Over the past several weeks, I have found myself repeating a phrase that, at first glance, sounds dismissive. “Then just don’t do it.” The first time I used it, it was not intended as criticism, nor is it an attempt to diminish the challenges organizations face. Rather, it is an acknowledgment of a simple business […]
Then Just Don’t Do It Read More »
Companies frequently discuss digital transformation, automation, AI, and “streamlined operations.” But most can’t get the basics right. You want me to pay you faster? Make it easier for me to give you my money. Stop hiding phone numbers, using the wrong terminology, building dead-end forms, and shipping chatbots that can’t handle the top five things
Stop Adding Friction: Make It Easy for Me to Give You Money Read More »
On September 12, 2025, Penske Media Corporation (PMC) filed suit against Google in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia (Penske Media Corp. v. Google LLC, Case No. 1:25-cv-03192). The complaint alleges that Google has unlawfully abused its dominance in general search to appropriate publishers’ content, divert referral traffic, and undermine the economic
PMC v. Google: When your Business is Built on Borrowed Traffic Read More »
Yesterday, I reviewed my credit card statement and saw eight subscription charges. I opened my handy Evernote tracker, where I log each vendor, renewal date, and notes. Three of the eight had notes to cancel, but none of them were even due yet. Everyone had been renewed early. Buried in my inbox were two emails explaining
The Subscription Cancellation Hellscape: A War on Friction We’re Losing Read More »
We’ve reached a point where nearly every service, from flights to home internet to home security, is wrapped in fees, packages, and hidden upgrades. Companies have figured out that unbundling things that used to be included lets them charge more while pretending to give us options. $12 Billion in “Options” According to a recent U.S.
The Illusion of Choice: Bundling, Unbundling, and the Hidden Cost of Convenience Read More »
I write this as part rant, part reflection. Over the years, I’ve fought hard to get organizations to look beyond vanity metrics—beyond “rankings” and “traffic”—and embrace insights that could actually change how they think about search, their competitive position, and their customers. Some of these ideas gained brief traction, but many were ignored, misunderstood, or
Five Underutilized Search Insights That Could Still Change Your Business Read More »
Going through my spam folder, I came across this beauty. It seems that I have inherited $44 billion with a capital B. To receive my billions, currently held in trust by a jumble of real bank names, I need to send them a copy of a $50 gift card and, of course, the code to
If Spammers only knew about AI. Read More »
If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me about “AI hreflang management” or the mythical “AI hreflang tools,” I’d have at least fifty bucks and that’s just from last month’s site visits and the two emails I got last week. The SEO world has decided that AI is the new duct tape,
AI Hreflang Management: The Magical Unicorn That Only Exists in Blog Posts Read More »
There is an old saying that you need to “spend money to make money,” but what about “spending money to save money” or to capture lost revenue? Many companies appear unwilling to invest where there are direct and, in some cases, immediate savings. We frequently encountered this attitude with Hreflang Builder. Companies come to us
Spend Money to Make Money Read More »
Yesterday, I posted on Facebook a quote that I received twice in the same morning from two different people, and once previously last week. All three people were interested in DataPrizm but wanted to adapt its features for their existing offline workflow. They essentially told me, ‘We want exactly what we have now, but online
Accepting that Not Everyone Wants or Needs Change Read More »