There have been numerous reports supporting the view that there was a major GooglePageRank update at the end of February. I personally don’t really think that PageRank (at least the one shown on Google toolbar) has THAT much to do with SERP rankings and that SEO specialists and freelancers are often over-obsessed with PR, but it’s still a metric I guess.
I have spoken to various people that run multiple sites and the concensus interestingly seems to be that blogs on the main blogging platforms were affected negatively by this new PR update.
I do not think there is any PR on this blog (and it does not really bother me, the important thing is that the hits have reached a staggering 200 now!) so it’s hard for me to judge what effects this PageRank update really had, so I’d be really interested to hear your comments/experiences about this recent PR update.
Posted on February 28, 2008 by freelanceprogrammer
Matt Cutts of google wrote an interesting blog post asking people for the opinions on how Google should treat the NOINDEX meta tag. I’m assuming that most people reading his blog are webmasters or SEO freelancers, so the results might be a bit skewed; still makes interesting reading and discussion though.
Matt gave 3 options on how Google should treat pages marked with the NOINDEX meta tag:
1. Completely drop the pages with NOINDEX from its index
2. Retain a reference/link to the NOINDEX pages
3. Some middle ground (a bit vague and I have a feeling this is what Google is trying to do )
Interestingly (but not surprisingly), at the time of writing this, 77.6% of the 908 people who answered the poll had responded that pages should be dropped, 9.1% in favour of retaining a link/reference and the rest (6.6%) went for the middle ground.
What do you think? Visit the original post below for more details and to vote:
Posted on February 19, 2008 by freelanceprogrammer
Just a short post, to let you know about two really worthwhile web expos/conferences. If you are a freelance web designer/developer it is definitely attending if you can, or at least being aware of these and getting presentation slides etc when they are released.
1. Future of Web Apps Miami. Following the success of the London FOWA last year, FOWA will be taking place in Miami from Feb 28th - Mar 1st.
2. Web 2.0 Expo - co-produced by CMP Technology and O’Reilly Media, Web 2.0 Expo is a “conference and tradeshow for the rapidly growing ranks of designers and developers, product managers, entrepreneurs, VCs, marketers, and business strategists who are embracing the opportunities created by Web 2.0 technologies”. Nuff said. Taking place in San Fransisco, New York, Berlin and Tokyo so you can truly find one near you! Check their site for dates.
Posted on February 12, 2008 by freelanceprogrammer
Was just reading this interesting post on TechCrunch - some of the most prominent and smartest web developers will be asked to design a killer web app in 45 minutes? I’m sure it’ll be a fun session, wish I could attend!
Fun apart, what is interesting is the ‘areas’ in need of a killer app that readers are asked to vote for:
I’d be very interested to find out where everyone thinks that a new web app is needed the most (and therefore presents the biggest opportunity). I can personally see a need for a apps in most of these areas.
Having said that search is a pretty crowded space right now but I can really see if that someone could come up with a better way of making sense of the web than the traditional ranking methods, it would really be a killer app. One such approach so far has been Mahalo - definitely worth checking out, human-powered search is a very promising space!
Social Finance is pretty crowded too and very regulated I would imagine, so I’d personally steer clear of that! And if a freelance web designer out there managed to take on Gmail, I’d definitely be really impressed!
Anyway, back to work on a new idea I just had on a new web reputation system! Do visit the TechCrunch post and vote!
Posted on February 11, 2008 by freelanceprogrammer
Being a freelancer, it’s very important I believe to stay up to date with the latest freelance news. Not only it helps with knowing what other freelancers are doing, but you can also find out about how legislation changes affect your business, changes in tax, how other freelancers are marketing their services and other useful information.
The best ways to stay up to date is to set up daily google alerts (http://www.google.com/alerts) for the terms you are interested in (e.g. ‘freelance’ etc) and also find sites that offer freelance news (e.g. http://peopleperhour.com/news_articles.php) - make sure that they also offer an RSS feed, so that you don’t have to go back every day to check the news.
How to become a freelancer? It’s actually easier than you might think, but it takes a bit of patience and a painful transitional period. I am assuming that if you are reading this, you are already a programmer, working full-time for a develoment company, bank etc.
It’s very tempting to look at the contractors you probably have sitting next to you from time to time and think ‘I can do this and get paid 3 times what I am getting paid now’ - freelancing is not that easy though if you haven’t got experience, so I would personally suggest to start looking for freelance programming work online first; you will probably have to bid for quiet a few projects at first to get some work, but as your online reputation and earnings grow it will become easier and easier.
Tip: make sure you only bid for freelance projects you can successfully carry out in the timescales agreed. Bidding for work you cannot deliver successfully will only harm your reputation. Remember that you also have a full-time job and don’t get carried away by the biggest, more lucrative freelancing projects.
Having new freelancing work in the pipeline is always tricky, so I would suggest you don’t quit your full-time job until you are confident you can get enough freelance work; be it online, or through personal recommendations and word of mouth.
A lot of the freelancers I know these days use freelance websites to find new work online. There are currently many sites out there offering freelance work.
My personal favourite freelance site is http://www.peopleperhour.com but I have used most of the main freelance sites out there over the years to find freelance projects. It’d be great if you can post your favourite freelancing sites in order to compile a useful list for the benefit of new freelancers out there looking for freelance programming work and other online freelance work in general.
Welcome to my site about all things freelance. Freelancing can be a tricky business, especially in the freelance programming arena, so I will try my best to provide as mcuh information as possible on freelancing; freelance tips, freelance websites as well as -why not- a few sad freelance jokes!
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Do visit the TechCrunch post and vote!