, as you’re now stuck waiting for God‘s “response”.

Lastly, your prayer is sent with “one way encryption“. I’m calling it that because since no one else ever hears it, it’s an encrypted message. Now, if you pray via your pastor/church leader/etc, your encryption is toast. Everyone can hear it.

The ultimate wireless connection would use TCP packets (to guarantee delivery), have low latency (response within a decent amount of time), and be encrypted (top secret kind of stuff).

I’m not particularly a believer in God. I think though, that if you’re going to try to shove a message down the throats of others, you should consider that message a bit first. It might not be in your best interest to compare something like that.

The title?

College, Inc.: Investigating how Wall Street and a new breed of for-profit universities are transforming the way we think about college in America…

After watching, I must confess that I couldn’t agree more with the views expressed within the film. PBS has done an excellent job at exposing the true agenda of both online degree programs and for-profit educational facilities. Some of the more noteworthy topics discussed within the documentary are as follows:

• Online students comprise 10% of the degree-seeking population, yet consume more than 50% of Federal financial aid.
• Traditional colleges take 2-3 years to approve new curriculum. Schools such as the University of Phoenix approve new curriculum in just 2-3 days.
• University of Phoenix spent $125 million dollars on marketing and advertising during 2008, while only spending $120 million dollars on their entire payroll.
• Interest rates for student loans given to online students were as high as 14%.
• The default rate on loans given to online students are as high as 50%.
• Most degree programs at online and for-profit colleges are not Nationally accredited.
• Most reputable companies do not acknowledge the validity of online degrees.

In short, many online and for-profit schools are selling misinformed students the proverbial, “American Dream,” while providing them little ability to actually obtain it.

These schools are not only targeting uneducated, low-income prospects in an attempt to bolster their registration numbers, but they’re also employing high-pressure tactics in an attempt seal the deal. Simply put, they care about the bottom line, not the future or their students.

If you’re the not-so-proud owner of one of these costly, yet worthless “degrees,” let your misfortune serve as a valuable lesson, be it one that you should have learned in grade school: ask questions and DO YOUR FUCKING HOMEWORK!

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When my wife and I started dating, she’d buy a new pair of sunglasses every month or so. It wasn’t because she wanted to. It’s because she had to. She’d break or lose her sunglasses within a couple of weeks of buying them, then have to buy another pair, ad nauseum. These were only $15 or $20 a pair, so it didn’t seem to bother her too much.

On our way to our first vacation, she had recently broken her latest pair of sunglasses. I suggested that we go to a more expensive pair of sunglasses for her; they’d be more comfortable, have better UV protection, etc. I even suggested that I’d pay for them.

Off we went to the sunglasses boutique. She found a nice pair of sunglasses, priced at about $150. I paid for them, and we left.

6 years later, those sunglasses are still in good condition. Sure, she’s since moved on to other “better” sunglasses. But she’s also saved between $1,000 and $1,500 on “cheap” sunglasses.

Why?

The theory, in my mind at least, is that because these sunglasses cost more, she took better care of them, paid attention to where she was placing them, etc. She actually thought about what she was doing with them, instead of just setting them down somewhere, and walking off.

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Everyone knows that carpooling saves you money. But the question is, how much money? Here’s the math behind it.

Assume your car gets 20 miles per gallon. If you carpool with one other person, that means you drive half as often, which means you spend half as much money on gas. If you drive 20 miles each way to work, each day you don’t drive saves you two gallons of gas. At the current price of gas, you’d save about $5 per day.

26 weeks out of the year, you drive 3 days, the other 26, you drive 2 days. That’s an average of 2.5 days per week; 52 weeks in a year works out to 130 days you weren’t driving; multiply that times the $5 per day you’re saving on gas, you’re spending $650 less on gas for the year.

Of course, that means that if your car gets lower gas mileage, you’ll save more. The equations actually look like this:

(261 is the number of “business” days, not excluding holidays)

or

So, solving the equation for a car that only gets 10 miles to the gallon:

That 10 mile per gallon car, if carpooling, now saves you $780 per year in gas. And the number goes up if you can get more people carpooling:

4 people carpooling means you spend almost $1200 per year less on gas. That’s a good vacation with the family!

Related articles

• How to green your commute: Carpooling and public transit (mnn.com)
• the more the merrier. (geteconow.com)
• The Best Cars for Carpooling (mint.com)