Jon Payne (.net)

Not sure if I’ve done this or not yet, but after a few years its probably time…
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Another comment on an SEOmoz.org post that I made, which I am recycling as per usual:
Danny,
 I will argue that all formal education is always at least 5 years behind the appropriate “real world” education.  Its probably more so with fast-moving industries, but even true in more steady fields.
That all said, I think you may just [...]

Help repeal a bill that is currently in the Maryland General Assembly stating that sales tax of 6% must be collected on “computer services” effective July 1, 2008:
Link: Repeal MD Sales Tax on Computer Services
It will ultimately hurt small businesses b/c they are the ones who outsource and thus will pay the tax… large [...]

Okay so its been two months since I’ve last posted and even then it was not very frequent. I think I’ve come to the realization that I just won’t be able to give much time to maintaining this blog. As such, it will remain a home for my random commentary about SEO, entrepreneurship [...]

Executive Summary: Six months after we moved out of our old office and “transferred” our Comcast internet service to our new office, we were still receiving invoices for the old office… plus those for the new office. Finally they’ve stopped sending those invoices, though we’re still waiting on the refund we were promised. [...]

In follow-up to the launching of our recent Baltimore SEO Meetup Group (my post | press release | group page) I’ve recently seen a few more groups start up.
Rebecca over at SEOmoz gave us a plug in her recent post about meetup groups, and it looks as though her town of Seattle now has its [...]

Hi all – I just created a “meetup group” for those interested in SEO in the DC / Baltimore metro area. Check out the page via link below and sign up for updates if you are interested. We’ll give it a couple of weeks to judge the interest and then try to schedule [...]

One of my associates recently sent me an email requesting:
One of the questions during the [recent sales presentation] was: “How often do search bots visit a site?”
I know this is a “it depends” kind of answer, but I’d love to get a paragraph from you on that so I can send it to them.
A paragraph [...]

Its been forever since I’ve written, but that’s how it goes. Here’s another Q&A from an email I got today:
Question:
Jon -
I found your site from a general search of website developers. I am helping my wife build a rough pro-forma for a potential business. What I am curious about, and [...]

Just swamped beyond belief right now.  That’s a good thing though.  Will resurface for air at some point in the future

Here’s another one of those cases where I copy and paste my reply to a question a new client has asked of me:
–
Q: (Asks about his 100% Flash site – meaning its all one Flash file and thus in essence a 1 page website where you can’t easily track page views, conversions, user behavior, [...]

I just approved a few new comments and posted a few more links on the Video Professor post I put up about a year and a half ago.  This post has stirred up alot more attention than I thought it would have when I originally wrote about it.
On another note, not many posts lately as [...]

I was recent asked to evaluate a FindLaw contract for a firm I work with, who has a prospective client that uses FindLaw and is considering more custom SEO services from another vendor. Specifically, I was asked to discuss what the contract included and what is what lacking with regard to SEO. While [...]

I’ve read a few of Stephen Spencer’s posts lately about the importance of commenting on blogs for bloggers and other online marketers. In a nutshell, he argues that (legitimate, thoughtful) comments are as important as posting one’s own blog posts, in that they help build relationships. I wanted to share my comment on [...]

So I just tried to order a couple of Google T-Shirts through the Google Store.  Not surprisingly, the store uses Google Checkout.  To my surprise, however, it does not seem to want to work – at least not in the IE 6.0 browser I tried it in (which is what like 80% of the internet [...]

My comments to the recent post Jim Boykin had about some hosting companies discontinuing support for FrontPage extensions:

Its been a while since I’ve written, as I’ve been swamped. Here’s an excerpt from an email I replied to the other day with regard to how custom SEO services are different from those provided by a larger firm with a template approach. In this case, FindLaw.
_______(removed)_______ is right on. Just to [...]

Its always a bit discomforting when you realize someone has tried to scam you. Sure I get the normal load of tons of emails from Princes and Kings in Nigeria who want to give me $5 million in exchange for assisting with the money transfer needs. Those are easy to spot as scams. [...]

From SERoundTable:

Where the Jobs Are: Searching For Search-Engine Marketing Pros
Got a search engine question? Ask Mr. Sullivan

Brett Tabke’s Bot Blog.  Its his robots.txt file which has a blog in it as a .txt file.  Dorky, yes.  Old school, yes.  Terribly interesting and different.  Indeed.
The blog is about bots and blocking them, etc. (which is most commonly done with a robots.txt file), so what more appropriate way to launch a blog about [...]