Things of Sorts

Refresh, regroup

Sat, 29 Dec 2012 00:00:00 +0000

One of my end-of-year projects was to consolidate my last two functional websites, eKstreme.com and this site. It's an idea I've been meaning to get around to for a long time.

What happened: Most of eKstreme.com is shut down, with a only a handful of posts archived on the new blog here for posterity. You may know me as someone who created lots of webmaster and SEO tools and wrote tutorials about web devlopement. Since joining Google and because of life distractions, everything was very much neglected. Most tools were broken and many tutorials became outdated (with some details actually being wrong). I wasn't going to get around to fixing anything and so I closed up everything.

I also started practicing what I preach and updated the look of the site to use a new responsive design that's a bit more friendly for smartphone and tablet users.

Joining Google

Sun, 09 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Note: This post was archived from eKstreme.com, my previous site I used to blog at.

Tomorrow morning I will start working at Google’s London office as a Webmaster Trends Analyst. SEOs will immediately know what that role is as I will be John Mueller’s team mate. To those that don’t know, it’s the team within Google that interacts with website owners and manages Webmaster Central among other things.

What does this mean for my websites? A few things:

I will not be building any new tools. All my tools that already exist here and elsewhere are going to remain as they are and will not be updated.
Very important corollary: The tools here on eKstreme.com and elsewhere, especially the SEO tools, were built before I joined Google and thus are not in any way official Google tools and must not to be taken as endorsed by Google. So please no one try this one. OK?
I’ve been running some SEO experiments here on eKstreme.com and elsewhere. Although I’ve stopped them, their effects might still be hiding in a cache somewhere or whatnot. If you see anything fishy/funny it is NOT an official Google recommendation of how to do things. Heck, as an SEO I’ve pushed the boundaries a bit and so if you try anything you think I’ve tried or trying, it’s at your own risk.
My OpenCourseWare search engine (OCW Search) is now officially part of the OpenCourseWare Consortium. As I will not be able to work on it from now on, I’ve decided to donate it to the Consortium instead of shutting it down. Its dream lives on and it is now in much more capable hands than mine, hands that even have time to work on it!

Some Yes questions: So will I start blogging more? Hopefully. Will I be at conferences? Yes, though I don’t know when. I’ll post here and hopefully get to meet more of the people I’ve been talking to over the years.

Some No questions: Will I tell you SEO secrets if you ask me? Of course not! Can you hire me? No! I’m done with the freelance work. Can we exchange links? Nope.

A little disclaimer: This website is still my own and anything written on it is my own personal view/opinion and not my employer. This is not an official Google blog.

Finally, you should follow me on twitter.

Speaking at SES London 2010

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Note: This post was archived from eKstreme.com, my previous site I used to blog at and was written before I joined Google.

I’m very happy to be confirm this: I will be speaking at the Automating Twitter session at Search Engine Strategies 2010 in London on 18 February 2010.

My talk will be about analytics for social media marketing. Whenever you launch a marketing campaign, you need to measure it in detail to understand its performance. I will talk about some of the important actionable metrics you need to track, with code examples of how to track them. Other key topics covered are filtering, automation, and reporting, all of which feed into experimentation to find the most effective marketing messages.

Announcing Cligs - Short URLs with Analytics and SEO Friendliness

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Note: This post was archived from eKstreme.com, my previous site I used to blog at and was written before I joined Google.

Note 2: Cligs was acquired by Mr Wong in December 2009.

That's right folks, the short URL market is broken and I'm fixing it. The new service is called Cligs (like Clicks but with a G). It's a short URL service on steroids. The key feature is that it tracks the clicks of the short URLs.

What kind of analytics do you get? At launch right now:

Cligs gives you tons of traffic data and analytics about the traffic your short URLs get. This includes:
- Number of hits
- Referral stats
- Mentions on twitter, blogs, and the web
- Mentions of the destination URL on twitter, blogs, the web, and delicious
And lots more! And if you want a more data, just let me know!
Cligs forwards with a 301 Permanent Redirect so your destination URL gets full SEO benefits of the link. If you are an affiliate marketer, this means you can hide your backlinks, get traffic, get statistics, and get the SEO benefits.
With Cligs, you can create an unlimited number of short URLs for the same destination URL. This is great because you can promote the same destination at different sites like twitter or facebook by using different cligs and watch how each source sends you traffic.

That's just the start. There are a ton of new features that are going to be added in the coming few days and weeks, including some SEO-useful analytics.

And, of course, there is a bookmarklet:

Shorten Link @ Cli.gs

So what are you waiting for? Stop using plain-vanilla short URL services and start using Cligs.

Comments and feedback most welcome.

Chatting with a Google Street View Driver

Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Note: This post was archived from eKstreme.com, my previous site I used to blog at and was written before I joined Google.

Note: some details in this post have been skipped or generalized to be a bit vague to protect the identity of the Google Streeview driver.

Sometime in the past few weeks, I was walking with a friend when we spotted a very funny looking car. We both immediately knew what it was and as the car drove closer by, our suspicions were confirmed: it was a Google Streetview car outside London. Feeling naughty, I shouted at the car as it drove by something along the lines of "there are privacy laws" and to my surprise an old man across the streed did the same! It was very funny how both of us knew what a Streetview car looked like!

Then it hit me: the road we were on that the car was driving into was a dead end road. Picture time! So I dropped my stuff and asked my friend to watch them while I set up my phone and found a good spot to take some photos as the car drove back out again. So I watched as the car reached the end, did a U-turn and drove back out again. However, as it got close to me, the car pulled up into an empty parking spot and the driver came out. He shouted at me saying "I know you want to take pictures but I don't want to be in them." I obliged.

While taking the photos, I talked to the driver a little bit. Here are some details from the notes I scribbled afterwards:

Google has a centre in Milton Keynes where this operation was based in. The drivers just showed up for "a driving job" (his words) and didn't know it was for Google until the arrived to pick up the cars.
The drivers were given training to use the computers inside the car. It's not hard: it's a large-ish touch screen (I guessed about 17in or maybe a 19in when I saw it) with a record and a pause button.
The screen is to the left of the driver in the passenger seat with a large server at the back in the trunk. The back seats of the car were removed - it was just a big space. The connections into the server were just power and ethernet. The ethernet seemed to be going up to the camera but I'm not sure if it ran to something else.
The camera is rain sensitive. It collapses in a very funky way and has to be covered. The drivers are under strict instructions to do so.
This particular driver was very sensitive to the privacy issues. He was having a personal conflict about the whole thing and was stopped by (his words) "10 people" that very day. Why? Because only recently had the BBC published an article about Google Streetview starting with Google's plans to launch a mapping tool in the UK could be referred to the Information Commissioner". No wonder the driver didn't want to be in the photo!

Now some photos of the car with notes:

The car from the front.

The car's camera. The ~~hexagon~~ Octagon at the top is I think is the camera set itself (so 6 8 cameras in total). The yellow box seems to be the communication/processing circuitry; the yellow box is on the back side of the car and so the white box thing at the right hand side of the image points towards the right of the car. This white box thing seems to swivel up and down but this is just a wild guess.

The car's camera kit as seen from the rear of the car. Just guessing what each bit is: Yello box at the top, as above. White boxes to the left and right are the (potentially) swiveling bits - could they be cameras? The yellow disk at the bottom: a wireless communications dish? It could be a GPS receiver.

Update: Looking through some of the other images I had after someone dropped a hint on GTalk to me, the white boxes under the hexagon of cameras are laser range finders. Sure enough, I have a photo that has a warning that it's a "Class 1 Laser".

Update 2: Thanks for all the comments. Yes I couldn't count: there are 8 cameras not 6; that's fixed now. Also, a lot of people wrote about the type of laser range finder and why you'd need it - see the comments below. Finally, lots of people noted a certain irony in the driver not wanting to be photographed. Point taken, but the guy was very conflicted about it. The BBC article was still in memory and clearly some people like me caused his some fuss on that day. He was talking a lot about wanting to quit this job. Deep down I think he did but of course I cannot know.

Update 3:Yes some rain droplets is visible in a photo. It wasn't raining while we were talking but it had rained earlier that day. When the driver parked, the camera hit some trees (you can see that in the photos) and the droplets are from the tree. It's hard rain that gets the equipment as I understand it, and that's when the drivers are supposed to cover up.

Moderating at Cre8asite Forums

Wed, 28 Feb 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Note: This post was archived from eKstreme.com, my previous site I used to blog at and was written before I joined Google.

I was very excited when a couple of days ago, Kim, one of the founders of Cre8asite Forums invited me to join the moderating team. I love Cre8 (a lot) and without a blink I blurted out "yesssss". I'll be moderating the PPC forums, the Google forums, and the Yahoo forums.

Now it's official: the announcement thread and blog post. A big thank you to Kim and everyone for extending this invitation and for making Cre8 a great place to hang out and talk web stuff.

So come on - join in the fun!