You’ve been Google’d

So after a bit of cajooling Google has decided to let me back into their search results. I’m now back to page two on a search for ‘matt hobbs’ after being relegated to nowhere on the first 12 pages of results!

So what caused this temporary disappearence? Especially since I’d been in the top three results for a while? Well it looks like Google took offense at my hidden CSS description of myself that said ‘Matt Hobbs’ a lot. So I took that off and asked them nicely to stop blacklisting me and they did. Ta Mr Google.

Of course being Google, rather than warn you of your mis-deeds you just disappear from the results. Luckily for me the few people who read this know where I am, but imagine if I was a business advised by someone to use that trick to get better results? A very scary prospect indeed that makes you realise how tentative awareness is on the web as a whole.

Meanwhile, in other news, I believe I’ve now finally recovered from my trip down to CTIA in New Orleans last weekend. Great fun, lots of free booze industry parties, some dodgy incriminating photos and a greater awareness of the mobile space and how people within it act (especially when drunk). Wish I’d stayed down there longer – as it really made me realise I need a holiday!! This was also brought back home when I realised it’s been a year to the day since I got back from Thailand after over a year of travelling round the world, and hence over a year since I’d last been diving… time to rectify that.