It’s all for free…

Further to my last entry about Creative Commons, Jonathan has written a little post about why he does what he does, and I agree.

So if I’ve helped anyone with anything I’ve done, then great. Let me know if you want, as it’s always nice to hear of something I’ve done being used.

Actually, I was talking to a client last night. He was wanting advice on how to get better rankings in search engines. I’m no expert in SEO, but one thing that I do know makes a difference to a websites prominence is incoming links. Well, that’s true in Google at any rate. Some people call it “Google juice“, which basically is the ability of a website to turn up in Google searches. The more people you have linking to your website, the more important Google thinks you are. And therefore the higher up you go in the rankings.

It’s a simple idea, and has been a founding principle of the internet ever since the beginning. If you are nice to people – give them information, link to them, stick to the rules of Netiquette – they will be nice to you. And, not only that, they will Respect and Like You and you will Become Important.

Of course it doesn’t always work out like that, the preponderence of spammers and other ne’er-do-wells on the internet messes that system up a bit for the rest of us, but in general it works well. So the rule is this: do to others as you would like them to do to you. I’ve heard that before somewhere, I’m sure…