Philip Nicosia

Search engine optimization is a very complex science, but at its heart is the simple rule: to format your website in such a way that spiders can immediately recognize and index its content. If they can’t “see” you, you might as well not exist—and if they can’t understand your code, no amount of keywords can get you in the Golden Top 20.

The problem that many website developers used to encounter was that search engines worked differently; so you could end up with a high ranking in Lycos but languish at the bottom of Google. How exactly should you optimize your site so you perform well in all search engines?

Enter ROR (short for Resources for a Resource), an independent XML format that translates your content in a way that all search engines can understand.

Think of it as a web spider’s Cliff’s Notes. it describes all the objects, services, discounts, images, podcasts, etc. If it’s on the site, it’s on the ROR feed, but in a format that’s easy to process and removes all risks of skipping or ignoring a link.

ROR calls its “magic file” structured feeds, which guide search engines as they scan the text. Unlike Google Sitemaps, it’s universally understood—and very easy to process. It’s also more detailed. It doesn’t just give a map or “table of contents”, it actually summarizes what’s inside. It’s also been in existence far longer than Google, so its reliability has been proven by time.

Though it’s been around for a long time, ROR is by no means outdated. The majority of the file formats are already available in ROR, although it is currently being updated to keep up with the growing number of website innovations. But to avoid being too unwieldy, the ROR system tries to re-use existing data structures. It boasts of being very streamlined, a strength that makes it one of the more efficient ways of indexing a site.

Usually the ROR feed is located in the directory, and is named by default ror.xml. It is possible to rename the file, and the search engines will still find it. The only thing it needs to have is a tag in your main page (between the and tags). Another alternative is to create a smaller ror.xml file which will direct the search engines to the ROR feed. You can create this file in the ROR sitemap generator.

Over the years I’ve had more mobile phones than I care to remember. Most of them I’ve either sold on or given away to friends and family but I still have a pretty large collection. Hey, who knows, they might be worth some money one day.

The first mobile phone I had was bigger than a brick, probably heavier as well and with a battery life of a whopping 4 hours! Thankfully things have changed a lot and improvements unimaginable before are now a reality.

One of my most favourite phones was the Siemens SL55.

A triband phone with colour screen and polyphonic ringtones and a really tactile feel to it. It was so small you could lose it in your pocket and I used this phone for many months before continuing on my quest to find “The perfect mobile phone“.

The trouble with mobile phones is the technology moves on at a tremendous pace that within weeks of you getting your brand new phone it no longer cuts in anymore. This is what I found with the Siemens SL55. Great when I got it but lacking in a camera and bluetooth it just had to go.

I’m currently using a Motorola V3i that I’ve had for a while which I’m pretty much happy with but want to change soon. The only problem is looking around there isn’t much on offer that appeals to me. It seems we have gone past the days of miniaturization and phones seem to be getting bigger all the time.

It seems the Inland Revenue are constantly in the press nowadays highlighting their errors and mistakes and how the tax payer is soaking up the burden for their own mistakes.

For 2 years in a row they have got their Tax Credits wrong overpaying countless numbers of people and have written off millions of pounds as they have been unable to collect the overpayments from everybody.

Who pays for this? We do. As tax payers we are now paying for their mistakes which leads me to the question, are they trying to raise extra taxes by other means?

This year I received a fine of £100 for supposedly not filing my tax return by the 31st January 2006 deadline. Now I know this wasn’t true as it was hand delivered to the tax office and when I queried this they confirmed they had received it on the 31st January 2006. “So why was I fined” I asked, “don’t know” was the reply and the fine was duly written off.

My girlfriend was also fined for not paying over stamp duty to the Inland Revenue in time when she purchased a house. She was fuming as this is all dealt with by the solicitors. She had to take the time to get proof that the cheque was sent in time and indeed cashed before they would write off the charge which they did.

Now how many people would bother to query these instances and simply pay up because they have been told to. Is this a ploy for them to generate more revenue or just another case of their incompetence?

I don’t know how unusual my surname is but I’ve never personally met anyone apart from family with the surname “Nicosia“.

I remember years ago going on a trip to Cyprus and when I got to passport control, the official checking my passport commented on my surname and asked me “Did I know that my surname was the same as their capital city?”.

Like I’m not going to know that! The embarrassing thing was there were at least 150 people who had just got off the plane queuing behind me and he called his 3 colleagues from the other queues to come and have a look at my passport. Quite why they were all so excited about this I don’t know. Maybe it’s an uncommon name over there?

My father originates from Sicily so I doubt there is any connection between that and Cyprus. Who knows, maybe I’ll look it up one day?

Well I am pleased to say that I have finally left TalkTalk Broadband and I definitely won’t be going back to them anytime soon. I could have got my broadband for free with them but I’d rather pay for something and get a good service that I can rely on.

Talking to TalkTalk support has been a waste of time and money and the people I have got to speak to either don’t know what they are doing, don’t understand their own systems or simply don’t care. Even yesterday when I called them to say my broadband wasn’t working they couldn’t tell me whether or not I was still connected to them  and suggested I report it as a fault.

It turns out I had been disconnected and BT hadn’t emailed PlusNet to tell them my migration had gone through. Entering my new login details to my router got me connected straight away.

The first thing I noticed is the speed. Although I have still to get an increase of my connection from 1Mb to 8Mb the whole internet just seems to have come back to life. Surfing the internet is so much faster with PlusNet even at these low speeds and I can’t wait to see the further improvements when I’m on 8Mb.

I chose PlusNet over others as I noticed they had topped the customer satisfaction charts at uSwitch with 92% and they didn’t tie you into any long term contracts. Who wants to be stuck into 18 month contract with anyone?

Any company who is also prepared to do a no cost 30 day trial have to be confident of their own services too and that was the point that finally clinched the deal. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

If you’re fed up with your broadband provider then check out PlusNet for yourself. They do up to 8Mb connections from only £9.99 a month. Although there are free deals around, the saying “You get what you pay for” springs to mind.