It’s search tool open season at the moment! A few weeks ago ‘WolframAlpha’ was launched with a fanfare and the headlines saying it was a ‘Google Killer’ which it obviously was not, and now it’s Microsoft’s turn.

Having pretty much failed to set the world aflame with ‘Live Search’, they hope their next big thing will be ‘Bing’.

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The problem with being in ‘I.T’ is that you get called upon to fix anything even remotely computer related. So when I was round a friend’s today, the task in hand was to connect the Wii to the Wi-Fi to ensure it got all its updates.

This involved some configuring of the router and that’s when I thought it had all gone terribly wrong…

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I said this was catch-up!

One of our recent customers thought their existing website was confusing to customers and so they asked us to make it simple, easy to navigate and eye-catching. We did all three and using some clever technology we created a site that never needs to be updated, yet has the flexibility of a fully blown CMS system.

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Recently, we’ve been approached my many companies who are just fed up with their current or recently sacked web developers or SEO team. Sometimes they’ve had their website development handled by someone in house (usually the IT team – a big mistake) or sometimes they’ve just had a pretty poor relationship with a freelancer or designer.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s impossible to be on the same page with all your customers and it’s the mark of a good company when they can stand proud and move away from a relationship when it’s not working.

However some, especially in the search engine world, will try anything to keep hold of a company. They will even resort to giving promises and guarantees that are just impossible to keep. Have you ever been told by a company that they can get you to number one on Google guaranteed? I’m sure you have, it’s almost an addiction within the industry to blurt out the word whenever they’re talking to potential companies.

Well, it appears a company in the US has been taken to task over it.

http://www.atg.wa.gov/pressrelease.aspx?&id=21378

This is important. It states that companies making promises that they can’t keep will be chased down and taken to task. Will this ever happen in the UK? I doubt it, but the fact that it’s happened and is quite high profile means that it will help to inform business that this company that phones up and says “We will make you number one on Google” are obviously stretching the truth.

But why can’t they guarantee it?

Well, Google (and other search engines) really don’t have any obligation to index your website. They’re a company just offering a service to users and if they don’t want to index a site then they are quite within their rights to happily ignore it.

And that’s it. There are no guarantees with search engine optimisation. At all.

It seems that there can be no good news at the moment. Even ‘not too bad’ news is seen as ‘bad news’ in a media that is constantly looking to put down the economy, the country and the general state of the world.

For instance, news out yesterday (Startups.co.uk) and repeated constantly on the BBC tries to paint a poor picture for retailers. Apparently, sales are down on a year ago (considering we’re in the middle of a recession, not too much of a shock) and are the worst for three years (again, if three years ago they were similar when we weren’t in a recession, isn’t that ‘not too bad at all‘?)

But the real ‘non-shocker’ is that it is expected that Internet sales will rise over Christmas. If you’re an Internet user, developer or marketer then you can happily blow a raspberry in the direction of the world and say “I told you so”.

For some, the Internet is a mystery. These are probably the same individuals that think the Renaissance happened to other people.

The Internet is here, it’s ubiquitous and it’s bringing riches and prosperity to many. The fact that retails sales are down isn’t bad news, it’s ‘things have changed’ news and it should be welcomed. However, the recession is bad news and constant harping on about statistics that mean essentially nothing to a layman serve nothing but to worry and confuse.

If news and media keep on their apparent crusade of downplaying economic data in this way, we will hit the recession hard and full on. It will take companies down with it who don’t deserve to fail.

Now is the time to make the best of a bad thing. If you’re a marketeer, go and point out to your clients that today is the day to stand out from the crowd and make a difference. As most other companies are running scared, the ones who are brave can really put their head above the parapet and shine.

In a shock move, the Bank of England has reduced interest rates massively in an attempt, no doubt, to stimulate the economy and bring a bit of confidence back to business. This is a good news as whatever can be done to make it easier for the banks to lend and hence business to borrow will mean the cash may get flowing around the economy a bit more.

I’m sure that like us you’ve seen a difference in the way people do business lately. We’ve certainly seen some changes, however we’ve actually seen an increase in enquiries and orders. We’re busier than ever at the moment and we can certainly pinpoint why.

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As rumours of recession and crashes fill the news, Calloway Green are bucking the trend with a flurry of new projects starting off the year. We are excited to announce that we will be working with Dave Fisher from Kingfisher Kustoms, one of the leading men in the Volkswagen scene. We’ll be building his e-commerce site over the coming months and helping him promote his new brand all over the web.

We are also working with Lasuza, a new fashion brand selling very high quality umbrellas to a discerning market. Their site will be a mixture of high fashion and excellent functionality brought together into a highly targeted and well marketed site.